Welcome to my mind

[itsapmseymour]

They got new photos of the moon,

I knew she had colors hiding in there 🥹

[mothforpresident]

I would like to note that while these are indeed photos of the moon, the linked post is from an AI academy that incorrectly attributes them to the Artemis II mission.

The photos are saturation-boosted composite images, photographed and edited by Ukrainian photographer Ildar Ibatullin. The photos were taken on August 10, 2025 (the full moon) and April 3, 2025 (the two crescents). The crescent moon post includes normal saturation photos of the same moon (still breathtaking) and this description:

"This is the Moon at 35% phase photographed on 3 April 2025. I was able to pull out fine details of the surface of our satellite. I've also brought out the colours of the lunar seas. The red-pink hues indicate iron oxide and the blue hues represent titanium oxide. Notice the various optical phenomena observed on the photo: rainbow around the Moon due to dispersion, diffraction rays due to the construction of Newtonian telescope. I used a Canon 6D amateur camera, a 2x Barlow lens, a GSO 150/750 reflector telescope, and an Arsenal EQ5 mount."

A similar photo, taken 2025 and posted to Ibatullin's Flickr contains this description:

"I took about 1,000 RAW photos and spent many hours processing them to create the final 6K image. I intentionally enhanced the Moon's saturation to reveal the mineral composition of its surface."

Ibatullin also has a website where high-quality downloadable digital images can be purchased.

I think this is a good reminder to myself and everyone else to check your sources, especially in the age of Al news. It's everywhere and it's insidious. Just to be clear, I'm not trying to tear down OP for posting this! It's an easy mistake to make, but also one that can be avoided.

While the colors in the moon are not visible to us at this saturation and are not taken by the Orion spacecraft, they are still beautiful artwork created by a skilled photographer. And what a wonderful time to stumble upon such a photographer, right as we're collectively watching the Artemis Il mission send a manned spacecraft around the moon.

[kr-585]

What if the moon is just a puppy and a kitty playing together? 

Fanart of the popular moon photo! Original colorful moon photo reference by astrophotographer Ildar Ibatullin!

Super fun to see all the different artistic interpretations :D to me, it looks like a cute scene of playful pets!

[maxximatics]

and the universe said you are not alone.

[kaijuno]

My morning glory doesn’t like the wind chime

[ikebanaka]

SHUT

[typhus-andronicus]

[sexynugget]

face of a man who finally gets to brag about being in a healthy realtionship for 16 years and cant remember what it was like to be single

[sleepyslag]

so we've been making fun of heart eyes howell for 16 years but it turns out that that was him REALLY toning it down. okay.

[thememedaddy]

[animentality]

[previouslylovedplaces]

Condemned Abandoned House by DewbieHaut on Flickr.

[wilwheaton]

“We still know much less than we should about who’s actually running this show. There’s mounting evidence that even more than we know is being directed by Elon Musk and his private-sector employees, who are now fanned out across the government. He appears to have taken control of the federal payment system which allows his operatives to stop checks to any private individual in the country and/or examine all their personal financial information. According to The New York Times, Musk has tasked engineers with figuring out how to cut off the flow of funds from the Treasury to programs and priorities he believes conflict with the brief he received from Donald Trump. He has also taken control of some portion of the federal agency computer systems, allowing his operatives to lock federal workers out of key computer systems. We need a lot more reporting on just how he is exerting this power, specifically under what authority and who the people are he’s installed at these government agencies. Some have simply been appointed to new roles the old-fashioned way. But the best information we have about how “DOGE” is working suggests many are employees from his private companies operating with no legal authority at all.”

—

Who Can Stop Elon’s ‘Team’ Wilding Its Way Through the Federal Government?

No legal authority at all.

No legal authority at all.

AOC is the _only_ Democrat I have seen or heard talking about this. Where the fuck is leadership? Where are the lawsuits?

He has NO LEGAL AUTHORITY AT ALL to do what he is doing.

[thememedaddy]

[beardedmrbean]

this was more unexpected than the spanish inquisition

[oneofthosecrazycatladies]

Okay a couple weeks ago I started this post trying to keep track of all the stuff going on in order to help remind us of everything that’s happened when the next election comes around. Well, because there’s just so much going on, I’ve realized trying to cram it all into one post isn’t going to work. So I’m going to do a new post every month and include links to the previous ones.

