Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Katy Shanahan @katyashanahan.bsky.social · Apr 16

This is the energy we need to see from every elected Democrat.

Anything less simply will not suffice in this moment.

Senator Chris Van Hollen @vanhollen.senate.gov · Apr 16

I’m about to board my flight to El Salvador, where I hope to meet with senior government officials to discuss the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

I also hope to see Kilmar and check on his condition — and remind him that we won’t stop fighting until he’s home.

Headed to El Salvador to meet with government officials and discuss return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia

YouTube video by Senator Chris Van Hollen

youtube.com

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Reposted by Katy Shanahan

Tom Usher @tomusher.bsky.social · Apr 3

Hate to be millennial about it all but it is just mental that my whole working life has just been a series of recessions and “economic shocks”, underpinned by stagnant wages

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Gremliny Nussboo @emilynussbaum.bsky.social · Apr 3

Call me Little Mary Sunshine, but I think this tariff fiasco is going to fuck him up. That plus the risk to Social Security/Medicaid. People *should* care about extralegal kidnappings, attacks on universities & law firms, all the fascist sickness, but they don’t. Financial chaos can break through

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Katy Shanahan @katyashanahan.bsky.social · Apr 3

ALSO a much more compelling breaking of Strom's racist tirade filibuster agst the Civil Rights Act (imo!) would have been literally any Dem grinding Senate biz to a halt with Biden in the WH & Dem control of congress to demand restoring the full force of the VRA, which has been gutted since 2013!

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Katy Shanahan @katyashanahan.bsky.social · Apr 3

begging y'all to raise your standards for what you're demanding of your elected officials.

the 25-hr speech wasn't a filibuster of any bills/noms, it didn't stop business as usual, and literally a minute after Booker yielded the floor the Dems allowed a vote for a Trump nominee go uninterrupted.

Jonathan M. Katz @katz.theracket.news · Apr 2

This is somewhat imprecisely worded, and some people in the replies are confused about how the Senate works. So here is live video of what happened. (TL;DR, it’s pretty much what Vicky says.)

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Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · Apr 2

Can’t help but feel that if President Bernie Sanders pulled this move the entirety of American business would try to get him pushed out of office immediately.

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Eman Abdelhadi @emanabdelhadi.bsky.social · Mar 27

The tactics ICE is using--thugs in plain clothes kidnapping people simply for their political views--these tactics were developed by the US and spread across the world to hunt down Leftists from Latin America to Indonesia. They've also been used locally for decades to terrorize Black communities.

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Dignity of Work Institute @dignityofwork.bsky.social · Mar 24

Our mission is to put American workers at the center of our politics and our policies and to create an economy where work is rewarded.

Read Sherrod Brown’s conversation with the @nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/24/u...

Sherrod Brown, Weighing a 2026 Senate Bid, Starts a Workers’ Group

Mr. Brown, the Ohio Democrat who lost his race for re-election last year, is forming the Dignity of Work Institute, which will highlight workers’ struggles.

www.nytimes.com

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Dignity of Work Institute @dignityofwork.bsky.social · Mar 24

All work has dignity. Americans are working harder than ever, with less to show for it.

Sherrod Brown is launching the Dignity of Work Institute to create an economy where work is valued, workers benefit from the wealth they create, and everyone can afford a decent living.

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ElieNYC @elienyc.bsky.social · Mar 14

How badly do you have to fuck up being the Democratic leader that Trump is praising and congratulating you????

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Katy Shanahan @katyashanahan.bsky.social · Mar 14

👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

Anne Caprara @annecaprara.bsky.social · Mar 14

The fight going on in the Democratic Party right now is not between hard left, left and moderate. It’s between those who want to fight and those who want to cave. And Team Fight stretches across all ideological aspects of the Party. Misread this at your own peril.

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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · Feb 5

Eternally grateful to Kristen Clarke for bringing this suit when she headed the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. And proud of the A.M.E. Church for standing strong in the face of the “formerly known as Proud Boys’” attack.

Katie Phang @katiephang.bsky.social · Feb 5

The Proud Boys organization no longer controls the trademark, “Proud Boys”, and is now “barred from selling any merchandise with either its name or its symbols without the consent of a Black church in Washington that its members vandalized.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/03/u...

Proud Boys Lose Control of Their Name to a Black Church They Vandalized

A judge awarded the trademarked name and symbols to a Washington church to help satisfy a $2.8 million judgment against the far-right group.

www.nytimes.com

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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · Feb 4

Every Democratic Senator voted to confirm Rubio as Secretary of State. Every one of them should publicly demand that Rubio fire this man.

