“I am not a teacher, but an awakener.” - Robert Frost “It takes nothing to join the crowd. It takes everything to stand alone." - Hans F. Hansen
West Chicago, IL
Joined April 2009
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“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”
-Margaret Mead
Paige Gaede retweeted
😞 These are the faces of 6 young people infected with tick-borne diseases that made them suicidal. RIP.
Can’t overstate how important it is to know this: Microbes cause a huge variety of psych disorders (from anxiety/depression) to BPD, psychosis, OCD, schizophrenia etc. Lyme, Bartonella, Babesia are common drivers but not the only ones. Insist on a full ID work-up in the face of psych issues. Could save a life.
Paige Gaede retweeted
9 precious souls rescued in the last 4 weeks and 37 since May. I can only get 67 free retweets💔. I don’t need accolades or likes just retweets. This black floof is next. I have posted videos before of the 2 coyotes and they always miss each other by minutes every night. She is struggling amongst the outside elements. Food is not always available when she shows up. This will be her lifelong sanctuary home, while 99% of people are trapping cats and dropping off at Cobb AC never looking back. They have euthanized 2000 this year. Can I please just get free retweets for the CASH MATCH that runs through November? PLEASE 🙏 Monthly expenses are in the thousands. 42 babies plus outside colonies only have me. Thank you 🙏
🎂 3,081 REASONS...
TO CELEBRATE ONE WOMAN ❤️🐾
October 28th is Priya's birthday🥳
3,081 little souls have been helped over 21 years because this heart was born. If we could gather them all together, what a birthday celebration it would be.
There would be magnificent chaos.
But imagine, for just a moment, if every one of those lives could tell her what she meant to them...
"I was so hungry, and you fed me."
"I had forgotten what kindness felt like until you touched me."
"When I was hurting, you made the pain stop."
"I thought my life was nearly over. You thought it was still worth living."
"I have the best family and the most profound love because you saved me, tamed me and found me a home".
"You made my life on the streets a little safer, and you cared enough to make sure there wouldn't be more babies born into the same hardship."
And the ones who are no longer here?
Oh, I think their voices would be the most tender of all.
"You couldn't make me stay forever, Mummy. But you made the time I had beautiful. I knew I was loved. And when it was time to go, I didn't have to go alone."
Imagine hearing all of that.
Imagine being able to see, all at once, the enormous tapestry of lives woven together by one woman's compassion.
And if she’d never come along, where they would be today?
It began with a little girl, just eight years old, who found a woeful street cat and named him Fat Harry. A beautiful tabby, she called him her "sweet smelly boy". It was her first experience with an FIV cat. She learned these are the dangers of life on the street.
She couldn't have imagined what that one small act of kindness would become.
She couldn't possibly have known it then, but something began that day.
A life had secretly found its calling.💫
There were other plans. Possibilities. All the things we imagine a young life might become.
And then came the twists and turns that make up a lifetime.
Looking backward from here, it feels as though fate kept quietly leaving cats in Priya's path.
One became another. And another.
Eventually, a little girl who couldn't walk past one homeless cat became a woman who couldn't walk past any of them.
And now, 21 years of rescuing have given us 3,081 reasons to be grateful that she answered it.😽
There have been extraordinary victories and heartbreaking losses. Sleepless nights, impossible decisions, frightening veterinary emergencies, physical maladies that set in when the stress was too much and more tears than anyone should ever have to cry.
There have been days when the financial burden of rescue seemed insurmountable, when the exhaustion of 8 hour work days + 8 hour rescue duty making every day 16 hours of laboring stole the joy from another hard won victory, and when the suffering still waiting beyond the rescue's doors seemed endless.
Yet somehow, through it all, and I believe by grace, she has continued to answer the same quiet plea.
"Please help me".
Again and again.
So what do you give a woman whose life has been devoted to giving others a chance at life?
This birthday, we have a beautiful opportunity to give her something that would mean more to her than any gift wrapped in ribbons.
The means to keep saying YES.
A bit of relief from the pressure of worry, financial struggle and a moment to fully,deeply breathe.
If just for a moment.
🎁 A $2,000 BIRTHDAY CASH MATCH FOR PRIYA!
A generous friend has offered to match every birthday donation, dollar for dollar, up to $2,000, through November 18th..
If we can raise the full match, together we'll provide $4,000 to help Gandolf's Legacy @gandolf_s continue caring for the precious lives entrusted to Priya.
Food for hungry bellies. Medicine for the sick. Veterinary care.. Prescription diets for fragile seniors. Warm beds, clean litter and the security of knowing that someone will be there tomorrow.
Every gift is an expression of gratitude for a woman who has asked nothing for herself and given so much to others.
