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Vivek

@vcdevaraj.bsky.social
194 followers 391 following 43 posts
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Reposted by Vivek
Murshed Zaheed @murshedz.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
“Trump has rejected disaster aid for Democratic-run states at the highest rate in the 47-year history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.” Right now people in blue states are basically paying federal taxes as if they’re colonized territories of red states. www.politico.com/news/2026/03...
Trump has denied most disaster requests from Democratic-led states

A graph  showing Presidential approval rates for disaster requests from Democratic-led states and Republican-led states

Source: POLITICO's E&E News analysis of FEMA records
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ArtButMakeItSports @artbutmakeitsports.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Cast of Laocoön and his Sons (Roman version of a lost Greek original), 100BC-50AD
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Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 26/05/2026
@nycsanitation.bsky.social I’d like to report a sweep
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Ken Tremendous @kentremendous.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
Trump gathered all of the very worst people in the country in one place and got them to break a million laws and then pardoned all of them, and now local law enforcement has to go get them one by one as they commit new crimes.
Headlines about various Jan. 6 rioters being sentenced to new crimesHeadlines about various Jan. 6 rioters being sentenced to new crimesHeadlines about various Jan. 6 rioters being sentenced to new crimesHeadlines about various Jan. 6 rioters being sentenced to new crimes
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Mike Wiser @drmikewiser.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
So, thing that is apparently better understood inside academia than outside of it: International students pay sticker price. Most domestic students do not. International students are subsidizing the education costs for domestic students, as per student governmental funding drops.
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Vivek @vcdevaraj.bsky.social · 15/03/2026
unconscionable
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Better Things Are Possible @internethippo.bsky.social · 14/03/2026
There's a hauntingly beautiful irony in these morons thinking that carefully crafted American hegemony was actually weak and woke, and they would be the ones who would do Power and Dominance properly, and immediately bringing everything crashing down
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S Peter Davis @speterdavis.com · 14/03/2026
They blew up USAid and doomed millions to an agonizing death but a video of them being an idiot on camera is causing reputational damage
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Watch this clip. Professors will recognize this kid as the student who didn't do the reading but still has very strong opinions about how it's all "bullshit," except this time he's not the callow student who's going to fail your course, he's the reviewer who's going to cancel your grant.
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 10/03/2026
The bottom line is Trump sacrificed 8 American lives (& counting) and more than 1,000 Iranian lives (& counting) for nothing. He hurt the US & global economies, destabilized the Middle East, & will pull out with the same Iranian regime in power. There's no silver lining. A senseless, criminal waste
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Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
Horrifying. Jesus Lord in heaven.
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Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
When you think about it for more than 5 seconds, it really is both insane and outrageous that *HILLARY CLINTON* - a woman who apparently has never met with nor corresponded with Jeffrey Epstein was one of the first people deposed.
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Nikki McCann Ramírez @nikkimcr.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
Trump claims he "lifted" 2.4 million people "off of food stamps" ... those were literally the people kicked off of SNAP by the work requirements he implemented.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
It's like ICE is completely ignoring every lesson that moderately competent police forces are forced to learn, like "don't do high speed chases in densely populated areas with low risk targets"
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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 11/02/2026
Likely-historic photo by NBC News of all the Epstein victims asked to raise their hands if they've not yet been asked to meet with the DOJ as Bondi testifies in foreground
photo of Pam Bondi testifying in the foreground as a group of 7 women and 1 men raise their hands
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Zito @zeets.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
So ICE is forging people’s signatures to say that they agreed to be deported and then holding them hostage if their lawyers appeal their cases www.irishtimes.com/world/us/202...
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A little deluge of adjectives @creativebrute.bsky.social · 07/02/2026
This deserves to be spread as far and wide as what happened to Renee Good and Alex Pretti. apnews.com/article/immi...
apnews.com
Immigrant whose skull was broken in eight places during ICE arrest says beating was unprovoked
A Mexican immigrant whose skull was broken during his arrest by immigration officers last month in Minnesota says the beating was unprovoked.
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Philip Bump @pbump.com · 29/01/2026
I felt obliged to write up an overview of all of the Fulton County fraud claims that have already been made — and dismissed. Let me know if I forgot any. www.pbump.net/o/some-thing...
pbump.net
Some things you should know about Fulton County, Georgia
The county has already seen numerous claims about election fraud — all debunked. There's no reason to think that Kash Patel's FBI will find something new.
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Dimitri Drekonja, MD, MS @dimitridrekonja.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
Alex from our time working together, while he was in nursing school. Later, he moved to ICU, working as a nurse to support critically ill Veterans. He had such a great attitude. We’d chat between patients about trying to get in a mountain bike ride together. Will never happen now
Alex Pretti from his early days working at the VA
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Jill Lawrence @jilldlawrence.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
OMG. "DHS said the episode began after a man approached Border Patrol agents with a handgun and they tried to disarm him. But footage from the scene shows the man was holding a phone in his hand, not a gun, when federal agents took him to the ground and shot him." www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01...
nytimes.com
Update from Devon Lum
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Philip Bump @pbump.com · 24/01/2026
Just staggered by the complete moral void of not even *pretending* to wait for more information before pivoting to “the opponent of the state deserved it.” It is so insanely depraved. Soulless.
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Acyn @acyn.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
Jessica: The WSJ is reporting that there are incentives for ICE Agents because they need to meet that insane 3,000 people per day quota—they are getting rewarded even if they bring in people who then get released…
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Jason Kander @jasonkander.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
The end of Obamacare subsidies hurts everyone, regardless of whether they had Obamacare. Here’s why.
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Foz Meadows @fozmeadows.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
my 75yo mother told me last night that she’s planning to delete Instagram and Facebook because she’s sick of not being able to tell what’s AI and what’s not, and I genuinely don’t think tech companies have reckoned with this kind of move as an actual possibility
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I Travel Like Sound Dog @chadstanton.blacksky.app · 23/12/2025
I don’t mean to sound extreme, but I don’t think we should have torture camps for people with criminal records either.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
Sharyn Alfonsi, the veteran CBS news reporter who led the story: “I care too much about this broadcast to watch it be dismantled without a fight.” The reality is that she is much more likely to be fired than Weiss, and that should tell you all you need to know about CBS now.
In her note, Ms. Alfonsi said that her team had requested comment from the White House, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security. “If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a ‘kill switch’ for any reporting they find inconvenient,” Ms. Alfonsi wrote.

“We have been promoting this story on social media for days,” Ms. Alfonsi added. “Our viewers are expecting it. When it fails to air without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of ‘gold standard’ reputation for a single week of political quiet.”
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 15/12/2025
This is what happens when the FBI is run by two right-wing conspiracy theorist podcasters who spent the last 11 months purging almost anyone with institutional knowledge from the bureau. They're going to keep fucking this kind of thing up.
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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
They were working on an mRNA application for glioblastoma when Elon/RFK laid wreck to everything. [My father died of glioblastoma.]
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 07/12/2025
don't worry, john roberts says this is a legitimate exercise of presidential power and if we did anything to curb it, we would be robbing the executive of the energy he needs to do his job
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Casey Explosion @caseyexplosion.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
Seeing how much of the right-wing on Twitter is just bot farms, kinda lays bare how much hate and hatred is a project that needs to be constantly maintained, a fire that needs to be fed all the time lest it go out for a moment, so much time, effort, and resources to keep people angry and hateful.
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Pete Buttigieg @petebuttigieg.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
Millions of Americans are already learning that their health insurance costs for 2026 are going way up. I want to hear from you so we can make this impossible for the GOP to ignore the consequences of their policies. If your premiums are going up, reply below and please share your story.
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Matt Ford @mford.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
First Trump administration story in a while that genuinely shocked me:
washingtonpost.com
Rubio promised to betray U.S. informants to get Trump’s El Salvador prison deal
To secure U.S. access to President Nayib Bukele’s notorious CECOT prison, Rubio agreed to turn over several MS-13 leaders central to a long-running Justice Department investigation.
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Garrett M. Graff @vermontgmg.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
This is a huge scandal, one of the worst in modern law enforcement and something that is astoundingly unconstitutional and illegal.
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Gregg Gonsalves @gregggonsalves.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
Here's the assignment folks. Write op-eds for your local papers and campus newspapers too. Just. Say. No. This is a classic authoritarian move and risks the future of higher education and science and innovation in the US. Speak out today. No time to lose. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Universities Is Just Extortion
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Brian Tyler Cohen @briantylercohen.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
I asked Trump's former OMB director Mick Mulvaney to acknowledge it's a lie that undocumented immigrants get ACA subsidies (they don't), and he ended the interview. "Would you agree that not a single dime of ACA subsidies goes toward undocumented immigrants?" "I'm not gonna do this anymore."
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The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 21/09/2025
Sen. Murphy: "Tom Homan, Trump's border czar, literally accepted a bag of cash—$50,000—and the investigation was dropped when Trump became president. There are two standards of justice now in this country. If you are a friend of the president...you can get away with anything."
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 20/09/2025
This is not an issue where GOP legislators can even pretend that they agree with the policies being set into place. There has seldom if ever been so transparent an example of a group of elected US representatives so utterly cowed by a demagogue as to abandon their constituents so completely.
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Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 18/07/2025
Not really an overstatement to say that the test of a free society is whether or not comedians can make fun of the country's leader on TV without repurcussions.
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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse @whitehouse.senate.gov · 14/09/2025
Ending crime reports wouldn't make the world safer; ending disease reports wouldn't make the world healthier; and ending pollution reports won't make the world cleaner.
nytimes.com
E.P.A. To Stop Collecting Emissions Data From Polluters
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mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 24/08/2025
Tyranny
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News Eye @newseye.bsky.social · 16/08/2025
NEW: Wearing masks, no ID, unmarked & blacked out cars, refusing to say what agency they’re from and using profanity with any press & public nearby. This was at 14th & R in Washington DC, this morning (Sunday). What the hell is happening to the US? (🎥 Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, Washington Post)
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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 16/08/2025
While masked agents were violently attacking a delivery worker this morning, bystanders repeatedly asked to see their badge numbers but they refused. Bystander: You guys are ruining this country, you know that, right? Agent: Liberals already ruined it.
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Vivek @vcdevaraj.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
This is insane
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Jason Leopold @jasonleopold.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
NEW FOIA Files SCOOP: The FBI redacted Trump’s name—and the names of other prominent public figures—from the Epstein files under two privacy exemptions before DOJ & FBI concluded “no further disclosure” of the files “would be appropriate or warranted.” www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...
bloomberg.com
The FBI Redacted Trump’s Name in the Epstein Files
The bureau’s FOIA team tasked with conducting a final review of the records blacked out the names before higher-ups said last month that releasing the documents ‘would not be appropriate or warranted....
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
This piece in Science: *confirms that the push for multi-year funding is coming from White House, against NIH wishes *White House is deliberately slowing spending already appropriated to then cut it via rescission www.science.org/content/arti...
NIH also faces a more immediate threat: the loss of money it has already been awarded. Trump policies have slowed agency spending so much that Berg estimates the agency is at least $6 billion behind in its spending. As a result, a large portion of its $49 billion budget could go back to the U.S. Department of the Treasury when the fiscal year ends on 30 September.

