Heather Chacon

@macfarlanenews.bsky.social NEW: Rep Joe Morelle (D-NY) “I will introduce a constitutional amendment to reverse SCOTUS’ harmful decision and ensure that no president is above the law. This amendment will do what SCOTUS failed to do—prioritize our democracy”

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Heather Chacon

My parents and grandparents lived through HUAC and being blacklisted. My husband and his brother are Quaker, so would have gone to jail instead of Vietnam. We are in the midst of something -- as we always are -- so we do what we do: be active, choose wisely, and help others. Take the long view.

Things are bad but all the more reason for optimism of the will and rejection of doomerism and nihilism. Only way out is through.

In many ways this seems like a likely culmination of the “everything should be run like a business” model. There is now a majority shareholder of the US, with voting shares.

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Heather Chacon

Reply to

Faine Greenwood

Hope is a fucking discipline, motherfuckers.

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Heather Chacon

I really have lost my former tolerance for "we're doomed/fucked/it's all over/they've won" takes at this point, in that they're the most dangerous attitudes one could possibly have when confronted with a truly existential political threat (which we still DO have levers to address).

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Heather Chacon

There is no constitutional text that says presidents are immune from all criminal law. Nor was it the intent of the authors of the Constitution or any amendments. It is inconsistent with American precedent and tradition. They just made it up.

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Heather Chacon

The cool thing about Myotis is that I can yell “Otis” in the Otis voice and no matter where she is in the house, she will yell back immediately report for duty. She's so good 🥹

Thinking of walking into the Appalachian woods and not returning for approximately 77 years.

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Heather Chacon

Originalists just violated the principles & concerns of the Constitution's framers. The framers broke away from a king deemed a tyrant. They profoundly distrusted centralized power. They even considered an executive panel -- rather than a single president -- to not give that much power to 1 man.

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Heather Chacon

I think a thing that's poorly understood about American history is that a lot of the progress made through the New Deal was driven by the political elite's fear of the Russian Revolution happening here and not by them having a sudden turn of heart after being visited by multiple ghosts or something.

Not making any threats here, just thinking out loud as a historian — do they people brazenly pushing for impunity for the wealthy elites not know what traditionally comes next?

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Heather Chacon

Good point from Sotomayor here. By barring prosecutors from probing a president's intent, Roberts renders the entire "official vs. unofficial" distinction meaningless.

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Heather Chacon

This is what I think about when I see yet another thing with AI added to it. It's radium chocolate.

reminder that there was a time when they were literally selling radium soft drinks in the USA that were so toxic that the biggest fan of the brand had to be buried in a lead coffin because of how much radiation poisoning he got from them and this death led to the FDA regulations that exist now

I would like that man in the blue tie to get competent mad.

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Heather Chacon

YAYYYY gothamist.com/news/nyc-lib...

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Heather Chacon

Fucking death cult shit

Breaking news: The Supreme Court dealt a blow to the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulation of air quality on Thursday, putting on hold a major initiative to improve public health by reducing smog-forming pollution from power plants and factories that blows across state lines.

Supreme Court blocks EPA’s ‘downwind’ air-quality initiativewww.washingtonpost.com States, trade associations and companies sought to pause the EPA’s “good neighbor” plan to fight downwind pollution, which is being challenged in a lower court.

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Heather Chacon

This is not what they ruled; they ruled than an injunction can stay in place while the case proceed through the lower courts. This headlines makes it sound like the Court vindicated the right to an emergency abortion; they did not.

Breaking news: Hospitals in Idaho that receive federal funds must allow emergency abortion care to stabilize patients even though the state strictly bans the procedure, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday, one day after the opinion was prematurely posted on its website.

Supreme Court officially allows emergency abortions in Idaho -- for nowwww.washingtonpost.com The ruling, which was prematurely posted by the high court, allows emergency abortions in Idaho to stabilize patients -- for now, while litigation continues.

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Heather Chacon

Reply to

The Notorious R.B.F.

It's not that we've learned nothing. It's that I'm worried the way we dealt with COVID has resulted in a degradation of the cultural and systemic responses to outbreaks, entrenching changes that actively harm compared with previous negligence/overconfidence/ignorance-driven harms.

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Heather Chacon

They will come for everything.

Conservative US lawmakers are pushing for an end to no-fault divorcewww.theguardian.com Republicans in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Texas have discussed eliminating or restricting such cases

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Heather Chacon

baby let’s turn this slaughterhouse into a slaughterhome

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Heather Chacon

A lot of things that Biden wants to do are things I think are good things we should do. A lot of things Trump wants to do are things I think are bad things we shouldn't do. Therefore I will be supporting Biden even though I don't agree with him on everything. This is not complicated.

Excited to introduce a project I've been working on for a long time: a thorough comparison of Biden and Trump on the issues. "The stakes, not the odds," to borrow from Jay Rosen. The initial version has 6 topics, but I'll be adding more, as well as updating with new statements/policies. Gift link:

Where Joe Biden and Donald Trump Stand on the Issueswww.nytimes.com Here’s what President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump have done and want to do on abortion, democracy, the economy, immigration, Israel and Gaza, and Social Security and Medicare.

My cat is experiencing existential despair

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Heather Chacon

The part of college that needs to be re thought is not “can we create essay writing tools?”, it’s, how do we help people complete college when they don’t have four years of time, money, and support to complete a degree?

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Heather Chacon

Mainstream coverage of academia this year was all about "wokeness," AI, and accusations of anti-semitism re: Palestine protests, but this is the real story underlying all else. Most people outside of academia have no idea the extent to which higher ed is contracting and crumbling.

Today my new, older next door neighbor asked if I smelled skunk last night and I said “yes, or something like it.” She replied “Oh our dog got sprayed, which is much less exciting than if it was pot.” So I think we will get along.