Mary Nasca
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mnasca.bsky.social
Mary Nasca
@mnasca.bsky.social
1.8K followers 660 following 5.1K posts
She/her

Believes that people should have autonomy over their bodies.

Believes in social justice, equality & equity for all. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Believes no one should be disappeared to a foreign country or concentration camp.
Posts Replies Media Videos
mnasca.bsky.social
How can anyone look at this picture and not think he’s had a stroke?
Photo of Trump at 9/11 commemoration which shows the right side of his face - particularly the mouth area - drooping and his eyes closed.
November 26, 2025 at 11:38 AM
mnasca.bsky.social
I wish I could write half as eloquently as Charlotte about things I’m passionate about.

Please take the time to read this, and subscribe to her writing.
This situation has very simple contours: Hegseth’s little bitch ass has been ordered by Trump to retaliate against Sen. Kelly for speaking out, and Hegseth does what Daddy tells him to do. That’s all this is. It’s a failed human being kissing the ass of another failed human being by slandering the character of a genuine war hero. And the sad irony of all this is that even officers you wouldn’t admire understand this situation perfectly. That old major no one liked would never issue an unlawful order, and there’s no doubt in my mind he would defend a soldier who refused to follow an unlawful order.
November 25, 2025 at 4:06 PM
mnasca.bsky.social
This part:
As if “Democrats did it too” is any kind of comfort to survivors. As if the files are opposition research and not tens of thousands of pages of powerful men preying on powerless girls. As if a survivors’ trauma ebbs and flows with the political winds. As if more men’s names lessens the obscenity of it all. Fine. Investigate them all. Please investigate them all. But only one of them is the president of the United States. And that matters. At least it should.
November 23, 2025 at 3:12 PM
mnasca.bsky.social
Just an excerpt from today’s excellent letter:

@hcrichardson.bsky.social
@jbf1755.bsky.social

open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...
And so an American president called for the arrest and execution of elected lawmakers. Restating the law is not sedition, and Fox News Channel legal analyst Andy McCarthy promptly wrote: “There is no insurrection or sedition without the use of force. Disobeying a lawful order is insubordination, not insurrection or sedition. Disobeying an unlawful order is required. That is all.” Professor of the early American republic Joanne Freeman wrote that she was “[n]ot going to repost DJT’s howling threats against Democratic lawmakers. I’ll just say: 1. We still have free speech here. 2. People can still oppose the president. 3. No—George Washington wouldn’t have hanged the lawmakers because HE WAS VERY CAREFUL TO STAY STRICTLY WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF HIS OFFICE AS PRESIDENT. He didn’t want to be a king or dictator. Plus, he was in his right mind.”
November 21, 2025 at 4:09 PM
mnasca.bsky.social
Seems to me like Riley saw the grift train approaching and hopped on.
As she made more media appearances, Gaines’ rhetoric grew sharper. In her initial Daily Wire interview, she’d said of Thomas: “I am in full support of her and full support of her transition and her swimming career and everything like that, because there’s no doubt that she works hard too, but she’s just abiding by the rules that the NCAA put in place, and that’s the issue.” Yet by the following spring any empathy she once had for Thomas had vanished: “He is an arrogant, cheat who STOLE a national title from a hardworking, deserving woman,” she tweeted. Soon the locker room became a central theme, as she accused the NCAA of having “forced” the swimmers to change with Thomas and allowing “any man” to walk in—though both the men’s and women’s locker rooms had been opened to the competitors at the women’s championship. “If you walked in and saw Lia and you didn’t want to be in there, you could walk next door to the other locker room, or go in the stall,” says one of Gaines’ teammates. Though a handful of swimmers at the meet also went public to say that Thomas’ presence in the locker room made them uncomfortable, Gaines’ version of the story was more lurid: “We turned around and there’s a 6-foot-4 biological man dropping his pants and watching us undress, and we were exposed to male genitalia,” she told Fox News. “Not even probably a year, two years ago, this would have been considered some form of sexual assault, voyeurism.” As she made more media appearances, Gaines’ rhetoric grew sharper. In her initial Daily Wire interview, she’d said of Thomas: “I am in full support of her and full support of her transition and her swimming career and everything like that, because there’s no doubt that she works hard too, but she’s just abiding by the rules that the NCAA put in place, and that’s the issue.” Yet by the following spring any empathy she once had for Thomas had vanished: “He is an arrogant, cheat who STOLE a national title from a hardworking, deserving woman,” she tweeted. Soon the locker room became a central theme, as she accused the NCAA of having “forced” the swimmers to change with Thomas and allowing “any man” to walk in—though both the men’s and women’s locker rooms had been opened to the competitors at the women’s championship. “If you walked in and saw Lia and you didn’t want to be in there, you could walk next door to the other locker room, or go in the stall,” says one of Gaines’ teammates. Though a handful of swimmers at the meet also went public to say that Thomas’ presence in the locker room made them uncomfortable, Gaines’ version of the story was more lurid: “We turned around and there’s a 6-foot-4 biological man dropping his pants and watching us undress, and we were exposed to male genitalia,” she told Fox News. “Not even probably a year, two years ago, this would have been considered some form of sexual assault, voyeurism.”
November 20, 2025 at 8:44 PM
mnasca.bsky.social
This loss of data will hurt all renal patients. And…

