Some News Of The Day

Senate Democrats Estimate DOGE Caused Billions of Dollars In Government Waste by TPM
Read on Substack

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

What DOGE Cost Us

Democrats on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations yesterday released a jaw-dropping report attempting to document the scope and scale of financial waste, personnel upheaval, and human suffering caused by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency and Elon Musk’s giddily uninformed strike force of Peter Thiel acolytes. In all, the Democrats, led by Richard Blumenthal (CT), estimated DOGE cost the government $21.7 billion.

“DOGE-generated waste could also have easily funded monthly food assistance for the 5.3 million families losing an average of $146 in monthly food security assistance ($9.3 billion per year) under the new budget; or it could have been used more broadly to support the 40 percent of taxpayers that will see a net increase to their taxes as a direct result of the Trump tax plan,” the report contends.

Major news coverage focused on the cost of the government paying over 150,000 federal workers who accepted the Trump administration’s deferred resignation incentives, under which they had to stop working but are continuing to be paid through September or even December. The minority’s report, which estimated that 200,000 workers took these buyouts, calculated that paying workers for not working cost the government $14.8 billion.

Neither the buyouts nor paying workers while on administrative leave (costing an additional $6.1 billion) increased government efficiency, as was always obvious and predictable. The report details many other costs, from the petty and pointless (millions of hours of wasted employee time writing the Musk-required email listing their weekly accomplishments) to the catastrophic (the elimination of the United States Agency for International Development, “projected to cause millions of additional deaths globally while simultaneously endangering domestic public health by reducing essential medical staff and programs.”)

As it rampaged through the government, DOGE destroyed valuable assets, wasting money already set aside to be spent, or depriving the government of income-generating programs. Product spoilage of USAID supplies of food and medicines cost the government nearly $10 million. DOGE’s elimination of the Internal Revenue Service’s Direct File program, the report estimates, wasted a more than $33 million investment in it, not to mention that taxpayers no longer have a free electronic filing option. DOGE caused the loss of more than $263 million of interest and fee income by shutting down Department of Energy loans from a program to modernize the electricity grid. The actual cost of the mass cancellations of medical research grants at the National Institutes of Health has yet to be fully calculated.

This summary represents a fraction of the entire report, and much is still not even known about the scope of the DOGE destruction. Yesterday, Blumenthal wrote to the inspectors general at 27 agencies, requesting they “initiate a comprehensive review of DOGE’s activities within your agency in order to determine the full scope of costs that DOGE’s careless actions have imposed,” particularly “the financial impact of the reorganization of federal agencies through mass layoffs, the canceling of grants, contracts, and other projects for partisan reasons, and the stifling of income-generating activities.”

Is MAGA Turning on Trump over Israel?

I spotted two stories this week in the inside-the-Beltway press, one in Politico and the other in Axios, suggesting MAGA is turning on Trump because of his continued support of the Netanyahu regime and its assault on Gaza that even Israeli human rights organizations have called a genocide. The Axios piece even suggests a “GOP realignment” on the issue may be underway. The Politico piece is more measured on that possibility, but neither piece mentions the critical role of Christian Zionists — that is, evangelicals who vigorously support Israel’s far right, like Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee — in the Trump coalition.

It is hard to know now this possible coalitional split will play out. In the meantime, can we talk about how the MAGA figures turning against Israel are saying things that have gotten foreign students detained and universities’ funding cut off?

(snip-MORE, + other subjects)

Clay Jones, Open Windows

Henchman Pam Bondi by Ann Telnaes

who prosecutes on behalf of Trump Read on Substack

Bondi tweet:

(original hanging in the Hay-Adam’s Off the Record bar)

My colleague KAL has also a post about the coasters he, Matt Wuerker, and I created for the bar.

(Note from A: Click through on KAL’s-you’ll love it!)

Irritating Screechy Blowhole by Clay Jones

Look, Europe! Our president (sic) is a raving lunatic Read on Substack

It’s one thing for Donald Trump to display his deteriorating mental state here at home, like ranting about lightbulbs or batteries so heavy that they sink boats to waiting sharks, but it’s another thing for TACO to go overseas and reassure our friends and allies that the United States of America has an insane racist at the helm (he howled about immigration into Europe).

While sitting next to European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, Trump went on a rant about windmills…again.

Trump said in a long-winded rant, “And the other thing I say to Europe, we will not allow a windmill to be built in the United States, they’re killing us. They’re killing the beauty of our scenery, our valleys, our beautiful plains. And I’m not talking about airplanes, I’m talking about beautiful plains, beautiful areas of the United States, and you look up and you see windmills all over the place, it’s a horrible thing. It’s the most expensive form of energy; it’s no good. They’re made in China, almost all of them. When they start to rust and rot in eight years, you can’t really turn them off, you can’t bury them, they won’t let you. But the propellers, the props, because they’re a certain type of fiber that doesn’t go well with the land, that’s what they say. The environmentalists say you can’t bury them because the fiber doesn’t go well with the land; in other words, if you bury it, it will harm our soil. The whole thing is a con job.”

Keep in mind, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency is fighting its own power to fight Climate Change. Talk about a con job. (snip-yadayada [Trump] I mean MORE)

A Positive Way To Take Back Identity:

Black Indigenous Chefs Are Reclaiming Identity Through Food — One Dish at a Time by Michael Harriot

Black Native food workers are passing down culinary traditions, restoring lost connections and feeding body and soul. Read on Substack

Crystal Wahpepah (Photo courtesy of Crystal Wahpepah)

The Indigenous food movement has seen a renaissance in North America, with restaurant openings, cookbook releases and community initiatives that announce the presence, expertise and heritage of Indigenous food workers. Amidst this moment, Black Native food workers have seen both the beauty and the harshness of living at the intersection of Blackness and Indigeneity, as the dominant settler colonial culture of the United States often tries to erase or flatten all parts of their identities.

But those attempts at erasure have also provided moments of reflection and insight, and a realization that the mission of Black Indigenous food workers is profoundly spiritual and political healing work. For Stephan Oak, a Black and Lakota forager and woodworker who lives in Detroit, the threads of connection that Black Indigenous people hold in their family stories that are “steeped in violence, but also steeped in love and resistance” are also guides that allow them to connect in the past, present, and future — a shared cosmology.

Crystal Wahpepah, who is Black and Kickapoo and the executive chef and owner of Wahpepah’s Kitchen in Oakland, Calif., says that often, through representation and education, Black Native people in the food industry come to a deeper peace about their identity and heritage. At Wahpepah’s Kitchen, over cornbread dishes from the Ute and Kickapoo people, wild rice from the Great Lakes tribes and bison from the Great Plains, people often find themselves.

“I meet so many people who are Black and Native but never felt connected to their Indigenous side, and when they meet me, they start talking about it, about culture, about those things that have been lost,” she says. Wahpepah is also opening a new restaurant, A Feather and a Fork, which is also the title of her upcoming cookbook.

That loss is something felt in both Black and Indigenous communities and can often feel pronounced because of family separation through residential schools, land expulsions, the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the domestic slave trade that broke up Black families across the country. “Because of colonial violence, there’s a fractured relationship to home or your connection to your ancestors,” says Oak. “The intent of the colonizer is to stop you from looking … to accept the identity of the conditions they’ve placed on you.”

Food is one of the ways Oak and others are reclaiming autonomy over their identities, especially as governments use food as a weapon by depriving communities of affordable, culturally relevant food. Oak points out that even amidst food deserts on reservations and urban Black communities, people find ways to be more self-sufficient and connect back to the land, which helps them reconnect with the essence of who they are. (snip-MORE; lots more but not too long)

Crystal Wahpepah’s wild rice salad with strawberries and pecans (Courtesy of Crystal Wahpepah)

Last Day Of July In Peace & Justice History

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjuly.htm#july31

After helping GOP-led Texas, Trump admin denies FEMA aid to another Democratic-led state

https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/maryland-fema-aid-flooding-texas-trump-wes-moore-rcna220869

The denial of federal money to assist Maryland’s flood recovery continues a trend of spurning devastated residents in states with Democratic governors.

July 24, 2025, 3:13 PM EDT

By Ja’han Jones

On Wednesday, Donald Trump’s administration denied Maryland’s request for FEMA aid to deal with the fallout of devastating floods in May, continuing the administration’s disturbing trend of denying disaster aid to states led by Democrats.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, denounced the administration’s determination that the aid is “not warranted.” In a social media video, Moore vowed to appeal the decision and said the federal government is effectively telling residents of western Maryland — where many are still coping with the effects of the flooding — “you’re on your own.”

https://x.com/iamwesmoore/status/1948421286927257884

After the recent deadly flooding in Texas, Trump and his administration promised, and ultimately approved, FEMA aid for the Republican-controlled state. In the time since, FEMA’s response there has received criticism — including from the agency’s now-former head of urban search and rescue operations, who just resigned in disgust.

But the fact that Texas received a promise of FEMA aid at all was noteworthy. As I wrote at the time, it was a markedly different stance than the one Trump’s administration has taken with numerous states led by Democratic governors — such as North Carolina, Washington and California — who’ve had their requests for federal assistance denied.

Trump has sought to effectively shutter FEMA and force states to handle the financial burden of natural disasters on their own. But in the meantime, the denial of funds to Maryland is yet more evidence that the administration sees FEMA as a political tool for aiding its allies and harming its perceived foes — leaving Americans’ lives and livelihoods hanging in the balance.

Ja’han Jones

Ja’han Jones is an MSNBC opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog. He is a futurist and multimedia producer focused on culture and politics. His previous projects include “Black Hair Defined” and the “Black Obituary Project.”

While We Watch Colbert and South Park, They Build A $1.2 B Desert Concentration Camp In Texas

https://beingliberal.substack.com/p/while-we-watch-colbert-and-south?r=3j50y&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true

While America’s distracted by the Steven Colbert Show drama and South Park revenge, Trump’s government just dropped over a billion dollars to build the largest detention center in U.S. history

Being Liberal

Jul 25, 2025

Welcome to Fort Bliss—A $1.2 Billion Dystopian Human Suffering Factory—Funded By You.

You read that right.

Everything is bigger in Texas. $1.26 billion taxpayers money funneled to private pockets. 5,000 prisoners. No due process. Tent concentration camp in a desert.

America 2025 – Detention Will Make You Free

What’s Being Built—And Why It Should Terrify You

A $1.26 billion federal contract has been awarded to construct a 5,000-bed detention camp at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas.

It will be operated under military supervision with private contractors and no guaranteed legal oversight.

This is part of a broader Trump-era policy goal: scaling ICE detention to 100,000 beds nationwide—up from around 40,000.

This facility is slated to fast-track deportations under EO 14159, which targets up to 1 million removals per year.

Subscribe

Fort Bliss? It’s Another Alligator Auschwitz,
Of Texas Desert Kind

Let’s be clear: this isn’t just a holding site—it’s inhumane state-sanctioned cruelty.

Fort Bliss sits in El Paso’s desert, where summer temps regularly hit 100–110°F. Inside tents, that can spike above 120°F. No air conditioning. No proper plumbing. Just canvas and suffering. And in winter? Temperatures dip below freezing at night, with no insulation to protect detainees.

The result?

Heat exhaustion. Hypothermia. Dust storms. Insects. Infections. Psychological breakdowns.

Just like at Florida’s now-notorious “Alligator Alcatraz,” ambulances driving through the gate will be a daily feature. Already, reports from that prototype camp detail detainees suffering from medical neglect, contaminated food, and makeshift showers rigged with hoses. Some have called it “worse than jail”—and Fort Bliss will be five times bigger.