Priya deserves our help. She does what many others can’t or wouldn’t do by saving the lives of 1000’s of abandoned street cats and kittens.
And every dollar, large or small, becomes twice as meaningful while this match is open.
If Priya has ever touched your heart, if you've followed the stories of her rescues, celebrated their happy endings or wept with her when love simply wasn't enough to keep someone here, please consider making a birthday gift in her honor.
And if giving isn't possible, please consider a message of appreciation & a share of this birthday wish. Help us find more hearts willing to stand beside her.
Because there is something I would dearly love for Priya to understand on her birthday.
Those 3,081 lives are not simply a record of what she has accomplished.
They are 3,081 reasons why her life has mattered...why the world is kinder because she is in it.
3,081 reasons to celebrate the day she was born.
And if somehow we could gather them all beneath one enormous birthday sky, I imagine the ones who found their forever homes would come from every corner of the country.
The sanctuary cats would gather at her feet.
Fat Harry would have a place of honor!
And somewhere beyond our sight, all of the others who have gone ahead would be shining like little stars.
Then, for one impossible, glorious moment, perhaps every voice would join together.
Not merely to sing Happy Birthday.
But to say...
"Thank you for my life, Mummy."
Happy Birthday, Priya. ❤️
May all the love you have poured into the world for so many years find its way home to you.
And may this birthday remind you that the beautiful work of your life is still being written, one precious little soul at a time.
Love Lives Here. Because you do. 🐾❤️🫂
*The ways to contribute are in the reply below.
**Please let me know the amount of your gift or DM me if you wish it to remain private, so I can keep track of running total.😽
Thank you for staying to read.🙏
Here is a birthday tribute video. It was impossible to choose from so, so many faces and stories. It would have to be a full length movie to tell them all...💫
Paige Gaede retweeted
33 Illinois counties have already voted to explore leaving Cook County behind. 11 more do it Tuesday.
That is what happens when one city and one county set the taxes, the spending priorities, and the rules that the rest of the state has to live under.
It isn’t a stunt. It’s a wake-up call.
📸 Illinois Separation | H/T @fox32news
Paige Gaede retweeted
😢this is what many hardworking Americans are facing right now.
I hope President Trump gets to see this video. We need more attention in the struggle many Americans are facing.
Washington truly doesn’t understand the heartbeat of America and what people are going through.
As well as the economy is doing, everyday Americans are still struggling.
Mortgages are outrageous and a 50 year loan isn’t going to do shit to fix that.
Food prices are still way too high.
Gas, energy is beyond ridiculous.
Wages might be going up in some markets but that isn’t for hardworking blue collar Americans.
Decades of failed policies, incompetent leadership and deindustrialization have destroyed the American dream.
It’s time to ignite that flame once again.
@POTUS
@WhiteHouse
Paige Gaede retweeted
Scientists Have Been Quietly Studying Cats for Decades. The Results Are Unsettling.
Cats have been domesticated for roughly 10,000 years. In that time, they have changed almost nothing about themselves. Dogs were selectively bred into hundreds of shapes and temperaments to serve human needs. Cats, by most accounts, simply moved in, decided the arrangement suited them, and stayed largely the same animal they were in the wild. Biologists have a word for this: cats are functionally self-domesticated.
The engineering underneath that indifference is, by any measure, extraordinary. A cat’s inner ear contains a reflex system so precise that it can detect disorientation and begin correcting its body position in mid-air within 30 milliseconds, faster than the human eye can register movement. It is called the righting reflex, and it is why a cat dropped from height almost always lands on its feet. Biomechanics researchers at various institutions have spent years reverse-engineering it and still can’t fully replicate it mechanically.
Their purring turns out to not be purely emotional. The vibration frequency, between 25 and 150 Hz, sits within the range that stimulates bone density and promotes tissue regeneration. Some veterinary researchers believe this is why cats recover from orthopedic injuries at rates that consistently surprise clinicians. The cat, while appearing to simply sit on a couch, is running internal repair cycles.
The night vision advantage over humans, roughly six times greater sensitivity in low light, comes from a reflective layer behind the retina called the tapetum lucidum. It’s the same layer that makes cats’ eyes glow in the dark. Every feature that seems decorative has a function.
For 10,000 years, humans thought they adopted the cat. Current evidence suggests the cat evaluated the offer and accepted it on its own terms.