The “bbb” made ridiculous cuts to Medicaid for dialysis patients - adding a $35 co-pay for dialysis while many patients need dialysis 3 X per week.

Black Americans are four times more likely to need dialysis.

www.kidney.org/take-action/...
Some of the most concerning provisions include: Work Requirements: New mandates would apply to parents of teenagers and others with chronic health needs, including kidney disease—putting them at risk of losing coverage before qualifying for Medicare. Provider Tax Cuts: The bill reduces allowable Medicaid provider taxes from 6% to 3.5% by 2031, limiting critical funding for dialysis clinics, particularly in rural areas. New Copays: A $35-per-treatment copay for dialysis and CKD patients above the poverty line could cost dialysis patients over $5,000 annually. ACA Enrollment Barriers: The bill would eliminate automatic reenrollment and increase paperwork burdens, potentially delaying coverage for over 700,000 individuals by 2034. Inadequate Rural Health Funding: While it includes a $15 billion rural stabilization fund, this falls far short of what's needed to keep dialysis clinics and hospitals open in underserved areas. Kidney disease disproportionately affects communities of color. Black or African Americans are almost four times more likely and Hispanics or Latinos are 1.3 times more likely to have kidney failure compared to White Americans. Although they make up only 13.5% of the population, Black or African Americans make up more than 35% of dialysis patients. The major causes of kidney disease, including diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease, are all more prevalent among Black Americans. Although a kidney transplant is the optimal treatment for kidney failure, Black patients face barriers to access at every step of the process and on average wait a year longer than white patients to receive a kidney transplant. Black patients are less likely to receive a transplant evaluation, have less access to the waitlist, spend longer on the transplant waitlist, are less likely to survive on the waitlist, and have lower rates of graft survival post-transplant.
November 20, 2025 at 2:38 PM
mnasca.bsky.social
“Statement from the American Nurses Association on Proposed Federal Loan Policy Changes”

