boo-atrix 👻
@beatrix.bsky.social
2.1K followers 1.1K following 2.8K posts
she/her. trans and proud of it. software engineer. functional programmer. #jj-vcs, #elixir, #rustlang pragmatist big on civic tech and social democracy has takes about too many subjects product of Somerville and Lexington, MA
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don't let your sadness become despair and don't let your righteous anger become interpersonal nastiness, I've been seeing both a lot lately and we're going to need to avoid these if we want to have any hope of building a future for America rooted in love and justice instead of cruelty and cynicism.
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It's over: I've already depicted you as the seething broad gauge train, and myself as the smug narrow gauge!
A sketch of two steam trains, human faces on the front. The title above them says 'The Broad Gauge and the Narrow Gauge'. The narrow gauge train is looking unbearably smug, then broad gauge absolutely raging. In the smoke, they are communicating, the broad gauge saying "You are a locomotive" and the narrow saying "You are another".
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Last I checked we also don’t really know what SSRIs are doing, just that they seem to help a variety of mentally ill people
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I saw someone say that the fact that no one really knows how IUDs work, just that they do, is a sign that we need more investment in women’s health, and I gotta tell you, I think people are *greatly* overestimating the amount of medical innovations whose efficacy has been fully explained
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I mean this sort of seriously. Nobody remembers anything. The past 40 years have only been historicized in the most meager sense of the word. Everything feels like a rupture, feels unprecedented, feels disorienting precisely because there is no past.
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Again, it is a full-blown federal felony crime for anyone in the White House or Executive Office of the President to order tax investigations into anyone.

And it's not just a crime to DO it, it's even a federal crime for an employee not to REPORT such an order to the Treasury Inspector General.
26 U.S. Code § 7217 - Prohibition on executive branch influence over taxpayer audits and other investigations
U.S. Code
Notes
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(a)Prohibition
It shall be unlawful for any applicable person to request, directly or indirectly, any officer or employee of the Internal Revenue Service to conduct or terminate an audit or other investigation of any particular taxpayer with respect to the tax liability of such taxpayer.

(b)Reporting requirement
Any officer or employee of the Internal Revenue Service receiving any request prohibited by subsection (a) shall report the receipt of such request to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

(c)Exceptions
Subsection (a) shall not apply to any written request made—
(1)to an applicable person by or on behalf of the taxpayer and forwarded by such applicable person to the Internal Revenue Service;
(2)by an applicable person for disclosure of return or return information under section 6103 if such request is made in accordance with the requirements of such section; or
(3)by the Secretary of the Treasury as a consequence of the implementation of a change in tax policy.
(d)Penalty
Any person who willfully violates subsection (a) or fails to report under subsection (b) shall be punished upon conviction by a fine in any amount not exceeding $5,000, or imprisonment of not more than 5 years, or both, together with the costs of prosecution.

(e)Applicable person
For purposes of this section, the term “applicable person” means—
(1)the President, the Vice President, any employee of the executive office of the President, and any employee of the executive office of the Vice President; and
(2)any individual (other than the Attorney General of the United States) serving in a position specified in section 5312 of title 5, United States Code.
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Welcome new people. I was asked at dinner last night whether Bluesky was an echo chamber. I said it doesn’t matter, because what I want from social media isn’t to talk to young republicans taking a break from their group chat, but to read things I want to read but that I might have missed.
The thing I want most from social media is for people to share things that I might want to read or watch that otherwise I wouldn’t read or watch, whether news, commentary, books, movies, tv, games to play, whatever. Bluesky does this. /4
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I liked how Brazilian Army forces fighting in Italy in WW2 had a shoulder patch of a snake smoking a pipe.
Second World War Brazilian Expeditionary Forces patch of a green snake on a yellow background smoking a pipe. The word 'Brasil' is at the top in white letters on a royal blue field. The entire insignia is bordered in red.
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every once and a while talia jane [hi, ik you namesearch from an alt] starts some discourse again and I feel the need to remind everyone she wrote an article [trying to] explaining away her mom trying to cover up a spree killing. www.cracked.com/personal-exp...
"My mom was so desperate for friendship with these people that she agreed to be in a pornographic film, took Ecstasy, took her 10-year-old daughter with her to create an alibi for their unspecified (at the time) crimes, and even agreed to help them hide the murder weapon."
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Second best time is right now! Welcome folks!
On the record, I think sneering at these people that they’re somehow *bad* because they stayed on Twitter for this long is incredibly counterproductive

it’s great that more people have escaped the Mussolini Piss Hole and come to Bluesky actually, their numbers shall strengthen us
judging from what I’m seeing right now, a large-scale Twitter Exodus Event is 100% what’s happening

good!
Don’t think we’ve got anyone more appealing in the party right now; only people who are more moderate.
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The end of Section 2 of the VRA means that House elections need to be totally restructured. There’s no other choice. We’re not going back to no Black representation in the US House. Beyond unacceptable.
also Ukraine, though for some reason this isn't a popular example either
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I think liberal protests are ultimately playing a long game of popular dissent that will really only pay off in either electoral mobilization or the regime being provoked into indefensible violence. we can't judge them a success yet but we sure as hell can't brand them a failure
For what it’s worth, it feels like both liberal and leftist protests have a little cargo cult mentality to them. Everyone understands marching the streets, but liberals seem to forget that it’s more than that, and leftists seem to think if you’re not smashing stuff it’s not a real protest
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At a local No Kings rally near Innsmouth, Massachusetts, *every* protester showed up in an inflatable frog costume.

They must be from a different supplier than the Portland frog's costume, though. Bystanders describe the costumes as more like fish-frogs, "batrachian," with an odd, loping gait.
probably true but I'm not sure Baker's government was any better than Patrick's or Healey's in this regard.
I think it depends on whether the VT GOP can wheel out another Phil Scott as needed, which is looking pretty doubtful at the moment, especially if Sam Douglass doesn't heed Scott's call to resign.
is he That Bad? idk, i think it depends on what you consider as bad. i think it would be unfortunate if he won, because he's clearly worse than Markey. but i'm probably not going to be losing much sleep about it under this president.
he's clearly rather self-obsessed.
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Proving that Joe Kennedy winning in '20 probably would've been a net positive because he would've been a lateral move from Markey, while Moulton would absolutely be a downgrade
Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., is running for Senate. “We’re in a crisis. And with everything we learned last election, I just don’t believe Senator Markey should be running for another six-year term at 80 years old,” he says in his announcement video. Moulton is 46; Markey is 79.
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there are other affinity factors as well
If living in MA has taught me anything, it's that tall white men with a local accent get extra points there. Moulton is missing the accent, so maybe Markey's got the edge there.
...why did they ingest that exactly
Some Republicans like to claim Romney as a martyr but he was also dogged throughout his 2012 campaign by accusations of being a RINO, essentially.