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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 31m

This reminds me of how my GOP dad was anti-organ transplants when I was in middle school. But then he needed one himself when I was in college & became a huge advocate.

The part that bothered me was that he didn't recant his earlier stance, which would have been fine - he just memory-holed it.

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 35m

I mean, Italians got noodles from my people! (They originated in China and probably came to Italy via traders from the East.)

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 53m

2025 getting some symbols that are going to be wild to explain in the future, LOL

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 54m

YES! RIDICULE THE F*SCISTS.

amanda moore 🐢 @noturtlesoup17.bsky.social · 14h

The inflatables have made it to Broadview.

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 59m

Indeed, and I've said as much. But also as a Chicagoan who's in the middle of it all right now, I'm currently less concerned about future deployments elsewhere and more concerned with the immediate term in my own city.

They've grabbed people off the street in walking distance from my apartment.

Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 3d

(But it's also important to not equivocate on what's happening here, which will be a blueprint for how this administration deals with cities across the country. We are a testing ground.)

Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 7h

We have the largest military in the world (we out-spend the next 12 countries combined) and have nuclear weapons.

No one's coming to save us.

We save ourselves or we don't.

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 9h

We brought circus to severely disabled folks at McAuley Home last week. They loved it!

Thanks to Misericordia for having us and to Bazuka Joe for putting it together!

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 9h

That's why I specifically didn't say "crime."

Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 10h

They've been kidnapping random Chicagoans off the street in areas where single-family homes cost $1 million+.

They're also in Evanston, the wealthy suburb that houses Northwestern University.

In case you're tempted to buy the line about them only going after dangerous gang members.

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 10h

This reminds me of a quote: "Artists are dangerous because they mix with all classes of society."

I've been in a room with a billionaire (he hired us) & have some friends with millions, but I also have lots of friends who struggle to pay their rent every month.

It brings perspective.

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 10h

Once you hit a billion dollars in net worth, we should tax your wealth so hard that you have incentive to get rid of the money & do something useful with it.

If there's an objection around retaining control of their companies through stocks, I'm sure they can hire lawyers to figure something out.

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 19h

My favorite version of this: If you saved $1000/day, it would take you 2740 years to save $1 billion.

It would take you 602,800 years to save as much money as Jeff Bezos has now ($220 billion).

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 22h

All of their faces give GenAI even though I'm pretty sure they're real. Photographer going way overboard on a smoothing filter?

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 22h

Really we need more wealthy people who want to build cool shit* (AI doesn't count) instead of destroying the country so they can see bigger numbers on their spreadsheets.

* We don't actually need more wealthy people. We need poorer people to have reasonable amounts of money to live.

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 22h

For less than $6 billion (the cost of a presidential/congressional election) you could probably buy enough politicians to save us from fascism.

For $400 million I could probably buy, renovate, & maintain indefinitely the derelict historic theatre nearby that needs $190 million of renovations.

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 22h

I put way too much thought into this question and it continued to bring home how much money $100 billion really is.

If you wanted $2 million/year to spend the rest of your life (gobs of money!), you'd need ~$50 million in the bank.

That's a lot of money! But nowhere close to even $1 billion.

Adam Lasnik @adamlasnik.net · 1d

Just a random thought exercise / curiosity poll:
If you could have a genie INSTANTLY make your net worth whatever number you wanted... $100K USD, $100B.... any number in between... what would it be and why?

[...]

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 23h

Other major priorities: Immigrant rights and funding art. I've had a semi-detailed idea for a grant-making arts foundation & training studio forever.

Ideally no one would know I was given that kind of money though. That's the thing that would actually mess one's life up.

Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 23h

Less than $6 billion (the cost of an entire presidential/congressional election) would probably be enough to buy off politicians & effectively end the US march toward fascism.

With $94 billion to spare even afterward, you could run the experiment, potentially saving us all.

UChicago Alumni & Friends

alumniandfriends.uchicago.edu

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 23h

Sure, let's go with $100 billion. But then my job would be to give almost all of it away as quickly as possible, because holding on to that amount of money is morally indefensible.

Just $7 billion/year would prevent the hungriest from starving. Put some $ into an endowment for exactly that.

How Much Would It Cost to End World Hunger? - World Food Program USA

We know what it takes to end world hunger, and we know what it costs. We simply need the collective will to make it happen.

www.wfpusa.org

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 1d

More context about how deliberate the "sloppy and careless" is.

Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 1d

Seeing a lot of celebration of this as a win.

But at NIH we have seen this exact play before.

It looks like it is the Vought strategy -and to stop the lawless firings we have to see the bigger picture.
A 🧵:

Trump Administration Will Rehire Scores of Experts Fired in Error

www.nytimes.com

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 1d

It's not just sloppy and careless, though it's that too.

They explicitly said they wanted to traumatize federal workers.

Well, they're doing it.

shauna @goldengateblond.bsky.social · 1d

it actually offends me how sloppy and careless they are. anyone who’s ever been laid off knows the panic you feel when it happens. and while obviously it’s good that they backtracked, these are people’s fucking LIVELIHOODS they’re messing with.

Trump Administration Is Bringing Back Scores of C.D.C. Experts Fired in Error

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Dawn Xiana Moon

derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 1d

About a month ago, the Trump administration got rid of the de minimis exemption, whereby packages valued under $800 could slide in without import duties. Now there's a backlog as the government can't process all of this paperwork, leading to UPS just destroying packages