We hear all the time about water use and AI. @hankgreen.bsky.social breaks down the environmental cost of AI. It's sometimes talked about as solely 'water used per query.' But it's also the massive power required for training.

If you are trying to understand the current weaponization of race, gender, and immigration, watch this. @hcrichardson.bsky.social provides the historical framework (from the New Deal to Reagan to now) explaining how we arrived at this moment of concentrated executive power.

Tammy said this key part on Twitter but left it out below: "The taxpayer-funded emergency money Trump is pulling from is meant to help farmers during natural disasters. Not Trump-made disasters." ‼️

Noticing a concerning pattern w/ today's posts. The morning's FEMA search and rescue team cuts. And afternoon's on NIH defunding disease researchers: We are dismantling the capabilities to handle future emergencies. If I didn't know better, I'd say the admin is actively choosing to be less prepared.

www.reuters.com/world/trump-... "There must be only One Rulebook if we are going to continue to lead in AI... I will be doing a ONE RULE Executive Order this week. You can’t expect a company to get 50 Approvals every time they want to do something," Trump said in a post on his social media site.

Part 5 of the @statnews.com 'American Science, Shattered' dropped, and the damage is quantifiable: The NIH terminated 104 transition grants and awarded ~900 fewer early-career spots.They are actively defunding the specific generation of researchers meant to cure diseases like lung fibrosis and HIV.

From @npr.org: FEMA’s search and rescue teams face an 'uncertain future' due to funding disputes. These are the specialized units deployed for building collapses and hurricanes. Potentially reducing their capacity creates a capability gap for the next major disaster.

Chris Murphy tweeted: 'No one in America has done more to incite political violence than Donald Trump.' The evidence👇 A January 6 defendant was arrested with weapons near Obama's home. Threats against Jamie Raskin are escalating. The Big Lie rhetoric produces specific, physical security risks. 1/2

The algorithm has moved on, but we cannot look away. We can't stop being outraged just because the news cycle is fast. Leading infectious disease expert Dr. @mtosterholm.bsky.social stated: 'We can no longer trust federal health authorities regarding vaccines.' An explicit warning.

Times are tough. The news is heavy, and the systemic failures are real. Sometimes, we need a break from all the doom to recognize the repair. For every broken institution, there are a dozen people quietly holding their community together with duct tape and grit. This weekend, look for the helpers🙂💙

Times are tough. The news is heavy, and the systemic failures are real. Sometimes, we need a break from all the doom to recognize the repair. For every broken institution, there are a dozen people quietly holding their community together with duct tape and grit. This weekend, look for the helpers🙂💙

Heading into the weekend, we're thinking about our scientist friends and colleagues. This investigative series from @statnews.com details how purges and defunding are shattering the infrastructure that tracks pandemics and cures diseases. It took 80 years to build it and < a year to shred it. 1/3

A jarring disconnect. Trump attends the glamor of the World Cup Draw to receive fake praise while Guard troops are on the streets and lawmakers, like Mark Kelly, face targeted threats. We are projecting 'everything is fine' while the admin takes authoritarian steps. It's a split screen of opposites.

Summary of what happened at Temu ACIP this morning: As expected, they overturned the 30+ year recommendation for the birth dose of HepB vaccine, which has reduced the incidence of pediatric HepB by 99%. They provided no credible evidence to support this decision.

We previously talked about how economic instability can make people's every day feel like a crisis. Redfin predicts a 'Great Housing Reset.' They call it a 'recovery' but look past the headline, the fine print is grim. Prediction 5 mentions a structural shift away from the nuclear family model. 1/2

The policy "attempts to exert control over reporting the government dislikes, in violation of a free press’ right to seek information...the only way to put an end to the administration’s multipronged assault on press freedom is for every news outlet to fight back at every opportunity" (Gift Link)

First came the 'I love Hitler' chats. Now Young Republicans are hosting a far-right German leader. It's happening in plain sight. The lack of outrage and courage to speak out is the most dangerous part. Scary that the political immune system has stopped rejecting this type of fascist beliefs.

For two days, the President has launched racist tirades against Minnesota's Somali community, calling them 'garbage' and threatening to deport a sitting Congresswoman. The dehumanization is strategic and only emboldens the worst, extremist, bottom-of-the-barrel members of society.

Talking about democracy isn't flashy and doesn't go viral. Most voters aren't motivated by it. But it underpins literally every other issue. Free and fair elections are under attack by right-wing forces clinging to power and the billionaires who fund them. 🧵

The Trump Administration's strategy is to go hard 100% on AI without stopping to consider any potential consequences or safety risks. No regulations. preempting state laws to ensure no one can intervene. No lessons learned from the negative impacts of what happened with social media in the 2010s.

If you or I shared classified attack plans on Signal, we'd be in prison. But the DUI hire running the Pentagon gets a pass? The Inspector General found Hegseth treated war plans like group chat gossip, endangering troops. It’s a complete fucking failure of command.

President Trump has always had 'such a way with words.' Mark Kelly says he and his family have seen threats to their lives increase since Trump accused him of 'sedition.' Senator Slotkin faces bomb threats at her home. She also released recordings of the insane calls her office has received. 1/2

The information environment is collapsing. Local news is dying. As reliance on algorithms rises, we are fighting misinformation and bots. This is the other ½ of the equation. We discussed news fatigue this morning; here is the structural cause. Alex Wagner and Mehdi Hasan break down the mechanics.

