Author: hearseeno

DACA

anexplanationofunfortunateevents:


DACA, or “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals,” is an Obama Administration policy which shields undocumented immigrants who were brought here as children from arbitrary deportation. It’s not
amnesty or citizenship, but it let about 800,000 young people come
out of the shadows to live as members of their communities. These people are referred to as DREAMers in
reference to the DREAM Act, which would give young people like them a
path to permanent residency. 


Today, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Trump
administration are phasing out the program and will end it in six
months, rationalizing this cruel decision with a pack of racist lies. 

There are a lot of impressive things to be said about DREAMers, but
honestly, this isn’t about respectability.

They shouldn’t need to be exceptional, even though many of them are. They’re Americans. They’re
people who live here. They’re not American
citizens yet, but they’re Americans and doing this to them is
wrong.

The “reason” this is happening now is that a bunch of conservative state
attorneys-general threatened to sue Trump if he didn’t end the DACA
program by today.

The actual reason this is happening now is that Trump (or the Breitbart crew acting on his
behalf) lobs a hate grenade whenever the Trump-Russia investigation
picks up steam. It sucks up the oxygen in the press and it
forces Democrats to do triage and shift energy and attention to the
acute well-being of vulnerable people. This doesn’t have to be a
grand strategy on his part – he’s just a big fucking bully who
lashes out whenever he feels threatened at anyone he sees as an easy
target. (See also: issuing a ban on transgender
military servicemembers on Twitter while his campaign manager’s
home was being searched.)

Well, that and he’s a sadist who surrounds himself with sadists.
The cruelty is the point.

What you can do to help:

thelibraryperson:

diebrarian:

sepulchrally-handsome:

microaffections:

This our library here in Spring, Texas, in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. When I think of people who have lost everything, I hate how sad I feel about a library. But this is where I’ve taken my kids for story time since they were infants. It’s where I’ve met my closest mom friends. It’s a place that means the world to me.
But beyond that, this is a place that my community needs. It offers free educational programming, resources, information, language classes, Internet, human connection, a place that is clean and safe, free lunches for kids in the summer when school is out. It’s not just a bunch of books. For some people, the library is their only access to these things.

You can donate to the Texas Library Association’s disaster recovery fund here:

https://squareup.com/store/txla/

This may not be as pressing a need as shelter and food right now, but in the coming future, libraries will be critical centers of information-sharing to their communities.  They will help people connect to all the resources they need to rebuild their lives.  

Thank you! Reblogging with the link.

Texas Library Association’s Disaster Relief and Support for Libraries  

Source: microaffections

politico:

Mick Mulvaney, President Donald Trump’s budget director, walked into the Oval Office in early May on a longshot mission. The slash-government conservative wanted to persuade the president to break one of his most popular campaign promises.

During his populist run for the White House, Trump had vowed to leave Social Security and Medicare alone. But Trump had also vowed to rein in America’s national debt, which Mulvaney didn’t think was possible without reining in the two biggest chunks of the federal budget. So Mick the Knife brought a cut list to his meeting in the Oval.

“Look, this is my idea on how to reform Social Security,” the former South Carolina congressman began.

“No!” the president replied. “I told people we wouldn’t do that. What’s next?”

“Well, here are some Medicare reforms,” Mulvaney said.

“No!” Trump repeated. “I’m not doing that.”

“OK, disability insurance.”

This was a clever twist. Mulvaney was talking about the Social Security Disability Insurance program, which, as its full name indicates, is part of Social Security. But Americans don’t tend to think of it as Social Security, and its 11 million beneficiaries are not the senior citizens who tend to support Trump.

“Tell me about that,” Trump replied.

“It’s welfare,” Mulvaney said.

“OK, we can fix welfare,” Trump declared.

Sure enough, the Trump budget plan that Mulvaney unveiled a few weeks later would cut about $70 billion in disability benefits over a decade, mostly through unspecified efforts to get recipients back to work. That may sound like welfare reform, but the program isn’t welfare for the poor; it’s insurance for workers who pay into Social Security through payroll taxes. The episode suggests Trump was either ignorant enough to get word-gamed into attacking a half-century-old guarantee for the disabled, or cynical enough to ditch his promise to protect spending when it didn’t benefit his base.

