Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
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sylviachi.bsky.social
Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
@sylviachi.bsky.social
dog person. lawyer but not your lawyer. admin law enthusiast. i work on climate justice and public banking. she/they 🇺🇸🇹🇼

opinions are my own!
She also says "we're still in litigation *against* this activist judge," which is an interesting way to characterize the case.
KARL: Did you know about the judge's order when you issued your order for the planes to continue?

KRISTI NOEM: This is an activist judge. We comply with all federal orders that are lawful and binding.
November 30, 2025 at 11:01 PM
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
They’re simultaneously arguing that soldiers have to follow all orders from the president, legal or not, but they get to ignore orders from a federal judge if they feel they’re not legal.
KARL: Did you know about the judge's order when you issued your order for the planes to continue?

KRISTI NOEM: This is an activist judge. We comply with all federal orders that are lawful and binding.
November 30, 2025 at 5:43 PM
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
Illustrating the challenges of relying purely on the private sector for a climate risk information ecosystem. This information is a public good with a clear role for government institutions to produce the necessary science and disseminate to the public.
Interesting development on consumer-facing climate risk info in the property market.

Zillow isn't quoted in the article, but seems their removal of First Street data may be motivated by material financial impacts of questionable property-level physical risk scores.

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/c...
Zillow Removes Climate Risk Scores From Home Listings
www.nytimes.com
November 30, 2025 at 9:37 PM
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
this is quite the detail
November 30, 2025 at 12:41 PM
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
"Never spread the lie in the headline" should be a hard rule of 21st century journalism.

Research shows that repeating lies helps to spread them, and people read headlines more than they read stories.
News media has to do better with headlines that present false and unverified public health claims.
November 30, 2025 at 1:10 AM
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
I know I shouldn’t get my hopes up that any of these people will face real accountability but this does feel significant.
Congressional committees vow to boost oversight in killing of boat strike survivors
The Senate and House armed services committees’ pledge followed a Washington Post report revealing that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered that a U.S. strike leave no survivors.
wapo.st
November 30, 2025 at 1:18 AM
Horrific.
NEW: The New York Times got a State Dept. cable telling diplomats to destroy visas that had been approved and printed to give to Afghans. And diplomats are told to do scheduled interviews but not grant visas. US shuts all legal entry routes for Afghans. Our story: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/28/u...
Trump Pauses All Asylum Applications and Halts Visas for Afghans
www.nytimes.com
November 29, 2025 at 8:59 PM
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
Former US military lawyers speak out:

"The Former JAGs Working Group unanimously considers both the giving and the execution of these orders, if true, to constitute war crimes, murder, or both."

Statement on Media Reports of Pentagon “No Quarter” Orders in Caribbean Boat Strikes

1/2
November 29, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
Summary of today’s successful blockade of what was to be a massive ICE raid—with captions.

Please support my work if you’re able!
bsky.app/profile/tali...
November 29, 2025 at 8:16 PM
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
A running theme of Trump II is cautious, level-headed, mainstream, career professional experts sounding existential alarms about how we aren't panicking nearly enough.
I know you already know, but for other folks who don't, Goldsmith was previously head of OLC, is a genuinely brilliant mind on executive authority and separation of powers, and is usually very cautious about making claims this unqualified and direct. That he is saying it so starkly is v significant
November 29, 2025 at 6:05 AM
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
oh man uber will love this
In Hillsboro, Oregon, ICE GOONS were observed kidnapping individuals from their vehicles, disguising themselves as Uber drivers.
November 28, 2025.
November 29, 2025 at 2:48 AM
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
The legal, media, and academic institutions capitulating to an authoritarian ordering payments for favorable treatment are damning themselves to irrelevance. They are destroying their institutions. They will be — and should be — shunned for failing in their most basic purposes for existing.
BREAKING: Northwestern University has agreed to pay the U.S. Treasury $75 million, over the course of three years as part of an agreement with the federal government to restore funding and end investigations into the university

Full statement from NU below:
November 29, 2025 at 1:37 AM
Introduce yourself with 5 animals you’ve seen in the wild:

