Analyst Hyacinth, in the moss, with a dagger
LightNews LightNews
banner
themossygreen.bsky.social
Analyst Hyacinth, in the moss, with a dagger
@themossygreen.bsky.social
930 followers 1.7K following 1.9K posts
“Friends, our refusal to comply and be silent is a message to the future.” ~ TN Rep. Justin Jones

🔥 Politics in the age of tyranny. We deserve better✌️💜

🌻 Literal tree-hugger. Ally.

📍beautiful PNW 🏔️🌵 🌊 🌲
Posts Replies Media Videos
themossygreen.bsky.social
I went on a guided #mushroom #walk this weekend, and we found 27 different types (according to our guide :o))

#forests #fall
#biology #micology
#love #pnw
An unexpected abundance of mushrooms on a dreary fall day! Zeller’s stole the show - they were everywhere. My favs included the Ginger Tail, Coral, and tiny little Candlesticks, which poof! when you flick them :o) Turkey tails and oyster-somethings :o) Bird’s nest mushroom - so cute, and so tiny! Apparently the nest is simply protection for a tiny mushroom inside :o)
November 18, 2025 at 6:52 PM
themossygreen.bsky.social
Firm Tied to Kristi #Noem Secretly Got Money From $220 Million #DHS Ad Contracts

DHS invoked the “emergency” at the border to skirt competitive bidding rules for the taxpayer-funded campaign.

#corruption
#money
The Department of Homeland Security has kept at least one beneficiary of the nine-figure ad deal a secret, records and interviews show: a Republican consulting firm with long-standing personal and business ties to Noem and her senior aides at DHS. The company running the Mount Rushmore shoot, called the Strategy Group, does not appear on public documents about the contract. The main recipient listed on the contracts is a mysterious Delaware company, which was created days before the deal was finalized. No firm has closer ties to Noem’s political operation than the Strategy Group. It played a central role in her 2022 South Dakota gubernatorial campaign. Corey Lewandowski, her top adviser at DHS, has worked extensively with the firm. And the company’s CEO is married to Noem’s chief spokesperson at DHS, Tricia McLaughlin. “It’s corrupt, is the word,” said Charles Tiefer, a leading authority on federal contract law and former member of the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said that the Strategy Group’s role should prompt investigations by both the DHS inspector general and the House Oversight Committee. “Hiding your friends as subcontractors is like playing hide the salami with the taxpayer,” Tiefer added. Federal regulations forbid conflicts of interest in contracting and require that the process be conducted “with complete impartiality and with preferential treatment for none.”
November 14, 2025 at 11:38 PM
themossygreen.bsky.social
An AI platform is the sponsor…
A notice on the subscriber pop up for WaPo, stating the story (?) is sponsored by Perplexity, which is an AI platform.
November 13, 2025 at 2:48 PM
themossygreen.bsky.social
A novel way to disrupt #ICE
We need to have lawyers who are white men, in suits, approaching ICE agents to inform them that they will likely need the services of a criminal defense lawyer and then hand them their business card and perhaps even a flyer about what their rights are when they are inevitably indicted and/or sued. The lawyers need to approach them in a concerned, professional manner so they are perceived, not as protestors or a threat, but as an authoritative professional, providing a service. If done well, DHS will start sending out email to all their staff and even the press trying to rebut the lawyers' claims that ICE agents will need legal representation. DHS doing this will only help spread the message wider, that ICE is engaging in illegal activity. Anyone know any lawyers that can start workshopping this?
November 8, 2025 at 2:34 AM
themossygreen.bsky.social
😏

#SandwichGuy
Meme of a scene from A Few Good Men
November 7, 2025 at 4:47 PM
themossygreen.bsky.social
💜
From Zohran’s victory speech: “For as long as we can remember, the working people of New York have been told by the wealthy and the well-connected that power does not belong in their hands. Fingers bruised from lifting boxes on the warehouse floor. Palms calloused from delivery bike handlebars. Knuckles scarred with kitchen burns. These are not hands that have been allowed to hold power.”
November 5, 2025 at 5:48 PM
themossygreen.bsky.social
From the text I sent my friends about that - it happened in Alabama
Photo of a white, bearded man in a baseball cap, t-shirt, and jeans standing next to a woman dressed as a penis wrapped in an American flag, on No Kings day 2.0. She’s holding a sign that says, No DICK-tator, which was just a step too far for the sensibilities of Alabama authorities. Photo of the same penis-clad woman face down on the ground with three cops forcefully arresting her, ‘cuz you know - PENIS 🙄
October 24, 2025 at 3:04 PM
themossygreen.bsky.social
Link to report: documents.un.org/doc/undoc/ge...