So here goes…

January 2025

February 2025

Donald Trump has enforced his tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China. [x]

Donald Trump has put Mexico tariffs on hold for one month. [x]

Donald Trump allowed Elon Musk to begin dismantling USAID. [x]

Congress is voluntarily giving up its power and allowing Trump to make unilateral decisions. [x]

Darren Beattie has been made Under Secretary of State. [x]

Everything that Donald Trump has done so far lines up with Project 2025 [x]

The White House is drafting an executive order to eliminate the Department of Education [x]

Elon Musk, who nobody voted for or elected, has, essentially, hacked the government. [x]

El Salvador has agreed to take US deportees of any nationality. [x]

US Representative Andy Biggs is proposing a bill to abolish OSHA. [x]

Pam Bondi has been confirmed as Attorney General [x]

Donald Trump doesn’t think Palestinians should return to Gaza. [x]

Donald Trump says he’ll use US troops to “take over” the Gaza Strip. [x]

A federal judge has blocked Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship. [x]

Donald Trump has banned trans women from women’s sports [x]

Donald Trump sanctions the International Criminsl Court. [x]

A judge has paused the federal “buyouts” [x]

DOGE: Member of DOGE resigns [x]

DOGE has been given access to the Department of Energy. [x]

Miscellaneous news about Elon Musk [x]

DOGE is using AI to infiltrate the Department of Education [x]

Russell Vought, author of Project 2025, has been confirmed as Director of OMB [x]

Democrats in Congress have introduced the Taxpayer Data Protection Act [x]

Here’s a link to the Project 2025 Policy Agenda that Donald Trump claimed he didn’t know anything about.*

*He only claimed he didn’t know anything about it after it proved to be deeply unpopular with the general public.

I’m also including directories for both the House of Representatives and the Senate. That way, if you’re so inclined, you can also track the individual actions of every Senator and Representative.

Once again, please feel free to let me know about anything I’ve missed. With this era of constant news we live in, it can be easy to forget so let’s give our future selves a little help!

[cheekybug2]

[iamnmbr3]

lock him up

[mirdania]

[biglawbear]

Democrats are literally doing everything they can to stop Trump or throw wrenches into his madness to slow down

[mariacallous]

Slowing down/blocking as much as possible is key right now, because part of what Trump-Musk and the GOP are doing is moving fast and breaking stuff and hoping that a) momentum will continue to carry them forward and b) people won't react in time to prevent them from being entrenched.

Injunctions, lawsuits, restraining orders, filibusters, protests - these all take time, energy, and resources to focus on and respond to, and that means they can't press ahead as much as they'd like. It means more time to have people realize the consequences and how horrible this is, and more time and opportunity to continue shifting public opinion.

And, because of the overconfidence and inexperience (among other things) of those forces now in power, they're not great at responding and handling these things. The sloppiness and laziness is what helped hobble a lot of things in the first administration, and it's not gone away, for better or worse.

[biglawbear]

I can't emphasize enough that when a Senator or Congressman sends a letter to a Federal agency demanding answers, the Federal agency has to give them answers.

All federal agencies have an Office of Legislative Affairs specifically to deal with congressional requests, or "Congressionals."

If a member of Congress says "under what law are you doing this??" and you don't have a good answer, you change what you're doing.

The Treasury Department restricted Musk's access to payment systems because of a Congressional letter.

If you want something to ask of your congressman or senator - ask them to write a letter to the agency of your pick demanding answers about the issue of your choice!!

[perplexed-penguin]

If you’re an American federal employee and got an email saying “it’s ok to quit your job.” Do not, for the love of everything, quit your job. This is purely a scare tactic to get rid of as many people as possible without legal consequences.

[iamnmbr3]

Obviously, Trump has realized firing everyone in the government will be harder than he thought because of robust legal protections so he’s trying to scare or trick people into leaving instead because he knows they can block and slow his fascist agenda. Don’t let that happen. If you’re in the civil service, your country needs you; stay in your job and protect the constitution. And if you’re not in civil service, do what you can to support the civil service, including calling your representatives and asking them to protect civil servants.

