Karen Benjamin Guzzo
@karenguzzo.bsky.social
Demographer and Sociologist. Director of the Carolina Population Center. LEGO Karen
My husband (an ER doc) & I are watching the 2018 comedy Game Night, & there’s a scene where someone needs to remove a bullet, & my husband tells me you don’t actually need to remove a bullet bc they are sterile. And so there are people out there just walking around with bullets in them.
a man in a dark room with the words this will be a game night to remember
ALT: a man in a dark room with the words this will be a game night to remember
media.tenor.com
November 11, 2025 at 3:42 AM
My husband (an ER doc) & I are watching the 2018 comedy Game Night, & there’s a scene where someone needs to remove a bullet, & my husband tells me you don’t actually need to remove a bullet bc they are sterile. And so there are people out there just walking around with bullets in them.
LEGO Karen has decided Monday would be more fun strolling the Italian coast, enjoying some gelato, than going to meetings.
November 11, 2025 at 1:12 AM
LEGO Karen has decided Monday would be more fun strolling the Italian coast, enjoying some gelato, than going to meetings.
Reposted by Karen Benjamin Guzzo
Unfortunately still true bsky.app/profile/adam...
American politics makes a lot more sense when you realize that the GOP is afraid of pissing off the GOP base, and the Dems are afraid of pissing off the GOP base, but neither party is afraid of pissing off the Dem base.
November 10, 2025 at 12:09 PM
Unfortunately still true bsky.app/profile/adam...
Reposted by Karen Benjamin Guzzo
I wrote here about Trump’s limited understanding of health insurance and how relying on direct payments to people for payment toward health care costs is a terrible idea. www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...
November 11, 2025 at 12:53 AM
I wrote here about Trump’s limited understanding of health insurance and how relying on direct payments to people for payment toward health care costs is a terrible idea. www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...
The Economist claims that Musk's $10M donation to UT-Austin's Population Wellbeing Initiative is specifically to "provide academic ballast to pro-natalist ideas."
Fomenting population panic to provide cover for sexist, racist, ableist, nativist social engineering. www.economist.com/1843/2025/11...
Fomenting population panic to provide cover for sexist, racist, ableist, nativist social engineering. www.economist.com/1843/2025/11...
November 10, 2025 at 6:33 PM
The Economist claims that Musk's $10M donation to UT-Austin's Population Wellbeing Initiative is specifically to "provide academic ballast to pro-natalist ideas."
Fomenting population panic to provide cover for sexist, racist, ableist, nativist social engineering. www.economist.com/1843/2025/11...
Fomenting population panic to provide cover for sexist, racist, ableist, nativist social engineering. www.economist.com/1843/2025/11...
New @pewresearch.org on how the Census has measured race over time. The social construction of race made apparent.
Counting Race: How the Census Measures Identity and What Americans Think About It
How the U.S. government measures race has changed substantially since censuses began in 1790. Today, Americans differ on whether the government should ask about race.
pewrsr.ch
November 10, 2025 at 6:16 PM
New @pewresearch.org on how the Census has measured race over time. The social construction of race made apparent.
Reposted by Karen Benjamin Guzzo
BREAKING: The Supreme Court DENIES former county clerk Kim Davis's request for the justices to take up her longshot bid to overturn 2015's Obergefell v. Hodges marriage equality decision. No justice even writes about the request.
November 10, 2025 at 2:34 PM
BREAKING: The Supreme Court DENIES former county clerk Kim Davis's request for the justices to take up her longshot bid to overturn 2015's Obergefell v. Hodges marriage equality decision. No justice even writes about the request.
Appointing an unqualified partisan hack to one of the world’s leading intelligence agencies has made not only the US less safe but the entire world. Cool, cool, cool.
F.B.I. Director Is Said to Have Made a Pledge to Head of MI5, Then Broken It
www.nytimes.com
November 10, 2025 at 12:43 PM
Appointing an unqualified partisan hack to one of the world’s leading intelligence agencies has made not only the US less safe but the entire world. Cool, cool, cool.
Parties, golf, football games.
He has never been “of the people, by the people, for the people,” but this is exceptionally tone deaf given what’s going on now.
He has never been “of the people, by the people, for the people,” but this is exceptionally tone deaf given what’s going on now.
Donald Trump becomes first president to attend regular-season NFL game since 1978
In the third quarter, Trump appeared on the Fox broadcast, answering questions about his time as a football player at New York Military Academy, opining on quarterbacks and more.
www.nbcnews.com
November 10, 2025 at 12:55 AM
Parties, golf, football games.
He has never been “of the people, by the people, for the people,” but this is exceptionally tone deaf given what’s going on now.
He has never been “of the people, by the people, for the people,” but this is exceptionally tone deaf given what’s going on now.