#FarRight #extremism #fascism #poverty #UN #politics
In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Olivier De Schutter, examines the future of social protection against the background of the rise of far-right populism across world regions. Highlighting the transformation of social protection, which has resulted in a growing distrust towards institutions, he explains how this feeds the rise of far-right populism, which thrives on economic insecurity and fear of status loss. He shows how far-right populism sows division, exploiting the discontent towards the incumbent elites as a pretext for dismantling welfare, thus serving the interests of the privileged; or promoting welfare chauvinism, which reserves social protection for the in-group and the so-called “deserving poor” – the exact opposite of treating social protection as a human right. The Special Rapporteur concludes by explaining why rights-based social protection should be championed as a bulwark against the rise of authoritarian populism. “Rights-based social protection should be championed as a bulwark against the rise of authoritarian populism.” — Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights
October 24, 2025 at 1:05 PM
themossygreen.bsky.social
“These are the politics of exclusion: a deliberate decision to cut off lifelines to the poor while rewarding the richest echelons of society, often in the name of protecting public budgets from ‘outsiders’ or the so-called ‘undeserving poor’,” De Schutter said. The Special Rapporteur called on governments to shift away from narrowly targeted benefit schemes and towards investing in universal, rights-based social protection to counter the rise of the far right. He urged governments to reframe the welfare state not as a cost to be reduced, but as part of a strategy that has been proven to deliver security and wellbeing for all.
October 24, 2025 at 12:52 PM
themossygreen.bsky.social
www.ohchr.org/en/press-rel...
A photo showing a crowd or protestors in Britain, waving signs and flags, behind white text that says, WELFARE CUTS ARE FUELING THE RISE OF THE FAR RIGHT GLOBALLY, THE UN FINDS The rolling back of protections for people living in poverty has created fertile ground for far-right movements across the world, warned the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Olivier De Schutter, in a new report presented to the General Assembly today. “Welfare reform in the name of austerity and efficiency has alienated millions of people living in poverty and played into the hands of a far right looking to exploit discontent,” De Schutter said. “Government restructuring of welfare systems has led to increasingly harsh conditions linked to receiving benefits and the ramping up of digital surveillance. Programmes once designed to provide basic security to all in times of need now shame and punish the very people they are meant to support.” The report details how, rather than reducing poverty or cutting public expenditure, modern welfare systems stigmatise claimants, forcing them into unsuitable jobs under the threat of sanctions, subjecting them to algorithms that falsely flag fraud, and even penalising families by removing children when poverty is misclassified as ‘neglect’. The Special Rapporteur flagged his recent letters to the governments of France and the United Kingdom, where major welfare reforms risk trapping more people in poverty. “These punitive welfare systems increase economic insecurity, erode trust in public institutions and leave millions feeling humiliated and abandoned by mainstream politics,” the expert said, citing a study that found that a one-point increase in income inequality corresponded almost exactly to a one-point increase in support for populist parties.
October 24, 2025 at 12:52 PM
themossygreen.bsky.social
These people are being terrorized.

#ICE
The agents who haunt the hallways seem to follow their own secret rule book, staying out of the way of the immigration judges, who go about their legalistic business in drab little courtrooms as if nothing were amiss. (The judges are Justice Department employees, not members of the judicial branch, so they can be fired and, under Trump, sometimes are.) The rulings the judges make seem to have little bearing on who is arrested, anyway. ICE is invoking a sweeping — and legally shaky — interpretation of its right to detain people as their cases work their way through the system. These immigrants in no way resemble the “worst of the worst,” the criminals Trump promised to deport first. They are the asylum seekers, the rule followers. They go into the federal building holding papers — bureaucratic immigration forms and court summonses — hoping for a measure of due process. Some leave the courthouse with a hearing date set months or years from now. Others disappear into ICE’s prison system. Migrants appear before a judge and are given a date for another hearing, leaving them hopeful and thinking they are free to go. Then, the moment they step outside the courtroom, they are arrested and hustled away. Detainees are usually taken down a stairwell to cells on the building’s tenth floor, a holding area so miserable and overcrowded that a federal district court judge recently called its conditions potentially “unconstitutional and inhumane.” (In a statement, an ICE spokesperson said, “ICE operates these hold rooms and holding facilities in strict accordance with its National Detention Standards [NDS] to ensure the safety, security, and humane treatment of individuals in custody.”) From there, detainees are conveyed by bus or van to ICE detention facilities in Brooklyn; Newark, New Jersey; or other nearby locations, then often flown to privately contracted prisons in Republican-dominated states such as Florida, Louisiana, and Texas, where their cases are transferred to fast-working and unsympathetic local immigration judges.
October 21, 2025 at 5:03 AM
themossygreen.bsky.social
In #Twisp, #Washington - rural Okanogan County, nearly 1k people showed up to protest on #NoKings 2.0!

Twisp has a population of 992.

credit: Dominick Bonny Reports, awesome independent reporter covering rural Washington 💪
Photo showing hundreds of protestors lined up along the Main Street going through Twisp, WA. Photo credit: Rhonda Henry.
October 20, 2025 at 12:42 AM
themossygreen.bsky.social
the #mood strikes
via: unsplash.com, Yevhen Rozhylo Black cap (I forget what these are called, like a baseball cap with the flat brim?) with white text. Top line: F*CK Underneath are choices with check boxes: ME, YOU, THIS, OFF, IT (this one is checked), THAT
October 4, 2025 at 9:04 PM
themossygreen.bsky.social
trade-offs

#SocialMedia
source: unsplash.com & www.jetfightertom.com Screenshot of a quote - white text on black background. Along the top: ONLINE / OFFLIFE Centered: YOU'VE SEEN 100 DRAMAS BUT NEVER BEEN TO THE THEATER Bottom: Check out the full series at www.jetfighter.com I'm always thinking about the tension btw the time I spend on any one thing vs. the time I spend on another vs. the zero time I spend on others, and how it's the things I spend zero time on that I wish I spent *some* time on, and the things I spend too much time on, I wish I spent less on. We truly only have a certain amount of time every day. *sigh*
October 4, 2025 at 8:48 PM
themossygreen.bsky.social
Go to that up-arrow, and there will be an option to copy to post...or something that - I can't remember now that I'm not looking at it 🙃
Image of the save and up-arrow in the Bluesky menu
September 21, 2025 at 7:46 AM
themossygreen.bsky.social
Two stories, connected.

#immigration
#ClimateCrisis
#wildfire
#ICE
#Seattle
#WashingtonState

www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...
An image of the Seattle Times front page from this weekend, which reads "Inside the fight to slow the Bear Gulch fire" Screenshot of a Seattle Times article describing how Border Patrol agents arrived in rugged terrain to harass (my word) firefighters and arrest two of them. Stupid and cruel.
August 28, 2025 at 8:32 PM
themossygreen.bsky.social
This, basically
August 22, 2025 at 3:17 PM
themossygreen.bsky.social
A #photo you took that brings you inner peace
Forest scene, green-leafed branches backlit but sunshine and surrounded by mossy forest.
August 21, 2025 at 6:20 PM
themossygreen.bsky.social
#Pentagon asks #civilian employees to join ‘volunteer force’ to aid #ICE deportations >>>
A US defense official confirmed the initiative, telling the Guardian: “The Secretary of Defense memorandum signed on Jun 1, 2025, ‘Detailing of Department of Defense Civilians Employees to Support the Department of Homeland Security’ allows DoD civilians employees to participate in a detail for up to 180-days, supporting the Department of Homeland Security’s operations on the southern border.” The official said volunteer duties may include “data entry, operational planning support, processing and throughput logistics, and logistical support”. The job posting warns deployment locations “are not negotiable” and conditions “could be austere”. Assignments last up to 180 days at facilities along the border and throughout the US interior, and detailing means the staff keeps their salary and benefits. The recruitment effort stems from a June memorandum issued by the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, that authorizes the civilian employee deployments “in support of the President’s priority of securing our borders”. The memo specifically enables both reimbursable and non-reimbursable details to DHS for southern border operations and “internal immigration enforcement”. Earlier this month, the Washington Post reported that DHS has reassigned dozens of Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) employees to Ice. Meanwhile, new detention facilities are being established in Nebraska, Florida, and at military installations including Fort Bliss in Texas, which now houses migrants in tent structures with capacity for 5,000 people. Ice arrests have surged nationwide, with northern California seeing a 123% increase in detentions between January and July compared to late 2024. The administration has also begun deploying Ice agents alongside local police for routine traffic enforcement. In Washington DC, federal immigration agents now accompany police officers during moped traffic stops targeting food delivery drivers, most of whom are from Central or South America, according to reporting from the Washington Post. The DHS secretary, Kristi Noem, announced last week that approximately 1.6 million undocumented immigrants had left the US during her first 200 days in office, citing agency data. There is also a planned ad buy between $20-50m dubbed “Stronger Border, Stronger America” to promote the work of the DHS set to launch in September.
August 21, 2025 at 4:25 PM
themossygreen.bsky.social
Counting #steps for #health? Here's how many you really need.

