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Vicki Gass

@vbgass.bsky.social
1.2K followers 428 following 585 posts

HR activist, animal lover, cook, reader of non-fiction and fiction, politico, migrating from X, LAWG ED, all postings are personal

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Reposted by Vicki Gass
Json Momoa @jotatx.eurosky.social · 3h
"After Flavio Bolsonaro came out on top in the first round of Brazil's presidential election, thousands of people joined student-led protests against the far-right in Rio de Janeiro." we won't go down sillently
dw.com
Brazil: Thousands of students march against Bolsonaro
After Flavio Bolsonaro came out on top in the first round of Brazil's presidential election, thousands of people joined student-led protests against the far-right in Rio de Janeiro.
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Chris Murphy @chrismurphyct.bsky.social · 1h
This level of naked, open corruption is unprecedented in our history.
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A Voice Crying in the Wilderness @cryingwilderness.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
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Alt National Park Service @altnps.bsky.social · 5h
The Trump administration broke federal law by withholding more than $78 million Congress had approved for healthcare research, according to a Government Accountability Office report. The watchdog found that HHS violated the Impoundment Control Act by withholding
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Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 3h
New Yorkers: Do you have a form of immigration relief called withholding of removal? Have you received an ICE letter summoning you to 26 Federal Plaza? Here’s what  you can do:

1. Call our Immigration Legal Support Hotline at 1-800-354-0365, or call 311 and say "Immigration Legal" for free, confidential help in your native language.

2. Fill out our intake form to get help from the Rapid Response Legal Collaborative: nyc.gov/RRLC

3. Make a plan. Make sure you have an emergency contact and that someone you trust has your A-number. Talk to a lawyer before making any decisions.
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WatchYourRepsTN&SC @watchyourrepssc.bsky.social · 2h
TX elect @jamestalarico.bsky.social
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Rep. Jim McGovern @repmcgovern.bsky.social · 2h
A naval blockade is an act of war. Starving civilians is a war crime & can be a crime against humanity. We should not mince words with what the Trump Administration is inflicting on the people of Cuba. It's cruel, vindictive, shameful, & criminal. There must be accountability.
theguardian.com
US Coast Guard says it intercepted ship carrying fuel to Cuba
US says ship thought to be using common ‘dark fleet’ tactics was boarded and taken to Mexico as embargo continues
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CREW @citizensforethics.org · 2h
It looks like the FBI took down the video we filed a Hatch Act complaint about earlier this week. This rampant lawbreaking cannot continue, even if they backtrack when called out.
thehill.com
FBI post featuring El-Sayed runs afoul of Hatch Act, experts say
A new video from the FBI has spurred complaints the bureau has violated the Hatch Act by labeling Democrats — including current Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed — as part of the “defund the…
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Joyce White Vance @joycewhitevance.bsky.social · 2h
A new app lets you find out who’s behind the political mailers you receive, which comes in handy for people who don’t want to be manipulated by self-interested billionaires. Learn all about it from @juddlegum.bsky.social who created the “paidforby” app. joycevance.substack.com/p/paid-for-b...
joycevance.substack.com
Paid for By
Judd Legum tells us about his new app for unmasking whose behind political ads
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Austin Kocher, PhD @austinkocher.com · 4h
Both things are true. People who voted for this are living with the consequences. And our immigration system is so confusing, and the misinformation about it so widespread, that many people don't see what a policy will do until it hurts them or the people who work for them.
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🦋marciebp Be a Dolly 🇨🇦 @marciebp.bsky.social · 4h
adw.org/news/26-homi...
adw.org
Homily for the Mass for World Day of Migrants and Refugees
Read the homily delivered by Robert Cardinal McElroy, Archbishop of Washington, for the Mass for World Day of Migrants and Refugees.
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Capital B @capitalb.bsky.social · 20h
Darnese Foster was one of the thousands of Black women who lost their jobs when Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency gutted the federal workforce. More than a year later, she is still looking for work to support her family. bit.ly/4y624cM
capitalbnews.org
The Unseen Toll: Depression, Anxiety Plague Black Women a Year After DOGE Layoffs
Part 1 of a three-part series, FIRED: The DOGE Layoffs Hit Black Women Hard, a collaboration between MindSite News, Capital B, The 19th, and The Nation, edited by MindSite News. Photographs by Kuwilil...
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 15h
WHOA. This is big news. Mr. Soliman is a 31-year-old gay man from Egypt who came here at 3 with a green card. He lost his green card after a conviction, but an immigration judge found that he would be persecuted in Egypt and barred sending him there. He's locked in a hotel in Equatorial Guinea now.
A federal judge has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to return Ahmed Soliman to the United States, five months after he was expelled to Equatorial Guinea, a country where he has no ties, in a decision that could have far-reaching implications for thousands of others subjected to the Trump administration’s third-country removal scheme.

Arizona District Court Judge John C. Hinderaker, a Trump appointee, ruled that DHS violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and “must facilitate Plaintiff’s release from custody in Equatorial Guinea and return to the United States and must ensure his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to Equatorial Guinea.”
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Ray Pride @raypride.bsky.social · 4h
Monstrosity without end.
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Leah McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 5h
⚠️ Aide to Ambassador Mike Huckabee covered up Israeli killings of nine Americans
nytimes.com
How a U.S. Diplomat Suppressed and Altered Reports Critical of Israel (Gift Article)
A top aide to Ambassador Mike Huckabee skewed information to portray the Netanyahu government in a favorable light, according to multiple officials and documents obtained by The Times.
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Sanho Tree @sanho.bsky.social · 5h
One of the first things Trump did in Feb. 2017 was set up an office in DHS to *exclusively* publicize crimes committed by immigrants — just as the Nazis used Der Stürmer to publish a special section only highlighting “Jewish crimes.” See this article from 2017: www.thewrap.com/der-sturmer-...
& thewrap.com
But mass-slander-by-anecdote has a long tradition. As The Atlantic explains:
In The Nazi Conscience, Duke historian Claudia Koonz notes that the Nazi newspaper Der Sturmer ran a feature called "Letter Box," which published readers' accounts of Jewish crimes. When the Nazis took power, the German state began doing something similar.
Frustrated by the failure of most Germans to participate in a boycott of Jewish businesses in April 1933, Adolf Hitler's government began publicizing Jewish crime statistics as a way of stoking anti-Semitism.
Trump introduced a new government entity Tuesday that will similarly flag and highlight crimes by illegal immigrants - without, of course, providing any context about how many crimes they commit compared to U.S. citizens, or how illegal immigrants as a group might contribute positively to American society.
"The office is called VOICE - Victims Of Immigration Crime Engagement," Trump explained. "We are providing a voice to those who have been ignored by our media, and silenced by special interests."
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Prof Gavin Yamey MD MPH @gavinyamey.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
In 2024, I was incredibly distressed and nauseated at the thought that RFK Jr, a hero of the MAGA/MAHA/Great Barrington Declaration/anti-vaxx crowd, might end up leading the US health system His dismantling of US public health was faster, wider, & deeper than in my worst nightmares
New York Times, Christina Jewitt, Aug 2024

Other public health leaders have voiced deep concern about the prospect of RFK Jr gaining influence in national health policy. "It's horrifying to think of RFK Jr ascending to that level of power and influence," said Dr Gavin Yamey, the Director of the Center for Policy Impact in Global Health at Duke. "He is an extreme anti-vax activist and conspiracy theorsit with fringe views."
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 23h
Meanwhile, over on X, the Secretary of Homeland Security is posting about "vandalizing the demographics of America," a phrase which is either a chilling suggestion of white nationalism from Mullin or just straight pablum which means nothing but sounds just fash enough to excite the faithful.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
@ReichlinMelnick
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“Vandalize the demographics of America” is either a chilling phrase suggesting that Mullin is a white nationalist or an absurdly meaningless bit of pablum  which ignores 250 years of the constantly shifting demographics of a nation of immigrants.

Underneath is a picture of Mullin with a quote "How do you turn a country from democracy to socialism? You have to change the demographics."
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Brian Tyler Cohen @briantylercohen.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Trump is declining international election monitors in the United States for first time in over two decades, aligning the country with Russia. Trump will instead deploy his own election monitors to polling sites across the country. www.ms.now/news/trump-m...
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Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
‘But I got road salt exempted from Trump’s tariffs’ is really the perfect way to sum up Susan Collins during the Trump era. While he does hundreds of things to hurt Mainers, she brags about one small thing she did to help her reelection, while doing nothing on the big things.
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Abilu Tangwa. @abilutangwa.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Arrogance is believing we can endlessly take without giving back. Arrogance is thinking technological cleverness will always save us from ecological collapse. Arrogance is assuming nature is a foe to be battled,rather than the very system that gives us life.
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Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 06/10/2026
Wrongly indicted, charges dropped, and now we learn prosecutors allegedly knew the Reflecting Pool renovation was failing and they charged David Hearn anyway. I hope he sues their asses off.
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Jax (the original) @jacqueline321.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
This segment is about DHS's claim that they have identified and arrested over 2,000 "terrorists," a claim laughable on its face. This is largely because the admin has reclassified multiple criminal gangs as "foreign terrorist organizations," and ICE's gang identification is notorious sloppy.
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Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Please help me get the word out to people who might be interested in reading Democracy Americana in German: I hope I can build a readership large enough to carry this experiment of offering my work in two languages (it’s a struggle!). If you want to read the essay in English, you find it here:
steady.page
What Do Authoritarians Do When They Are About to Lose an Election?
Trump’s schemes to subvert the midterms have so far failed. What happens next? A reflection on the threat as well as the limits of authoritarian escalation
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Vicki Gass @vbgass.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Beyond offensive
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Mrs. Betty Bowers @mrsbettybowers.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Yes, Pete Hegseth is so incompetent that our troops go without necessary medical care, but at least they are called "warriors" now while they go untreated. So it all evens out . . .
apnews.com
Soldiers seriously wounded in Iranian drone strike tell AP the military's medical system failed them
Some U.S. soldiers gravely wounded in the deadliest Iran strike on American troops say the military medical system failed them.
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👻🗳️Ghost of Democracy 2.0 @ominousrabbit.com · 06/10/2026
That's your park, America. Just like they're your institutions, your museums, your buildings.
nytimes.com
Inside Trump's Plan to Fence Off a Historic Protest Site
The president’s proposal to enclose a park in Washington could alter how the space has been used for generations.
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Andrea Devon @andreadevon.sheshed.rocks · 06/10/2026
He said it. They cheered. Don’t ever let them rewrite that. #SheShed
Graphic with white text on a dark background reading: “Remember it was Trump that called for the destruction of 2 American cities. Not Mamdani. Not El-Sayed. Not any Muslim. Trump. A white, billionaire, rapist, pedophile.”
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Laura Packard @laurapackard.com · 06/10/2026
“These cuts affect everybody because it’s a health care system.. doctors and hospitals have to charge more to make up for the money they’re not getting.. pretty much everybody is facing higher health insurance premiums"-me #RepublicanHealthCareCrisis
wabi.tv
Healthcare advocacy group launches bus tour in Bangor
Protect Our Care’s “Sick Of It” Fix Healthcare Now bus tour kicked off Monday in Bangor.
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WatchYourRepsTN&SC @watchyourrepssc.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Undocumented people pay billions in federal taxes for Medicaid they're banned from using. Republicans want to gut $880 billion from that program to finance tax cuts for the ultra-rich. But sure, tell me again who the welfare queens are. #RepublicanHealthcareCrisis
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WatchYourRepsTN&SC @watchyourrepssc.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
December brings more than $900 billion in Republican Medicaid cuts. CBO projects their tax bill will take health coverage from 16 million Americans. Republicans chose tax breaks over our families’ care. Remember who made that choice when you vote. #RepublicanHealthcareCrisis
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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
What would you say if you saw it in another country? "If the fence proposal is implemented, it could limit the public’s access to an open space that has allowed people to practice free speech at the doorstep of the country’s highest seat of power."
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𝕊𝕒𝕝𝕥𝕪𝔹𝕚𝕥𝕔𝕙𝕒𝕓𝕝𝕖𝕤 @saltybitchables.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Good morning! tRump and RFK Jr. bring more plagues. #ProudBlue #denguefever #FDT #FRFKJr
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Kim Kelly @kimkelly.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
The wonderful @marisakabas.bsky.social let me go long on the grim historic parallels between the Prairieland defendants and 19th century America’s brutal repression—and execution—of anarchists, union organizers, and political dissidents. We are all antifa now. www.thehandbasket.co/p/haymarket-...
thehandbasket.co
From Haymarket to Prairieland: How dissent has unleashed the long arm of the law
The Prairieland sentencing has dark historical parallels, Kim Kelly writes. But we can change the end of the current story.
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Ray Pride @raypride.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Hey hey rfk
How many children die today
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Brown Eyed Susan @browneyedsusan.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
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Steven Beschloss @stevenbeschloss.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
“This election is likely our last chance to stop the march of fascism led by Trump and his enablers seeking to hold onto power by any means necessary…We should take seriously Trump’s repeated assertions that he intends to stay in power after 2028.” www.americaamerica.news/p/we-are-und...
americaamerica.news
We Are Under Attack From an Enemy Within
By listening to our founders and refusing to go along with this, we can name and defeat the ongoing danger to our constitutional republic
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United Farm Workers @ufw.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Dangerously hot conditions with temperatures up to 90° on CAs coast and 105° in the valleys continue until 8 pm PDT Thursday. Farm workers are toiling in the fields in this dangerously hot weather working to put food on our tables 1/
Dangerously hot conditions with temperatures up to 90° on CAs coast and 105° in the valleys continue until 8 pm PDT Thursday.

