Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Tanya Pluth

@sinshantrack.bsky.social

Hey @flypdx.bsky.social disappointing that someone using a wheelchair is left aside at security screening for 20+min waiting for the “assist” screening & others stroll by. New tech and new security checkpoints but the access for people with disabilities is actually WORSE? Yikes, embarrassing. #pdx

June 28, 2025 at 11:01 PM

Reposted by Tanya Pluth

Whizbang Heavy Industry GmBH

@swolecialism.bsky.social

it is, again, intensely funny that the entire country threw a massive "fuck that guy's birthday party" party in response to trump's birthday party

June 15, 2025 at 12:58 AM

Tanya Pluth

@sinshantrack.bsky.social

June 13, 2025 at 4:45 AM

Tanya Pluth

@sinshantrack.bsky.social

In the midst of the hardship, fear, and threats running through the political, social, and economic milieu that is 2025, the spring season brings reminders of vitality and beauty to my days, and I feel grateful. #nature #oregon #photography #spring

April 11, 2025 at 5:06 AM

Reposted by Tanya Pluth

George Takei

@georgetakei.bsky.social

If you think this can’t happen, remember that of the 125,000 Japanese Americans who were interned during WWII for years without charge or trial, two-thirds were U.S. citizens. Including me.

The image is a screenshot of a tweet from Brandon Bradford (@BrandonLBradfor
). The tweet reads: "Deporting Americans without due process then saying they no longer get due process because they aren’t in America means no one has rights, FYI. Nightmare scenario."

April 4, 2025 at 7:51 PM

Tanya Pluth

@sinshantrack.bsky.social

Sleepy young barred owl on the trail today. #bird #owls #Oregon #nature #photography

March 31, 2025 at 5:13 AM

Tanya Pluth

@sinshantrack.bsky.social

I think I’ll take a look at these each day - and listening to John Lithgow read them too.

snyder.substack.com/p/twenty-les...

Twenty Lessons, read by John Lithgow

Key selections from On Tyranny, for viewing and sharing

snyder.substack.com

March 31, 2025 at 5:10 AM

Reposted by Tanya Pluth

Nicola Pitchford

@npitchford.bsky.social

“13. PRACTICE CORPOREAL POLITICS

Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside.”

open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p...

Twenty Lessons, read by John Lithgow

Key selections from On Tyranny, for viewing and sharing

open.substack.com

March 30, 2025 at 3:41 PM

Tanya Pluth

@sinshantrack.bsky.social

Spring showers bring…lovely afternoons. #spring #nature #photography #oregon

March 18, 2025 at 1:55 AM

Reposted by Tanya Pluth

Josh Marshall

@joshtpm.bsky.social

We have another case here of US Marshals assisting DOGErs in making forcible entry into a govt chartered independent agency to which it has not clear right to enter. The key point here is that there’s no court order for the Marshals to enforce. So here’s my question. Did the Times confirm that …

March 17, 2025 at 9:12 PM

Tanya Pluth

@sinshantrack.bsky.social

And - the Institute called the DC police to arrest them for trespassing; and, the DC police and the FBI said no, that’s alright, sorry…

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Doge breaks into US Institute of Peace building after White House guts board

Remaining members of board – Pete Hegeth, Marco Rubio and Peter Garvin – fire president of independent non-profit

www.theguardian.com

March 18, 2025 at 1:43 AM

Tanya Pluth

@sinshantrack.bsky.social

Tracking -

Marc Elias @marcelias.bsky.social · Mar 16

I am tracking 3 separate cases where the government is violating court orders. The question now is whether judges find willfulness and hold officials in contempt.

Democracy Docket members will receive my latest on this and more in their inboxes tomorrow. Join now. www.democracydocket.com/member-me/

March 17, 2025 at 12:21 AM

Tanya Pluth

@sinshantrack.bsky.social

Climate justice under attack- the list of organizations targeted made public due to a Citibank filing- deserves a read. This likely just the beginning - if you see an org you believe in and support on this list, reach out to them; donate; organize; connect; stay informed.

Teri G @terilg.bsky.social · Mar 12

WTF?!

The FBI is accusing Jimmy Carter’s Habitat for Humanity of conspiracy to defraud the United States.

They are targeting orgs that received a Biden-era climate change grant.

newrepublic.com/post/192660/... newrepublic.com/post/192660/...

Trump’s FBI Moves to Criminally Charge Major Climate Groups

The Trump administration is targeting climate organizations that received a Biden-era grant.

newrepublic.com

March 13, 2025 at 9:21 PM

Reposted by Tanya Pluth

Teri G

@terilg.bsky.social

WTF?!

The FBI is accusing Jimmy Carter’s Habitat for Humanity of conspiracy to defraud the United States.

They are targeting orgs that received a Biden-era climate change grant.

newrepublic.com/post/192660/... newrepublic.com/post/192660/...

Trump’s FBI Moves to Criminally Charge Major Climate Groups

The Trump administration is targeting climate organizations that received a Biden-era grant.

newrepublic.com

March 12, 2025 at 11:39 PM

Reposted by Tanya Pluth

Nancy Levine Stearns

@nancylevinestearns.bsky.social

💥 BREAKING: At John Deere's annual shareholders meeting today, shareholders overwhelmingly rejected an anti-DEI proposal brought by the same group that targeted Costco and Apple. An anti-DEI proposal from the NCPPR received less than 1 percent of votes.