Reposted by Karen Benjamin Guzzo
As recently as the late 1980s, tuition at @uwmadison.bsky.social was <$1000/semester. In current dollars, that's about $2500/semester. There is one central reason for that: the . This was a choice. Other choices remain readily available.
November 9, 2025 at 9:26 PM
As recently as the late 1980s, tuition at @uwmadison.bsky.social was <$1000/semester. In current dollars, that's about $2500/semester. There is one central reason for that: the . This was a choice. Other choices remain readily available.
LEGO Karen’s walk took her past the latest addition to her neighborhood…this can’t be good!
November 9, 2025 at 8:07 PM
LEGO Karen’s walk took her past the latest addition to her neighborhood…this can’t be good!
Reposted by Karen Benjamin Guzzo
The Trump admin fucking up state administrative capacity to provide SNAP benefits is not just a feature of the shutdown. This is their long-term plan to reduce SNAP.
Soon, GOP will start talking block grants due to administrative complexity they created.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-big-be...
Soon, GOP will start talking block grants due to administrative complexity they created.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-big-be...
The Big Beautiful Bill has a SNAP Poison Pill
How states will get the blame for massive cuts to food stamps
donmoynihan.substack.com
November 9, 2025 at 3:53 PM
The Trump admin fucking up state administrative capacity to provide SNAP benefits is not just a feature of the shutdown. This is their long-term plan to reduce SNAP.
Soon, GOP will start talking block grants due to administrative complexity they created.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-big-be...
Soon, GOP will start talking block grants due to administrative complexity they created.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-big-be...
Reposted by Karen Benjamin Guzzo
‘The presence of two words — “equity” and “inclusion” — on page 50 of a 5-year-old grant application just killed a program at UC Berkeley that for half a century helped thousands of East Bay teens recognize that they could go to college and even pay for it.’
Two words in UC Berkeley grant application have led to defunding of 50-year-old program
The Trump administration canceled UC Berkeley’s Educational Talent Search — a 50-year-old program that helped thousands of East Bay teens get to college — over two words in its grant...
www.sfchronicle.com
November 9, 2025 at 6:16 PM
‘The presence of two words — “equity” and “inclusion” — on page 50 of a 5-year-old grant application just killed a program at UC Berkeley that for half a century helped thousands of East Bay teens recognize that they could go to college and even pay for it.’
Reposted by Karen Benjamin Guzzo
Reductions in Force not required by shutdowns, have never happened in any previous shutdown, and a judge has ruled they are illegal.
The shutdown is an excuse, not a reason, for them to do what they wanted to do: destroy government.
The shutdown is an excuse, not a reason, for them to do what they wanted to do: destroy government.
Lee Zeldin announces on Fox that there will be "severe" layoffs at the EPA if the shutdown continues
November 9, 2025 at 3:28 PM
Reductions in Force not required by shutdowns, have never happened in any previous shutdown, and a judge has ruled they are illegal.
The shutdown is an excuse, not a reason, for them to do what they wanted to do: destroy government.
The shutdown is an excuse, not a reason, for them to do what they wanted to do: destroy government.
Reposted by Karen Benjamin Guzzo
Yikes. USDA sent threatening letter to states telling them that if they sent out EBT money —which many states did during the window when a lower court said SNAP funds had to be released—they have to take it back (?)
Trying to sort out what this means and if states even can claw back the funds
Trying to sort out what this means and if states even can claw back the funds
November 9, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Yikes. USDA sent threatening letter to states telling them that if they sent out EBT money —which many states did during the window when a lower court said SNAP funds had to be released—they have to take it back (?)
Trying to sort out what this means and if states even can claw back the funds
Trying to sort out what this means and if states even can claw back the funds
It would be awesome if instructions for T&P from certain universities didn't specifically ask external letter writers to make such comparisons.
"While serving on my university’s tenure and promotions committee, I’ve lost count of the times I have read 'Professor X is so much better than Professors Y and Z' and thought to myself, 'I don’t know what I am supposed to do with this information.'" physicstoday.aip.org/opinion/comm...
Commentary: On the (ab)use of comparisons in recommendation letters
Comparing candidates for tenure and promotion with other researchers is lazy and fraught with bias.
physicstoday.aip.org
November 9, 2025 at 3:45 AM
It would be awesome if instructions for T&P from certain universities didn't specifically ask external letter writers to make such comparisons.
Reposted by Karen Benjamin Guzzo
“woke” is when you acknowledge that black people have contributed to the united states
Two panels commemorating the contribution of Black American soldiers towards the liberation of the Netherlands in World War Two have been quietly removed from a cemetery in Limburg. It follows a complaint by right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation to the American Battle Monuments Commission.
November 8, 2025 at 9:01 PM
“woke” is when you acknowledge that black people have contributed to the united states
Reposted by Karen Benjamin Guzzo
Low-income households denied SNAP due to administrative barriers suffer downstream consequences. Process-related denials increase debt, delinquencies, and decrease credit scores, from Tatiana Homonoff, Min S. Lee, and Katherine Meckel www.nber.org/papers/w34434
November 8, 2025 at 4:30 PM
Low-income households denied SNAP due to administrative barriers suffer downstream consequences. Process-related denials increase debt, delinquencies, and decrease credit scores, from Tatiana Homonoff, Min S. Lee, and Katherine Meckel www.nber.org/papers/w34434
Reposted by Karen Benjamin Guzzo
Trump and his cronies are now pushing 50-year mortgages.
Buckle up. This is going to make the 2008 mortgage crisis look like the good old days.
Buckle up. This is going to make the 2008 mortgage crisis look like the good old days.
November 8, 2025 at 7:39 PM
Trump and his cronies are now pushing 50-year mortgages.
Buckle up. This is going to make the 2008 mortgage crisis look like the good old days.
Buckle up. This is going to make the 2008 mortgage crisis look like the good old days.
Reposted by Karen Benjamin Guzzo
“More and more cabinet members — Rubio, Miller, Noem — live on military bases now, & it's another parallel to Iraq, where the administration lived in the Green Zone. There’s something deeply unhealthy about a society where leaders are literally shut off from the communities that they govern.”
Don Moynihan on "Purge, Merge, and Surge"
"Instead of surging in Iraq, it’s happening here in American cities."
www.publicnotice.co
November 8, 2025 at 4:44 PM
“More and more cabinet members — Rubio, Miller, Noem — live on military bases now, & it's another parallel to Iraq, where the administration lived in the Green Zone. There’s something deeply unhealthy about a society where leaders are literally shut off from the communities that they govern.”
Gutting the corporate alternative minimum tax, designed to make sure wildly profitable corporations pay *something*, while cutting food, health, and heating assistance.
How the Trump Administration Is Giving Even More Tax Breaks to the Wealthy
www.nytimes.com
November 8, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Gutting the corporate alternative minimum tax, designed to make sure wildly profitable corporations pay *something*, while cutting food, health, and heating assistance.
Reposted by Karen Benjamin Guzzo
“Despite contributing to Medicare throughout their working lives, Black individuals in the US are less likely to live long enough to reach the qualifying age for coverage.”
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
Racial Disparities in Premature Mortality and Unrealized Medicare Benefits
This cohort study examines racial disparities in premature mortality in the US and discusses the implications of these trends for unrealized Medicare benefits among populations with lower life expecta...
jamanetwork.com
November 8, 2025 at 2:46 AM
“Despite contributing to Medicare throughout their working lives, Black individuals in the US are less likely to live long enough to reach the qualifying age for coverage.”
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
Reposted by Karen Benjamin Guzzo
Failed country.
Supreme Court issues emergency order to block full SNAP food aid payments
The Supreme Court has granted the Trump administration’s emergency appeal to temporarily block a court order to fully fund SNAP food aid payments amid the government shutdown.
apnews.com
November 8, 2025 at 2:52 AM
Failed country.
Reposted by Karen Benjamin Guzzo
New — While some states have received SNAP benefits for November and USDA is supposedly pushing through all federal payments soon, that doesn’t erase the psychological terror of the last few weeks.
I spoke with 20+ SNAP recipients in 16 states about preparing for a possible future with no food:
I spoke with 20+ SNAP recipients in 16 states about preparing for a possible future with no food:
The voices of SNAP
Recipients have become political pawns. They explained, in their own words, what Trump withholding funds has been like.
www.thehandbasket.co
November 7, 2025 at 10:55 PM
New — While some states have received SNAP benefits for November and USDA is supposedly pushing through all federal payments soon, that doesn’t erase the psychological terror of the last few weeks.
I spoke with 20+ SNAP recipients in 16 states about preparing for a possible future with no food:
I spoke with 20+ SNAP recipients in 16 states about preparing for a possible future with no food:
“More babies is not the primary goal of [the pronatalist] movement. More control—over women, LGBTQIA+ people, immigrants, and anyone who doesn’t adhere to their narrow confines—is.”
Pronatalism: Just White Christian Nationalism in Disguise
Scratch just beneath the surface of the so-called pronatalism movement—a movement all over the pages of Project 2025 that’s based on the belief that people need to have more babies because declining b...
nwlc.org
November 7, 2025 at 12:37 PM
“More babies is not the primary goal of [the pronatalist] movement. More control—over women, LGBTQIA+ people, immigrants, and anyone who doesn’t adhere to their narrow confines—is.”