Amanda Fanniff, PhD
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amandafanniff.bsky.social
Amanda Fanniff, PhD
@amandafanniff.bsky.social
Associate Professor of Psychology. Research focuses on culturally informed forensic mental health assessment. Posts reflect my own views, not my employer's. She/her.
Reposted by Amanda Fanniff, PhD
@sanders.senate.gov: "Even if by some miracle you got 60 votes, where do you think that amendment would go? Speaker Johnson has made it very clear that he's not going to entertain it. Trump would never sign it. So it is an empty gesture. It bothers me that people want to raise false hopes."
November 11, 2025 at 8:26 AM
Reposted by Amanda Fanniff, PhD
In the most predictable development ever, Mike Johnson is not committing to hold a House vote on ACA subsidies
November 10, 2025 at 10:19 PM
Reposted by Amanda Fanniff, PhD
This is the facility that I and many others have been protesting. We’ve been hit, thrown, gassed, and shot with pepper bullets but none of that holds a candle to what is being done to people *in* the actual facility.

Read this thread. Don’t look away. Keep your eyes and the pressure on Broadview.
A family friend was telling us about what her husband shared about his experience in Broadview before he was deported back to Mexico. She's been sharing to friends and family because she's just in disbelief & horror what her husband told her. She wasn't able to talk to him until he was in Mexico.
November 7, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Another awful decision in which “The assertion without any deep analytical support that the lower-court ruling at issue is inflicting “irreparable harm” on the executive branch” rules the day w/o considering the real harm to plaintiffs. footnote 1 -SCOTUS is also ignoring Article 1 altogether
189. The Breezy Inequity of Trump v. Orr
The Supreme Court's latest grant of emergency relief to the Trump administration illustrates in technicolor the direct (and ugly) consequences of the two different ways it keeps messing up "equity."
open.substack.com
November 7, 2025 at 2:24 PM
Reposted by Amanda Fanniff, PhD
To put this in scale, Elon Musk's salary from Tesla alone could fund the SNAP program for the entire country into 2034.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk scored a resounding victory on Thursday as shareholders approved a pay package of as much as $878 billion over the next decade, endorsing his vision of morphing the EV maker into an AI and robotics juggernaut.
Tesla shareholders approve $878 billion pay plan for Elon Musk
Tesla CEO Elon Musk scored a resounding victory on Thursday as shareholders approved a pay package of as much as $878 billion over the next decade, endorsing his vision of morphing the EV maker into an AI and robotics juggernaut.
reut.rs
November 6, 2025 at 10:19 PM
Reposted by Amanda Fanniff, PhD
Every time one anti-vaxxer is quoted in the media, one million scientists and healthcare workers should also be quoted in support of vaccines.

False equivalence in the media is killing us.
November 5, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Reposted by Amanda Fanniff, PhD
WOW. A federal judge says he's going to issue a Temporary Restraining Order requiring ICE to make changes at the Broadview facility in Chicago, a facility that until January was only for stays under 12 hours "absent exceptional circumstances," but has become, in Judge Gettleman's words, "a prison."
U.S. Robert Gettleman is now giving his thoughts. He says, "I think the evidence has been pretty strong that this facility is no longer just a temporary holding facility. …

"It has really become a prison."
DOJ's Jana Brady steps up next but says she'll largely "rest on our brief that we filed."

She wants any TRO to not "interfere with the executive branch."
November 4, 2025 at 10:29 PM
Reposted by Amanda Fanniff, PhD
A Maine ballot measure to add new election restrictions failed because — and hear me out on this — voters like voting.
November 5, 2025 at 3:15 AM
Reposted by Amanda Fanniff, PhD
Interdictions beyond our borders have been controversial, with courts expressing skepticism about the constitutionality of prosecuting (not killing!) drug traffickers captured in international waters. www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-targ...
October 31, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Judge Talwani: "Defendants are statutorily mandated to use the previously appropriated SNAP contingency reserve when necessary and also have discretion to use other previously appropriated funds as detailed below"
The admin has to report back Monday whether/when they will authorize benefits
Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee, keeps the TRO request under advisement while the Trump administration decides — by Monday — if it is going to use the contingent funding to proceed with (at least reduced) November SNAP benefits.

Opinion: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
October 31, 2025 at 7:25 PM
Empirical evidence shows that public expenditures like SNAP are associated with better child outcomes @kristenharknett.bsky.social et al published just one of the papers to prove this
@spssi.bsky.social
Fund #SNAP
Fund #ACA subsidies
Reverse restrictions on access to #Medicaid
bit.ly/4oMjerx
SPSSI Journals
Our article utilizes variation across the 50 U.S. states to examine the relationship between public expenditures on children and child outcomes. We find that public expenditures on children are rela...
spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
October 31, 2025 at 7:14 PM
Reposted by Amanda Fanniff, PhD
I love how Rep. Joe Neguse reframed this question.
October 31, 2025 at 8:19 AM
Reposted by Amanda Fanniff, PhD
- What is the current "boat strike" death toll? (43)
- How much of cocaine supplies (est) actually transit Venezuela? (10-13%)
- How much US-bound fentanyl comes from South America? (none)

