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Sam

@sonoransam.bsky.social
771 followers 1.4K following 12 posts

Montanan living in the desert.

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Reposted by Sam
southpaw @nycsouthpaw.bsky.social · 10h
Making fundamental due process rights a nullity with the emergency docket (again)
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Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 10h
#BREAKING: Over dissents from the three Democratic appointees, #SCOTUS grants a stay in the third-country removals case; clears way for Trump admin. to continue removing non-citizens without a full chance to litigate the conditions in those countries (while also taking up the full merits appeal).
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Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 18h
Cardinal Robert McElroy, archbishop of Washington: We have failed to live up to the command in Deuteronomy, “you shall not violate the rights of the alien or the orphan,” and to the words on the Statue of Liberty. And so “we are losing our soul as a nation.” www.thebulwark.com/p/we-are-los...
thebulwark.com
‘We Are Losing Our Soul as a Nation’
What we saw in Springfield, Ohio.
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Patrick De Klotz @patdeklotz.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This is so completely effed up.
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Hamilton Nolan @hamiltonnolan.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The powerful generally do not want a free press to exist. This is not a matter of political partisanship so much as it is an observation of reality. And a more urgent one to acknowledge today, because they are closer to winning. www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/the-free-a...
hamiltonnolan.com
The Free and Unfree Press
Journalism, and its adversaries.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The rise of 287(g) programs has meant that ICE is increasingly using local police as a very significant force multiplier, with up to 1 in 8 arrests of noncitizens in the interior now being carried out by state and local police. This is going to have profound impacts on community relations.
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Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
We must “recognize the evil that is being carried out in our name and fight it…We must recognize that in abandoning the words of Deuteronomy and the Statue of Liberty, we are losing our soul as a nation.” — Cardinal Robert McElroy, archbishop of Washington open.substack.com/pub/lettersf...
open.substack.com
On Pope Leo’s World Day of Migrants, Cardinal McElroy Indicts Trump’s War on Immigrants
Preaching on the Good Samaritan for World Day of Migrants, Washington’s archbishop named Minneapolis, a five-year-old used as bait, and a nation that “passed on by.” He told Catholics to fight every d...
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Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
ICE has abducted Senegalese WBB player Aminata Seck and won't release her. DHS 'policy' is to provide medical care to prisoners at intake, yet they admit to denying her care for an ACL injury for 1.5 months. The NCAA is letting it happen, despite its predatory recruitment of ICAs. We explain.
theguardian.com
ICE has abducted a college athlete. What are the NCAA and universities going to do about it?
Aminata Seck’s detention shows the bargain facing international college athletes: universities eagerly recruit them, but support can disappear when their immigration status becomes precarious.
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Jim LaPorta @jimlaporta.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Washington — The U.S. Army Reserve is examining whether it can provide the military's Southern Command with police forces, medical personnel and other support units within the next four months, according to an internal Army message reviewed by CBS News. www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-gro...
cbsnews.com
U.S. military lays groundwork for potential action around Cuba
Some units would "possibly [be] needed in 90-120 days," according to an internal Army message reviewed by CBS News.
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Marc Elias @marcelias.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
🚨BREAKING: In a dangerous decision for voters, the Supreme Court authorized the Trump administration to overhaul a federal immigration database into a vast, centralized and deeply flawed database of personal information to initiate registration purges. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
democracydocket.com
Supreme Court revives DHS use of flawed immigration database for voter purges
The decision lets the administration move forward with a key provision of President Trump’s first anti-voting executive order.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Incredible. First Secretary Mullin claimed that DHS had identified 15,903 noncitizens on Nevada’s voter roll. Then DHS officials told a skeptical Nevada, no no no, that’s just people we flagged. Here are the names of 185 people we KNOW aren’t citizens. All 185 were citizens. DHS got 100% wrong.
When the Department of Homeland Security sent Nevada a list of 185 names last month that it claimed identified noncitizens who had been improperly allowed to register to vote, state election officials got to work.
On Tuesday, the state sent a strongly worded rebuke to the federal government: Every single person on the list was a lawful citizen.
"As for the 185 individuals, our records indicate that they were citizens," Greg D. Ott, a deputy attorney general in Nevada, wrote, according to a copy of a letter sent to Department of Homeland Security officials obtained through open records requests.
"You have provided nothing of substance to suggest otherwise."Following the meeting, Ms. Vogt sent a clarifying email to Nevada officials. "I also wanted to be sure I clarified that we did not reduce the 15,903 to 185," she wrote. "We've manually reviewed some of the 15,903 and confirmed 185 are not U.S. Citizens."
Now, Nevada officials are saying even that 185 number is wrong. They also took issue with a letter D.H.S. sent them in early September, in which the agency reiterated its initial claims about nearly 16,000 noncitizens on the rolls and pressured state officials to review each case in a letter to Nevada officials in early September.
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Schrödinger's Sneetch Belly @rtodkelly.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Please know that this is one of my few legitimate areas of actual, high-level professional expertise: Kicking the healthiest people off of a health insurance program will bankrupt it. Not 'could;' not 'might,' not 'probably," but absolutely will, with mathematical certainty.
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Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I found watching Trump’s UN speech today deeply depressing. It is a matter of national shame and humiliation that he is our president. Every country in the world, friend and foe alike, sees we are governed by a vainglorious fool.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
This is a common lie from DHS press flacks. They claim that people who came through CBP One — who registered for an appointment through a government app, went to a port of entry, and were issued a grant of humanitarian parole by a CBP officer letting them enter — "entered illegally." Total nonsense.
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AdotSad @adotsad.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
The media enviroment for the 2028 election and beyond is gonna be ghastly. And I don't care that the ratings are gonna bomb cause the billionaires don't care either.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
NEW: @apnews.com confirms that ICE has begun electronically "disappearing" people in the agency's custody who have final orders of removal. As of last week, anyone jailed by ICE with a final order of removal will NOT appear in the ICE Online Detainee Locator System, making them effectively vanish.
apnews.com
AP Exclusive: ICE hides locations of thousands of detainees with final removal orders
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has stopped publicly revealing where it is holding most detainees who are subject to final deportation orders, in a move that has made it harder for lawyers an...
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Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Renee DiResta (@noupside.bsky.social) and Dean Jackson published a new paper explaining how the "censorship industrial complex" propaganda campaign took shape & was eventually used to dismantle election information resilience infrastructure in the U.S. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
<em>Public Administration Review</em> | ASPA Journal | Wiley Online Library
This paper examines how a propaganda frame alleging the existence of a “Censorship Industrial Complex” was institutionalized and then helped justify the dismantling of US election information resilie...
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Nathan @never-say-die.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Not only did the ICE goons shoot a man for likely no good reason, they left Texas DPS and Austin PD to render aid on a patient that looks to have a front to rear GSW an inch off of his spine.
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Gillian Brockell @gillianbrockell.com · 21/09/2026
This will make it nearly impossible to file habeas petitions, because attorneys won’t even know what federal district their client has been moved to to stage for their removal. Something like a third of all people in ICE custody. apnews.com/article/ice-...
apnews.com
AP Exclusive: ICE hides locations of thousands of detainees with final removal orders
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has stopped publicly revealing where it is holding most detainees who are subject to final deportation orders, in a move that has made it harder for lawyers an...
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dan sinker @dansinker.com · 21/09/2026
The video of this is insane. They just leave this man laying bleeding in the street and drive off. This is a couple blocks from where my kid played soccer a few hours later.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The video shows the agents literally just leaving the guy in the street and driving off.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
One more example of how a personalist regime they cannot conceive of a bipartisan institution to the point they would prefer to destroy it if they cannot repurpose it to their ends. See, also, much of the rest of the federal government, our military, science, higher education etc.
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Congressman Greg Casar @repcasar.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
The horror has come to our city: ICE has shot a person in Austin this morning. As the facts emerge, I am demanding a full, independent investigation, immediate release of the body camera footage, and accountability for any ICE officer who broke the law.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
A cop in rural Texas pulls over a Latino. He demands papers; doesn’t get any. Arrests the guy, throws him in a local jail cell. Hours later, GardaWorld staff show up to put him on a bus with a dozen others. They drive him to the nearest ICE jail; a bus service for the machine of mass deportation.
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Jerry-ATX @jda5id.com · 18/09/2026
I bet we aren't counting them because they died "with the war" rather than "from the war."
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Julie Laumann @julielaumann.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
“Tierra Walker, 37, died while 20 weeks pregnant after being diagnosed with pre-eclampsia, a dangerous pregnancy-related high blood pressure condition that can be fatal.” Murdered by the Texas abortion ban. Family of pregnant woman who died sues Ken Paxton for wrongful death
theguardian.com
Family of pregnant woman who died sues Ken Paxton for wrongful death
Tierra Walker, 37, was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia at 20 weeks, and family says denial of abortion led to death
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Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
They’re going to claim that trace amounts of birth control in drinking water is a public health risk, and then make birth control pills illegal, aren’t they?