Paige Gaede retweeted
🎉🐴 IT’S OFFICIAL: ROMANCH’S LAW HAS PASSED! 🐴🎉
Today, the @NYCCouncil voted to END horse-drawn carriages in New York City. 🗳️✅
After DECADES of fighting, failed bills, and too many lives lost, New York has finally said: no more. 💪
Here’s what Romanch’s Law does:
🚫 No new carriage licenses, starting now
🐎 Carriages off NYC streets by June 1, 2028
🤝 A transition plan for carriage workers
THANK YOU to @SpeakerMenin @juliemenin, Council Member @chrismartenyc, Council Member @harveyforny, Health Chair @lynn4nyc Schulman, Majority Leader @shaunabreu, Council Member @shahanafrombk, Council Member @ShirleyAldebol, the Animal Welfare Caucus, every co-sponsor and Council Member who voted YES, and @nycmayor Mamdani for committing to sign Intro 943 into law. 🙌
And thank YOU. Every email, every call, every rally. You made this happen. 📣
This is what political power for animals looks like. 🔥
Next stop: Mayor Mamdani’s signature. ✍️
Paige Gaede retweeted
Welcome to the Midwest
Winter is at 6am
Spring is at 10am
Summer is at 3pm
Fall starts around 8pm
Dress accordingly
Paige Gaede retweeted
Dear Secretary Bessent @SecScottBessent,
On October 14th I wrote to you about Bank of America @BankofAmerica.
You did not answer. 3.6 million Americans did.
I want to tell you what that looked like from where I sit, because I do not think Washington understands it yet. The messages did not come from one side. They came from Republicans and Democrats, from veterans and nurses and small business owners, from people who have not agreed with each other about anything in a decade. They all said a version of the same sentence. We have had enough.
That is what a national security issue looks like when it finally breaks through. It does not pick a party. It belongs to everyone who has a kid, a bank account, or a flag on the porch.
So let me be plain about my concern. I am worried that nothing is going to happen. The fine has been announced. The press cycle is already turning. In a few weeks the number will be forgotten and the bank will be back to business. I have watched this exact sequence play out before, and I am writing to you now, while there is still a window, because once that window closes it does not reopen.
I am also widening this letter, because Treasury does not act alone.
To the Department of Justice @TheJusticeDept and to FBI Director Kash Patel @FBIDirectorKash:
Director Patel, you were not in the chair when this happened, so I want you to hear it from me directly. In 2011 I walked into the FBI with everything I had on HSBC. Not a tip. Boxes. Names, account numbers, transaction records, internal emails. Agents worked that evidence for over a year. I trusted them, and I still believe they wanted to do their jobs.
Then the settlement was announced. $1.9 billion. I called the agents and asked the only question that mattered. When do you raid the building and when are the arrests?
Their answer was four words. Our hands are tied.
I have thought about those four words every day since. Not because the agents failed me. Because somebody above them decided that a bank was too important to treat like a defendant. That decision was made quietly, by people whose names I will never know, and it has been made again every time since. Director Patel, you now have the authority to make a different one.
I remember the words carved into the stone outside the federal building in Philadelphia the day I walked in to report @HSBC: justice is the defense of our liberty. I believed that. I still want to. But a justice system that handcuffs a dealer on the corner and sends a bank a bill is not defending anyone’s liberty. It is choosing whose liberty counts.
To Brian Moynihan, Chief Executive Officer of Bank of America @BankofAmerica:
Mr. Moynihan, your bank just agreed to pay $1.2 billion for failures that regulators called willful. I have a few questions, and the 3.6 million people reading this would like the answers too.
Who was fired?
Not reassigned. Not retired early with a package. Fired, by name, for the conduct the government described.
What has actually changed in your anti money laundering program? Not the budget line. Not the consultant’s slide deck. What is different today about how an alert gets cleared and who is allowed to say stop?
Were there any consequences inside the building at all? Or did this land the way it landed at HSBC bank, as a line item?
And how much is your bonus this year?
I ask because I know what it costs a compliance officer to raise his hand inside a bank like yours. I would like to know what it cost anyone at the top. Do you even care? I am asking sincerely. I would like to be wrong.
Here is what I did about all of this, and why it matters to this letter. After the government declined to help me or any of the whistleblowers I have met since, I built the thing I wished had existed. Tactical Rabbit is a private intelligence agency. We find the truth, we prove it, and we put it in the hands of people who will act on it. I made a decision a long time ago that if the government would not stop the next HSBC, I would.
So to anyone inside a bank reading this who is looking at something they know is wrong: if your bank will not act, and the government will not act, come to me. I will get the truth to the public. That is not a threat. It is a promise I have already kept once.
Mr. Secretary, Director Patel, the Department of Justice, and Mr. Moynihan: four addresses, one question. Will anyone be held accountable?
Not fined. Not suspended. Not asked to attend training. Accountable.
Please end the cycle of too big to jail. I will not stop until there is change, and neither will the millions of Americans standing behind this letter. Answer them.
We need a banker in jail.
