Y’all, today is my husband Dave’s birthday so I can finally tell you how some friends and I set out to buy him a banjo and ended up (probably) stumbling onto a a black market operation. It has been killing me to sit on this story for a month, but I had to wait til we gave him the banjo. 🧵

Trump isn't 100% wrong here, bc it's really hard to get enough qualified healthcare workers and teachers to rural areas. But making cash-strapped rural schools and hospitals pay through the nose for foreign workers is stupid when we could just expand federal loan forgiveness for high-need areas.

I was rug shopping just now and found Roddy Ho's inspo pic.

In the century leading up to 1975, nearly 6000 freighters went down in the Great Lakes. The Edmund Fitzgerald was the last. The last. In 50 years, not a single commercial freighter has been lost in the Great Lakes. Why? It's NOAA. Of course it's NOAA.

This is amazing! Rural areas need this capacity desperately, since they're disproportionately likely to have Medicaid but less likely to be able to meet work/school requirements and less likely to have the local tech know-how to keep their coverage.

Yep, my brain went there too.

@schumer.senate.gov Have you all lost your whole damn minds? Caving for a promise they won't fulfill and nothing even about restoring drastic Medicaid cuts that are going to tank rural America. Make them hold a vote FIRST, at the very least.

Halloween was a week ago but the sentiment is evergreen: Don’t 👏 date 👏 fascists 👏

I'm getting way too grossed out by the creepy Klan-Koded Norman Rockwell propaganda the Labor Department keeps dropping. Well, two can play at that game.

Think I might have played myself using those ziploc compression bags to pack for my trip to London this week. Like, yes, I didn’t have to check a bag, but my carry-on has the density of a neutron star.

I want to think Trumpers might take a moment to contemplate why a show about anti-racist activism is too radioactive for TV right now, except that would be a vast triumph of hope over experience.

They are sending soldiers into cities to prepare to intimidate people at the polls next year. They gerrymander because they can’t win on policy. They intimidate because even gerrymandering won’t work at this point.

Well that aged like room-temp milk. I'd like to think that, at this point, he would agree with me that no gun deaths are acceptable—not even his.

We have to unplug our fridge tomorrow to get ready for a repair, so I made casseroles out of everything I could (to put in my parents’ freezer), and everything else is going in a cooler with ice. BUT. I just realized I forgot about an entire carton of my favorite Haagen-Dazs.

@drewcurtis.bsky.social Yeah like I said last Friday, eff that noise. Camping is a scam.

great article featuring some of my faves: Matt Hildreth and Dom Holmes from @ruralorganizing.bsky.social and @lilyfordelegate.bsky.social, running in VA HD-41 Will Rural America give up on Trump? These small-town activists think so. www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...

How’s my self-sufficiency kick going? TIL you can Door Dash chicken feed from Tractor Supply.

I'll try this prompt again in a month and see if anything's changed.

Any American journalist who doesn’t *instantaneously* see what this is—Ghislaine Maxwell, desperately seeking a pardon from Trump, negotiating privately to say whatever he wants her to say in public to get a pardon (now or anytime during her twenty-year prison bid)—should quit their job immediately.

The audacity of a whites-only group calling themselves Return to the Land and establishing their home base on ancestral Quapaw land.

When the lady handed me my breakfast at McDonald’s this morning and said “Have a good day!” I absently said, “Ok, love you, bye.” So now I need to move to a new country and start over under an assumed name. How’s your Monday?

The best email I got today! Hell yeah, Aftyn! Tear 👏 it 👏 UP 👏 Sis!!! @aftynbehn.bsky.social

When the Japanese American National Museum is saying this take it seriously.

This is why it matters whether the government takes climate change into account when building out infrastructure. That includes considering what materials mix would be best for roads in areas likely to get much hotter in coming years. www.usatoday.com/story/news/n... 🧵

Rewatched terminator 2 last night. Fun movie about AI leading to nuclear war and how the easiest way to kill someone is to dress up like a cop. Can't say its themes resonate today.

Well, say what you want to about Biden, but he never had people flipping out over how to survive a nuclear attack.

As Trump and Musk attack each other, don't forget: their ongoing DOGE cuts have made your life worse. It doesn't matter who wins the Trump-Musk feud. Thanks to them, millions of Americans have already lost crucial public services. youtu.be/M5LD2CSOzmI?...

Newsletter’s up! Some highlights from what matters in rural America today: —Many rural residents worry about future of rural mail delivery —Trump's AmeriCorps cuts stripping resources from rural communities —Insurance costs soaring in Tornado Alley because of hail open.substack.com/pub/ruralorg...

It’s the second time this week I DoorDashed Chips Ahoy, you tell me how it’s going.

Really affirming for me that boycotting Target was the correct move.

See also: the captain's wings pin pilots give out to big boys after a cockpit tour.

Forget "Let them eat cake"; she's just straight up "Let them eat it."

Well, a whole lot if we're doing it right.

These women are the heroes we don’t deserve.

Finally had time today to start fixing up this 1950 Philco TV so I can turn it into a cat bed. It was only $25, probably bc it was marinating in mouse shit in a barn for the past 60 years. It took 6 GALLONS of TSP to get the Hanta Hotel clean (w/ gloves & mask). Anyway, no more peeks til it’s done!

Your honor, I love her.

What’s wrong babe, you haven’t worn your joots in forever

Nearly 600 National Weather Service staffers have been fired or pressured to quit since Trump took office, so the forecasting station in southeast KY could no longer stay open 24/7. He’s not cutting “waste and fraud”; all he’s doing is making rural Americans sitting ducks.

The last thing we should do is let Trump's corruption become ho-hum. Hold them accountable every time.

Behold the power of baked goods! I just scored a great like-new 3D printer (with a bunch of accessories) that sells new for ~$800, they asked $400, and I talked them down to $300 in exchange for baking their office some cookies and muffins. (The Prusa MKS3+, for those who are curious.)

Trying to hurry up and watch the last episodes of Andor because istg if one of you chucklefarks spoils it for me.

I would pay actual money to see this.

Josh Hawley wants to look noble by saying he opposes Medicaid cuts, but he's pro-work requirements and that's the major way they'll save money: by disqualifying people from coverage because they can't keep up with the red tape, just like during the unwinding. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/o...

I mean. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Brb, plotting how to steal Cardi B’s coat from the Met Gala.

Reeeeeally kicking myself for not putting a box around that exacta bet.

Sitting here trying to figure out how much drywall to buy for my basement and I want to call my high school geometry teacher and apologize for thinking I’d never need this in real life.

Newsletter's up! Highlights from what matters in rural America: —Email mistake reveals secret plans to end research on Head Start and other child safety net programs —Major rural chronic health study at risk of losing funding; —Farmers making bank harvesting solar open.substack.com/pub/ruralorg...

This is what people really mean when they say journalists were more honest back in the days of Walter Cronkite. They mean they only had a handful of news sources and it was a lot easier to tell serious news coverage from Bat Boy tabloid nonsense. Though those had their audience too, even then.

My 17yo drives to school every day for practice and then I drive their car home. On the downside, they scared the living hell out of me twice this morning but on the upside my caffeine consumption is way down because I AM AWAKE.