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Joshua Eaton @joshuaeaton.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
EXCLUSIVE: When elected officials and advocates in Danbury, Connecticut, said ICE arrested a parent at a school bus stop Aug. 26, federal officials denied their accounts. I got video that appears to show such an arrest. My latest at @ctinsider.bsky.social — www.ctinsider.com/news/article...
ctinsider.com
Video appears to show ICE arrest near CT school bus stop, despite federal denials
ICE has denied it made an arrest at a school bus stop, but confirmed it made 118 arrests in Connecticut that week.
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Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 15/09/2026
You may’ve heard of DHS and White House officials getting peppered with questions about a report of a parent getting detained by ICE at a school bus stop. Well, @joshuaeaton.bsky.social got video of the incident in question — which also appears to have taken place near a church.
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Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Important: the USPS rule that SCOTUS blocked tonight was Trump’s big plan to control and restrict mail voting. But a separate policy remains in place: USPS is no longer postmarking mail as soon it gets it, which is hugely important for deadlines. So people must mail back with plenty of time.
boltsmag.org
In an Intense Election Year, New Post Office Rules Could Trip Up Voter Registration - Bolts
A change in how mail is postmarked could lead some voters to miss key deadlines, including voter registration. Advocates worry the people most affected will be those already facing voting barriers.
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Jay Willis @jaywillis.net · 15/09/2026
Genuinely an insane paragraph from Sam Alito. “Voter fraud is real and scary and we have to stop it, so the fact that implementing Trump’s mail ballot rule will disenfranchise millions is legally irrelevant.” Brain melted. A right-wing podcaster in a robe. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...
___, (slip op., at 9) (internal quotation marks omitted).
As for the equities, the Government has a strong interest
in enforcing the rule, and implementing it will also “en-
hance the visibility of Federal Ballot Mail” in order to better
detect election fraud. 91 Fed. Reg. 54972. On the other side
of the balance, the plaintiff States invoke the practical ef-
fects of implementing the rule close to the midterm elec-
tions. I take that problem very seriously, but it is not
enough to convince me to deny the application.
First, as the District Court acknowledged, the States dis-
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The New Republic @newrepublic.com · 14/09/2026
The ICE agents reportedly said they didn’t care after being told the two teenagers were citizens. trib.al/gtavhxd
trib.al
ICE Attacks Two U.S. Citizen Minors on Their Way to Enlist in Marines
The ICE agents reportedly said they didn’t care after being told the two teenagers were citizens.
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Quinta Jurecic @qjurecic.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
jump scare
J USTICE KAVANAUGH, concurring.
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Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
#BREAKING: Over public dissents from Justices Thomas and Alito, #SCOTUS *denies* the Trump administration’s request for a stay in the mail-in ballots case. The USPS Rule will remain blocked—almost certainly through the midterms.
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Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
BREAKING: SCOTUS denies the Trump administration’s request to enforce the new U.S. Postal Service rule for the 2026 elections. Justices Alito and Thomas dissent. More to come at Law Dork. www.lawdork.com
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 26A305
UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE, ET AL. U.
CALIFORNIA, ET AL.
ON APPLICATION FOR STAY
[September 14, 2026]
The application for stay presented to JUSTICE JACKSON and by her referred to the Court is denied. The Government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the District Court's preliminary injunction. And the equitable factors applicable for obtaining emergency relief from this Court do not favor a stay.
JUSTICE KAVANAUGH, concurring.
In my view, based on the briefing the Court has received at this interim stage, there is at least a fair prospect that the final rule falls within the Postal Service's statutory authority. See 39 U. S. C. §401(2). But applying the rule in the 2026 elections would be arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act because state and local election officials do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections. See 39
U. S. C. §3001(m); 5 U. S. C. §706(2)(A). For that reason, I concur in the denial of the application for stay.
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Mike Boylan-Kolchin @mbkplus.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
There are thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of stories like this from the past couple of years: stone-faced, banal, unnecessary cruelty with the full weight of the federal government behind it
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
NEW: DHS's Inspector General releases a scathing report about the Everglades detention camp known as "Alligator Alcatraz." The OIG finds that the now-closed camp, violated multiple ICE standards. The OIG also confirms detainees were punished with placement in a metal cage in the Florida heat.🧵
OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Staff also reported that time spent in the small metal enclosures is closely monitored, and
detainees are not locked in, even though we observed locking mechanisms on the enclosures.
Figures 11 and 12. Small Metal Enclosures; Observed January 21, 2026

Underneath is a picture of a metal cage that is 4 feet 3 inches wide by 4 feet 3 inches long, and 7 feet 9 inches high. The cage itself is placed on a tiny spot of fake turf, and then surrounded by another chainlink fence with razor wire on top. The cage is covered by a roof, but it's entirely exposed to the outside otherwise, meaning mosquitos and no air conditioning.