Magnificent frigatebird
Catalina Island fox
Formosan rock macaque
Bison
Alligator

All seen at U.S. national parks except the macaques, which I saw at Toroko National Park in Taiwan.
Introduce yourself with 5 animals you’ve seen in the wild:

Black Bear
Brown Bear
Polar Bear
Whatever species of monkey likes to hang out around the Taj Mahal
The asshole wild horses of Assateaugue Island
Introduce yourself with 5 animals you’ve seen in the wild:

Moose
Stoplight parrotfish
Box turtle
Elephant
Wild horse
November 29, 2025 at 2:22 AM
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
From Frederick Douglass's 1867 "Composite Nation" speech, a defense of Chinese migration to the United States at a time when anti-Chinese sentiment was intensifying.
teachingamericanhistory.org/document/our...
November 28, 2025 at 7:01 PM
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
obviously plenty of other things should have already been disqualifying but people willing to defy Trump publicly and appeal to decency as their reason for doing so both seem pretty good
h/t @adamwren.bsky.social

Michael Bohacek, a Republican state senator from Indiana who has a daughter with down syndrome, says he will vote against redistricting in Indiana after Trump used the word "retarded."
November 28, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
‘Remigration’ is a term that comes out of the European far right. Its use by the DHS account is a sign of democratic and epistemic collapse
November 28, 2025 at 8:59 PM
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
Criminal liability attaches for following an order "which a man of ordinary sense and understanding would, under the circumstances, know to be unlawful, or if the order in question is actually known to the accused to be unlawful." U.S. v. Calley (1974)
So the order for the US military to launch these deadly Caribbean boat strikes was straightforwardly illegal under US and international law, immoral under long established standards, and on top of that, terrible strategy.

Not maybe. Not got to check with a lawyer. Unambiguous. Blatant. Deliberate.
Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a verbal order to kill all crew members in the Sept. 2 strike on a suspected drug boat. Navy SEALs fired a second missile.
www.washingtonpost.com
November 28, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
This whole thing is racist, but take particular note of the threat of denaturalization. That's stripping people of their citizenship, and that's the road to mass murder and atrocity.
Trump: “I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries … denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.“
November 28, 2025 at 4:44 AM
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
This rhetoric is indistinguishable from the stuff you hear coming out of white nationalists. Completely identical language.
Trump: “I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries … denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.“
November 28, 2025 at 4:52 AM
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
It's easy to be numb because it's par for the course nowadays, but repeatedly calling a reporter who asks a reasonable question "stupid" is conduct unbecoming for a small-town mayor, let alone the President of the United States.

The press exists to play a watchdog role, not be a supplicant.
“You’re a stupid person” — Trump lashes out at a reporter who presses him on the fact that the suspected DC shooter was actually thoroughly vetted before he was let in the US from Afghanistan
November 28, 2025 at 12:31 AM
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
I know everyone says Stephen Miller is a vampire, but I've never heard of a vampire that only consumes mayonnaise and ONLY MAYONNAISE

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/u...
November 27, 2025 at 12:12 AM
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
Asking folks to look out for Alaska Natives this holiday who are still dealing with the devastation of miles & miles of their homes, villages, traditions, foods, & ways of life & their displacement & instability continues.
November 27, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
"Those who would twist this moment to attack Afghan families aren’t seeking safety or justice — they’re exploiting division and endangering all of us."

Statement from the @afghanevac.bsky.social veterans on the DC shooting.
November 27, 2025 at 7:38 PM
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
ICE is kidnapping people on Thanksgiving.

If you think they can be reformed, ask your family how they would feel if they never saw you today.
November 27, 2025 at 9:23 PM
Reposted by Sylvia Chi 齊思涵
We're gonna need a truth and reconciliation commission and Nuremberg style trials to reckon with all of this evil, and any Dem candidate for office who shies away from a full reckoning in the name of "moving forward as a nation" can get well and truly fucked
November 27, 2025 at 4:29 PM