Here’s what we know—and why it’s enraging—that private contractors stand to profit from building this $1.2 billion tent detention camp at Fort Bliss:

Who’s Getting Rich from the Fort Bliss Camp?

Acquisition Logistics LLC (Prime Contractor)

Awarded the main Department of Defense contract—worth $1.2‑$1.26 billion—to construct and operate the 5,000‑bed tent camp for ICE detainees at Fort Bliss, supported by $232 million in Army funds so far.

Based in Virginia, without previous large-scale detention experience, mostly focused on smaller administrative and logistics contracts (often under $2 million).

Disaster Management Group (Subcontractor)

A key subcontractor owned by Nathan Albers, a Republican donor whose former firm pleaded guilty in 2019 for employing undocumented workers under a shell-company scheme.

Disaster Management specializes in erecting large-scale temporary housing (often used in refugee projects). It has received over $500 million in federal contracts since 2020.

Its workforce practices have drawn legal and ethical scrutiny: a 2022 Department of Labor review found wage and overtime violations, leading to nearly $16 million in recovered back pay and compliance enforcement.

Amentum (Another Subcontractor)

A large engineering and tech services firm tapped to support unspecified portions of the Fort Bliss project, likely involving logistics, structure builds, and base coordination.

Why This Should Outrage You

It’s Yet Another Trumpian Grift! Public Funds Are Fueling Private Profits
Taxpayer money is funding manufacturers of suffering—people with no due process detained in harsh, tented desert conditions. It’s a state funded deliberate cruelty.

The Blueprint of Authoritarianism

Let’s break it down:

Scapegoat a vulnerable group.

Detain them en masse with no trial.

Use military infrastructure and private contractors to bypass accountability.

Build in remote areas—out of sight, out of mind.

Brand it with Orwellian irony.

“Fort Bliss”? That’s not just cruel. It’s fascist stagecraft.

This isn’t about security. It’s about dehumanization at scale, with taxpayer money funding open-air internment that recalls the ugliest chapters of history. Sound familiar?

PolitiSage

The International Criminal Court Must Indict Donald Trump NOW.

Read more

10 days ago · 2292 likes · 111 comments · Morgaan Sinclair, Ph.D.

What You Can Do

Expose it – Share this article. Make people say the name: Fort Bliss Concentration Camp.

Share

Mobilize; Organize or attend protests in Texas. Follow groups like the ACLU , RAICES, and the Detention Watch Network.

Demand Oversight: Call reps. Demand medical transparency, independent inspections, and an immediate halt to construction.

Support Legal Aid: Many detainees will have no lawyer. Contribute to immigrant defense funds now.

Final Thought

Stop saying “it can’t happen here.” It already is.

We’re not just locking people up—we’re engineering human suffering. And we’re doing it with public funds, in military facilities, under desert sun, with names like Alligator Alcatraz, Fort Bliss to mock our conscience.

If we let this slide, history won’t ask if we knew. It will ask why we stayed silent.

Being Liberal Substack – From Revolution to Resistance is a reader-supported publication. Subscribe. Resist. Share. Fight.

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2 From Clay Jones

Save Boca by Clay Jones

Boca Raton is under threat of overdevelopment Read on Substack

This cartoon was drawn for The Boca Raton Tribune. A group named Save Boca is trying to save the city from overdevelopment…and MAGA “leadership.”

The Boca Raton Tribune is a client of my syndication, and now they want to commission occasional cartoons from me on local issues. They choose the subjects, and I write and draw them. This is our second, with the first being in early July.

The cranes and buildings under construction were the editor’s suggestion. One thing I love about local cartoons is that you can put in local stuff residents will recognize. I do that with a lot of my local cartoons for the FXBG Advance, which is easier for me because I live here. That’s not the case with Boca Rotan, so it’s very helpful when the editor can mention local stuff. (snip)

Heavenly Hogan by Clay Jones

What’cha gonna do when reality runs wild on you? Read on Substack

I do not like to draw obit cartoons. I especially don’t like them featuring the Pearly Gates. I bet when editors receive an obit cartoon from me, they get slightly excited because I don’t normally do these things. And I bet that excitement drops real quick after they read the cartoon, because even when I do an obit cartoon, it’s not like other cartoonists’ obit cartoons. It’s not often I give you a Betty White.

