Author | Lightnews

Reposted by Jen Gingras Harper

Kelly @broadwaybabyto.bsky.social · 9h

The average US taxpayer spends $36 a year on SNAP

You know what they spend on corporate subsidies? $670

Poor and disabled people who need food are not the problem

If you’re angry about “your money” feeding people but not angry it’s giving tax cuts to the wealthy?

You’re doing their dirty work.

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Jen Gingras Harper @jengingras.bsky.social · 4h

That sounds amazing rn.

Jen Gingras Harper @jengingras.bsky.social · 4h

Yeah. Been there, though not with two bestsellers. That's...awfully fast.

It's a bummer, though. I'm predisposed to enjoy this novel, and some of the choices are attention-snaggers. 🤷‍♀️

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Rachel Maddow @maddow.msnbc.com · 10h

this is insane.

www.kivitv.com/canyon-count...

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Jen Gingras Harper @jengingras.bsky.social · 6h

Vermont keeps making a liar out of me. I told them not to expect a white Christmas, but they got one.

"Don't expect regular trick or treating," I said.

Rutland: /shuts down traffic for whole blocks, hosts garage disco parties

🤷‍♀️

One Scream-masked child, one goat-masked child, and one preteen Gandalf trick-or-treating outside a 2-story white house

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Jen Gingras Harper @jengingras.bsky.social · 6h

Absolutely perfect idea.

Deaderick M 👻🎃 @mfrederickm.bsky.social · 6h

I’ve long advocated for Spring Halloween to take over for April Fool’s Day. Call it April Ghoul’s Day.

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Representative Becca Balint @balint.house.gov · 10h

I heard Mike Johnson has been lying saying Democrats are nowhere to be found in DC. That's rich coming from him, the exact person who has kept the House of Representatives closed since September 19.

Mike Johnson, we are ready & waiting for you to call the House back. Stop with the lies and games.

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Summer Oakes- the Witch on the Hill 🇨🇦 @summeroakes.bsky.social · 15h

It’s a beautiful day for the end of the pagan year. Here on the farm we celebrate this as New Year’s Eve, tomorrow being the start of another turn of the Wheel. Blessings to all who also celebrate this day.

A weathered board building and fence sit under a sky touched by the pink and grey of the dawn of Samhain.

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Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 2d

Remember how just a few years ago during the worst of the pandemic when we saw how the govt can actually do big things and saw that our collective health & well-being are intertwined, and then corporations got mad that they lost a modicum of power and helped fund a backlash of amnesia and fascism?

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Walker Bragman @walkerbragman.bsky.social · 13h

Sad day for the folks who staked their reputations on lab leak conspiracy theories.

www.telegraph.co.uk/global-healt...

The Telegraph Headline: New Covid virus found in wild Brazilian bats

Subhed: The discovery of a ‘furin cleavage site’ suggests the mutation which helps the virus adapt to humans is naturally occurring

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Diane Duane @diane.dianeduane.com · 14h

And have you looked at the AI-based mushroom guides? Advice: DON'T. 😅

Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 14h

I guess if your goal is to make a bunch of money as a snake oil salesman, you might as well let AI make the snake oil for you.

Timothy Caulfield @caulfieldtim.bsky.social · 2d

Fake authors. Fake books. Fake remedies.

Detection firm finds 82% of herbal remedy books on Amazon ‘likely written’ by AI www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...

Study finds "AI 'slop' has come for herbalism."

"...damning revelation of the sheer scope of unlabelled, unverified, unchecked..."

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Jen Gingras Harper @jengingras.bsky.social · 1d

First, no one licks a tissue (p. 4). One spits on a tissue or wets it with one's tongue.

By p. 6, there's a sentence fragment I can't even "voice and tone" justify, and I tried. It's just lazy punctuation that irretrievably busts up either/or.

I do try not to drive-by edit but JFC. #booksky

Cover art for Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny's State of Terror. Black background, author names in yellow all caps, book title in smaller white all caps. Solo image on cover is a US flag in which the red stripes extend and make 3 90-degree angles.to form a square.

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Sonny Vermont @sonnyvermont.bsky.social · 1d

TODAY'S BOTTOM LINE ⏬⏬⏬

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Jen Gingras Harper @jengingras.bsky.social · 2d

Re: Food bank access— Our local one announced they were expanding their hours to accommodate the increased need.

Now they're M-F, 11a-3p!

Know who can't access that?

Employed people who still. need. help.

Cannot win for losing with these judgmental assholes.

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 2d

I’m sorry, if someone has a birth certificate that proves they were born here but a mobile app with face recognition software disagrees, they will side with the app?

What?

Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 2d

New incredible detail here: ICE says a match in its facial recognition app Mobile Fortify is a "definitive" determination of a person's status, and that this overrides birth certificates. This is an app ICE is using in the field to scan people

www.404media.co/ice-and-cbp-...

Ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee Bennie G. Thompson said in a statement “Mobile Fortify is a dangerous tool in the hands of ICE, and it puts American citizens at risk of detention and even deportation.” He also said “ICE officials have told us that an apparent biometric match by Mobile Fortify is a ‘definitive’ determination of a person’s status and that an ICE officer may ignore evidence of American citizenship—including a birth certificate—if the app says the person is an alien. ICE using a mobile biometrics app in ways its developers at CBP never intended or tested is a frightening, repugnant, and unconstitutional attack on Americans’ rights and freedoms.”

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Jen Gingras Harper @jengingras.bsky.social · 2d

Note to self: Can many more pounds of peaches next year.

Many, many more. Yum.

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Pandemic 𓅃. Index @panaccindex.bsky.social · 2d

🚨 ANSWERED: Does COVID-19 Impact the Immune System?

A compilation of 45+ research studies showing the potential harms of COVID-19 on the immune system. Finally, we can put absurd claims of "immunity debt" to rest.

👇 READ, SUBSCRIBE, SHARE: www.panaccindex.info/p/answered-d...

ANSWERED: Does COVID-19 Impact the Immune System?

A Compilation of Medical Research (45+ Studies)

www.panaccindex.info

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Jen Gingras Harper @jengingras.bsky.social · 2d

Wheeee, my hair-growing-out process has reached the Triangle MopHead of Ringlets phase!

I should be able to manage a ponytail by Xmas. 🫠

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Jen Gingras Harper @jengingras.bsky.social · 2d

This was a top 5 reason I finished undergrad at American University in DC. I'd been back in Vermont 10mos and sorely missed diversity.

I don't need to know what everyone is saying—I just love the variety of humanity in general. 🤷‍♀️

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Jen Gingras Harper @jengingras.bsky.social · 2d

FWIW, this is my hometown, I live 30min away, and one Midd student has said Lia was cut from the diving team *because* she was trans.

This is "suicide" by committee; I hope the spiritual burden of this loss bends the coach and anyone else involved in half for the rest of their miserable lives.

Erin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 2d

1. This week, news emerged that former trans athlete, student at Middlebury, and advocate for trans rights, Lia Smith, was found dead.

Her death was ruled a suicide.

But I argue that it's not only a suicide. Every trans suicide is a murder by those in power.

Subscribe to support my journalism.

Every Trans Suicide Is A Murder By Those In Power

News came this week that transgender athlete and student Lia Smith took her life at just 21 years of age.

www.erininthemorning.com

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ella t. holmes (wizard) @ellatholmes.bsky.social · 3d

A failing society is one that demands people starve in order to uphold arbitrary and socially constructed ideas of normalcy, value, and worth.

We need to reject the idea that anyone at all must work to "earn" the right to eat and live.

Kelly @broadwaybabyto.bsky.social · 3d

The people who need help are not the problem. It’s corporate greed. It’s an unwillingness to pay a living wage.

The ones who aren’t working are children, the disabled, elderly & unpaid caregivers. They’re people who can’t work through no fault of their own.

No one "deserves" to starve:

No One "Deserves" to Starve

SNAP funding is set to expire at the end of the month, meaning 42 million Americans will go hungry. A large percentage of those on SNAP are disabled, and many won't be able to stand in a bread line.

www.disabledginger.com

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Eve Ettinger @eveettinger.com · 4d

My day job is working at a women's shelter in DC, and many of our clients are on SNAP. If you're local and can support these women so they can stay fed, the info is here: www.instagram.com/p/DQU7kh3CbKg/

We need grocery store gift cards and shelf-stable food donations!

Login • Instagram

Welcome back to Instagram. Sign in to check out what your friends, family & interests have been capturing & sharing around the world.

www.instagram.com

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Jen Gingras Harper @jengingras.bsky.social · 2d

People want to be kind.

But! They want it to be a choice that they make and can then add to the Personal Pious Points they rack up. If you give people money, you can't control how it's spent, and the dishonor might rub off on you!

When it's taxes, it's not a choice, so...no PPPs.

Just a theory. 🤷‍♀️

Jen Gingras Harper @jengingras.bsky.social · 2d

Sooo...

How does one get Wite-out out of a dog's fur?

No reason.😵‍💫

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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 3d

Finally someone bold enough to ask, is new york ready for a mayor who opposes slavery? www.nytimes.com/2025/10/28/u...

It wasn’t so much what Zohran Mamdani said. It was how he said it.

“We’re going to stand up for Haiti, because you taught the world about freedom!” the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York exclaimed to an elated crowd at a Haitian music festival in June, fresh off his upset victory in the primary.

Mr. Mamdani pronounced the island nation’s name “AH-ee-tee” — near-perfect Creole elocution.

“When I heard him say that, I smiled,” recalled Brian Purnell, one of Mr. Mamdani’s former professors at Bowdoin College. He also noted that Mr. Mamdani’s reference to freedom was a nod to Haiti’s status as the first republic founded by former slaves.

“That’s straight out of the lessons from the Haitian Revolution that we teach in Africana studies,” said Dr. Purnell, who is now the chair of the Africana studies department at Mr. Mamdani’s alma mater. “I will claim that,” he added with a laugh.

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