f i r e k e e p e r

Some rando then replied "girl it's not that bad, pick yourself up because it gets better."

Last week, the Trump administration quietly released a sweeping new federal rule that would use funding threats to force institutions across the country to reject transgender people. The 400-page proposed regulation would codify the administration's anti-trans executive orders into binding federal policy, imposing a blanket prohibition on federal funds going toward "gender ideology"

The proposed rule, formally titled "Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance," rewrites the government-wide framework governing all federal grants across every agency. Among its most consequential provisions, it requires that before a federal grant recipient can receive money, the award must pass a "pre-issuance review" conducted by a political appointee—not a career expert or peer reviewer—to ensure it is "consistent with applicable law, Federal agency priorities, and the national interest." The regulation explicitly instructs these appointees to screen for "denial by the recipient of the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic." [...] An institution that acknowledges transgender people exist—through its policies, its training, its healthcare, its bathroom access, its HR procedures, its name-change processes—could be deemed to "deny the sex binary" or to “support the notion that sex is mutable” and have its federal funding blocked.

This torches everything. And I do mean everything.

A very abbreviated list of its ramifications include (but are not limited to):

ending funding for ALL DEI related initiatives

allowing the government to terminate grants at any point for any reason

preventing researchers from publishing, going to conferences, and being part of academic societies

requiring that topics must support the president’s agenda.

What this means, and if anything I’m under selling it, is the death of science and research in America. It allows the government to restrict any topic they please at a whims notice, putting officials who have no background in the topic in charge of deciding funding continuity. It controls what gets researched and if/how researchers are allowed to share their discoveries. There are no books to burn if the government never allows them to be written. This is fascism plain and simple.

Public comments are not a vote, it is a chance for you to say "here is an issue with this law I think you need to address" and provide justification for legal challenges if it goes forward:

"Comments raise the bar that agencies have to meet when making a rule; “if an agency fails to adequately respond to significant, relevant comments in a final rule, members of the public may seek to challenge the rule in court on that basis and claim it could be struck down.ˮ"

This year’s is different. They are now federal REQUIREMENTS, which means there’s no flexibility. As was said previously, the 400 pages are not singularly devoted to being absolute shitheads to trans people. Theres a lot of stuff in there, some of which is the standard dry boring grants stuff, some of which is the horrible ideological warfare outlined above.

This document is issued by the OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, which is currently lead by fucking Russell Vought, the principal architect of Project 2025. This is how they’re going to implement all the horrible shit in there that wasn’t covered by Executive Order. Russell Vought is actively coming for my job, my marriage, and my kid, and most of my friends lost their jobs last year because of him. He is the fucking arch villain behind the heinous shit the current regime is doing.

You see this?

That's not a river. That's the South Canal in Mesa, Arizona (Phoenix metro area).

This is a view of the East and South canals. At least half of all the Phoenix metro canals were originally built by the Hohokam (from roughly 200-1400 CE), and are still in use (restored) today.

Phoenix, Arizona actually has more miles (kilometers) of Canals total than both Venice and Amsterdam. No, really. Phoenix has about 180 miles of canals, many of which are built on ancient canal foundations.

below is an aerial view photo taken in the late 1930's of one branch of Phoenix's canal systems:

Also have the "Montezuma Castle," if you need a castle:

we have always been here 💘💘💘

Mark Aeling of MGA Sculpture Studio

Chromorifice 2019

Made from over 10,000 Colored Pencils cast with Resin, Fiberglass, and Aluminum

Hasur and The King In Red this time and again more info under the cut

>recognize it as part of my divine punishment

>fight the gods to undo my divine punishment

lifelong fascination with biology ✅

"Germs are teeny tiny creatures, too small to see, that attack your body and make you sick" is just that not a complicated concept - even for a toddler.

Case and point: I regularly take a mesh bag with me to the beach bc every time I'm near The Big Wet my smooth little monkey brain is overcome with the Need to find even smoother rocks and pretty shells. To curb the urge and leave nature as it is, instead I collect trash and debris I find.

I was on the beach this last week and ran into a toddler of around maybe 3 who came up and asked me what I was doing. A little sunburnt while feeling it was obvious, I held up my mesh bag, and told him I was cleaning up the beach.

"Why?" Asked the little munchkin, his little toddler tummy pooched out and covered in SPF 50.

Realizing my error, I replied, "Well, some of these plastics are brightly colored, but that doesn't mean we should eat them. Actually, if anyone ate them—like you, me, or the sea turtles—we could get reeeally sick. But the turtles can't tell they're not supposed to eat them, so that's why I'm cleaning it up."

[DUMPLINGS: STIMBOARD]

CREDIT: