Joe Rojas-Burke
rojasburke.bsky.social
Joe Rojas-Burke
@rojasburke.bsky.social
48 followers 70 following 40 posts
I'm a #ScienceWriter based in Arizona (most of the time) and in Brooklyn. Sharing stuff about science, journalism, politics, beloved plants and animals, #RockClimbing, #Bicycling, #Gardening...
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Reposted by Joe Rojas-Burke
To recap:
•$100M on golf
•$172M for jets for ICE Barbie
•$230M in DOJ payments to Trump
•$250M for a vanity ballroom
•$40B to Argentina while our farmers suffer
•$117B in annual tax cuts to the super wealthy 1%
•$170B ICE budget to round up Americans like Gestapo

Meanwhile—no money for food stamps
Reposted by Joe Rojas-Burke
Both the U.S. marshal and the immigrant were shot by federal officers. You’d never know that from this headline.
Reposted by Joe Rojas-Burke
NEW: The State of Arizona sues the House of Representatives, demanding that Speaker Mike Johnson seat Adelita Grijalva or that someone else be allowed to swear her in. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Reposted by Joe Rojas-Burke
Enough is enough. Adelita Grijalva was elected on September 23. The people of Arizona have a right to be represented in Congress.
 
During today’s pro forma session, when the House is called to order I will seek unanimous consent to insist upon the swearing-in of Adelita Grijalva.
Reposted by Joe Rojas-Burke
This is funny. Don't know if it's still the case but all chemists of a certain age remember the importance attributed to the magnetic stirrer. Now it seems there's a debate about whether it made any difference.
Earlier this year, a paper came out that suggested for many organic reactions stirring has little effect on reactions rates. Now, a group has released a preprint arguing that stirring remains critical for reproducibility, selectivity and scalability.
All stirred up: chemical engineers refute claims that ‘stirring doesn’t matter’
Failing to mix reactions in heterogeneous or industrial systems could cause numerous issues and might even be dangerous, preprint claims
www.chemistryworld.com
Reposted by Joe Rojas-Burke
The SCOTUS case that overturned the anti-sodomy laws in the US and paved the way for Prop 8, Lawrence V. Texas, was fought and won by LGBTQ attorneys and activists from Houston.

The whole case came together at Pacific Street, a gay bar, in the Montrose neighborhood where this crosswalk was. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️❤️
A pile of broken, colorful concrete pieces was all that remained of Texas’ first gay pride crosswalk as the sun rose on Monday, along with a few messages from protestors: “we are lucky to witness queer love,” and “don’t erase us.”

thebarbedwire.com/2025/10/20/h...
Houston Erased Texas’ First-Ever Gay Pride Crosswalk in the Middle of the Night
Houston tore up the Montrose rainbow crosswalk last night, arresting three protestors who gathered at the intersection.
thebarbedwire.com
Reposted by Joe Rojas-Burke
Lecturing active soldiers about being too fat while dropping standards so low for the ICE deportation force that a third of their recruits can't handle the easiest PT test I've ever heard of www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...
Reposted by Joe Rojas-Burke
“.. They are the asylum seekers, the rule followers. They go into the federal building holding papers .. hoping for a measure of due process. Some leave the courthouse with a hearing date set months or years from now. Others disappear into ICE’s prison system.”

@nymag.com
nymag.com/intelligence...
Reposted by Joe Rojas-Burke
So dangerous that they must be blown into small pieces rather than arrested … unless they are actually captured in which case they may go home with a warning. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/18/u...
Reposted by Joe Rojas-Burke
Style.
Giant copy of the Constitution being carried down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Reposted by Joe Rojas-Burke
this rocks. when indiana edu killed the student newspaper, Purdue stepped up, printed the forbidden issue, drove it to Bloomington and stocked the boxes.
Reposted by Joe Rojas-Burke
/7 the best sign. I saw so far said "you sucked in Home Alone 2"
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No kings Americans!!!
Apalachicola protest. This town might have 2500 folks. Ten percent are out here!!
#nokings #blueskyartshow #photography #protest
Reposted by Joe Rojas-Burke
Reposted by Joe Rojas-Burke
Just an incredible opening to this NYT interview with Zohran Mamdani:

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/p...
Reposted by Joe Rojas-Burke
Swearing in isn’t some ceremony. You aren’t a member of Congress until it happens. He knows that.

No phones, no staff, nothing.

I had to escort her into the Capitol on Wed bc Capitol police must treat her as a public visitor until she’s sworn in. And solo visitors aren’t allowed during shutdown!
Johnson: "Grijalva should be working for her constituents right now. I don't know what she's doing. I keep seeing their political stunt videos. She should be in her office. She should be working or in the district for her constituents" (Grijalva is not in fact a Rep. b/c Johnson refuses to seat her)
And discovered by an amateur satellite tracker:

"Tilley regularly monitors satellites from his home in British Columbia as a hobby. He was working on another project when he accidentally triggered a scan of radio frequencies that are normally quiet"

www.npr.org/2025/10/17/n...
A classified network of SpaceX satellites is emitting a mysterious signal
An amateur satellite tracker stumbled across the signal, which is coming from Starshield satellites in a "hidden" part of the radio spectrum.
www.npr.org
Reposted by Joe Rojas-Burke
Wow. Sidney Reid, the DC woman just found not guilty of assaulting an FBI agent, issues a withering and gutsy statement on Trump through her attorneys.

"I feel sorry for the prosecutors really, who must be burdened by Trump's irrational and unfounded hatred for his fellow man."

It's a must-read: