Tootfinder

Democrats need to win just THREE races to flip the House… And AZ-06 is the most competitive congressional race in the ENTIRE country.
JoAnna Mendoza is rolling up her sleeves to flip this seat blue, and she’s one heck of a candidate.
She’s a no-nonsense, working-class Democrat who knows the value of hard work.
And her story is what this country is all about.
She grew up working in the fields with her parents.
She fought her way out of poverty by serving her coun…

Become a Founding Donor to Mendoza for Congress today!
I just became a founding donor to JoAnna Mendoza for Congress! Will you join me in sending a single mother and a working class veteran to Congress?

A tale in two headlines:
First: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/jul/21/ripon-museum-that-asks-if-you-could-survive-victorian-workhouse?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
(Continued)

Gruel and graft: museum asks if you could survive a Victorian workhouse
Revamped Ripon attraction reopens as a more immersive experience telling ‘national story’ of poverty and welfare

A tale in two headlines:
First: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/jul/21/ripon-museum-that-asks-if-you-could-survive-victorian-workhouse?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
(Continued)

Gruel and graft: museum asks if you could survive a Victorian workhouse
Revamped Ripon attraction reopens as a more immersive experience telling ‘national story’ of poverty and welfare

Sonnet 103 - CIII
Alack! what poverty my Muse brings forth,
That having such a scope to show her pride,
The argument all bare is of more worth
Than when it hath my added praise beside!
O! blame me not, if I no more can write!
Look in your glass, and there appears a face
That over-goes my blunt invention quite,
Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.
Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,
To mar the subject that before was well?…

Nigerian children pay the price for the Iran war as malnutrition and poverty surge - Daily Kos
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/7/21/800072499/world/nigerian-children-pay-the-price-for-the-iran-war-as-malnutrition-and-poverty-surge/

"Is it time for the UK to set maximum workplace temperatures?"
#UK #UnitedKingdom
https://www.

Is it time for the UK to set maximum workplace temperatures?
A coalition of environmental and anti-poverty organisations has warned ministers that the UK is “built for a climate that no longer exists”, calling for urgent action to protect people from increasingly frequent and severe heatwaves after this year's extreme temperatures were linked to thousands of deaths.

It's pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth
have both failed.
-- Kim Hubbard

A look at Quincy, a rural Washington farming town of 8,500 that benefited from a data center boom as its poverty rate fell from 29.4% in 2012 to 6.2% in 2024 (Nathaniel Meyersohn/CNN)
http://www.cnn.com/2026/08/11/business/data-centers-ai-economy

‘Brand-new everything’: How data centers transformed this small town’s economy
A $15 million aquatic center with a six-lane pool, waterslides and a lazy river opened in Quincy, Washington, a few weeks ago.

RE: https://mas.to/@BruceMirken/117140333080759906
SNAP is not just anti-poverty, it's anti-crime. It's anti-death.
Our government would rather spend much more money on cops and surveillance and prisons and emergency rooms than much less money to feed people and keep them in housing and care for their basic needs.
Because punishing weakness is toxic masculinity and caring for your fellow man is girly and weak.

'A government assessment for the new version of the legislation warned that poverty, poorer access to healthcare, lower-quality care and domestic abuse could lead to a “disproportionate numbers of ethnic minority people” opting to end their lives.'
Poverty, poor care and abuse could result in racialised assisted suicide, report shows | Morning Star

There's a link to the full report if you want to see your state's ranking; mine's #3
UNDERNEWS: Best states for those in poverty
https://prorevnews.blogspot.com/2026/07/best-states-for-those-in-poverty.html

When the Justice Department indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center in April on controversial fraud charges, the storied civil rights organization faced a major threat to its lifeblood
— the flow of donor dollars.
Not because it was convicted or because the Internal Revenue Service revoked its tax-exempt status.
Not even because individual donors stopped writing checks.
Instead, three Wall-Street-affiliated grantmaking giants each made a decision,
one they ref…

Wall Street’s Nonprofits Use Selective, Opaque Logic to Defund Charities
A quarter of all individual giving in the U.S. is made through donor-advised funds. A ProPublica investigation reveals how these high-stakes decisions to cut off funding often leave charities, donors and the public in the dark.

Das Präsidium des KIT Karlsruhe findet kostenlose Tampons gegen 'Period Poverty' 'ungerecht' und sperrt sich dagegen.
Anderswo, bei Wirtschaftwissenschaftlern dagegen machen sie es einfach.

#authoritarianism

Trump’s justice department arrests expert on far right as part of SPLC crackdown
Prosecutors charge Heidi Beirich with financial crimes as part of case against the Southern Poverty Law Center

I donated again to Partners in Health
https://www.pih.org/our-mission
"By establishing long-term relationships with sister organizations based in settings of poverty, Partners In Health strives to achieve two overarching goals: to bring the benefits of modern medical science to those most in n…

Mission
Our mission is to provide a preferential option for the poor in health care.

Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2025 (Census.gov)
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2026/income-poverty-health-insurance-coverage.html
http://www.memeorandum.com/260915/p157#a260915p157

“You see abject poverty and extreme wealth, you see how the family you were born into affects your life and you understand why inequality is wrong. It’s not just that it perpetuates itself, it’s that it’s fundamentally wrong and it needs to be changed. And that’s my core, that pursuit of economic justice.” -- Miatta Fahnbulleh
Well, this actually sounds a bit positive!
#UKLabour

Who is Miatta Fahnbulleh, the radical-thinking new UK energy secretary?
Selection of economist formerly at helm of green thinktank marks continuation of decarbonising Miliband era

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced on July 1 his intent to designate certain Muslim and anti-fascist groups
—including U.S. groups
—as “terrorist organizations.”
Using authorities granted to him in a new Florida law, which took effect earlier that day,
DeSantis declared that he would seek designation of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR),
the Muslim Brotherhood, and “Antifa,” among others.
Within hours, the ACLU and Southern Poverty Law …

The Dangers of Florida’s New “Terrorist” Designations
Analysis of First Amendment implications of Florida's HB 1471, part of a growing trend of state-level terrorism designation laws.

After Fraud Accusations, a Young Entrepreneur’s Rise Ends in Tragedy https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/30/nyregion/mohamed-coulibaly-scam-mali-nfl.html

I donated again to Develop Africa to support students in Sierra Leone. This time to help fund a new solar system for their main office computer training center
https://www.developafrica.org/about-develop-africa
"we provide education, child sponsorship, leadership d…

Such sad news. Dolly was an absolute angel among us. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/25/arts/music/dolly-parton-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.8FA.Kmai.lLe97S4sb8ni&smid=nytcore-ios-share

Dolly Parton, Country Music Superstar Whose Songs Spoke to Millions, Dies at 80
Known for her outsize persona, appearance and talent, she rose from rural poverty to become a top-selling singer, songwriter and entrepreneur.

In the fall of 1965,
after the Voting Rights Act passed,
the coalition of black, socialist, and progressive leaders who had come together to organize 1963’s March on Washington
joined together again to create an ambitious policy document
with no less a goal than ending poverty in the United States
without cost to taxpayers.
First released in 1966,
it proposed using strong economic growth to provide a federal jobs guarantee,
universal health ca…

“A Freedom Budget for All Americans,” Annotated
“A Freedom Budget for All Americans” proposed spending billions of federal dollars to provide jobs and basic welfare to all citizens.

The Poverty of Literature
https://ift.tt/7a4FKwo
updated: Monday, June 22, 2026 - 5:06pmfull name / name of organization: American Comparative…
via Input 4 RELCFP https://

I donated again to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Due to the dire threats to the USA from the current administration and the Republican party I am donating as much as I spend on myself to charity this year.
https://www.splcenter.org/
We still have so much racism and injustice in the USA. Organizations…

SPLC | Apathy Is Not An Option
The Southern Poverty Law Center is dedicated to creating a world where Black and Brown communities are represented and respected by our democracy.