We all need credibly sourced information right now. And here is a new @wola-org.bsky.social fact sheet:
Facts to Inform the Debate about the U.S. Government’s Anti-Drug Offensive in the Americas - WOLA
Fact sheet: U.S. military anti-drug strikes have killed at least 43 civilians in the Caribbean. Examines the operations' legal basis, justifications, and effectiveness.
www.wola.org
October 24, 2025 at 11:11 PM
Reposted by Amanda Fanniff, PhD
Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time – regardless of language or territory. www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/...
Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time – regardless of language or territory
An intensive international study was coordinated by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and led by the BBC
www.bbc.co.uk
October 23, 2025 at 5:17 PM
"...global vaccine efforts have saved >150 million lives since 1974, cavities have declined dramatically since community water fluoridation began in 1945, and milk pasteurization has saved millions from foodborne illness"
We need #evidencebased policies, not conspiracies & junk science
#publichealth
October 25, 2025 at 12:58 AM
Reposted by Amanda Fanniff, PhD
1/ The chaos at our nation’s public health agencies continues. Last Friday, amidst an ongoing government shutdown, roughly 1,300 CDC employees were fired with no warning.
Federal employees in mental health and disease control were among targets in weekend firings
Federal employees working on mental health services, disease outbreaks and disaster preparedness were among those hit by the Trump administration’s mass firings over the weekend.
apnews.com
October 17, 2025 at 7:23 PM
If conversion therapy bans are ruled illegal, so much harm will be done
Contrast: 9th circuit said "States do not lose the power to regulate the safety of medical txs performed under the authority of a state license merely because those txs are implemented through speech rather than through scalpel"
October 7, 2025 at 4:38 PM
Reposted by Amanda Fanniff, PhD
Study in JAMA Pediatrics estimates that vaccinating pregnant women against COVID-19 prevented 7,000 hospitalizations in infants and 3,000 in pregnant women from January 2024 to May 2025. 
#Medsky
www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/cov...
COVID vaccines may have averted thousands of hospital stays in infants, pregnant women over 18 months
www.cidrap.umn.edu
September 30, 2025 at 11:56 PM
Reposted by Amanda Fanniff, PhD
Let's be clear: no one should be taking medical advice from the man who told Americans to inject bleach.

To moms worried about the Tylenol they took while pregnant: you deserve better than being RFK Jr's scapegoat.

And to the autism community: you are loved exactly as you are.
September 23, 2025 at 7:20 PM
@nationalacademies.org has issued a report that examines the sources, spread, & consequences of science #misinformation & presents evidence-based strategies to help mitigate its harms.

Right now, this seems more important than ever.

Register for free for in-person or virtual symposium attendance:
A recent National Academies report examines the nature, scope, and impact of science #misinformation and how best to address it.

Join leaders across domains in discussing key insights and recommendations from the report at our September 25 symposium: buff.ly/vB5Ntcj
September 23, 2025 at 8:35 PM
Reposted by Amanda Fanniff, PhD
In December 2023, Special Counsel Jack Smith asked SCOTUS to grant cert before judgement to hear Trump’s immunity appeal.

The court rejected that request and didn’t issue its immunity decision until July 2024.

Trump’s federal cases never made it to trial before the November 2024 election.
Certiorari "before judgment" is how #SCOTUS takes up a full appeal *before* the intermediate federal courts have heard it.

It used to be exceedingly rare. For instance, there wasn't a *single* grant of such expedited review b/w August 2004 & February 2019.

This is the *23rd* such grant since then.
#BREAKING: Over dissents from Justices Sotomayor, Kagan & Jackson, #SCOTUS grants a stay in the Slaughter case (allowing President Trump to remove the last Dem member of the FTC), *and* grants certiorari "before judgment" to decide whether to formally overrule its 1935 ruling in Humphrey's Executor.
September 23, 2025 at 3:21 AM
We must continue to follow the science, despite the administration sharing misinformation. Acetaminophen is safe during pregnancy.
#defendscience
#StandUpForScience
#ScienceNotSilence
#EvidenceBasedPractice
acog.org ACOG @acog.org · Sep 22
ACOG reaffirms that acetaminophen is safe for managing pain and fever during pregnancy. No reputable studies support suggestions like those in HHS’s recent announcement linking acetaminophen use in pregnancy to autism; in fact, high-quality studies show no such risk. https://bit.ly/47Wxc59
September 22, 2025 at 11:29 PM
Kagan: "Our emergency docket should never be used, as it has been this year, to permit what our own precedent bars. Still more, it should not be used, as it has been, to transfer government authority from Congress to the President, and thus to reshape the Nation's separation of powers."
In dissent as to the stay, Justice Kagan — joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson — lays out the lawlessness of the majority plainly.

"Our emergency docket should never be used, as it has been this year, to permit what our own precedent bars."

Order/dissent: www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24p...
September 22, 2025 at 11:27 PM
Reposted by Amanda Fanniff, PhD
#BREAKING: Over dissents from Justices Sotomayor, Kagan & Jackson, #SCOTUS grants a stay in the Slaughter case (allowing President Trump to remove the last Dem member of the FTC), *and* grants certiorari "before judgment" to decide whether to formally overrule its 1935 ruling in Humphrey's Executor.
September 22, 2025 at 7:15 PM