Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
@sylviachi.bsky.social
9.3K followers 1.4K following 3.1K posts
dog person. lawyer but not your lawyer. admin law enthusiast. i work on climate justice and public banking. she/they 🇺🇸🇹🇼 opinions are my own!
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sylviachi.bsky.social
Do we think Kavanaugh sincerely (mistakenly) thinks this, or that he's aware of what he's doing (propagandizing)?
evanbernick.bsky.social
OK here's the passage. This is not true. The Court has said that specifically about race conscious admissions policies. This is a bid to extend that to other contexts by pretending that it has already been done. Thing is, you can't just tell a Justice he's misstating the law during oral argument.
-- as you know, is
that this Court's cases in a variety of
contexts have said that race-based remedies are
permissible for a period of time, sometimes for
Heritage Reporting Corporation


























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Official - Subject to Final Review
a long period of time, decades in some cases,
but that they should not be indefinite and
 should have a end point.
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
mjsdc.bsky.social
The Supreme Court's Republican appointees sound ready to transform the 14th and 15th Amendments into a weapon against the very racial minorities they were meant to protect—handing Republicans 15-19 additional House seats in the process. A disaster for democracy.
slate.com/news-and-pol...
Is it racist to remedy racism? That’s the question at the heart of Callais v. Louisiana, which the Supreme Court heard on Wednesday. The case asks whether the Voting Rights Act gives Black Louisianans too much political power—and if so, whether the landmark law violates the Constitution. Unsurprisingly, the Republican-appointed justices seem eager to rule that it does. Throughout oral arguments, they suggested the VRA protects minority voters too effectively, dragging the government into race-conscious considerations that offend the equal protection rights of the white voters who sued in this case. And they floated various ways to gut what remains of the statute by twisting it beyond recognition or striking it down altogether. The result would be a windfall for Republicans, who stand to gain at least 19 seats in the House of Representatives if the Supreme Court frees them to gerrymander Black communities into oblivion. Such a decision would also devastate minority representation in Congress, eliminating up to 30 percent of the Congressional Black Caucus.
sylviachi.bsky.social
The mainstream media has completely failed to provide the critical context in this thread.
bbkogan.bsky.social
Trump's mechanism to pay the troops during the shutdown is by far the most illegal budgetary action he's taken as POTUS, potentially setting the stage to break everything.

It's also needless because Congress would easily pass a troop pay bill if Johnson were willing to gavel in.

Long thread.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/10/national-security-presidential-memorandum-nspm-8/
sylviachi.bsky.social
Remember when that DOGE kid got exposed for some racist tweets and got fired? Vance swooped in to say he should be forgiven, even though he never apologized or even admitted that the racist tweets were wrong.

Same thing happening here again. The effect is to normalize racism.
atrupar.com
JD Vance dismisses Young Republicans who in a group chat said "I love Hitler" and joked about slavery and rape as "a bunch of kids" who "told stupid jokes" and adds that "most of the stupid things I did when I was a teenager and young adult, they're not on the internet."
sylviachi.bsky.social
Absolutely. But I think it's helpful for those who can to be exposed to other examples of folks opting out of the upward rat race. The way I was raised, it didn't really seem like that was even an option.
sylviachi.bsky.social
Something that has really stuck with me is when someone suggested to me that we need more class traitors — including middle-class upwardly-mobile types (like me) opting out of the upward rat race after you have "enough" stability.
kendrawrites.com
I've shared this article before, but this has been my exact experience. When I was in my early 20s, I had a low paying job which made it easy to quit and run to France to teach English for almost a year. When I was back in the US a *finance* dude told me he wished he could afford to travel more.
While an initial do-gooder experience profoundly affects attitudes and career choices, Yavaş argues that a first job in finance or consulting can lock someone into those careers even more strongly. It’s difficult for young people to break free of their golden handcuffs and jump off the high-status hamster wheel “even if they hate their jobs,” Yavaş said. “If they don’t feel like they have a safety net, they put up with alienation.”
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
marisakabas.bsky.social
ICE just arrested a singing giraffe in Portland.
roadsteamer.bsky.social
🚨 *Breaking News* Robby Roadsteamer has been detained by ICE Portland after singing Rod Stewart with the Portland Frog! We need your help!

Please support Robby's campaign and lawyer fees at robbyroadsteamer.com link on bio 💙🦒🦒🦒
sylviachi.bsky.social
Rick Steves' vision of the good life is correct.
Rick Steves, an older middle-aged white man wearing glasses, is smiling while seated at a piano with an open book of Chopin on the stand. He is holding a nugget of cured cannabis in one hand and a wine glass filled with more cannabis in the other hand.
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
vermontgmg.bsky.social
It’s incredible that the VT State Senator wrapped up in this hasn’t resigned yet — every major GOP leader in the state has called for his resignation. Fixing democracy requires restoring shame to public life. And accountability. Lots of accountability. vtdigger.org/2025/10/14/v...
sylviachi.bsky.social
Also: "The facility will use a closed-loop, liquid-cooled system that continuously recycles water. Meta pledged to restore twice the water consumed by the data center to local watersheds, exceeding its 2030 goal to be "water-positive" by restoring more water than it consumes."

