When I say Patrick Stewart was my dad, I mean I wrote the sentence “Jean-Luc Picard is the one true captain of the Starship Enterprise” into my mother’s obituary.
Mara Pellittieri
@marapellittieri.bsky.social
Editor, garden obsessive, and queer about town. Editorial at American Oversight, formerly Urban Institute, TalkPoverty, and Center for American Progress.
The database the @propublica.org team built is striking, especially when you match it up to ICE surges. Illinois has had 5x more citizen detentions than New York, even though the state has a smaller population. But Illinois also had Operation Midway Blitz. projects.propublica.org/american-cit...
More Than 500 U.S. Citizens Have Been Detained, Including Handcuffed or Held at Gunpoint, in Trump’s Immigration Crackdown — ProPublica
The government doesn’t track how often immigration officers detain U.S. citizens. So ProPublica did. We’ve found more than 500 Americans who were held against their will during this Trump administrati...
projects.propublica.org
A lot of the responsibilities are around resources for chaplains, except for this: "Sponsor and oversee research, technology, and analytical tools to support and assess spiritual fitness, spiritual readiness, and spiritual resilience" Hard to imagine doing that w/o violating civil liberties.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last mo.Hegseth: "Today, at my direction, I'm establishing the Office of Religious Affairs. It will report straight to the top -- a direct line to the secretary ... as Psalm 33:12 extolls us, blessed is the nation in which God is the Lord"
The thing about living in a city full of former Model UN kids is that you WILL hear people talking about Tammany Hall at the Robyn concert.
People will truly say anything to avoid acknowledging bisexuality. www.instyle.com/hunter-biden...
Hunter Biden, 56, Says He’s “48 Percent Gay”
Hunter Biden appeared on the August 16 episode of ‘The Luke Beasley Show,’ where he shared that he’s “a little bit” gay. Read his full comments, here.
instyle.com
HHS just released a report saying support for trans people is a strong indicator of whether someone supports political violence. It reads like a VERY direct attempt to tie trans people, and people who support them, to the Trump administration’s anti-Antifa work. health.gov/hhs-releases...
HHS Releases Study Finding Individuals Who Associate with Left-Wing Authoritarian Beliefs and Radical Gender Ideology Are More Likely to Justify Political Violence | Health.gov
WASHINGTON, D.C. — AUGUST 26, 2026 — The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today released a commissioned study that found individuals who believed in radical gender ideology were more...
health.gov
Alright, it’s time to start securing our icons. Does anyone have eyes on Ru Paul?
To be clear, the province in Canada is named after the lake (“Ontario” is based on an indigenous word). So calling it “Lake America” isn’t even insulting the right nation. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
Trump says U.S. could rename Lake Ontario as Lake America amid Canada trade war
The president cited his tariff fight in a social media post, saying the United States doesn’t expect to be “doing much business with Ontario any longer.”
washingtonpost.com
My expectations are low, but being betrayed by the CPSC, the agency that spent the 2010s filling the Internet with absolutely surreal memes, is a bridge too far. kffhealthnews.org/health-indus...
Trump Administration Demands Hospitals Share Emergency Room Records - KFF Health News
The tiny federal agency that tracks consumer product safety is pressuring hospitals to turn over patient records from emergency room visits, including about injuries that have nothing to do with consu...
kffhealthnews.org
“Join the military, we’ll give you HRT” was not the sales pitch I was expecting.
Matthew Gault@mjgault.bsky.social · 4mo agoHegseth announced they're gonna start screening for T and administering testosterone treatment for warriors found wanting
Hasn’t stopped him from supporting Medicaid work requirements, though. newjerseyglobe.com/congress/kea...
Kean reveals depression kept him from Congress for months - New Jersey Globe
Rep. Thomas Kean Jr. disclosed Tuesday that he has spent the last several months hospitalized for depression, revealing for the first time why the
newjerseyglobe.com
It is wild to work an office job when monitoring the news triggers a full fight or flight response before noon every day.
This appointment is genuinely scary. Pulte weaponized mortgage data to go after Trump’s critics as head of FHFA. If that’s what he does with objectively boring information, I am not excited to find out what he does with national secrets.
American Oversight@americanoversight.org · 5mo agoTrump just named FHFA Director Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence. Pulte has used his FHFA position to accuse the president’s critics of mortgage fraud. We sued for records to learn more about Pulte’s relationship with the White House. americanoversight.org/american-ove...
There are a lot of large, respected legal aid orgs on this list. Specifically legal aid orgs that are not funded through LSC. That means the admin is targeting orgs that serve “undesirables,” like undocumented folks and people with drug charges. federalnewsnetwork.com/budget/2026/...