Deere shareholders: DEI is in. Bigots are out

February 26, 2025 at 4:43 PM

Reposted by Tanya Pluth

George Takei

@georgetakei.bsky.social

Put all the “DEI” folks who got let go onto a new network and I’d watch the shit out of it.

February 26, 2025 at 7:30 PM

Tanya Pluth

@sinshantrack.bsky.social

Tip o’ the hat to the judge I the hearing today re: Trump EO banning Trans people from military, banning trans care, and more. 5 billion points to Nudge Reyes. In these times, this kind of direct clarity is 🎉🎉🎉

www.huffpost.com/entry/judge-...

February 20, 2025 at 5:04 AM

Tanya Pluth

@sinshantrack.bsky.social

I was just saying to a friend how Orwellian headlines are these days - then came across this headline. Incomprehensible.

www.cnn.com/2025/02/13/u...

‘Transgender’ and ‘queer’ erased from Stonewall Uprising national monument website | CNN

The National Park Service has removed references to transgender and queer people on its web page for the Stonewall National Monument, which marks the site of the New York City inn where LGBTQ rioters ...

www.cnn.com

February 14, 2025 at 5:39 AM

Tanya Pluth

@sinshantrack.bsky.social

fellows of the community - I offer this tune, which I find incredibly beautiful:

youtu.be/mq8KPeeEahM?...

It is from a critically important beautiful film- written and directed by Leah Purcell. The first Australian feature film written & directed by an Aboriginal Australian woman.

Danny's Hope

YouTube video by Release - Topic

youtu.be

February 13, 2025 at 4:52 PM

Tanya Pluth

@sinshantrack.bsky.social

So sad, petty and scary -

www.propublica.org/article/depa...

The Department of Education Told Employees to End Support for Transgender Students

The directive, which continues the Trump administration’s efforts to curb transgender rights, could end school-based mental health services and support for homeless students.

www.propublica.org

February 9, 2025 at 5:10 AM

Reposted by Tanya Pluth

Darby Saxbe

@darbysaxbe.bsky.social

🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.

February 4, 2025 at 1:26 AM

Reposted by Tanya Pluth

Sara Nović

@novicsara.bsky.social

Ho-ly shit. Getting word from trustworthy sources that this plugging in of external servers is also happening at other agencies and is responsible for some of the press releases and deletion of web content.
www.reddit.com/r/fednews/co...

Join Throwaway918284 OPM employee here, we are not the bad guys
HR I'm a current employee at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). This is a throwaway account for obvious reasons. I'm posting this because people need to know what's going on at OPM.
I've been an OPM employee for nearly a decade and a Federal Employee for almost 20 years. I've never witnessed anything even remotely close to what's happening right now. In short, there's a hostile takeover of the federal civil service,
Let me say this in no uncertain terms - OPM has been compromised and taken over. The very backbone of American Government, the HR of all HR in the U.S. Government has been taken over by outside politicals. In just five days, they managed to push aside dozens of non-political, career civil servants who were there specifically to prevent the civil service from becoming the President's henchmen,.
The current Acting Director, Charles (Chuck) Ezell is a low-level branch chief. He's the friendliest "yes man" you'll ever meet. He never says no. It's clear they pushed aside all the high-level non political civil

Let me say this in no uncertain terms - OPM has been compromised and taken over. The very backbone of American Government, the HR of all HR in the U.S. Government has been taken over by outside politicals In just five days, they managed to push aside dozens of non-political, career civil servants who were there specifically to prevent the civil service from becoming the President's henchmen.
The current Acting Director, Charles (Chuck) Ezell is a low-level branch chief. He's the friendliest "yes man" you'll ever meet. He never says no. It's clear they pushed aside all the high-level non political civil servants who refused to do Donald Trump's bidding, until they found Chuck.
Under his name, they've sent numerous requests to all the agencies to collect information on gov't employees that they see as a threat to their agenda. Instructions say to send these lists to Amanda Scales. But Amanda is not actually an OPM employee, she works for Elon Musk. She wasn't even properly cleared by OPM Personnel Security.
Our CIO, Melvin Brown, (also a non political career public servant) was pushed aside just one week into his tenure because he refused to setup email lists to send out direct communications to all career civil servants. Such communications are normally left up to each agency.

Our CIO, Melvin Brown, (also a non political career public servant) was pushed aside just one week into his
tenure because he refused to setup email lists to send out direct communications to all career civil servants.
Such communications are normally left up to each agency.

Instead, an on-prem (on-site) email server was setup.
Someone literally walked into our building and plugged
in an email server to our network to make it appear that emails were coming from OPM. It's been the one sending those various "test" message you've all seen.
We think they're building a massive email list of all federal employees to generate mass RIF notices down
the road.

The non-political civil servants here at OPM are
watching helplessly as our government is being
systematically dismantled bit by bit. Even the IGs are
being fired to prevent them from investigating the
numerous whistleblower complaints we've filed.

Please share this and tell the world that OPM is not the
bad guy. We're just as helpless to stop this as the rest
of our fellow public servants. Hopefully someone out
there can help us, but it's looking pretty grim.

January 27, 2025 at 2:32 PM

Reposted by Tanya Pluth

Cannon

@cannon4nh.bsky.social

Interesting things happening over at the fednews reddit... why would someone want to bypass the chain of command and communicate directly with civil servants? 🤔