www.nursingworld.org/news/news-re...
Excluding nursing from professional degree classification jeopardizes efforts to strengthen and expand the U.S. nursing workforce SILVER SPRING, MD – November 10, 2025 – The American Nurses Association (ANA) is concerned by the Department of Education’s exclusion of nursing from the definition of “professional degree” programs under forthcoming federal loan eligibility rules. This will severely restrict access to critical funding for graduate nursing education, undermining efforts to grow and sustain the nursing workforce. “Nurses make up the largest segment of the healthcare workforce and the backbone of our nation’s health system,” said Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, PhD, MBA, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, president of the American Nurses Association. “At a time when healthcare in our country faces a historic nurse shortage and rising demands, limiting nurses’ access to funding for graduate education threatens the very foundation of patient care. In many communities across the country, particularly in rural and underserved areas, advanced practice registered nurses ensure access to essential, high-quality care that would otherwise be unavailable. We urge the Department of Education to recognize nursing as the essential profession it is and ensure access to loan programs that make advanced nursing education possible.”
November 20, 2025 at 2:21 AM
mnasca.bsky.social
Don’t look away.
@citizencohn.bsky.social
www.thebulwark.com/p/this-may-b...
GAWANDE: Without protein and basic vitamins, you can’t create skin. You start losing the ability to form collagen. So skin wounds don’t repair. You reach the point where the skin simply starts sloughing off and you become unable to maintain your body temperature, where you also get skin infection because there isn’t a barrier between you and infection in the outside world. They had not seen cases like that for two decades. At the same time, more than half of children are not yet getting access to what the modern regimen is, which is actually a lower-cost regimen as well. But rather than close that gap, the [funding was] ripped away. They were simply removed with no conscience, no willingness to wrestle with the harms being done. None of that. Instead, a complete denial of what has been done.
November 16, 2025 at 1:20 PM
mnasca.bsky.social
And the majority of bankruptcies (62%) are due to medical debt:

www.abi.org/feed-item/he...
The article contained another sad statistic. Ninety (90%) percent of those who had homes took out a second mortgage on their homes to pay their medical debt. This means that these people have turned their medical debt into mortgage debt to deal with the situation. Such a tactic is rarely, if ever, a smart option. According to the article, these people are not the very poor in our society. Rather, they are middle class people. Two-thirds of them were homeowners. Sixty (60%) percent of them were college graduates. Some had private insurance and still had to cough up an average of $17,749.00 per family. These were people who were facing large and unexpected out-of-pocket costs for health care. And, finally, according to the article, sixty-two (62%) of the two million personal bankruptcies filed each year are the result of medical debt.
November 16, 2025 at 1:19 AM
mnasca.bsky.social
@hcrichardson.bsky.social
So much in today’s letter but this part really hits hard:

open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...
It appears that the administration is considering attacking another country under the pretext of stopping drug trafficking, in an echo of nineteenth-century imperial power that mimics the territorial ambitions of Russia’s president Vladimir Putin. Political strategist Simon Rosenberg commented: “If Trump wags the dog in Venezuela it is going to do enormous damage to his already degraded brand here in the US. Zero support for this in the public. Will be seen for what it is—[a] transparent attempt to rescue his flailing Presidency.”
November 14, 2025 at 4:20 PM
mnasca.bsky.social
@ruthz.bsky.social:
“And most importantly, I wish that you never had to go through your trauma in the first place.”

open.substack.com/pub/ruthzaka...
And mostly what I want to say is that I wish people listened to you. I wish you didn’t have to lay your trauma bare over and over again in an attempt to get justice. I wish the world was a safer place to disclose your trauma and without worry that you will be raked over the coals, revictimized and retraumatized. I wish you didn’t have to witness people in positions of great power suppress, minimize, openly question, or simply not acknowledge the abuse you suffered. That you didn’t have to see an abuser occupy the highest position of power in the land, enabled and empowered by countless people who have caused great harm themselves. And that you didn’t have to watch family members and friends vote to put him back in office a second time. I wish the media did a better job of holding your stories and giving you more agency on how those stories are told. That you didn’t have to read the snarky comments or rape jokes that people post simply to get more clicks, without regard for who might be reading them. And I wish people remembered that survivors are everywhere.
November 13, 2025 at 1:51 PM
mnasca.bsky.social
oversightdemocrats.house.gov/news/press-r...
To: Ghislaine Maxwell From: Jeffrey Epstein “I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump.. [Victim] spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned. Police chief. etc. im 75 % there To: Jeffrey Epstein From: Ghislaine Maxwell “I have been thinking about that…”
November 12, 2025 at 3:42 PM
mnasca.bsky.social
oversightdemocrats.house.gov/news/press-r...
From: Michael Wolff “I hear CNN planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you--either on air or in scrum afterwards. To: Michael Wolff From: Jeffrey Epstein “if we were able to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be?” To: Jeffrey Epstein From: Michael Wolff “I think you should let him hang himself. If he says he hasn't been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency. You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you, or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt. Of course, it is possible that, when asked, he'll say Jeffrey is a great guy and has gotten a raw deal and is a victim of political correctness, which is to be outlawed in a Trump regime.”
November 12, 2025 at 3:08 PM
mnasca.bsky.social
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