This warning may be extended
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Miaganga @miaganga.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
💔🕯️💔🕯️💔
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Mongabay @mongabay.com · 02/10/2026
From herding livestock to leading Kenya's conservancy movement, Dickson Kaelo speaks with #Mongabay about the realities of coexisting with wildlife. He addresses the promise and pitfalls, including land disputes and elite capture, of community-led conservation. Read this interview by David Akana.
mongabay.cc
From ‘community-based’ to ‘community-led conservation’ in Kenya: Interview with Dickson Kaelo
NEW YORK — Long before Dickson Kaelo became one of the leading voices for community conservancies in Kenya, conservation was something much more personal. He grew up with livestock. His father was a…
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Harriet’s Dreams @harrietsdreams.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Defending DC means defending our right to determine our future. Join Chocolate City @freedcproject.bsky.social with Cora Masters-Barry & Leslie E. Redmond for a conversation on Black political power, voting rights & DC Home Rule. Oct. 5, 6:30 PM bit.ly/freedc_cc
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Angie Nixon @angieforfl.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Floridians and Puerto Ricans are facing the same struggles. Rising costs, corporate capture, and climate change. Angie Nixon will fight right alongside Rep. @maxwellfrost.bsky.social to help keep both of our economies going! #AngieforFlorida
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KittyKatGirl😻🙏💞🐞 @mary1kathy.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, called it “the worst we’ve seen” in a long history of botched executions. Governor Bill Lee ordered a review of the hours-long attempt & has temporarily halted executions in Tennessee. www.thenation.com/article/poli...
thenation.com
The Right Way to Handle the Death Penalty
Even before her state botched another execution, gubernatorial candidate Jerri Green was telling Tennesseans that “the death penalty has always been inhumane, expensive, and biased.”
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David Kurtz @davidkurtz.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
In a move that smacks of retaliation, Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte is moving to slash next year’s budget for the agency’s inspector general’s office by more than 60 percent — after it was involved in an earlier investigation of him. talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo...
talkingpointsmemo.com
Bill Pulte Guts the IG Office That Investigated Him
Cuts Would Put IG Office Out of Business In a move that...
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Angry @angrystaffer.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
You really can’t make this shit up.
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Malena-PRO-CHOICE 🌊 🟦🟧Fighting Tyranny! @malena.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Today's thread starts with joy as the community came together in Oswego, New York to protect a couple of roofers from #ICELawlessness & prevailed. Let's rally like this across the country to protect our immigrant neighbors by helping elect Democrats in every race who will fight for accountability.
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Institute for Policy Studies @ips-dc.org · 02/10/2026
In 2025, Kristen Crowell began traveling across the U.S. to talk with people affected by the cuts from President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” What she found were Americans of all backgrounds struggling to patch holes that shouldn’t be there to begin with.
otherwords.org
How the “Big Beautiful Bill” Is Harming People — And How They're Responding - OtherWords
Over 15 months and 22 states, I met families struggling with cuts to Medicaid and SNAP — and the people refusing to let their neighbors face those struggles alone.
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Malena-PRO-CHOICE 🌊 🟦🟧Fighting Tyranny! @malena.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
#PayToPlayPresident
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Jules⚖️📨 @northjules.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Vance tried to come for Angie Nixon telling her to go back where she came from. Does he remember that his wife is the daughter of Indian immigrants from Andhra Pradesh, India? Can’t escape that fact couch boy! #Pinks
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