Ryan J. Reilly “paints a vivid and urgent portrait of… disarray” @ryanjreilly.com · Feb 4

The guy overseeing USAID was identified two years ago as a Jan. 6 participant who entered the Capitol through a broken window.

www.nbcnews.com/politics/whi...

Marco Rubio empowers State Department official Pete Marocco to run USAID

Marocco held several national security positions during the first Trump administration, including at USAID, where he tried to consolidate power and slash funding.

www.nbcnews.com

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Matt Pearce @mattdpearce.com · Feb 3

if I understand American politics correctly, progressivism is something that requires 60 senate votes to work, while national conservatism doesn’t require any votes at all

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · Jan 31

if you haven't learned about the imperial boomerang today's as good a day as any

Boston Review @bostonreview.bsky.social · Jan 30

Twenty years later, Guantánamo is everywhere. The lawless and ongoing administration of the prison there has metastasized throughout U.S. legal and political culture and underwrites the broader democratic crisis we face today.

Baher Azmy, legal director at @ccrjustice.bsky.social:

Twenty Years Later, Guantánamo Is Everywhere - Boston Review

The lawless—and ongoing—administration of the prison underwrites the broader democratic crisis we face today.

www.bostonreview.net

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Emily K @emkultra64.com · Jan 29

Do you know why a president would do all the most evil and heinous shit via Executive Order? Because his party can't easily make it law. And if they can't make it law, they can't make it last.

Don't let anyone make you feel like this is The End. Do not let them demoralize you. Live to see them die.

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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · Jan 28

Anxious Nation Waits For Democratic Party To Do Something, Anything In Face of Republican Assault On Life And Liberty

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · Jan 28

A lot of Dem incumbents are going to be confused and upset to find their strongest challenger next primary is "anyone but you."

I hope this shakes out to be more progressive, but it doesn't have to. Dem voters will just want anyone who doesn't seem as useless as the potatoes currently in the seats.

Micah @rincewind.run · Jan 27

the disconnect between elected Dems (business as usual) and the base (boiling mad) is about as big as I've ever seen it

I don't know how this eventually gets resolved but it's not a sustainable equilibrium

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Leah Litman @leahlitman.bsky.social · Jan 13

A reminder of Pam Karlan's testimony at Donald Trump's impeachment hearing:

To see why, imagine living in a part of
Louisiana or Texas that’s prone to devastating hurricanes and flooding. What would you
think if, when your governor asked the federal government for the disaster assistance that
Congress has provided, the President responded, “‘I would like you to do us a favor.’

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · Jan 12

Yeah I know no one wants to talk about the connection between the emissions associated with genocide and catastrophic hurricanes and fire storms but we share an atmosphere

You can’t bomb Gaza and expect not to be touched by it

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Santiago Mayer @santiagomayer.com · Jan 13

I’m sorry but the fact that Congress is about to throw immigrants under the bus at the very same time that countless immigrants in California are risking their lives to protect neighborhoods many of them could never aspire live in is breaking my brain in a whole new way.

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talia jane ❤️‍🔥 @taliajane.bsky.social · Jan 13

it’s kinda crazy that the thing threatening us most isn’t the fascists openly plotting how to kill us, but the democrats who promised to fight for us instead rapidly lining up beside the fascists, their immediate elimination of any friction to slow the assault - all to maintain their power.

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Jezebel @jezebeldotcom.bsky.social · Jan 10

Some Senate Dems don’t even seem to have read the eight-page Laken Riley Act, preemptively handing Trump the vehicle through which to carry out mass deportations that could target nearly all immigrants.
www.jezebel.com/democrats-sh...

Democrats Show Zero Appetite for Resistance in 1st Major Fight vs. Trump 2.0

Some Senate Dems don’t even seem to have read the eight-page Laken Riley Act, preemptively handing Trump the vehicle through which to carry out mass deportations that could target nearly all immigrant...

www.jezebel.com

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · Jan 10

the all but official position of the republican party is that voting for democrats disqualifies you from federal disaster assistance

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · Jan 10

Rep. Warren Davidson on California federal disaster relief: "If they want the money, then there should be consequences where they have to change their policies ... CA wants the money without changing the policies that are making the problem worse & I don't see how Rs could possibly support that."

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Saeed Jones @theferocity.bsky.social · Jan 9

“In order to shoot off one email per week for a year, ChatGPT would use up 27 liters of water, or about one-and-a-half jugs… that means if one in 10 U.S. residents—16 million people—asked ChatGPT to write an email a week, it’d cost more than 435 million liters of water.”

AI doesn’t just require tons of electric power. It also guzzles enormous sums of water.

It also guzzles enormous sums of water.

fortune.com

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