@radiofreetom.bsky.social:
In addition to marching, Americans who care about democracy must organize and vote in every election, no matter how small or local. And in their personal lives, people who want to restore maturity to national government must be clear with those around them, even if it means risking their personal relationships, that some things, such as glib schoolyard taunts and scatological nonsense from the commander in chief, are not acceptable.
November 12, 2025 at 12:55 PM
mnasca.bsky.social
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/o...
I ask non-trans readers of this column to imagine having to dress and act as the opposite gender every time they travel. This kind of temporary transformation is not always possible, and is never foolproof. In many countries, one’s passport is checked — and often registered with the authorities — at hotels, when entering administrative buildings and even simply when walking in the street. Some airports have sex-segregated security lines. Some train lines operate sex-segregated cars. And then there is travel for work. Journalists, for example, have to present their passports to obtain press credentials. There are places in the world where working with a press pass that says I am “F” would expose me to mortal danger.
November 7, 2025 at 10:24 PM
mnasca.bsky.social
That American flag means the world to me, partly because of the personal ordeal to which it bears silent witness but, even more, because of the national ideals it symbolizes. The public schools I attended in San Francisco didn’t teach a phony version of America the beautiful—an America that was never ugly. They taught a lesson much more inspiring, the lesson that America, for all its flaws and misdeeds, stands for an idea so much better than the worst parts of its legacy. They taught that America, a nation of immigrants like me and my family, stands for an idea worth fighting and dying for, the idea of a nation whose principles were inseparable from the inscription at the base of the Statue of Liberty welcoming the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” I equated that flag with ideas and ideals that lay at the foundation of a republic governed not by a powerful few but by all its people, pursuing liberty under law.
November 7, 2025 at 4:08 PM
mnasca.bsky.social
A woman ruined my workplace by Atemisia Gentileschi
(C. 1621)
Painting by Artemisia Gentileschi depicting the biblical scene in which Judith slays Holofernes.
November 7, 2025 at 3:27 PM
mnasca.bsky.social
@sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com:
The American system of limited government—the system that has guided our nation from a collection of squabbling revolutionaries to the greatest power in history—is built on the bedrock idea that it matters how decisions are made. Democratically, with checks and balances, and respect for certain inalienable rights. The alternative is dictatorship. And dictatorship is what Trump is attempting to institute. This fact has been somewhat disguised from the American people, because Trump's assault on our republic has taken place with the complicity of Congress and the Supreme Court. The Republicans in Congress have simply declined to assert their control over the purse strings. Republicans on the Court, meanwhile, have issued a blizzard of "temporary" orders and rulings, staying lower court rulings that went against Trump.
November 7, 2025 at 1:35 PM
mnasca.bsky.social
“Unbecomingly mean”

