🚨SNAP tracker update: Data through February is now available for all states. In the 7 months since H.R. 1 enacted the deepest SNAP cuts in history last summer, we estimate that SNAP participation fell by more than 3.5 million people nationwide. cbpp.org/research/foo...

this is a masterpiece

The “we don’t have the votes” excuse for refusing to force a vote on impeachment is conceding the point and saying even the opposition party doesn’t think this high crime merits removal from office. It’s not being politically astute and pragmatic, it’s self-defeating in its cowardice.

Pretty cathartic stuff here.

The president’s approval rating in MA, MD, and VT. More states in the original thread.

Watching Treme for the first time. Holy smokes, the MUSIC! I love this show.

When one party is violently partisan and the other party is bipartisan, the bipartisan party is always down at least 2:1. This is my math and I’m going with it. The GOP is violently partisan and their voters LOVE it. The Democratic party is illogically bipartisan and most of their voters… 1/

Tonight, an extraordinary order, opinion, and dissent make explicit that the ongoing cold Second American Civil War is raging at the U.S. Supreme Court, as it is throughout the U.S. 1/

I think the eaglet is fine, but there’s some gory stuff going on at the VINS eagle nest. As soon as I sort of figured out what i was looking at I had to shut it down.

Given the argument that ended the VRA, I think it’s time liberals did some self reflection about the now decades long obsession with partisan polarization as the problem, as opposed to authoritarianism, extremism, oligarchy, and racism

Just incredible to be able to witness this…

WE HAVE AN EAGLET! 🎉🤍

I’d like to give you all a little piece of advice: It’s better not to wear boots with this type of lace hook (photo 1) when working with this type of fencing (photo 2). Somehow I have to relearn this the hard way every spring.

This is correct. Best available estimates suggest that the destruction of USAID, in which musk played a central role, will kill over 14 million people by 2030, 1/3 of them children aged < 5 years www.thelancet.com/article/S014...

If you’re like, “Wait, everyone is shackled on ICE flights?! Wait, there are 50 ICE flights a day?! Wait, they’re sending people to countries they’ve never been to?!” I am begging you to please read my ICE Air FAQ. 🙏 gillianbrockell.com/what-is-ice-...

Good news! There really was a pip last night and the hatch is happening! This all according to my mother who follows on FB. (Sorry for my pessimism earlier - sort of my default worldview lately.) The live cam is hard to watch today because of the wind movement, but I’m keeping it on as I work.

VINS eagle nest update: I don’t know, I may have hallucinated the pip yesterday… The egg looks still intact this morning. Starting to wonder if it’s a viable egg 🥺 This is day 38 (35 is expected incubation). Anyway, here’s Windsor in the morning sun.

Dewey very restless on the nest this evening - i think it’s happening! Last time she rearranged herself and the egg i may have even seen a pip…?! 🙏🏼 @grongar.bsky.social

Hey mid-Atlantic states (and across the center of the continental US over to Kansas and Nebraska)-- it's go time for you now! Roughly the start of the busiest three weeks of spring migration. I'm getting a new warbler species in the yard each day, and I'm in the yellow band (not at peak yet)!

Matt’s weather rapport is always good reading. Check out these fascinating stats!

As I was saying… April is tough. I shoveled 2-3 inches of snow off the deck this morning to feed the birds. 23°F predicted tonight and I think I will have to cover the garlic shoots in the garden. They’re hardy… but not that hardy.

Taking care of elderly parents is a great way to develop a deep hatred for the modern world.

For the first time in decades, consensus broke at the UN Commission on the Status of Women. The United States cast the lone “no” vote on a document aimed at improving justice systems for women and girls worldwide. Misogyny is the official policy of the US under Trump.

Another way of saying this is that the regulations would have had a cost of zero. They would not have required the power sector to do anything it wasn't going to do already. Roberts said it would be the most expensive reg ever (because he heard that on Fox). But it cost nothing.

There are no good Republicans. Any Vermonter who votes for him is voting to support fascism. You can excuse it any way you like but he’s a loyal Republican who gladly remains a member of an organization that has brought fascism to our country and is openly pushing a white nationalist agenda

Lots of regressive to sort through here, incl. taxing people’s commute distance -which ties directly to housing shortage-& the ridiculous return to office push. Also:“The committee wants to redirect $50 million in tax revenue from vehicle sales from the education fund to the transportation fund…”

He's so impeachable.

Remarkably terrible, even in the vast terrain of terrible ideas where we live now.

This is about 1/10 of the flock of evening grosbeaks who have been here longer than a month. With the volume up you’ll hear them and get a better sense of the number of them. I love them dearly but they eat too much and i wish most of them would move along now!

Phil Scott has got to go

Peter Magyar has offered a template which can be used, without too much alteration, in defeating populists worldwide open.substack.com/pub/iandunt/...

I don't understand. You took an oath. How is this not wholly incompatible with taking a sworn oath to defend the Constitution. Oathbreakers. Traitors. Cowards.

My hatred of the GOP is longstanding and unshakable. Also, I will never ever forgive the Democrats for their complicity and quiescence. And that feels worse to me because I thought better of them, and they absolutely should have been better.

SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE? It’s all a big fucking joke on us? How can this be what Elizabeth Warren is posting? How is this even in the realm of possibility? I am so fucking done with all this bullshit from all of them. I have left my body.

I was in Montpelier (VT, US) last evening, where I gree up, and noticed its flashy new “City of Bridges” banners, and… I would like a word.

Sometimes i wish i was a dog (like yesterday) but i’m not very coordinated and it occurs to me that i’d probably have trouble managing four feet.

I guess what I’d add is the further enrichment of the billionaire class/defense industry/various criminal grifters associated with trump. The war profiteering and insider trading on stocks and bets.

Animal tracker/wildlife people: what animal does this? (Vermont, the other day). I think it is something foraging, but who and for what?

I have read a statement that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” and as I read that statement and as I reread that statement I cannot shake the feeling that the civilization from which that statement comes is one that is already dead.

This is a far simpler answer than people would like to believe. Trump issues the order via the National Military Command Center to the commander of Strategic Command, and then STRATCOM carries it out directly. There is no second vote, no veto, no check-and-balance.

This happening simultaneous to credible threats to end an entire civilization is giving me a very uneasy feeling.

"History will judge-" let me stop you right fucking there, history doesn't do fucking shit, I'm a historian, let's be clear here: elected officials need to do their fucking jobs, right now, before it happens, or future historians will judge THEM. Everyone knows and knew who Trump was.

How come there are so many assholes on here? It reminds me of reddit - so many people with a chip on their shoulder. It’s such a bummer.

The Big Bear, CA eaglets have hatched. Just saw the older of the two get a meal, tiny pieces of fish. It was working so hard to hold its wobbly head up! m.youtube.com/watch?v=B4-L...

in a well arranged democracy, the role of your vote should be to express your values and interests so they get effectively represented in govt, rather than to heroically do your part in staving off the ascendance of an antichrist. of course you should do your part. but it’s no kind of democracy.

@grongar.bsky.social What are your thoughts on the new very close-up view on camera 1? I am not a fan.

Example # 158,976 of Democrats just completely SUCKING right now. It’s so infuriating.

I love leftover wilted Caesar salad. That is all.

It’s the last day of March and it’s 40°F and raining. Forecast says it will rain for a week… April is a tough month in Vermont. Here’s a photo from April 30 last year. Keeping my sights on this.