In principle the administration could claw back the money in a so-called rescission, like the one that recently cut billions from global health and public broadcasting. In their 25 July letter to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the 14 Republican senators wrote that “suspension of these appropriated funds – whether formally withheld or functionally delayed — could threaten Americans’ ability to access better treatments and limit our nation’s leadership in biomedical science.”
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
Whatever case there is for multi-year funding, but it will defund many labs: "A payline under 5% means it's not worth my time to apply. My lab will close down, and I'll stop doing research." The worry is that they want to free up future funds to redirect toward RFK approved alternative science.
Whatever the potential upsides might be, the sudden nature of the policy's application means it is a terrible idea now. We are arriving at the last few months of an already challenging and financially complex fiscal year. Research laboratories across the country are struggling with instability introduced by new federal policies. Many grants have been terminated, some institutions have had their funding completely frozen, and grants that would have been awarded are stuck behind administrative bottlenecks.

Given these unprecedented attacks on science, scientists and institutions are faced with impossible decisions. Staff layoffs are widespread, investigators are fleeing to other countries, and research projects are being shuttered. Scientific work is not something that can be stopped and started on a whim: the required specialized expertise, reagents, cells, and animal models require predictability over several years to allow planning.
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📎 Leo Woke 🧷 @kerrlr.bsky.social · 26/07/2025
"Name and Badge Number" If they refuse "Hello 911, there are armed men impersonating Law Enforcement, and kidnapping people off of the street"
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Josh Johnson @joshjohnsoncomedy.bsky.social · 26/07/2025
When you strip away humanity
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