White House seeks federal spending data on dozens of nonprofit organizations | Federal News Network
OMB told agencies to report federal spending going toward 49 nonprofit organizations, many of which focus on DEI, immigration support and humanitarian aid.
federalnewsnetwork.com
BREAKING: A judge granted an emergency order blocking the Trump administration from disregarding the Presidential Records Act, in response to a lawsuit filed by us and the American Historical Association. americanoversight.org/emergency-or...
American Oversight released the following statement on the Trump administration’s indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Read the full statement: americanoversight.org/american-ove...
A lot of nonprofits have been holding their breath and waiting for something like what we’re with the SPLC tonight. And to be clear, it’s scary. But damn it feels nice to see giants in the space call this what it is and refuse to back down. The statement from LCCHR is worth reading in full.
Half of US kids get their health care through Medicaid. If their families have to think about whether they want ICE to know about it every time they go to the doctor, we’re going to have a genuine public health crisis.
American Oversight@americanoversight.org · 7mo agoNEW: We’re suing the Trump admin for records related to Medicaid sharing enrollee data with ICE, along with @nhelp.bsky.social. Families need to know what data ICE has and how it’s using it. If they don't, they could avoid medical care for fear of facing ICE. americanoversight.org/medicaid-ice...
If any photos were taken by agency staff, I’m pretty sure you can legally FOIA for records connected to the phrase “now let’s do a silly one.”
Scott Nover@scottnover.bsky.social · 8mo agoScoop: The Pentagon barred press photographers from briefings on the ongoing U.S.-Israeli military conflict with Iran after they published photos of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that his staff deemed "unflattering."
Come for the smart research on grief and death in the U.S., stay to find out the problem isn’t you, it’s capitalism!
s. e. smith@sesmith.lol · 8mo agoARCs have landed! He’s a real boy! Preorder for a present to July 28 you (or a friend). bookshop.org/a/118950/978...
I spent this morning going through videos of federal agents killing Americans. I gotta say, I don’t think coffee treats are the problem.
NY Times Pitchbot@nytpitchbot.bsky.social · 8mo agoI can't compete with this.
Our new DHS Secretary is best known for trying to fight a Teamster on the Senate floor, so that bodes well. youtu.be/CR94QQXO_4s?...
'Stand your butt up': GOP Senator challenges union boss to fight
YouTube video by CTV News
youtu.be
The argument that Trump needed to attack Iran to protect himself rings a liiiiiittle hollow once you add in the fact that Kash Patel just fired the FBI agents responsible for stopping Iranian attacks on the president LAST WEEK. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
How Trump assassination attempts played into his decision to attack Iran
President Donald Trump acknowledged for the first time a personal rationale for attacking Iran: “I got him before he got me.”
washingtonpost.com
If the algorithm tries to feed me one more video of the difference between “wearing” and “styling” that amounts to tucking in your shirt and putting on shoes, I will turn this car around.
If you read in the national press about a drawdown, a pivot, a change— bull✨ and lies. This is where we took Family Pottery classes, our safe community space. And it’s where the big Renee Good March began, near where ICE murdered her. This is gang behavior, trying to seize the heart of our city.
Jason Chavez@jchavezmpls.bsky.social · 9mo agoThis morning, federal agents staged at the Powderhorn Park Recreation Center lot and began to throw chemical irritants at observers. They also kidnapped an observer. Our parks are meant for our children, youth, and neighbors. They should never be militarized zones meant to separate families. 1/
I’m weeks late, but @alexanderchee.bsky.social wrote the first Heated Rivalry piece I’ve seen that feels right. querent.substack.com/p/i-would-st...
In Your Arms I Would Start A War
A Heated Rivalry Notebook
querent.substack.com
In immigration cases, you have to FOIA the government to get your records. The folks who are trying to annoy ICE and CBP with a flood of FOIAs are actually just making it hard for people to get their records for immigration court.
American Oversight@americanoversight.org · 10mo agoA popular video is encouraging people to send FOIA requests to ICE and CBP to slow the agencies down. That will hurt immigrants who need to use FOIA in immigration court. Here’s why.
New Reuters poll shows Trump's approval on immigration is at an all-time low -only 39% of Americans approve of Trump's job on immigration -53% disapprove -58% say ICE has gone too far in its crackdown -His overall approval is at a low of 38%, which it was in November www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...
Trump's immigration approval drops to record low, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds
American approval of U.S. President Donald Trump's immigration policy fell to its lowest level since his return to the White House in a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, with a majority of Americans saying his ...
reuters.com
Bovino’s out, great. But no one said “please reassign one person.” Stop terrorizing communities. Stop killing people with impunity. Stop trying to redefine who counts as a person. Then we’ll talk.
It’s worth reading in full, but the part where Bondi fully drops the facade is when she demands the state’s voter rolls. She’s basically saying that the administration gets to decide whose vote counts, or the state stays under siege. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Read Bondi’s Letter to Minnesota’s Governor
Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota on Saturday that blamed him and other Democratic officials for allowing “lawlessness” in the state. It was not immediately clear ...
nytimes.com