In FY25, the University of Vermont had 39 H1B beneficiaries approved. In 2016, I was one of them. What this country, my adopted country, my child’s country, is doing is monstrous and will have grave repercussions for all Americans well beyond this current presidential term. This is so sad to see.

NEW: Democrats are ramping up efforts to investigate Tom Homan over bribery allegations In a letter obtained 1st by NBC, Senate Homeland Cmte Dems led by Peters, Slotkin & Gallego urged AG Bondi to “immediately” release tapes & docs related to the probe www.nbcnews.com/politics/con...

Israel has repeatedly attacked Gaza’s hospitals, health care workers, patients, and rescue workers. Since October 2023, Israel has massacred more than 1,700 medical staff and attacked 38 hospitals. truthout.org/articles/isr...

Shelby County, where Musk’s xAI facility sits, has Tennessee’s highest rate of ER visits for asthma. For the majority-Black residents of the area, emissions from the company’s methane gas turbines exacerbate longstanding public health concerns. By @wendicthomas.bsky.social

NASA plans to deorbit the International Space Station in 2030. An aerospace engineer with more than 30 years in the spaceflight community explains why saying goodbye to the ISS will be especially hard. buff.ly/mmhTbjX

There's loads of good insights on the logistics of covering ICE, the demographics of different parts of Chicago, and background on how to report on ICE. But this section on how social media has become so much less useful to the left, vulnerable communities, and radicals also stood out:

Three indie media outlets in Chicago have teamed up to boost the reach of their reporting on the ICE presence there. They're all on bluesky. The Triibe @thetriibe.com , Chicago Reader @chicagoreader.com , and Unravelled @unraveledpress.com L.A. TACO interviews them here: lataco.com/chicago-ice-...

For anyone wanting to know about one of the anti-ICE and anti-MAGA projects in Hawaii, it would be great if you could take a minute to subscribe to the J20 Hawaii youtube channel. They're doing "Stories from Hawaii" and other deep dives they want to draw attention to. www.youtube.com/@hawaiij20

“Canadian experience”—for many newcomers, these words close every professional door. In 2023, Ontario announced a plan to ban requirements about Canadian work experience in job postings. But even if unwritten, the rule still shapes immigrant underemployment. thewalrus.ca/canada-is-wastin...

Yeah I could be up for a Luddite renaissance

BREAKING: Cascade PBS, which operates the website Crosscut, is laying off 19 people, reportedly including its entire news staff. In an email to staff, CEO Rob Dunlop blamed federal cuts, saying the nonprofit is "winding down our longform, written journalism."

every corporate decision comes down to money and clearly the economics for abc/disney outweighed the threats from the fascist government

Here's the first publicized casualty of an @inn.org member due to Republican defunding. It's gonna get a lot worse before it gets better bsky.app/profile/eric...

Reupping results from a recent @inn.org member survey: • 60% are facing revenue declines • 57% are seeking emergency funding •36% report < 3 months of operating reserves While authoritarian consolidation of corporate media continues unimpeded, nonprofit media is on the brink of collapse!

🚨📢JOB ALERT📢🚨 @grist.org is hiring an Upper Great Lakes reporter to cover climate impacts, environmental health, and solutions to the climate crisis, primarily for a local and regional audience. job-boards.greenhouse.io/grist/jobs/4...

Disney reverses course on Kimmel. Lessons: -Trump's anti-Constitutional stances, anti-1A in this case, are unpopular -Popular resistance via expression and spending choices can have an impact -Many corporate leaders are weak, amoral people who'll bow to threats unless they face countervailing ones

Until we get truly serious about this, a lot of stuff will not be possible.

One side has UNLIMITED no strings attached money and the other asks for 50 pages of paperwork for $10,000.

Let's be clear about who is most affected by Trump's H1B executive order. Gift link: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

The US Dept of Justice has removed a report from its website showing that right-wing extremists have killed more Americans than any other domestic terrorist group. Deleting the report doesn’t change the facts: claims by the president and his allies that left-leaning Americans are more violent aren’

Ken Paxton’s lawsuit against Beto O’Rourke is crumbling as a Republican appeals court ruled his fundraising ban unconstitutional. Judges blasted Paxton’s case as prior restraint on free speech, exposing his abuse of office for partisan gain.

Ending ILR completely breaks the British National (Overseas) status that was an olive branch extended by the UK to the Hongkongers, who they abandoned and subsequently made vulnerable to gross human rights violations by the Chinese-imposed National Security Law. We would become a stateless people.

