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rwillemann.bsky.social
R.
@rwillemann.bsky.social
Husband, dad, V Vet. All in all been pretty lucky. Profoundly dismayed by US's rapid decline. I'll not live to see the recovery. Even more sadly,
my grands are not likely to either
Reposted by R.
Two victims of previous school shootings — Mia Tretta, who was shot in the stomach in 2019 at Saugus High School, and Zoe Weissman, who survived the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School — are now at Brown. Gun violence is out of control in this country.
December 14, 2025 at 6:38 AM
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December 13, 2025 at 3:58 PM
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Heartbreaking. The University of Nebraska will terminate its entire Earth science department.

One of the country's most successful and respected geology & climate programs: gone.

When ideologues & politicians are threatened by the very act of studying climate change, I wonder: who of us is next?
It's over.

Despite the fact that the academic council recommended against it, despite the fact that the program brought in more tuition than it cost, and despite the fact that Nebraskans need & deserve this expertise, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences will be cut.

www.dailynebraskan.com/news/adminis...
BREAKING: ‘This hurts’: UNL eliminates 4 programs despite faculty, student pleas
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln eliminates the Earth and atmospheric sciences 8-0, educational administration 7-1, statistics 7-1, textiles, merchandising and fashion design 7-1 programs.
www.dailynebraskan.com
December 6, 2025 at 8:40 PM
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A new investigation revealed that school districts and local governments are reportedly overpaying for supplies because of Amazon contracts that bind them to dynamic pricing.

Rather than allow for competitive bidding, the deals “covertly raise prices and inflate costs for governments.”
December 12, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Reposted by R.
The reason folks are focusing on DHS's refusal to honor Real IDs is that it means that the Trump regime is asserting the right to detain anyone in America, resident or visitor, without probable cause. It's an erasure of habeas corpus for all Americans.
bsky.app/profile/jare...
Add to this that HSI just filed a declaration in our case challenging these policies saying they can’t trust REAL IDs as proof of status.

So showing your papers isn’t even enough to end the stop.
December 13, 2025 at 2:53 PM
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Thinking of that time when my dad, himself a doctor, was thrown by a horse on a trail ride. Punctured his spleen, internal bleeding, got him to an ER just in time. He lived another 20 years. With two hours delay, probably wouldn't have.

We rushed to *nearest* ER. Not comparison-shop for ER prices.
Roger Marshall: "We want patients to become consumers again. We want patients to see what the actual prices are. We believe that if we would add the price tags to this bill, that it would save the country a trillion dollars a year."
December 11, 2025 at 4:34 AM
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Their closing message to Indiana: change your maps to artificially benefit the President's political party or 'roads will not be paved' as punishment.

They are openly saying this.

Who would want to live in a country that works like that?
December 11, 2025 at 9:30 PM
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Well now, would you look at that? A massive, 4-YEAR-LONG study of NEARLY 30 MILLION people in France found that individuals who received a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine had a 74% LOWER risk of death from severe COVID-19 compared to unvaccinated individuals and ZERO increased risk of all-cause mortality.
December 11, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by R.
"Trump is an outright racist and he appeals to 10s of millions of US citizens who are also outright racists" is both fundamentally, obviously true ... and something that mainstream journalism has decided is impermissible to say.
December 10, 2025 at 6:11 PM
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One way to think of the Trump Admin is as having SHIFTED the $$ we used to spend on curing cancer (and providing care to Veterans and protecting nature and etc) to snatching brown people off the streets.
December 9, 2025 at 10:10 AM
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I can’t believe a technical solution to a complex social problem didn’t work. Ah well, nevertheless
One Laptop Per Child, 10 years later: "we find no significant effects on academic performance but some evidence of negative effects on grade progression... computer access significantly improved students’ computer skills but not their cognitive skills" www.nber.org/papers/w34495
Laptops in the Long Run: Evidence from the One Laptop per Child Program in Rural Peru
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...
www.nber.org
December 7, 2025 at 9:26 PM
Reposted by R.
I am wondering when and if a Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson will pop up amid all this murdering off Venezuela.