Terry Bollea died today at 71. Bollea was Hulk Hogan. Hogan, like Ozzy, wasn’t someone who had a huge impact on me, like Freddy Mercury, Kurt Cobain, Jeff MacNeely, Prince, David Bowie, John Lennon, George Harrison, or Tom Petty. Notice that they’re mostly musicians. Even at the age of 11, Elvis’ death hit me. But sometimes I will draw an obit cartoon for someone just because of how iconic they were.

Ozzy was iconic. Everyone knew who he was, even if they couldn’t name a song of his. His reality show helped a lot with that. Terry Bollea was iconic, too, in that you don’t have to watch professional wrestling to know who Hulk Hogan is. If there is a Mount Rushmore for wrestlers, many fans would put Hogan in George Washington’s spot.

Hogan made wrestling. When the then-WWF (World Wrestling Federation) went national (wrestling used to be territorial), owner Vince McMahon (who is now in deep trouble for sexual assault) needed a babyface (good guy) hero to be the face of the company. And it worked, Hulkamania ran wild across the nation, as Hulk Hogan defended the World Title year after year against bigger and badder bad guys. One problem was that there weren’t that many bad guys physically larger than Hulk Hogan. There was only one Andre the Giant, and most big guys couldn’t wrestle, even enough to match Hogan’s three-move set. They once hired actor Tommy Lister (Deebo from the Friday movies) to have a feud with Hogan, because Lister was huge and had played the hell (bad guy) in a horrible film with Hogan. I didn’t have to see it to know it was horrible. One problem with hiring an actor to wrestle is that actors are not wrestlers. This makes for bad matches.

At Wrestlemania 2, Hulk faced off against King Kong Bundy, who was paid $50,000 for the match, which was half of what Hogan made for the event. Bundy wasn’t mad. He was happy because wrestlers didn’t usually make those kinds of paydays. Hogan was such a star that wrestlers made more money working with/against him. McMahon would sign new guys, not always by promising them titles (he often lied), but with runs with Hogan. This is an estimation, but a wrestler who usually made $1,000 a week could make $10,000 to $50,000 a week if he was working with Hogan. This information comes from wrestlers, but keep in mind that wrestlers are often liars.

Hogan was the hero. He would make his entrance to the song Real American (it’s catchy and annoying) while waving an American flag. He’d tell the kids to “say your prayers and eat your vitamins.” Hogan, despite never losing and being the champ, was always the underdog. Most of the match consisted of Hogan getting his ass kicked, until he hulked up. The villain’s punches would suddenly become ineffective, Hogan would turn around with an angry expression, take a few more punches, then stand straight up and point his finger at the bad guy, like, “YOU!” Then he’d start punching, whip the bad guy off the rope, perform a bodyslam, whip himself off the ropes, do a legdrop on his opponent, and then it was 1, 2, 3 for the pin, and the fans would go crazy. Find the Hogan/Andre match, and you’ll see. I was shocked to look this up to discover it lasted as long as 12 minutes. I’m trying to remember what they did in that match to make it last so long. It’s very slow. It wasn’t technical wrestling, and Hogan did the same routine for every match, but it was storytelling in the ring. Hulk always won….usually.

Hogan was a real-life cartoon. (snip; yes, there is MORE)

“Teeter-peep”

Spotted Sandpiper

A Few Bits I’ve Run Across This Week

Cohesive only in that each is about people. Enjoy as you will.

The stranger in the mirror: how will a hotter earth change humanity?

Two apes sitting on a branch of a tree in a forest.