Crockett: "I'm gonna honor someone who decided they were going to proclaim I was involved in the 'great white replacement'? Yeah, I'm not honoring that ... it's unfortunate more of my colleagues even on my side couldn't see the amount of harm this man was attempting to inflict upon our communities"

"While Trump's foot soldiers wage a campaign of fear in our streets, Chicagoans are continuing to organize." organizingmythoughts.org/must-reads-a...

💪🏽💪🏽💪🏽 Go bless the people of Chicago #Gestapo

My weekly must-reads list and my thoughts on witnessing care and courage amid clouds of tear gas Friday night. "Almost 550 people across Chicagoland have been arrested by ICE during Operation Midway Blitz. It is a campaign of terror focused on a city that our president feels profound contempt for."

"I am proud of everything that makes that man hate us." the Broadview protesters are some of the best of us. I wept at this essay

Check out Justice Eddins’ complete repudiation of the Roberts Court here. It’s worth reading in full. It’s quite brave—and exceedingly rare—for a sitting judge to speak so candidly and scathingly about SCOTUS’ partisan contortions of law, history, and fact. www.courts.state.hi.us/wp-content/u...

Can't publish science without political approval, what could go wrong [🎁]

In July, EPA announced it would dismantle the Office of Research & Development. Now, staff have been ordered to immediately halt *all* work on research papers. (Surely entirely coincidental to easing way for slaughterhouses to pollute our water? subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eene...)

This whole sorry saga is another proof point: Trump is a weak and failing and ineffectual president who is simultaneously consolidating autocratic power in areas where that's easier for him to do. And that's a dangerous combination. newrepublic.com/article/2006...

There's a deeper absurdity here. Trump and Stephen Miller have been shrieking that Letitia James is corrupt. But James' team *did the actual work* necessary to *successfully* bring a case against Trump on the facts, and Trump is failing to do even that. newrepublic.com/article/2006...

Trump's scam of inventing "mortgage fraud" charges against his foes is failing. So he's set to fire a top prosecutor who is failing to bring charges, ABC reports. Failing to bring corrupt prosecutions is now a firing offense. This is profound misconduct. New piece: newrepublic.com/article/2006...

Exxon Urges Europe to Repeal Rules to Make Companies Track Climate Pollution www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/c...

US DOE is shaking down Europe, demanding a significant weakening of regulations on methane so that more US fracked gas can be exported “If you want to move US natural gas into the European Union, you have to change the legal regulatory framework" www.euractiv.com/news/how-an-...

National day of remembrance for Charlie Kirk motion passed the Senate by unanimous consent. Zero Democrats objected, which would have stopped it. Tommy Tuberville is presiding — and smirking. www.c-span.org/networks/?ch...

The term "preventable death" can oversimplify complex health issues, obscuring systemic barriers to care and shifting blame to individuals. A public health historian examines how this language mis-shapes perceptions and policy:

This interview with Palestinian children in Gaza is heartbreaking

Not to continue to do this Cassandra bullshit, but here is a clip from two years ago that outlines exactly the playbook in this moment: a government and private law enforcement army run entirely on grievance, culture war slop, and weaponizable data points, deployed against boogeymen, absent facts.

NEW — Here’s what we know so far today: • Greg Bovino and CBP agents are in the Chicago area now • Sightings of federal agents in Elgin, Prospect Heights and Cicero suburbs • Trump said he will send in the troops “against Pritzker.” thetriibe.com/2025/09/live...

The TRiiBE is partnering with indie investigative newsroom @unraveledpress.com and alt-weekly @chicagoreader.com to document confirmed sightings of ICE and other federal agents in the Chicago area. thetriibe.com/2025/09/live...

And there’s a reason: In this country, there is a long history of right-wing terrorism. People who—let’s be real—hate democracy and hate our freedoms.

This is part of why GOP politicians and right-wing media and dark money groups work so hard to whip people into a fury. Not only does it get people activated for elections, it scares their targets into silence or acquiescence.

The way institutions are bending over backwards to placate right-wing outrage—firing people for being honest about Charlie Kirk—is a reminder that one of the key tools the political Right uses to get its way is the implied threat of violence/force.

How many orders of magnitude worse is Trump’s corruption than various Hunter Biden claims the right said justified his father’s impeachment: An investigation www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/ano...

Remarkably blunt words from United Nations officials who just declared Israel is committing genocide: "Gaza will be with me for the rest of my life." "Netanyahu, like everything he says, is simply lying." "The treatment of children, the amputation without anesthetic…That will haunt me forever."