If Thompson is unfamiliar to you, look up My Lai.
December 8, 2025 at 5:45 AM
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when you're a size 8 but the 10 was on sale
December 7, 2025 at 7:39 PM
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I really hope his governing works. He’s just so good, but can good succeed these days? I hope, I hope, I hope.
Mamdani: Oftentimes when we win elections, we tell people to go home and just trust us. But the message really has to be that we want you to come along with us… That’s something we’ve been looking to share with New Yorkers: We want to not only win with New Yorkers, but also govern with New Yorkers.
December 7, 2025 at 12:28 AM
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This reaction from a guide at @auschwitzmemorial.bsky.social offers a profound and urgent insight.

From iandunt.substack.com/p/thank-god-... HT @mgcroadster.bsky.social
December 5, 2025 at 3:55 PM
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The hepatitis B vaccination is an essential safety net for newborns.

Without vaccination, as many as 9 in 10 infants infected with hepatitis B in their first year of life will develop chronic infection that can lead to liver failure and death.

publichealth.jhu.edu/2025/why-hep...
October 15, 2025 at 2:42 PM
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I’m sure I’m not the only one thinking about Hitler’s Olympics in 1936.
December 6, 2025 at 10:20 AM
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BERMAN: Did you see any evidence of them trying to use a radio in the video you saw?

TOM COTTON: Well I saw lots of evidence of them standing on the boat that had been capsized

BERMAN: That wasn't my question. Did you see any evidence?

COTTON: No, I didn't
December 5, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Reposted by R.
The hepatitis B vaccine had been recommended for all newborns since 1991.

From 1990-2019, acute hepatitis B infections reported among children and teens fell 99 percent. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/16/w...
Breaking: After contentious debates and three failed attempts at a vote, a federal vaccine committee decided on Friday to end the decades-long recommendation that all newborns be immunized at birth against hepatitis B.

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/h...
An End to Hepatitis B Shots for All Newborns
www.nytimes.com
December 5, 2025 at 3:47 PM
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Who are all these grinning white people laughing at Trump's vile racism? h/t to @helenkennedy.bsky.social for pulling together a list. Shame on each & every one of them.
December 4, 2025 at 2:26 PM
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Agree with this thread. Worth reading in full.

25 years ago John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and AC Barrett all worked on GWBush's 2000 Florida recount team. What they're doing now is, if anything, more nakedly partisan.

Fire-breathing dissent by Kagan, with Sotomayor and Jackson.
They're not even trying to appear nonpartisan anymore.
#BREAKING: Over dissents from the three democratic appointees, #SCOTUS puts Texas's new House maps back into effect for (and, presumably, through) the 2026 midterms.

The three Democratic appointees, in an opinion by Justice Kagan, dissent.

I'll post the ruling shortly.
December 4, 2025 at 11:57 PM
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Agree: change is that the "institutionalists" have stopped pretending

-Thomas/Alito: They're the equivalent of "Trump +35" safe House district

-Gorsuch (in Garland seat) equiv of "Trump +22"

-But Kav, ACB, and mainly pious 'just call balls and strikes' Roberts wanted to be seen as open to facts
What's changed is that the Court has become more transparent in its corruption. There's not even an argument here beyond the implicit one which is: how do you expect us to hold the House without those seats?
#BREAKING: Over dissents from the three democratic appointees, #SCOTUS puts Texas's new House maps back into effect for (and, presumably, through) the 2026 midterms.

The three Democratic appointees, in an opinion by Justice Kagan, dissent.

I'll post the ruling shortly.
December 5, 2025 at 12:41 AM
Reposted by R.
If we manage to survive the next 3 years and elect brilliant leaders, they will be blamed for many of the catastrophes the fuses for which were set by Trump and his crew of nihilists.
December 4, 2025 at 9:14 PM
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Yes, this is worth listening to.

In my very long memory of public affairs, have never heard a public statement by a "president" (a) more alarming in mental health terms, and also (b) more overtly racist and hate-filled.

Watch carefully the sycophants around Trump as he rants. They *all* know...
I hope people take two minutes to listen to this shocking display of bigotry. It brings clarity to what we are fighting against. We should all be sick to hear such un-American drivel from the President of the United States.
Trump: "It’s a hellhole right now. And those Somalians should be out of here. They've destroyed our country. And all they do is complain, complain, complain. You have her. She’s always talking about the Constitution provides me with – go back to your own country and figure out your constitution."
December 4, 2025 at 12:31 AM
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It’s time for folks at DoD and in the IC to start lawyering up.

If you’re an officer or official who was forced into pushing through potentially illegal orders, get a lawyer.

If you’re a soldier, seaman or airman who was forced to execute them, get a lawyer.
December 4, 2025 at 12:32 AM