Mesopithecus pentelicus thrived in the rainforests of the late Miocene, 7 million years ago. Credit: Mauricio Antón

Small, slender and short-lived, with broad noses, big, dark-adapted eyes, living underground, and in the shadows of a shattered, steamy, chaotic world. Richard Musgrove asks: will this be us in 10,000 years?

Climate change is the greatest challenge in human history – current trends could have us eventually approaching extremes not seen on our planet for 15 million years. Will a destabilised global climate wreak economic havoc, leading to societal collapse, mass mortalities, even extinction? Or will we pull ourselves out of this spectacular self-imposed nose-dive?

Which raises the question – what if we don’t? How will humanity change on a much hotter Earth?

Numbers matter

Uncharted territory approaches as we nudge the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, on track for a potentially catastrophic 2.7°C by 2100. What about 2200, or 3200?

Globally, days above 50°C have doubled since the 1980s – in Australia, Pakistan, India and the Persian Gulf – with the ‘feels-like’ temperature often higher. Even immediately reduced carbon emissions will still mean lingering planet-wide heating and associated effects for many thousands of years.

Our adaptability has led us this far, but what does evolution have in store for our species if we don’t rise to face our greatest challenge? The answer is unlikely to be in the mirror.

Nothing sweats like us (snip-MORE)

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Medicaid ‘gamers’ are the new ‘welfare queens’ by Aaron Rupar

Republicans are taking strawman arguments to absurd extremes. Read on Substack

Earlier this month, Donald Trump and congressional Republicans passed a grotesque budget bill that (partially) funds massive tax breaks for the wealthy and a ramped-up ICE goon squad by cutting cutting $1.1 trillion from Medicaid and an additional $185 billion from federal food assistance programs, all while adding $2.8 trillion to the deficit.

Not surprisingly, the bill is massively unpopular. As a result, Republicans are gaslighting Americans about its impact, particularly regarding the cuts to Medicaid, which are expected to cost 10 million Americans their health coverage.

The Medicaid cuts could result in more than 16,000 extra deaths per year, researchers say. Republicans have tried to distract from that reality with a combination of blatant lies and misdirecting rhetoric. To hear them tell it, they’re only cutting supposed waste, fraud, and abuse. So when you lose benefits, they’re here to explain why it’s probably your own damn fault.

The lazy gamer myth

Republican messaging surrounding Medicaid cuts borrows heavily from Ronald Reagan’s playbook. (snip- MORE)

======================

Living Faith Women and Girls

What Does the Bible Say About Gender?

By Heather Brady

The Bible has a lot to say about gender.

Of course, there are innumerable instances when the Bible has historically been used to enforce the idea that gender is a divinely ordained binary, with male and female genders that are distinct, complementary, and assigned at birth.

But by going back to the original languages of the Bible and examining modern translations more closely a much more complex spectrum of biblical gender is revealed. At some rabbinical colleges, scholars have identified as many as eight genders represented in the original Hebrew.

Indeed, the Bible’s general attitude toward gender is expansive, with verses exploring God’s focus on the interior over the exterior, the distinction between sex and gender, the role of eunuchs in scripture, and more.

Here are 10 Bible verses that show a biblical approach to gender that is as varied as the colors in a rainbow.

Genesis 1:27
So God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Day and night. Water and dry land. Male and female. The creation poem might sound like it’s dealing in binaries, but we know that all of these things have transitional elements. Day and night contain transitions at dawn and dusk; the spectrum of water and dry land includes tidal plains and coral reefs; and people who are intersex, genderqueer, nonbinary, and more can be found between “male and female”.

Genesis 25:27
When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, living in tents.

Jacob is described as “smooth” (Genesis 27:11) and stays in the tent where he cooks – traditional female attributes in the ancient world. Yet he is chosen over his “hairy” brother Esau, a skilled hunter, to lead God’s people, showing that God does not place value on traditional gender norms.

Isaiah 56:4-5
For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

Eunuchs were men who had been castrated, especially those employed to guard the women’s living areas. They represent clear historical examples outside of the gender binary in the Bible and are welcomed into the temple and to the community of worship.

