I'm just here.

There are 53 Republican senators, 45 Democratic ones, and 2 Independents that vote with the Democrats. VP Vance is a tiebreaker vote.

So to block the bill, at least four Republican senators need to find their spines and the Democrats and Independents all need to keep their spines. This will not happen without direct action from voters.

They are only going to resist this bill if they hear from voters in their states. They do not care if some person from California calls them.

It's really fucking bad for everyone except the ultra-wealthy, surprise surprise.

I'm going to go through some of the features of this budget in reblogs, but trust and believe that it's horrible for the vast, vast majority of Americans, including you.

Highlights include:

Extends the Trump tax cuts passed in 2017. This continues $3.7 billion in tax cuts for the wealthy. If this budget does not pass, these tax cuts will expire and go back up without any action.

$150 billion in additional military spending

Work requirements for Medicaid. "childless adults without disabilities would be required to work 80 hours per month to qualify for benefits.". They expect millions of people to fail to meet work requirements and lose Medicaid.

Planned Parenthood and trans care. "Bans Medicaid from providing funding to Planned Parenthood as long as the organization continued to provide abortions, and would bar Medicaid from covering gender affirming health care to any beneficiaries. "

Reduces SNAP food stamp access that 40 million people use. "mandates work requirements for able-bodied SNAP enrollees who don't have dependents.".

Clean energy "dramatically scaling back many of the tax credits for clean energy."

Border walls and ICE. "$46.5 billion toward completing Trump's border wall. It also allots $5 billion for Customs and Border Protection facilities and more than $6 billion to hire and retain more agents and officers"

Student loans. "cut $330 billion from the student loan system by scrapping several existing repayment options, including the Biden-era SAVE program that based payments on income and household size.". Does anyone want to have student loan payments that you cannot afford?

Guts Obamacare. "Saves $100 billion, but will result in millions of Americans becoming uninsured if they fail to adhere to new paperwork requirements or can no longer afford insurance premiums."

Weakens federal courts that keep using orders that his actions are illegal and unconstitutional. It prohibits courts from enforcing contempt citations for violations of injunctions or temporary restraining orders unless the plaintiff pays a bond. Bonds can be EXTRAORDINARILY EXPENSIVE and are not currently required in these cases. The provision "would make most existing injunctions—in antitrust cases, police reform cases, school desegregation cases, and others—unenforceable," says the god of constitutional law, Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

So, you folks in red states and you folks in wobbly blue states (PA, NC, etc), you need to call your senators and save us all.

Call every day. Call after hours so you can leave a voicemail and not talk to anyone.

For real y'all, millions of people are going to starve, go broke, and be without medical care if this bill passes. Which is a feature, not a bug, of the Trump administration.

They're cutting health care and food access and student loan relief and green energy.

the same birthday as him, i

will carry the flag

in fact, the restaurant used the vegan identity and environmentalism as fuel for their marketing in quite cynical ways. at the same time they had a deal with Whole Foods (implicated in prison labor allegations btw) to source ingredients, meaning that there were transcontinentally shipped produce lol. for example we used frozen blueberries that were product of Chile. for a restaurant in the pacific northwest region in the united states of america. there are blueberry farms in oregon, washington, etc. But it’s cheaper to exploit south american farms than get local blueberries i guess. (which still by and large exploit the labor of migrant farmworkers from mexico and south and central america, but i digress)

Cashews that make vegan cheese are extremely dangerous to harvest due to the fact they mist be harvested by hand and the fruit has corrosive enzymes. Most workers end up with scars from chemical burns.

Almond farms were linked to the declining bee population due to the number of bees needed to pollinate the plants. Most bee keepers were lucky to get half their hives back after farms rented them.

We all know about how much of the Amazon rainforest has been destroyed to make way for soy farms.

Agave is a main food source for many bats, but no, harvesting excess honey from bees that over produce it is the problem. If bees regularly have a large surplus of honey they swarm, the hive splits and some leave to start a new hive. Problem is that most bees don't survive this process because it makes them vulnerable to other environmental factors. So encouraging farming and over consumption of agave and stopping the consumption of honey, you're actually harming two different populations of pollinators.

"Vegan leather" is mostly plastic, which breaks down and sheds microplasics. Contributing to the ever growing landfill and contaminated water supply issues we have. Meanwhile cow hide is a natural byproduct from the meat industry, and real leather can last decades if taken care of. A single cow can feed 2 families of 4 for a year, and that leather can go towards making belts, boots, gloves and jackets that last decades.

He didn't do it.

The cops very clearly planted evidence on him because they had to make an arrest because all eyes were on them and whoever actually did the deed was making them look stupid.