Everett A. Stern
HSBC Whistleblower
Founder, Tactical Rabbit
Paige Gaede retweeted
INSANE 🚨 Assistant US Attorney General for the National Fraud Enforcement Division says fraudsters are stealing so much money every year in America, it’s more than the entire budget of the Departments of Energy, Justice Department and Department of Interior COMBINED
Nobody in America should be paying an income tax
For reference this is roughly $105 billion dollars+ stolen by fraudsters EVERY YEAR
Paige Gaede retweeted
This is just shocking. I didn't know this. @Grok confirm.
Paige Gaede retweeted
Vote NO on all tax increases & referendums.
$6 B in long term costs to Illinoisans across the state. Tax hikes.
That’s what 85 local referendums on ballots on Nov. 3 will ask you to agree to.
We highlight the 6 biggest ballot questions, starting with CUSD 300 in Algonquin, at $355 million.
Most taxpayers have no idea about these referendums.
Get engaged. Find out what’s on your ballot. Via Fight for Illinois.
#twill
Paige Gaede retweeted
Even cat food in America is poison
New Lab Test Investigation into cat food sold in America tested 62 brands, covering 100 products and found:
- 99% contained lead
- 94% contained arsenic
- 96% contained cadmium
- Dry food had about 3c the lead of wet or air-dried food
- Fish and seafood formulas had about 18x the mercury of other dry foods
- Fish and seafood formulas had about 28x among wet foods only
- Nearly half of fish products ranked in the high-mercury group. No poultry product did
- Fish formulas also had about 2.5x the cadmium
- Glyphosate (weed killer) was detected in 37% of products
- The plasticizer DEHP was found in 48 of 100 products, canned and pouched products had about 5x as much as bagged products
List of brands that were tested:
• Purina (Cat Chow, Friskies, One, Pro Plan, Fancy Feast)
• Acana
• American Journey
• Applaws
• BIXBI (Liberty and Rawbble)
• Blue Buffalo (Tastefuls and Wilderness)
• Boss Cat
• Carna4
• Chicken Soup for the Soul
• Diamond Naturals
• Dr. Marty’s (Nature’s Feast)
• Fancy Feast (Purina)
• Fresh is Best
• Freshpet
• Friskies (Purina)
• Fromm
• Fussie Cat
• Go! Solutions
• Grandma Lucy’s
• Green Juju
• Hill’s Science Diet
• The Honest Kitchen
• I and Love and You
• Iams
• Instinct
• Kirkland Signature
• McLovin’s
• Merrick
• Meow Mix
• Natural & Delicious (N&D)
• Natural Pet Food Group
• Nature’s Advantage
• Nulo
• Nutrish
• Open Farm
• Optimal
• Orijen
• PawTree
• Primal
• Purpose
• Quest (Go Raw)
• Redbarn
• Reveal
• Royal Canin
• Sheba
• Smallbatch
• Smalls
• The Simple Food Project
• Solid Gold
• Special Kitty (Walmart)
• Stella & Chewy’s
• Tiki Cat
• Vital Essentials
• Wellness
• Weruva
• Whole Hearted
• Whole Life
• Ziwi Peak
Lab testing was done by The Clean Label Project, a Colorado nonprofit that tests consumer products and sells a purity certification
Paige Gaede retweeted
HYPOTHETICALLY… IF I BOUGHT MY HOUSE FOR $125,000 IN 2002 AND THE COUNTY NOW SAYS IT’S WORTH $487,000, WHERE DID I ACTUALLY MAKE $362,000?
Did I sell it? No.
Did I receive $362,000? No.
Did somebody hand me a check for the new assessed value? Obviously not.
But my property taxes still go up because, on paper, my house is suddenly worth hundreds of thousands more.
That’s the part that doesn’t make sense to me.
This isn’t income.
It isn’t cash sitting in my bank account.
It’s a number someone assigned to my property, and now I’m being billed based on that number.
If my stock portfolio doubles but I don’t sell, I haven’t turned that gain into cash.
If my salary stays the same, I don’t suddenly owe more income tax because someone thinks I’m worth more.
So why does owning a home work differently?
WHY AM I PAYING TAX ON A GAIN I NEVER REALIZED?
A house isn’t just an investment.
It’s where people live.
You can pay off the mortgage, own the property outright, and still face a bigger bill every year because the value of the house went up on paper.
At some point, you have to ask what “owning” something actually means if the cost of keeping it can keep rising because of money you never received.
THIS ISN’T ABOUT WHETHER THE HOUSE IS “WORTH” MORE.
IT’S ABOUT BEING CHARGED FOR VALUE YOU NEVER TURNED INTO CASH.
And people are starting to notice.