This is disgusting white nationalist extremism. It sounds like Fuentes, but it’s coming from the President’s top advisor. The lie that refugees 'import the terror' of their homelands is the exact excuse used to turn away Jewish families fleeing the Nazis. This is literal blood-and-soil nationalism.

Fever is a biological firewall. But a study shows that H5N1 can replicate at high temps. The virus is engineering its way around our immune system while the U.S. dismantles monitoring tools and cuts grants to state/local health depts, hospitals, and emergency management. We are cutting our defenses.

You could dismiss this as "Oh, young people are just 'bored' with the news." No, they are checking out bc the information ecosystem is toxic. It’s a rational response. The news feels like a psychological weapon. It's harder than ever to get good, truthful info out there, especially during crises.

We looked for a sudden coup, but American authoritarianism has been a procedural slide. It's happening through paperwork, purges, and patronage. This @legaleagle.tv breakdown is essential. All the scandals serve a tactical purpose to exhaust us until we stop looking for the breaches. Don't stop.

I know most ppl trust healthcare pros but sometimes it feels like public health is losing the culture war. The anti-vax movement is no longer fringe. It's organized, well-funded, and hollowing out PH infrastructure. We are watching the credibility of the entire federal apparatus erode in real time.

FEMA Won’t Reinstate Suspended Workers Who Signed Letter Criticizing Trump www.nytimes.com/2025/12/01/c...

They call it 'radicalization,' but the timeline reveals a dark pattern. Years of isolation. Repeated warnings. The system watched him unravel. Like clockwork, we continue ignoring the signals until the violence. The solution has to be intervention, not the Trump admin's current war on free speech.

First it was clean water. Now it’s clean air. We are keeping aging coal plants just to power artificial intelligence while simultaneously weakening pollution safeguards. They are sacrificing public health and climate goals to keep servers running.

The holidays put massive pressure on everyone. Financial stress, isolation, and health risks all spike between now and January. Add on top of that the worsening affordability crisis. People are struggling just to keep the lights on. Since the official safety net is failing we have to build our own.👇

Guardrails are optional apparently. Google’s AI image tool is good at generating the usual conspiracy content, like JFK, 9/11, etc. We are handing bad actors an automated engine to flood the zone with disinformation. It’s never been cheaper or easier to fracture reality. RIP to the info ecosystem.

The opportunity cost is here. We prioritized civil immigration enforcement so heavily that we stopped seizing guns. Weapons seizures fell from 41,000 to 11,000 because agents were reassigned. That is the trade-off. We are actively swapping public safety metrics for deportation numbers.

The FBI's '764' investigation exposed a nihilistic extremist network targeting children with 'terrorism' tactics to coerce self-harm. Organized predators are hunting in these ungoverned spaces while Congress fails to regulate, moving at a snail's pace on AI and digital safety and privacy laws.

“There are costs to performatively deploying members of the military,” Juliette Kayyem writes, “one of which is the risk of endangering them”:

Public health and safety is 24/7. To the nurses, doctors, first responders, and utility crews working right now: thank you. The system stays stable bc you showed up. We are thankful for the invisible layer of labor that prevents it from collapsing while the rest of us are off. Happy Thanksgiving.

Didn’t the FBi pull a lot of personnel from anti terrorism to put them on deportations? Actually the whole security establishment pivoted

Gov. Morrissey walks back his earlier statement, now says there are conflicting reports about the condition of the two West Virginia Guard members shot in DC

Why are we risking clean water and public health to win a tech race...

We worry about sci-fi scenarios, but the real danger is simpler. ChatGPT pushed vulnerable users toward delusions just to boost engagement. Talk about a public safety failure. Why do we allow unregulated psychological experiments? I'm not an AI doomer, but regulation should be a national priority.

There is no bottom. ICE is now actively interfering with disaster recovery. Blocking FEMA teams from assisting Chicago families makes the priority clear. Racial profiling and intimidation supersede the mission of helping storm victims.

The housing crisis goes way deeper than supply and demand. It’s a massive policy failure. Corporations bought up the homes, and zoning laws stopped us from building more. We are locking an entire generation out of the stability of homeownership.

"The 'psyops' revealed by X are entirely the fault of the perverse incentives created by social media monetization programs" - @jasonkoebler.bsky.social

Coordinated Authoritarianism. @apnews.com is fighting for the right to speak freely without government targeting. Control the information, then purge the dissenters. Banning AP removes the witnesses. Targeting Mark Kelly removes the critics. They're trying to dismantle any oversight.

After 404 Media's months-long reporting and pressure from lawmakers, the data broker owned by the U.S.’s major airlines will now shut down a program in which it sold access to hundreds of millions of flight records to the government and let agencies track peoples’ movements without a warrant.

We are watching the real-time, authoritarian takeover of our government, where the military justice system is just another tool for political purges.

Climate risk is repricing the ability for so many of us to buy a home. When insurance becomes unaffordable or unavailable, the mortgage system breaks. We are watching the beginning of a climate-driven financial correction that will reshape where people can afford to live.

We are dialing back election infrastructure right before the midterms. CISA budget cuts mean local officials are now scrambling to handle cyberattacks, AI, and the rise in fake bomb threats on their own. The administration is cutting resources exactly when the threat landscape is expanding.