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Brooke Harrington @ebharrington.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
America has death squads and concentration camps.
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Bailey McCann @baileymcc.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Another day where it is probably wise to remember that how your government treats immigrants is how they would treat you given the opportunity
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Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
NEW: Once exceptionally rare, illegal deportations — in defiance of court orders or due to ICE screw-ups — are now a routine part of President Trump's mass deportation push. It happened 3 times this past week and more at least 30 times in recent months. www.politico.com/news/2026/09...
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Ryan Marino, MD @ryanmarino.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
The rule they are overturning was predicted to give $120 billion in public health benefits by 2047, with projections that by 2035, it would would prevent up to 1,200 premature deaths, 870 hospital and emergency room visits, 360K asthma attacks, 48K school absence days and 57K lost workdays each year
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Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
W/o getting drawn into the "seriously or literally" / "it'll never happen" trap, we need to stomp *hard* on the continuing effort to undermine Article 1 power of the purse by saying that this or that revenue stream makes something outside the normal budget process. 1/ www.nbcnews.com/business/eco...
nbcnews.com
Lutnick says Trump’s $5,000 checks for Americans wouldn’t rely on taxpayer funds
A top White House official suggested Congress would use a budget process to fund them. Vice President JD Vance had said tariff revenues.
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Will Bunch @willbunch.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
How is ICE making record arrests? I found the answer in Pa. coal country, where cops lured by a promise of federal $$$ have embraced ICE's 287(g) and are throwing up checkpoints, raiding job sites, arresting 100s, and terrorizing their communities My special report www.inquirer.com/opinion/penn...
inquirer.com
In Pa. coal country, local police join with ICE to bring arrests, fear | Will Bunch
Pa.'s Schuylkill County is the new face of Trump's mass deportation, as local cops lured by federal cash bust scores of migrants.
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Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I try not to go overboard on media criticism but I do think "the chief executive is openly trying to rig the legislative elections in his party's favor" should merit somewhat higher prominence relative to mundane normalcy horserace coverage.
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Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
The president ordering USPS to illegally throw out millions of ballots is at least on par with what he tried to do for 2020, and in big ways it's worse. It's another attempted self-coup, trying to create a fake Congress. That he's even attempting it is already a deadly serious constitutional crisis.
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Dave Byrnes @djbyrnes1.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
"The immigrants... have endured beatings, death threats, and denial of food, are afraid for their lives, and desperately want to leave... but because ICE flew them to Equatorial Guinea without any identification, they have no idea when, how, or even if they’ll ever be released."
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Alice Miranda Ollstein @alicemiranda.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
The next phase in the abortion wars may come down to one question: Will federal courts allow the rights of red states to enforce bans to override the rights of blue states to protect access? The 5th Circuit hears a pivotal case today that could provide an answer. www.politico.com/news/2026/09...
politico.com
Louisiana’s abortion pill case could wipe out access in blue states
Red states claiming "sovereign injury" seek to impose nationwide restrictions.
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Subscribe to Radio Free America (link in bio) @kleinman.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
For the past two years I've been tracking every bill proposed in state legislatures across the country to figure out what Republican plans for the future are. The answer, based on these 1,182 bills, is that they want to repeal the 20th Century heartlandsignal.com/2026/09/09/b...
heartlandsignal.com
Proof from the states: the right wing attempt to repeal the 20th century – Heartland Signal
Republicans are in Dallas this week making the case that the other side is the extreme one. We read the legislation they introduced in all 50 states and built a searchable record of what we found: 1,1...
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Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
NEW: The Supreme Court will choose soon whether Trump can illegally take over elections. Election law expert Rick Hasen said it’s an “easy” question and Trump should lose. And yet. Tonight, at Law Dork:
lawdork.com
The Supreme Court will choose soon whether Trump can illegally take over elections
Election law expert Rick Hasen said it’s an “easy” question and Trump should lose. Also: A New York health care provider folded to Trump’s anti-trans aims. And, for paid subscribers: Closing my tabs.
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Representative Becca Balint @balint.house.gov · 05/09/2026
This is what happens when we gut the agencies that are there to protect us against these things. Just because we chose to take this path before doesn’t mean we can’t choose a different one going forward. You should not have to play a game of chance every time you walk into a grocery store.
newrepublic.com
You’re Not Hallucinating: The Amount of Recalled Food Is Skyrocketing
Here’s a list of every food item that faced a recall in August.
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