[whatisthedeal]

Important addition: the email was almost WORD FOR WORD the same email sent to Twitter employees after Musk took over. It does not consider Federal employee rights or regulations, parts of it make NO SENSE WHATSOEVER (you resign but will be kept on active payroll and simply won’t be given work or need to come in. For 8 months.).

8 months pay with the ability to get a new job is very tempting, especially for lower-paid workers. All that extra money could really cover some gaps and relieve financial pressures. It’s tempting. I get it.

ITS ALSO NOT LIKELY LEGAL AS WRITTEN AND YOUR AGREEMENT COULD ACTUALLY SCREW YOU. There’s a reason so many of the recent EOs and initial memorandums are getting halted or rewritten - no thought or research was given to what they can do given actual regulations and union contracts. Because many are coming from Musk via DOGE, and Musk has NEVER had to deal with unions, federal employee regulations, and strong opponents capable of fighting back HARD with decades of legal precedent at their back.

Reality seems to be hitting as an afterthought to all the shit spewing like a firehose from this administration. Don’t react to the first edition of ANYTHING. Given it a few days and see what actually can be done.

[wyf-of-bathe]

Right now, r/fednews is the biggest social media hub for federal employees anywhere; you can find resources, advice, news, memes, and encouragement there.

If you're not a federal employee, feel free to pop over anyway for information, and please send well-wishes! They really need it right now, as their jobs are so so so important but not very popular or prestigious, and now the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world are trying to take their livelihoods.

The architect of Project 2025, Russell Vought, is now Trump's director for the Office of Managenent and Budget -

ie, the main guy who created Project 2025 is now the topmost-level manager and coordinator of all federal agencies.

His vision for federal civil servants, in his own words:

"We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.

We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can't do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so.

We want to put them in trauma."

Project 2025 specifically targets federal civil servants for a reason. They are the essential first and second lines of defense of the US democracy and the fascists know it.

Support our civil servants, support your rights.

[thestuckylibrary]

This is so important.

Support civil servants, support your rights!

And if you’re in the civil service we’re all rooting for you. You are heroes. Even slowing him down buys valuable time to defeat the fascist agenda. Defend the constitution. We stand with you. Hold the line! Don’t resign!

[stregaomega]

The Muskrat now has access to almost every American’s SSN and other sensitive information. He intends to feed it to his Ai to then isolate and eliminate spending “waste” or anything deemed “illegal.” There is no oversight committee regulating any of this, and there are no guarantees that the servers containing our information are in any way secure- never mind the fact that this obtainment is ILLEGAL.

Regarding conflict of interests, alone, here’s a snippet from Heather Cox Richardson:

It is the world’s largest cyber security breach. Our president just released 1.5k loyalist criminals (though- I heard two rejected the pardon… so that does give me a modicum of hope) and NOW essentially a hit-list of CIA personnel has just been released. I fear for our federal employees serving undercover, especially.

THIS SHIT IS SERIOUS.

THIS IS A COUP.

And they WANT you to think it is over before it actually is.

DO NOT FALL IN LINE.

DO NOT! I repeat, DO NOT DO THAT.

HOLD THE LINE!!

More from Heather Cox Richardson:

If it feels like fear mongering, that’s because are being actively intimidated and they are working hard to make whistle blowers seem reactionary or even unlawful. Don’t think that this is normal. Understand that shock and awe is literally meant to lead this takeover. Fear is easy when they have all our information and we are in the dark.

Are you shocked by this “overwhelming mandate” that was voted for by less than 1/3 of us? Are you in awe of this tyranny?

Not me.

I’m disgusted and pissed the fuck off.

[thestuckylibrary]

This is immoral, illegal and unconstitutional. It cannot be allowed to succeed. Call your representatives. Get out and protest. They’re trying to use fear and intimidation because they don’t have the manpower to use force. But it’s not going to work. There are tens of millions of us who oppose them and only a few of them. Together we can win.

Fuck Elon Musk.

Fuck the Fascists.

Stop the coup.