I'm skeptical!
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
klasfeldreports.com
Extraordinary NYT story:

Trump’s DOJ pressured out another US Attorney in WESTERN Virginia for finding that a grand jury probe his bosses demanded was unwarranted.

They wanted a case discrediting the Russia probe — evidence be damned. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/u...
U.S. Attorney Was Forced Out After Clashes Over How to Handle Russia Inquiry
www.nytimes.com
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
nytimes.com
Months before catastrophic floods swept through an Alaska Native village on Sunday, the Trump administration canceled a $20 million grant meant to protect the community from extreme flooding. At the time, the EPA administrator said he was eliminating "wasteful DEI and Environmental Justice grants."
E.P.A. Canceled $20 Million Flood Protection Grant to Alaska, Parts of Which Just Flooded
The remote village of Kipnuk planned to use the money to protect against flooding. On Sunday, it was inundated.
nyti.ms
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
chrisgeidner.bsky.social
BREAKING: Marco Rubio's State Department announces publicly that it is exercising unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination in revoking people's visas based on comments about the killing of Charlie Kirk.
Department of State v
@StateDept
g..
The United States has no obligation to host foreigners who wish death on Americans.
The State Department continues to identify visa holders who celebrated the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk. Here are just a few examples of aliens who are no longer welcome in the U.S.:
5:55 PM • Oct 14, 2025 • 34.1K Views
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
aaronhuertas.bsky.social
I would simply not use a national party body to intervene in a primary race and instead build infrastructure for the eventual nominee, trusting the choice of primary voters, but then again I lack the political acumen of people who have steered the party into its lowest ever modern approval rating.
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
interruptcrim.bsky.social
"We cannot prevent all of the harm that ICE will do in our communities, but we can make their work harder, and we can make our values, our presence, and our solidarity known. We can make our neighborhoods and our relationships stronger, as we forge bonds in opposition to this violence."
mskellymhayes.bsky.social
My latest is the story of how my community has rallied to protect and defend our neighbors in recent days, as ICE has targeted the Rogers Park neighborhood in Chicago. "This is not a story about a moment of victory, but a moment of being reminded of our power."
They Came for Our Neighbors. We Showed Up.
Before long, there were dozens, and then hundreds of people in the streets, watching and responding.
organizingmythoughts.org
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
audrelawdamercy.bsky.social
wrote about last week's super interesting tribal sovereignty decision in Washington Supreme Court

one justice wrote a standalone concurrence basically saying 'the court applied the law correctly, but also the law is terrible and it's our responsibility to say so'
ballsandstrikes.org/legal-cultur...
A Washington State Supreme Court Justice Condemns Federal Indian Law as Racist and Awful
"Each time a court cites a case that has as its foundation such racist fallacies, it is incumbent on us to call out that racism, even if just in a footnote."
ballsandstrikes.org
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
carlquintanilla.bsky.social
POLITICO: “.. They referred to Black people as monkeys and ‘the watermelon people’ and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies .. and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.

@politico.com
www.politico.com/news/2025/10...
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
goldwagnathan.bsky.social
We are living through the most consequential shift in the constitutional government of the United States in over a hundred and fifty years and nobody seems to have even noticed yet.
mikeblack114.bsky.social
Congress no longer holds the power of the purse, the executive can just do whatever they want with federal monies
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
jael.bsky.social
if you know a single soul in…

• the Kansas City metro area
• the St. Louis metro area
• the Indianapolis metro area
• the Nashville metro area

@ekkoastral.bsky.social is playing a few impromptu shows on our way back to DC

tomorrow thru friday

our last shows of the year!!!!

linktr.ee/ekkoastral
ekko astral on stage lookin epic photo credit alec pugliese
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
ecosozialismus.bsky.social
I am so proud of Portland right now. I keep saying we are having a renaissance & you can really see it in so many ways.

We just hosted folks from around the country at an energy conference & they were blown away by the political culture that is growing here.

We have a chance at something great.
davidrvetter.bsky.social
The US federal attack on Portland has resulted in the best advertisement for a city that I have ever seen. Round-the-clock joy, community solidarity and silliness that much of the West has lost and longs for.
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
royalpratt.bsky.social
NEWS: ICE gave a Rogers Park man a $130 ticket for not having his papers on him. They rounded him up last week and eventually let him go, but not without a fine that some critics say is un-American. Trump admin enforcing little-used law
www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/13/i...
ICE tickets Chicago man with legal residency $130 for not having his papers on him: ‘It’s not fair…I’m a resident’
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement fined Rueben Antonio Cruz $130 for not having his papers with him.
www.chicagotribune.com
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
anotherjonah.bsky.social
This morning I was filming ICE abducting sometime in Petworth. One of the agents told me "the last US citizen that did this he put in cuffs all the way to the courtroom".
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
rincewind.run
a foundational belief of the modern right is that there is no such thing as organic disagreement with their policies, it’s all directed from the top down

they just can’t conceive that ordinary people find them horrifying
atrupar.com
Sean Duffy: "The No Kings protest, Maria, really frustrating. This is part of antifa, paid protesters. It begs the question who's funding it."