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Aharon deGrassi

@adegrassi.bsky.social

Assistant Prof of Geography, political economy of food, ag, rural development, Angola, DRC, California.

1 Posts304 Follower735 Folgt
The New York Times@nytimes.com · 3mo ago

In @nytopinion.nytimes.com Despite what the Trump administration says, the president’s most lethal policy will almost surely be his 71% cut in humanitarian aid from 2024 to 2025, our columnist Nicholas Kristof writes of U.S.A.I.D. “The world’s richest men are crushing the world’s poorest children.”

Opinion | This Is What Happened After We Gutted U.S.A.I.D.

Trump’s most lethal policy will almost surely be his 71 percent cut in humanitarian aid from 2024 to 2025.

nyti.ms

Adam Bonica@adambonica.bsky.social · 3mo ago

To understand what the Supreme Court is doing, you have to recognize that this is how authoritarians in Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela consolidated power. Scholars call it autocratic legalism. The Court isn’t complicit. It’s an active participant. Roberts is following a script.

The conservative majority has learned to use anti-discrimination language as the vehicle for preserving discrimination. Justice Kavanaugh’s suggestion that remedies for racism must have an “end point” inverts the logic of the Reconstruction Amendments. They were written to empower Congress to act against racial domination, not to set an expiration date on equality. This will be the Roberts Court’s legacy: using the Constitution not to expand freedom, but to protect established hierarchies. The Court has simply found a new minority to protect—not racial or religious minorities, but a political party whose power endures through structural advantage, even when it commands fewer votes.Where the Court has shown the greatest deference is to power itself, culminating in the decision granting Donald Trump sweeping legal immunity for “official acts”—a ruling that defies global democratic norms, where dozens of presidents and prime ministers have been prosecuted and convicted of crimes in recent years. The Court is thus working on two fronts: shielding the leader of the anti-democratic movement from accountability while simultaneously dismantling the electoral rules that allow the majority to vote his party out.
Marisa Kabas@marisakabas.bsky.social · 4mo ago

NEW—I got an exclusive excerpt from a USAID whistleblower's new book that made me gasp multiple times. It details Trump's dismantling of the humanitarian aid agency & his team/DOGE's shocking ignorance to public health. 'Into the Wood Chipper' by Nicholas Enrich is out tomorrow. Read excerpt here:

Whistleblower says Trump officials thought USAID did 'just abortions,' asked for 'Barney-style' slides before gutting agency, per new book

Read an exclusive excerpt from Nicholas Enrich's "Into the Wood Chipper"

thehandbasket.co

Marisa Kabas@marisakabas.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Here's a thread featuring clips of key moments from the DC Metropolitan Police body camera footage of the March 17, 2025 DOGE raid on the US Institute of Peace that I obtained as a result of my FOIA lawsuit:

Institute of Development Studies (IDS)@ids.ac.uk · 7mo ago

IDS researcher Prof Ian Scoones shares findings from research on Zimbabwe’s controversial land reform programme, which suggests that it has helped smallholder farmers adapt to #ClimateChange. 👇 via @the-independent.com #Zimbabwe #LandReform https://the-independent.pulse.ly/s7zhrjnlkm

Controversial land reform in Zimbabwe ‘helping small farmers over climate change’

Exclusive: 25 years after the programme – widely seen as being characterised by violence and economic chaos – was introduced, new research finds that it has helped smallholder farmers become more resilient to the climate crisis

the-independent.pulse.ly

Marc Elias@marcelias.bsky.social · 6mo ago

🚨BREAKING: An election-denying former Donald Trump campaign staffer who was subpoenaed by the FBI over his role in the attempt to steal the 2020 election is now taking credit for writing the sweeping voter suppression bill passed by the House Wednesday that could disenfranchise millions.

Election denier involved in fake electors plot wrote much of SAVE America Act, Trump-aligned think tank claims

“I’m here to do everything I can to make this work,” Thomas Lane wrote in a December 2020 email to other organizers of the Trump campaign’s fake electoral plot in Arizona.

democracydocket.com

Center for Global Development@cgdev.org · 6mo ago

The projected death toll from USAID program cancellations is rising. New analysis by @charlesjkenny.bsky.social and @justsand.bsky.social finds current cuts could cost 1 million lives now, and even more with future reductions. More ⬇️ https://go.cgdev.org/4s0Z8w7

Update on Lives Lost from USAID Cuts

In this blog, we report on an update to our earlier estimates of the potential mortality impacts of the administration’s aid cuts. A similar approach to our original estimates using financial data to ...

go.cgdev.org

jamelle@jamellebouie.net · 7mo ago

i’ll say it again, jennings is a contemptible liar and it is a disgrace that CNN puts him on television every night to spread bullshit

Ron Filipkowski@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 7mo ago

The thing is, some people can make mistakes, get things wrong, be careless, etc. But that’s not what Jennings did here. Jennings knowingly, purposefully and intentionally lied to utterly distort what was said, which CNN pays him to do every day. CNN is the enabler of this.

Anna Gifty@itsafronomics.blacksky.app · 9mo ago

I can't emphasize enough why having women of color who champion people of color at the helm makes all the difference. The cost of living crisis starts with us. The childcare crisis starts with us. The student debt crisis starts with us. Mamdani is (un)knowingly addressing #TheDoubleTax here.

Jason "Red5" Lyall@jaylyall.bsky.social · 9mo ago

By this time next week, the estimated deaths due to the illegal destruction of USAID and the shuttering of its aid efforts will breach 400,000. More than 260,000 will be children. Source: www.bu.edu/sph/news/art...

Tracking Anticipated Deaths from USAID Funding Cuts

Brooke Nichols has launched online tracking tools that capture estimated increases in mortality and disease spread for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and other diseases as a result of the near-total...

bu.edu

Ann Pettifor@annpettifor.bsky.social · 2y ago

The formidable Alex de Waal: "Gaza is the worst food emergency by intensity of deprivation. There’s no case in recent decades that matches Gaza’s severity of starvation or speed of descent into such a state. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

People in Sudan and Gaza are starving. The international community must act | Alex de Waal

Sudan is the largest food crisis and Gaza is the worst emergency by intensity of deprivation – both disasters need urgent action

theguardian.com