Matthew 19:11-12
But [Jesus] said to them, “Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.”

The disciples ask Jesus to clarify the explanation of gender in Genesis 1 as it relates to divorce. In answering them, Jesus offers this non-judgmental example of eunuchs that invokes a range of genders. This indicates the law should be flexible enough to allow for this range, instead of being too narrow to recognize its existence.

Galatians 3:27-28
As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

The apostle Paul explains that unity in Christ is what’s important, superseding the concept of gender and other identity markers.

Mark 11:17
[Jesus] was teaching and saying, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”

In this verse, Jesus is referencing Isaiah 56, when eunuchs are welcomed into the community at temple. He prioritizes welcoming all people, regardless of gender.

Acts 8:38-39
He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more and went on his way rejoicing.

The baptismal inclusion by Philip of the Ethiopian eunuch in the early church echoes the affirmation of eunuchs who are welcomed to the temple in Isaiah 56. “In neither case [both in Isaiah and Acts] is change required of them before they can join the community in worship,” writes Robyn J. Whitaker for The Conversation.

1 Samuel 16:7
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him, for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

When the prophet Samuel was charged by God to look for a new king, David didn’t seem as king-like as the other options presented to Samuel — but he was still the right choice. Once again, we see that God does not share the human preoccupation with external biological features. Our physical bodies do not determine deeper matters of our identity.

Romans 2:29
Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not the written code. Such a person receives praise not from humans but from God.

As with the example of God choosing David because of what was in his heart, here the Bible says that physical alteration (like being circumcised) isn’t what matters to God — it’s what’s in the heart.

Genesis 16:13
So [Hagar] named the Lord who spoke to her, “You are El-roi,” for she said, “Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?”

Hagar changes the name she uses for God, reflecting a change in how she recognizes who God is — not a change in God’s own identity, but an uncovering that leads to a fuller understanding and affirmation of God’s identity. Similarly, someone may choose to change the gender (and the name that goes with it) that they identify with as a reflection of a greater understanding and affirmation of who they are, out of a desire that the world may better know and understand them, too.

Heather Brady Heather Brady is the audience engagement manager at Sojourners.

From “Tell Me A Story”, Neat News About Energy

Look Ma, No Blades!

Have you heard about Vortex Bladeless Ltd.? It’s a Spain (just outside Madrid) based tech company developing a wind power generator without rotating blades.

STRUCTURE & OPERATION
~~~
There is a fixed base and a cylindrical mast that oscillates freely perpendicular to the wind direction, jointed by a carbon rod.

Inner parts never collide with each other, but interact to generate electricity.

ENERGY HARNESS
When the wind passes around a structure, vortexes of pressure are created.

The frequency of vortexes depends on the wind speed, and if the structure has a similar natural resonating frequency, it begins to oscillate and harness their energy.

This phenomenon of aeroelastic resonance is called Vortex Shedding, and happens regularly in nature.

ENERGY CONVERSION
Similar to a traditional alternator, our device gets an interaction between coils and magnetic fields, generating electricity by electromagnetic induction without need for rotation on a shaft nor a gearbox.

Read more here. Totally geek out about it here.

The skybrators, as some wits have amusingly dubbed them, stand at a hair over nine feet (2.75 metres) tall.

“Our technology has different characteristics which can help to fill the gaps where traditional windfarms might not be appropriate,” says Yáñez (Inventor, Founder and Co-CEO of Vortex Bladeless).

These gaps could include urban and residential areas where the impact of a windfarm would be too great, and the space to build one would be too small. It plugs into the same trend for installing small-scale, on-site energy generation, which has helped homes and companies across the country save on their energy bills.

This could be wind power’s answer to the home solar panel, says Yáñez. (source)

Snip-More, Not Too Much, Go Read It, It’s Exciting!

https://donna-tellmeastory.blogspot.com/2025/07/look-ma-no-blades.html