Why would the real killer hero have kept the weapon on his person and traveled two states over while carrying it and a manifesto in his bag, conveniently turning the crime into a federal matter? The same guy whose bag they found in a park, filled with monopoly money? Why did the police turn off their bodycams, take Luigi's stuff, drive a block away, turn their bodycams back on, go back into the restaurant, and then arrest him?

It doesn't even mention Julius Caesar or the Ides of March.

It's from a very different segment of the play

It's not even the famous part of that segment that everyone knows by heart

The "I'm just sayin'" attitude of all the Seinfeldians in the screenshot (although if memory serves, what they're actually saying is, "not that there's anything wrong with that")

It just comes at the whole situation in such an oblique fashion

I don't think I've ever seen an Ides of March meme do anything like this before

mention Julius Caesar or

the Ides of March.

My parents threw away all of these things (even the vacuum cleaners and the dryer) when they got too dirty to function, because no one even told them THAT they could be cleaned. Cost them thousands of dollars over the years.

All I'm saying is that cleaning is not intuitive, and not knowing how to clean is not a moral failing, but it is something you can learn.

I like this video because it does a great job of introducing the basic foundations of house cleaning (and because he doesn't use bleach, which is a common allergy in addition to being awful to inhale). He also talks a little about how to clean a vacuum. And why you shouldn't put grease from your pots and pans down the sink drain. I also love that he mentions that different houses and different people have different needs and different versions of what clean and cleaning looks like.

This is another video from the same guy about cleaning and depression. This advice, especially at the beginning, can feel really really difficult and oppressive to hear. However, I find that it's generally pretty solid. But I'm autistic and so is he, so that gets a massive Your Mileage May Vary stamp on it.

I have a favorite part of this video. It's from 10:52 to 12:36. I think we could all use to hear that. There's a HEFTY pause after that one. I promise the narration does come back.

This is a pair of videos about how to correctly load and use a dish washer.

The first one is a quick 1 minute 30 second overview on loading. I can't find the exact video I'm looking for, so consider this a substitute for that. If I can find the one I'm looking for, I'll swap it in.

Here's a blog post about scrubbing brushes and how to clean them.

And a video for all cleaning tools, including scrub brushes. This video does use bleach. I'll try to find some alternatives to that.

How to clean a top loader (without the removable agitator thing). This should be done every 1-3 months depending on you unit, or every time you wash really soiled clothes.

How to clean a top loader (with the removable agitator thing). This should be done every month, or every time you wash really soiled clothes.

This video is for pet owners.

These carpet brushes are a LIFE SAVER if you have dogs. This thing allows me to go from vacuuming about 4 square feet before my vacuum is full to vacuuming half the living room (I don't vacuum often enough. You should vacuum weekly, and I just can't.). I have to unclog the vacuum less often. It fluffs up some of the flat spots in the carpet. And I also use the brush to shampoo my rugs in the spring.

A spot cleaner (or a carpet cleaner with a spot cleaner attachment) is another life saver, ESPECIALLY if you can afford to splurge on a heated one. I see them at Goodwill or at yard sales occasionally, and they're worth picking up. The shark one in the video is great too.

It's America's Housekeeping Book (1941). Available for free download on the Internet Archive. (Large PDF file at the link here).

The LISTS y'all. The step by step lists. The emphasis on efficiency and arranging spaces for the least resistance possible. The basic concept of "take a tray or basket into a room when you are tidying up so you can put things that belong elsewhere on it and take them out LATER in ONE GO".

For those who are unaware, there's been ads for a/i chat/bots going around on Tumblr. Specifically for "shapes.inc".

Obviously this is immediately worrying as chat/bots prey on low mental wellbeing, loneliness and someone's desire to interact, to then make them dependant and use their services more.

However, the ads themselves have stopped being quiet about that aspect. Here's one of the most worrying ads (aside the one that legitimately encourages users to make chat/bots of their friends' OCs without their consent, while also trying to claim that its "ethically sourced" - not telling us WHAT'S even sourced here - and therefore "guilt free".)

This is disgusting, plain and simple.

Not only is it directly preying on loneliness outright - it's encouraging a user to make a bot out of someone real without their consent. Not even a friend, no - a MUTUAL. It's encouraging parasocial dependency - just LOOK at what the "OP" is saying here: "RESPOND" "DID YOU DIE?" "PLEASE" "I MISS YOU".

It's not just encouraging parasocial behaviours nor just dependency overall, but encouraging users to breach the others' privacy just so they can pretend they're speaking to them.

Ads like this should not be allowed anywhere. Tumblr needs to get rid of it outright before someone gets hurt.

It’s really that simple.