Armand Vella
armandvella.bsky.social
Armand Vella
@armandvella.bsky.social
he/him
Reposted by Armand Vella
After a year of spectacular deregulation, “the United States will essentially have no laws on the books that enforce how efficient America’s passenger cars and trucks should be.” www.nytimes.com/2026/02/16/c...
With Latest Rollback, the U.S. Essentially Has No Clean-Car Rules
www.nytimes.com
February 16, 2026 at 3:58 PM
Reposted by Armand Vella
I'm not trying to add snark. I keep hearing versions of this and think it's useful to consider.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that it is true that the lower courts are working. That forcing lawyers for immigrants to prove 4,400 times that the .gov breaking the law is the system working. +
February 15, 2026 at 5:59 PM
Reposted by Armand Vella
"In at least 4,421 cases, more than 400 federal judges ruled since the beginning of October that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is holding people illegally as it carries out its mass-deportation campaign."
www.reuters.com/legal/govern...
Courts have ruled 4,400 times that ICE jailed people illegally. It hasn’t stopped.
The decisions amount to a huge legal rebuke, one the administration has ignored.
www.reuters.com
February 15, 2026 at 5:53 PM
Reposted by Armand Vella
Btw, what “Scots-Irish” means is Protestant. No Irish Catholics allowed. Certainly no southern or eastern Europeans, much less Jews.
February 15, 2026 at 4:17 PM
Reposted by Armand Vella
Just going to point out again that our arbitrary political rules permit Republicans to attack urban areas with impunity but strictly forbid the faintest whiff of condescension toward rural areas by Democrats
“The first thing I thought was, ‘What is she talking about?’” said Bryan Fish, the vice mayor of Culver City, whom everyone calls Bubba but doesn’t look like someone whom everyone calls Bubba. “The only crime here,” he added, “is like the $18 strawberry at Erewhon.”

culver city, crime haven! lmaooo
Bondi Suggests Culver City Has a Crime Problem. Culver City Has a Problem With That.
www.nytimes.com
February 14, 2026 at 10:37 PM
Reposted by Armand Vella
This is so spot on
February 14, 2026 at 2:16 PM
Reposted by Armand Vella
So much of our present crisis is coddled, ignorant, and short sighted people tearing down the institutions that protect them because they don’t understand that bad things can happen.
February 14, 2026 at 8:37 PM
Reposted by Armand Vella
They think they have a right to impose their delusions on your kids. They are banking on the fact that liberal parents will be too nice to be as aggressive as MAHA.

Prove them wrong. This should infuriate you and you must make sure your legislators hear that.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/h...
Kennedy Allies Target States to Overturn Vaccine Mandates for Schoolchildren
www.nytimes.com
February 13, 2026 at 10:33 PM
Reposted by Armand Vella
the minute the fb algorithm clocks you as a straight man it immediately sets about trying to destroy your life & endanger those around you
February 13, 2026 at 11:19 AM
Reposted by Armand Vella
Every single time a story like this is reported, we must assume that there are many many more that do not.
CBP didn’t give her or anyone any water; she asked 3 times accg to other reports. CBP killed a 7yr old.

“8 hours after the girl & her father were taken into custody, she began having seizures & her body temperature was measured at 105.7 degrees by emergency medical technicians. shorturl.at/d2OTJ
7-Year-Old Migrant Girl Dies Of Dehydration And Shock In U.S. Border Patrol Custody
The girl's death underscores the crisis precipitated by large groups of families seeking asylum where there are inadequate facilities to detain them.
shorturl.at
February 13, 2026 at 2:00 AM
Reposted by Armand Vella
The Economy These Days

capital: AI

labor: caring for the elderly

h/t @maiamindel.bsky.social
February 12, 2026 at 4:47 PM
Reposted by Armand Vella
I'm still SHOCKED by the obscene rise in billionaire election spending since Citizens United in the NYT piece, despite already knowing that election corruption w/ $ was profound. (Recall that BCRA fought dangerous campaign $ in *2002*)

The article data didn't have a graph, so I made one to show it.
February 12, 2026 at 2:26 PM
Reposted by Armand Vella
Christian nationalist politicians lecturing Jews descended from Holocaust victims about what is actually antisemitic really is the logical endpoint to the current antisemitism discourse.
BONDI: You didn't ask Merrick Garland anything about Epstein

BALINT: Weak sauce

BONDI: And with this antisemitic culture right now, she voted against a resolution--

BALINT: You want to go there! Really? Talking about antisemitism to a woman who lost her grandfather in the Holocaust! *storms off*
February 11, 2026 at 7:05 PM
Reposted by Armand Vella
And, again, the agent-doxxed-and-then-attacked scenario the masks ostensibly are intended to prevent has never actually occurred.
www.pbump.net/o/ices-excus...
Throughout this clip, Rep. Steil says over and over again that masking wouldn't be necessary if local governments cooperated with ICE. But that's nonsense. ICE is masking even in red states, even in places where there are 287(g) agreements, and even hiding their faces in photos taken at prisons!
REP. STEIL: Some Dems demands put at risk the safety of members of law enforcement

CNBC: You mean like taking off their masks and having a badge that shows who they are?

STEIL: Well, they're known to their supervisors

CNBC: No other law enforcement officials in the US are allowed to wear masks
February 9, 2026 at 5:39 PM
this is essentially the plot of the Grinch
ceej.online ceej @ceej.online · Feb 10
“Oh, did a sportsball happen?” I whisper smugly from my vantage point on a distant cliff, the sounds of celebration in the village far below just barely audible over the lonely wind whipping my tattered cloak
February 9, 2026 at 12:50 AM
Reposted by Armand Vella
The evil that Trump & Vance are doing on a daily basis in our names.
February 7, 2026 at 8:26 PM
Reposted by Armand Vella
Before The Washington Post layoffs came down, a group of wealthy D.C. locals approached CEO Will Lewis with a proposal.

@passantino.bsky.social has the details in his Saturday @status.news column: www.status.news/p/washington...
February 7, 2026 at 4:37 PM
Reposted by Armand Vella
Seeing these two headlines side-by-side is really something
February 6, 2026 at 2:57 PM
Reposted by Armand Vella
They have made clear that it was never just about illegal immigration: they hate all immigrants.
February 5, 2026 at 7:12 PM
Reposted by Armand Vella
The pivot to video is a tax on women's time and dignity, I will die on this hill.
One thing about the enormous pressure journalists are under to make videos and TikToks and do streams that kills me is that, like… some of us are meant to be read and not seen. Commenters get SO MAD about the way I look whenever my face breaches containment! Just let me write!
February 5, 2026 at 7:46 PM
Reposted by Armand Vella
The only response here is a motion to enjoin the whole operation

If the government's position is "I'm sorry your honor but we don't be the capacity to both respect constitutional rights and conduct the operation as it is currently being conducted" the answer is "then you must stop the operation"
February 5, 2026 at 1:29 PM
Reposted by Armand Vella
We are in the midst of another racial reckoning. This one purging all the gains of the former and then some.
My position at The Post was eliminated, along with many other journalists of color hired after the 2020 racial reckoning.
February 4, 2026 at 10:41 PM
Reposted by Armand Vella
The entire annual operating losses of the Washington Post amount to a single-digit percentage of the everyday noise in the signal of its owner's finances
For scale, Bloomberg lists the most recent daily market fluctuation in Jeff Bezos' net worth as -$3.71 billion
February 4, 2026 at 11:21 PM
Reposted by Armand Vella
Fox News is essentially America Der Sturmer at this point
Rep. Tim Burchett: "When you pay your taxes this year, remember the $14 billion that illegal Somalis stole from you"
February 2, 2026 at 7:48 PM
Reposted by Armand Vella
Predicting that this week we’ll hear more conciliatory words from the Administration regarding Minnesota (since they’re starting to realize that ICE has become politically toxic) but everyone outside of Minnesota needs to know that nothing on the ground has changed.
February 2, 2026 at 8:43 PM