Dan Vock

My latest story looks at the choices facing Democrats if they retake Congress, especially when it comes to reining in Trump and the executive branch vs finding common ground with Republicans on affordability questions. Lots of great quotes in here. (Gift link) www.chicagotribune.com/2026/10/18/i...

Scoop: Fox News will finish October with its worst ratings in years, an ominous sign for Republicans ahead of the midterms. Compared to last October, Fox News is DOWN 27% in total viewers and 32% in the 25-54 demo. MS NOW and CNN are up. Details in @status.news: www.status.news/p/fox-news-r...

amendments to ham sandwich rule hereby submitted for notice and comment www.nytimes.com/2026/10/27/u...

That’s a staggering fact to take in: About 1/3 of U.S. counties are now contractually partnered with ICE—to say nothing of all the counties assisting ICE more informally. I wrote recently about what this type of collaboration can do to communities: boltsmag.org/frederick-co...

NEW: The DOGE operative who gutted USAID -- firing thousands of employees and canceling lifesaving programs -- never actually signed the paperwork that's legally required for him to be employed by the agency.

Judge further extends block on Trump administration’s removing trees at D.C. golf course www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...

"Lufthansa and Fraport Inaugurate the 'Gate of the Future' at Frankfurt Airport" They're replaced efficient LCDs with a giant power hungr heat producing LED wall that doesn't actually provide additional info, and gotten rid of the gate agent counter so you'll never find them now. Thanks, I hate it.

Since Ken Paxton was sworn in as the attorney general of Texas, he has taken about 350 trips outside the state with a taxpayer-funded security detail, including 25 to foreign countries, according to a New York Times analysis. nyti.ms/4yOQK5k

Top states to watch for Republican lame-duck gerrymanders: Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida. NC’s GOP already adopted a resolution to enable passing new lame-duck power grabs and gerrymanders But if Dems break the Texas GOP trifecta, they could block lame duck power grabs by denying a quorum

If they lose power, expect Republicans in several states to strip powers from incoming Democrats, pass voting restrictions, and new gerrymanders. They did it after losing governors races in NC in 2016 and 2024, MI and WI in 2018, and KY in 2019. They preemptively did it ahead of losing IA this year

Let's be honest: D.C. isn't exactly a swing state that could help determine which party controls Congress. But that hasn't stopped the city from preparing for a new possibility: election interference or intimidation by federal agents or troops. www.washingtonsun.com/metro/dc-ele...

Documents support claim ICE has detained a mentally ill US citizen since January apnews.com/article/ice-...

Fucked up in the studio shredding non-Euclidean riffs on the four dimensional AliExpress guitar neck

This was weird when I saw it. Apparently it got even weirder

NEW: As expected, on a 2-1 vote, the Ninth Circuit dismisses DOJ's appeal in the US v. California case over DOJ's claims relating to "likely noncitizen" voting. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Trump claims the billion+ dollars he's spending on White House renovations is "peanuts"

The same day a court threw out the Trump administration's firing of Comey's daughter, the Trump administration goes back, for the third time, to try to indict the head of the FBI who refused to swear loyalty to the President. www.nbcnews.com/politics/jus...

I keep saying this: Stephen Miller is trying hard to preemptively scapegoat someone ELSE in case the GOP loses Texas. But they're naming him by name. www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

My heart is heavy. Walter Koenig, our Ensign Pavel Chekov, passed away early today. Walter and I met on the bridge of the Enterprise in the 1960s, and we stayed friends for nearly six decades. When Brad and I married in 2008, Walter stood beside us as our best man.

NEWS --> Dems are planning novel ways to wield power of the purse against Trump's corrupt prosecutions of critics like Ilhan Omar if they win House. Reps Pramila Jayapal and Jamie Raskin tell me a range of aggressive tactics will be deployed. Details in my new piece: newrepublic.com/article/2171...

THREAD 3: The Plant with Biggest Cancer Risk As we worked on this story, we spent weeks considering which plants to focus on. We needed to visit communities/get input from area residents. Yes, all of these plants have been written abt before. We let the data tell us where to go. THIS CHART POINTED>

“Georgia voters are mad. They’re pessimistic about the nation’s direction. And they’re heading into the final full week of an exhausting election spoiling to make their voices heard.” www.ajc.com/politics/202...

The Landscape of Prison Censorship in an Era of Increased Book Bans During the last five years, school and public library book bans have been on the rise. But prison censorship continues to rise, too. bookriot.com/prison-censo...

Early in-person voting starts in D.C. today! Here's where you can go cast your ballot: earlyvoting.dcboe.org

The Bay Area does 1.3% of America's driving but pays 5.2% of the income taxes Congress now uses to bail out the federal highway fund. On Nov. 3, the same 5 counties vote on a transit tax that would raise less than their share of that bailout. 1/

Student movement topples Serbia's longtime ruling party www.axios.com/2026/10/25/s...

Anthropic's Claude bypassed a paywall to access Georgia voter data without authorization www.axios.com/2026/10/25/a...

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says America is ready to elect a woman www.nbcnews.com/politics/pol...

Not content to merely lock products behind glass, CVS now shuttles you through bath and body prison.h

West Virginia officials didn’t consult residents or officials on their proposal to host a “Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus” for the Trump administration. What happened in the state left communities bewildered and the nuclear waste problem unresolved. https://wapo.st/47viZuG

Elon Musk donates $7 million to help incumbent Ohio Republican US Sen. Jon Husted ohiocapitaljournal.com/2026/10/19/e...

I sometimes wonder whether The United Methodist Church’s decade-long crisis over LGBT rights inspired Methodist clergy to be more politically active. But I think it’s fair to say Hamilton has been thinking about this framing for much longer than his Senate run

Kansas Dem Sen. nominee Adam Hamilton on trans rights: “I don’t think we should take a small group of people and bully them, pick on them, and hurt them. I understand one thing really clearly when it comes to transgender people, and that is Jesus told me I was to love my neighbor as I love myself”