Just finished "Salvage" by Renée Nault. I'm a sucker for romances in general and for characters like these, so I enjoyed it a lot, even though I wish works like this would actually address the structural issues they bring up more thoroughly. I tend to think about the messages of a work in terms of counterfactuals. For example, how would this story play out of Paolo hadn't been a good artist, or hadn't been so likeable, etc.
Also: how do the wealth differences play out in the end? Paolo & his family might escape poverty by association, but where I their community does these line get drawn and the rest get left behind? The natural true "good ending" for all these cross-class romances is an anarchist revolution, but so rarely do we get to see that... The alternative is to believe that only some of the lower class deserve being saved because of their virtues, which ends up being a toxic and regressive message.
To be fair, I think Nault pulls off an above-average landing for this trope, and her illustrations of the lower-class communities and their own richness are hopeful. I just always find myself wanting more.
All of that aside, Nault's art is truly wonderful, especially her use of color and the way she uses it consistently to emphasize thematic elements. It's a really beautiful graphic novel.
#AmReading #ReadingNow #Bookstodon

States sue to shield anti-poverty program data from DHS (Tyler Katzenberger/Politico)
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/03/states-lawsuit-anti-poverty-data-dhs-01022205
http://www.memeorandum.com/260803/p86#a260803p86

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on #KEXP's #AfternoonShow
Gang of Four:
🎵 To Hell With Poverty (Gay Marvine Edit)
#GangofFour
https://gangoffour.bandcamp.com/track/to-hell-with-poverty
https://open.spotify.com/track/5meAeH2xj8CkB5ZUahQJQ6

Mamdani was surrounded by naturalized citizens like himself as he listed the waves of immigrants who shaped the city.
“Hundreds of thousands of Irish immigrants arrived with stomachs aching from a famine manufactured by imperial cruelty,” Mamdani said.
“Chinese sailors settled in what is today Chinatown.
Millions more traveled under the Statue of Liberty and through Ellis Island.
Jewish people escaping pogroms,
Italians fleeing poverty.
Syrians seeking ec…

Zohran Mamdani rebukes Trumpism with pro-immigrant speech for US’s 250th birthday
New York mayor’s speech cut ideological counterpoint to policies of president, who will deliver his own remarks later today

Billions of people could be left behind by AI because it doesn’t understand them, Gates Foundation warns | The Independent
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/ai-poverty-inequality-gates-foundation-b3049925.html

Trump, who has lately taken to issuing warnings about a communist plot to take over America,
posits that an island of 9.6 million people
— nearly 90 percent of whom live in extreme poverty amid extended blackouts due to decades of U.S. economic warfare
— is an existential threat to the U.S.
This accusation is not meant to be rational.
It, like the charge that our elections are manipulated, is a transparent excuse to go after institutions and individuals that are…

Trump’s Phantom Enemies
Your Death is My Command – by Mr. Fish The Trump administration is laying the groundwork for blacklisting and criminalizing all left-wing, progressive, anti-war and anti-imperialist dissent. …

You know what everyone had plenty of time for?
Blaming immigrants and people fleeing wars and poverty for everything.

Just finished "Phoolan Devi, Rebel Queen" by Claire Fauvel. It's a graphic biography of Phoolan Devi, who was a real woman bandit and later socialist politician in India. Content warning: contains graphic depictions of child rape, torture, and castration.
Phoolan survived violence, including sexual violence, accentuated by poverty and caste discrimination, when she was a child. She later became a bandit, meted out some justice and was branded a criminal because of that. I won't spoil things more because the twists and turns are super interesting, but her life story is fascinating and inspiring. She was truly a feminist. She was illiterate, but narrated an autobiography which this graphic novel is based on.
If we lived in a world where all of the stories like hers were as well known as they should be, we wouldn't need any more of them.
#AmReading #ReadingNow #Bookstodon

Trump admin set to target George Soros nonprofit, Southern Poverty Law Center and CAIR in major tax crackdown: sources (James Franey/New York Post)
https://nypost.com/2026/08/27/business/trump-admin-set-to-target-george-soros-nonprofit-in-tax-crackdown/
http://www.memeorandum.com/260827/p91#a260827p91

"the Trump administration is teeing up a "major rollback" of the federal requirements for Head Start, an early education and antipoverty program created in 1965. Advocates and experts told The Times that the rollback threatens to upend the 60-year-old program."
Trump alarms with 'massive gutting' of program meant to pull kids out of poverty: NYT - Raw Story
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-education-2677645128/

It is past time for a permanent basic income in Canada.
Now we have a country-level model, in an English speaking country, to start from.
#UBI #Canada #CanPoli #CdnPoli #BasicIncome #Poverty #Culture #Art #Depression #Anxiety #LiveableIncome
https://rgmii.org/blog/thousands-more-artists-join-irelands-basic-income-plan/