Good news, because I seem to regularly hit around 6.5-7k and feel pretty good!

www.npr.org/2025/08/14/n...
The research underscores that, on the lower end, even a modest jump in steps can have a major impact on your well-being. For example, simply jumping from 2,000 to 4,000 steps in a day was accompanied by nearly a 36% lower risk of dying. The work from Ding's team reflects a growing consensus in the scientific literature that around 7,000 steps could be a reasonable target for the public. (There is some variation in the exact number depending on the study.)
August 15, 2025 at 4:10 AM
themossygreen.bsky.social
How much is #Trump pocketing off the Presidency?

via The New Yorker >>

It’s a #grift, and we are all the marks.

archive.ph/Z9rQ1
Finally, a journalism organization covers Trump family corruption (almost) the right way. This excellent reporting shows that -- as of now -- the most corrupt president in history and his family are $3.4 billion more wealth since he took office, and escalating fast. https://archive.ph/Z9rQ1
August 12, 2025 at 5:05 AM
themossygreen.bsky.social
#mRNA technology

#HankGreen
#science
mRNA tech is some of the coolest, most powerful, most promising scifi shit humans are currently doing. They are being investigated to help with cancers, autoimmune diseases, M.S., stroke recovery, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and high cholesterol. The reason it’s so powerful is that it turns /your body/ into the factory that makes the drug.
August 11, 2025 at 4:01 PM
themossygreen.bsky.social
The movement is growing. We’ve been told for far too long that there’s not ‘enough’, extreme-wealth is admirable, immigrants are enemies, women are second-class, POC and other marginalized folks are less-than.

#BlackoutTheSystem
#GrabYourWallet
#NoSpend

We are more than they want us to believe.
We are shutting down the U.S. economy - strategically and peacefully - by removing our labor, our spending, our financial support, forcing the system to listen. This movement launched to reclaim power, restore justice, and unite citizens across all races, cultures, and classes.  blackoutthesystem.com September, 2025
August 9, 2025 at 11:50 PM
themossygreen.bsky.social
Y’all. Kevin Costner followed me!! 😅
Screenshot of “Kevin Costner’s” bsky bio
August 8, 2025 at 4:28 AM
themossygreen.bsky.social
>>> #HHS #KristiNoem announces that #ICE is waiving age limits for new applicants.
—-
I’m sure there will be no problems with old guys past their prime who missed out on the good stuff the first time ‘round, and young future Brownshirts being given badges and guns 🤷🏻‍♀️

www.upi.com/Top_News/US/...
Noem said in a press release the change in age restrictions has been made "so even more patriots will qualify to join ICE in its mission to arrest murderers, pedophiles, gang members, rapists, and other criminal illegal aliens from America's streets." According to the "Join ICE" website, applicants must be 21 and over to join, with those seeking to serve as criminal investigators limited to being 37 and older, while aspirants looking to be deportation officers were limited to the age of 40. "We've removed any of the age barriers," Noem said in an interview with FOX News on Wednesday. "We no longer have a cap on how old you can be, or sign up at age 18 and join us," she added. However, all ICE hopefuls will still need to be screened medically and for drug use and must complete a physical fitness test. Noem further explained in the release that due to the passage of President Donald Trump's legislation bill, ICE has received "significant new funding: that will allow for new hires to receive a maximum $50,000 signing bonus, student loan repayment and forgiveness options, boosted pay for special agents, enhanced retirement benefits and overtime pay.
August 6, 2025 at 6:30 PM