“Speaking of transparency, yesterday, a 34-year-old Muslim American, Zohran Mamdani, won the election to be the next mayor of New York City in large part because of his truth-telling“ -- Deborah Copaken @dcopaken.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/deborahc...

“No, Speaker Johnson — the No Kings rally on October 18 is not a hate America rally. In fact, it’s quite the contrary: It’s a love America rally.” #NoKings

I am continually floored by the brilliance of both @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social ‘s social media team and by the candidate himself. Please let this be a harbinger of a better, more equitable world.

I thought I knew how to vacation. Science now tells me I was just doing it all wrong. deborahcopaken.substack.com/p/you-actual...

This video by Progress Action Fund really hits the nail on the head. It’s both horrific and an accurate portrait of the U.S. today. youtu.be/j7SOc_8IhSY?...

When students of history look back on these moments--a city comptroller, running for mayor, asking for a judicial warrant and getting arrested by masked thugs--it will be like us reading about Nazis only worse. Because we can all see this and know it is wrong, fascist, and horrific in real time.

Huge crowd in Sag Harbor for #nokings.

The average wedding in the U.S. now costs a cool $36,000. But @dcopaken.bsky.social discovered that embracing DIY elements for her daughter's wedding not only kept costs down—it brought communities together. www.thepersistent.com/how-to-diy-a...

Page One must have been crowded. So NYT puts it on Page 13. 🤡 @schooley.bsky.social

“It's not a partisan issue. It’s not an ideological issue. So who voted for this? I personally don't remember Donald Trump's campaign promise to cut breast cancer research and to make menopause harder for American women,” says @chrislhayes.bsky.social.

Follow the money.

Thank you, Seth Rogan, for taking a public stand against tyranny. And shame on the Breakthrough Prize video editors for editing out that bravery.

@harvard.edu not only stood up to Trump, it redesigned its website to highlight groundbreaking scientific work that relies on funding. For me, being deaf, research into hair regeneration was fascinating! This is how you stand up to fascism and tyranny. I'm proud of my alma mater. www.harvard.edu

I just moved in with my partner. And his wife. open.substack.com/pub/deborahc...

Here’s a mandate I can get behind: let all children born to mothers who do the hard work of carrying, birthing, nursing, and (more often than not) raising them take their mother’s surname at birth from now on. Go, Italy! www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

Unidentified men grabbing someone off the street and putting her in a car because she wrote an op-Ed. This as flatly authoritarian as anything we’ve seen in this country in a very long time.

Since White House says info in the chat was not classified, seems like @JeffreyGoldberg has the all clear to lay out everything in there....

Why bother to care about what "vibe" of tablecloth to pick for a wedding when democracy is crumbling? Because we must. Because love should always trump (ahem) hate. deborahcopaken.substack.com/p/planning-a...

Some more good news: all of these young women just became doctors. It’s Match Day. They will be fanning out across the U.S. to care for patients. My daughter’s in the purple dress. She’s heading to the University of Illinois-Chicago College of Medicine Family med residency program. Congrats to all!

Some good news. For once.

Anyone know where to get Paxlovid these days? Capsule doesn't have it. My local Brooklyn pharmacy doesn't have it. Ah, Covid. The gift that keeps on giving.

With so little research on UTIs in women and how to prevent them, we need to be our own advocates. One male doctor told me to take a weekly bleach bath and daily Macrobid. Then he slut shamed me. We need to do better. deborahcopaken.substack.com/p/probiotics...

I, um, what?

NEBRASKA CROWD: “TAX THE RICH! TAX THE RICH!” @USRepMikeFlood: “So your proposal to solve (the debt) is tax the rich?” NEBRASKA CROWD: *CHEERS WILDLY* (not sure this went quite as he planned 😬)

Coming soon, to a hospital near you: my daughter, Dr. Sasha Kogan. Who is the first person I call every time I'm confused about what happened in The Pitt and who just found out she matched into a family medicine residency.

On the left, Moscow, USSR, 1991. No bread. On the right, Brooklyn, USA, 2025. No eggs.

I made many mistakes! So you don't have to! deborahcopaken.substack.com/p/12-life-le...

If you’re one of the 69 million married women in the U.S who changed her last name, but you’re not sure where your birth certificate is, time to brush up on voter suppression aimed directly at you. Then call your congressperson and demand they vote no on H.R. 22. open.substack.com/pub/deborahc...

I wake up every morning praying for this nightmare to be over. There is no bottom to this administration’s Putin boot-licking, lying, and corruption. Dante would have to add several more circles. President Zelensky, I apologize on behalf of those of us who see your courage and the truth.

I have never been more ashamed of our country.

Last week, while relations between the U.S. and our European allies went up in smoke, I was on the northern coast of France, close to where thousands of American lost their lives standing up to fascism, scattering my best friend’s ashes. open.substack.com/pub/deborahc...

Dying to see this. Here's the trailer: youtu.be/dcUeDa8FK_8?...

This is a brilliant exploration of what can be done by someone who intimately knows the barriers to getting it done.

Now that the words “women” and “female” can get your grant flagged, it’s up to those of us born with uteri to spread science information and research projects however we can. Here’s one. Please share. open.substack.com/pub/deborahc...

PLEASE SHARE WIDELY #medsky #IDsky #obgynsky #pedsky CDC STI treatment guidelines have been taken down. They are archived here 👇 web.archive.org/web/20250131...

All data from the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health has been scrubbed from the internet.

This is what the government did with 120K+ Japanese Americans in 1942. I know. I was there in those camps.

I know how much we all want to just hide in a hole for the next four years. But whether we like it or not, we're all on the front lines now. deborahcopaken.substack.com/p/first-they...

Everyone follow Carolyn!

I just found this while culling files and gasped. So much of what girls and women deal with every day—be it in school, work, dating, or society—can be found in the postscript of this 1978 note written to 12-year-old me by my male classmate.

Auschwitz was at the end of a long process. It did not start from gas chambers. This hatred was gradually developed by humans. From ideas, words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanization & escalating violence... to systematic and industrial murder. Auschwitz took time.

So many insane things from Orange Clown already—a deliberate firehouse of insults—but this one hit hard.

It’s really important to understand intimate partner violence. A consensual relationship does not give one consent to perform any sex act one’s partner doesn’t want. This is not just about Neil Gaiman. It’s about all of us. open.substack.com/pub/deborahc...

This is helpful. And it makes me feel better about today's announcement. But I'll feel much better when I can actually google it, and it exists in the text of the constitution, and other online sources stop referring to it as a "proposed amendment" rather than just a plain old amendment.

5 years ago, @rutgerbregman.bsky.social took a bunch of billionaires to task at Davos for their greed. On the brink of an oligarchy this Monday, it's a good time to revisit his words. The key takeaway? "Just stop talking about philanthropy, and start talking about taxes." youtu.be/paaen3b44XY?...

This feels like Kavanaugh 2.0. only worse. A Supreme Court justice has words for weapons. A Defense Secretary has an entire arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Anyone else getting sucked into the Hegseth hearings, against your better judgment, and asking yourself how tf you're going to survive these next four years of lies, liars, and rapists?

172 hours until the presidential oath is taken by someone who’s virtually certain not to abide by it and who, having broken it before, is an adjudicated insurrectionist whose disqualification under Sec 3 of the 14th Amendment hasn’t been lifted by Congress. But that’s just the U.S. Constitution.