The story is also revealing about the source who told it on the record: Mulvaney himself, an ideological bomb-thrower from the congressional fringe who has become an influential player in the Trump administration. Republicans have said for years that government should only take people’s money to provide absolutely vital services, but Mulvaney truly believes it—and as the head of the powerful Office of Management and Budget, he’s got the perfect job to try to act on it. For all the focus on race, the Russia scandal and the president’s latest tweets, this administration’s lasting impact on American lives will likely depend much more on how often Mulvaney can push his conservative ideas into national policy.

Read more here

Source: politico.com

Me: Is the shuttle coming? How long have I been waiting? Is that too long? Have I missed the shuttle? It’s not here yet, I bet they changed the schedule. And didn’t tell anybody. Cuz they do that sometimes. Remember that time you waited 45 minutes and the shuttle never came cuz it was canceled? It shouldn’t be here yet, should it? Damn, I shouldn’t have stopped to turn the dishwasher on. I bet I’ve missed it.

Also me: You do realize that you are currently sitting in the shuttle and are halfway to work right now, right?

Me: Cool, cool. Yeah, okay. But, get this, what if, like, I delayed too long getting out the door and actually missed the shuttle? See? Right?

drst:

unionrising:

liberalsarecool:

USPS is largest employer of veterans. Figures Republicans are attacking the vets.

The US Postal Service’s forced financial crisis

In 2006 – Republicans in Congress passed a poison pill piece of legislation forcing the Post Office to pre-fund retiree health benefits 75 years out into the future – basically funding benefits for future employees who aren’t even born yet. The Postal Service has to do this by giving the Treasury $5.5 billion every single year. That’s a requirement that no business, or any government agency has ever had to comply with. And it’s the reason why the Post Office is going bankrupt today and looking into closing down post offices, laying off workers, and cutting down delivery service.

So why is all this happening? Because the Postal Service employs hundreds of thousands of unionized workers – where as private mail carriers like UPS and Fed Ex do not. Republicans – in their non-stop war on labor – realized that they could hurt unions by bankrupting the Postal Service. That’s what they did in 2006, and their plan is working today.

https://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2012/08/us-postal-services-forced-financial-crisis

PROTECT THE POST OFFICE VOTE DEMOCRAT.

Source: megabluethunder

Bras in Space: The Incredible True Story Behind Upcoming Film Spacesuit

drst:

lightthiscandle:

Because without the technology behind that brassiere (or girdle), the moon landing would have been impossible. It turns out that the 21-layers of gossamer-thin fabric in the Apollo spacesuits that kept Armstrong and Aldrin from “the lethal desolation of a lunar vacuum,” as Nicholas de Monchaux puts it in his remarkable book “Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo,” was created by the same people who made your grandma’s bra. Playtex. And now, Warner Bros. has hired Richard Cordiner to adapt De Monchaux’s book, which is a story so good you almost believe it was scripted by a Hollywood scribe, not part of historical fact.

The creation of the Apollo AL7 Pressure Garment is one of the great American stories of the past forty-plus years. When America pitched itself into the great Space Race, and president Kennedy declared we’d have a man on the moon by the end of the decade, among many of the colossal obstacles NASA had to face was how to make a suit that could withstand space’s incredibly hostile environment. NASA turned the creation of the spacesuit into a competition (largely dominated by military contractors)—and it was assumed a military contractor would win the day.

Instead, pitted against the military-industrial complex, Playtex created the 21-layer spacesuit, each layer distinct yet interrelated in function to the rest of the whole—a masterly combination of elegance, complexity, and form. Where the military contractors created cybernetic, armor-like suits (that failed, and failed again), Playtex’s vision was one of crucial softness, world class stitching, and perfect design. Traditional engineering firms could not figure out how to meet all the mission requirements and create a functioning suit that would keep the Apollo astronauts alive. The seamstresses at Playtex, with their years of experience fashioning girdles and bras, could, and did.

In his book, Michael Collins often referred to “the little old ladies with their glue pots” who fashioned the suit that protected him from the harshness of space during his EVA. I am glad that these “little old ladies” are getting their own movie.

So this is made for @darthmelyanna start to finish.

Bras in Space: The Incredible True Story Behind Upcoming Film Spacesuit