@stevevladeck.bsky.social analysis here is worth a read.
The inference that first sentence leaves is that the majority just doesn’t think discrimination against transgender and nonbinary individuals is a thing. But whether or not the Constitution forbids such discrimination, acting as if it doesn’t happen is not just violating long-settled standards of appellate procedure; it is unbecomingly mean.
November 7, 2025 at 1:21 PM
mnasca.bsky.social
www.thebulwark.com/p/kash-patel...
What’s fairly clear is that Patel has been using the jet for events that have no real overlap with the actual responsibilities of the FBI. It’s an issue that came up in a September Senate hearing. Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) showed blown-up pictures of Patel hobnobbing ringside with celebrities at UFC matches in Las Vegas and Miami, and chatting with hockey legend Wayne Gretzky at a New York hockey game—all trips Patel took on the government jet. “Congress made it mandatory,” Patel said in his defense. “We didn’t make it mandatory that you go to UFC games with Mel Gibson!” Welch said.
November 6, 2025 at 5:53 PM
mnasca.bsky.social
@billkristolbulwark.bsky.social:

open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...
One notable footnote to the Democrats’ victory here in Virginia: Remember the set of issues around transgender individuals that are widely, and maybe correctly, thought to have hurt Democrats in 2024? This year, more than half of the Republican spending on ads in the governors’ race was devoted to anti-trans messaging. Spanberger rebutted the attacks skillfully, and indeed framed the issue as one of bigotry and turned it against her opponent. And in House District 22, a Democrat, Elizabeth Guzman, who’d authored pro-trans legislation in the legislature in 2022, defeated a Republican incumbent who made this issue the center of his campaign.
November 6, 2025 at 2:20 PM
mnasca.bsky.social
We should all be supporting the trans community.

@charlotteclymer.bsky.social

charlotteclymer.substack.com/p/ride-the-b...
I have so many things to say about the results tonight, but there’s something which certainly stands out to me that I wish many Democrats in Congress would take to heart. Republicans across the country spent the past several months engaging in the most vicious anti-trans propaganda as part of their primary messaging. They sent mailers demonizing trans youth. They ran commercials and radio spots hurling transphobic bigotry at voters. They relentlessly gave interviews saying the most hurtful things about trans people. And they lost every single race tonight. It completely failed to resonate with voters. I have watched as these Republicans shamelessly dehumanized the trans community, and the Democrats in these races refused to throw us under the bus, even as I’m sure there were consultants and pundits telling them to do so, publicly and privately. But they didn’t.
November 5, 2025 at 9:51 AM
mnasca.bsky.social
In fact, the list of things you cannot pay for with SNAP is shorter than the list of things you can buy:
Things You Can Buy With SNAP Benefits Households can use SNAP benefits to buy to grow food for your household to eat: Fruits and vegetables; Meat, poultry, and fish Dairy products Loaves of bread and cereals Other foods such as snack foods and non-alcoholic beverages Seeds and plants, which produce food for the household to eat
October 31, 2025 at 11:33 PM
mnasca.bsky.social
It literally takes seconds to determine this is a full-blown racist lie:
Households cannot use SNAP benefits to buy nonfood items such as: Beer, wine, liquor, cigarettes, or tobacco Vitamins, medicines, and supplements. If an item has a Supplement Facts label, it is considered a supplement and is not eligible for SNAP purchase. Live animals (except shellfish, fish removed from the water, and animals slaughtered prior to pick-up from the store). Prepared Foods fit for immediate consumption Hot foods Any nonfood items such as Pet foods Cleaning supplies, paper products, and other household supplies, hygiene items, cosmetics
October 31, 2025 at 11:31 PM
mnasca.bsky.social
@charlotteclymer.bsky.social as always is spot on here:

charlotteclymer.substack.com/p/this-shit-...
Muslim Americans have a long and proud history of service to this country, and when we allow people like Mr. Cuomo to endorse such a racist ideology, we dishonor not only Muslims Americans but the central idea of what we want America to be. You don’t have to like Mr. Mamdani or support his policies or vote for him, but you cannot allow someone like Mr. Cuomo to use hatred and fear to exploit this moment in our country’s history for his own political gain. This shit has got to stop.
October 24, 2025 at 3:03 AM