Aastha पास्ता 🇵🇸
@aasthauprety.bsky.social
280 followers 340 following 120 posts
✍🏽 writer, editor, social policy person 🌹 let your naysayers be your wayfarers on the journey to success 🛸 editorial @rooseveltinstitute.org @rooseveltforward.org and member @nyguild.bsky.social‬ aasthauprety.substack.com 👩🏽‍💻 commie corridor, queens
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Reposted by Aastha पास्ता 🇵🇸
shahrzadshams.bsky.social
A new SCOTUS term begins today. What fresh hell awaits our flailing democracy this time around?🧵
aasthauprety.bsky.social
one writer’s take on “all-of-the-above” energy policy
You look to the sky and see a hummingbird’s metabolism powering a wind that holds it in divine stillness. It drinks nectar from a flower shaded by a sequoia that has towered since before the Iron Age. The tree clones itself into a forest through the simple combination of sunlight and water, along a mountain range forged by centuries of tectonic heat below your feet.

You see the vast amounts of force from the sun, water, wind, and heat from the core of the planet. You want to build society with the sources of energy that have powered life for eons, they want to kick rocks around in the graves they rob.
aasthauprety.bsky.social
thee writers, one question, no restraints.

☀️♻️🛢️⛽️

you don’t wanna miss this:
Reposted by Aastha पास्ता 🇵🇸
stelhami.bsky.social
The ruin of Gaza: how Israel’s two-year assault has devastated the territory
www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...
Reposted by Aastha पास्ता 🇵🇸
shahrzadshams.bsky.social
Important piece by @lookheron.bsky.social tracing how the steady neoliberalization of higher education has sowed fertile ground for its takeover by authoritarians
Reposted by Aastha पास्ता 🇵🇸
eryk.bsky.social
Any organization considering the risks of AI should make room for those who believe the greatest risk is believing in it. In my latest for @techpolicypress.bsky.social, I propose that AI skeptics play a crucial role in discussing “AI safety.” www.techpolicy.press/the-ai-safet...
The AI Safety Debate Needs AI Skeptics | TechPolicy.Press
The language used by AI risk communities to describe the technology may contribute to the very problems it aims to curb, Eryk Salvaggio writes.
www.techpolicy.press
aasthauprety.bsky.social
The vibes on The Life of a Showgirl would be like 70% better if you delete Actually Romantic (so painfully tone-deaf that it's bewildering) and like another 10% better without CANCELLED! (belongs in 2017)
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Reposted by Aastha पास्ता 🇵🇸
alexjungle.bsky.social
Breaking news: ICE stops family at gunpoint—smash car window on top of newborn baby.

"I was screaming that there was a baby. But they didn’t care," cried mother.

“I covered my baby with my body—I was so scared he was going to be hurt because glass was landing on him."
Reposted by Aastha पास्ता 🇵🇸
Reposted by Aastha पास्ता 🇵🇸
socio-steve.bsky.social
My immensely talented colleague @aasthauprety.bsky.social made this for me. You are going to be seeing a lot of it. Share it around. Spread the good word about what FDR did.
a, "X mentioned!" meme about Franklin D. Roosevelt. As with all such memes there is an anime girl i the center holding a drink. This one places here with NYC as a backdrop. She holds a social security check. There is an image of Eleanor Roosevelt holding "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights." There are other signs and buttons refering FRD, Hyde Park, the New Deal and more.
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truthout.org
Overnight on Wednesday, Israeli soldiers raided more than a dozen boats carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, blocked the ships’ communications, and abducted over 400 volunteers from 47 countries. During the raid, Israeli forces attacked volunteers with water cannons and doused them with “skunk water.”
Israel Raids Global Sumud Flotilla, Abducts Over 400 Volunteers, Group Says
“This is an unlawful abduction, in direct violation of international law and basic human rights,” the flotilla said.
buff.ly
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jakemgrumbach.bsky.social
New @rfunkfordham.bsky.social report on the 15th anniversary of Citizens United. The evidence is now clear, in part through Rachel's research, that CitUtd has:

-increased the influence of billionaires
-reduced state democratic performance
-made state governments more rightwing
-increased corruption
rooseveltinstitute.org
NEW📝: A flood of billionaire money in elections started after the SCOTUS #CitizensUnited decision.

Since 2010, billionaire 💰💰 in elections has grown 160x, giving the wealthy huge power over policy while regular voters lose influence. 🧵1/3
Graph showing billionaire spending in Presidential elections before and after Citizen's United.
Reposted by Aastha पास्ता 🇵🇸
itsmccarthy.bsky.social
Excellent reporting from at @inthesetimes.com that draws from some of my work. The labor movement still hasn’t got its head around the way the institutions of capitalism have changed between the 1930s and today. If the workplace needed democracy then, today pooled assets do as well.
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rooseveltinstitute.org
The result of this ruling was outsized influence on legislators in passing policies that favor wealth. Reviving campaign-finance reform isn’t optional—it’s a prerequisite for a government that answers to people, not billionaires. 3/3

Read our new report ➡️ rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...
Quote Graphic from report “Citizens United and the Decline of US Democracy: Assessing the Decision’s Impact 15 Years Later“ by Rachel Funk Fordham, with quote "The Citizens United ruling enabled concentrated economic power to bend politics to its will, amplifying the preferences of a small, ultra-wealthy minority at the expense of the vast majority of the American people. The decision was part of a coordinated effort to shift the balance of power in the US toward the wealthy."
aasthauprety.bsky.social
"Making AI skepticism an anchor for a new, better-organized party would not only get out ahead of identifying a new and unpopular public enemy, it could give Democrats a chance to rediscover the 'political' side of the American political economy." prospect.org/power/2025-0...
Democrats Must Oppose the AI Industry
As currently constructed, AI is an oligarchy-enriching, worker-immiserating, energy-depleting, brain-rotting economic bubble in waiting. Democrats can get on the public’s side here.
prospect.org
aasthauprety.bsky.social
Cannot express enough how excited I am for this. You should register!! us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
Beyond "America First": Toward a Global Working-Class Economics. A Fireside Chat on Wednesday, October 8 at 12:00 pm ET
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rooseveltinstitute.org
Even before the admin went after higher ed, public colleges faced 50 years of decline—hollowed out by privatization, financialization, and disinvestment.

@lookheron.bsky.social’s new report traces that history & shows how we can build a more equitable education system today:
https://bit.ly/3WlV9vv
Quote graphic for a new publication
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dawnmenaorg.bsky.social
DAWN demands answers from @americanprogress.bsky.social about why they appointed former Secretary of State Antony Blinken to their Board despite his documented role in aiding and abetting Israeli crimes in Gaza: dawnmena.org/dawn-calls-o...
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mpaarlberg.bsky.social
A government or a party that has no measure of accountability for failure is not a functional one. In a functional administration, all of these people would be blacklisted for the rest of their careers at the very least, not angling for new jobs.
Some Biden Aides are Shifting Their Tune on Israel
Some are changing positions because of Trump’s approach to Israel, and a few are wrestling with whether they could have done more when in charge.
www.politico.com