Kelly Smith

Trump DOJ threatens San Diego election officials: Set aside ballots or face consequences. From Federal Impact Reporter Jake Kincaid. inewsource.org/2026/10/26/d...

How Trump Gave the Worst Polluters a Free Pass www.nytimes.com/2026/10/24/c...

Forever Chemical Levels in US Drinking Water May Be More Than Twice as High as Reported https://gizmodo.com/forever-chemical-levels-in-us-drinking-water-may-be-more-than-twice-as-high-as-reported-2000829638

AOC: "As AI begins to encroach in our society, their goal is to take your cognition away from you. AI's goal is to take your thoughts away from you, your ability to think away from you, so that you become dependent on a machine ... reading books is active resistance"

ProPublica sued the federal government for records that show which schools are facing civil rights investigations. Now we have it and it shows the civil rights arm of the U.S. Department of Education dramatically scaled back investigations during Trump 2.

I’ve created two resources for fans of federal data on BlueSky: a starter pack and a news feed! 🧵

With unanimous committee vote, San Diego moves closer to turning off Flock cameras

If you want to spread the word, feel free to steal this

Repost if you've voted

I have been learning the history and evolution of the US Census, the only government documents specified in the Constitution. I invite you to explore our historic collection of US Census documents. Just one of the offerings freely available in Democracy's Library! blog.archive.org/2026/10/12/t...

I reanalyzed the CDC data behind the LGB “free fall” headline. It rests on a change in bisexual identification among one grade, in one wave, of one survey. Gay or lesbian identification did not change significantly. Calling it a "free fall" is sensational and just gives bad actors talking points.

An EPA plan to reduce the amount of atrazine running off into US rivers, lakes and streams would leave 99% of watersheds contaminated at levels that exceed the agency’s threshold for harm to plants and fish, according to a new @biologicaldiversity.org study.

Very excited to get my hands on this! Hat tip to @zephoria.bsky.social

the tech industry is about to invent books

Holy shit.

I felt a bit silly buying a Jackery power station in advance of the expected El Nino effects in San Diego. No longer feeling that way after yesterday's extreme temp + nighttime power outages. No air conditioning, so I rely heavily on working fans.

When the Trump administration started dismantling a $368 million ocean monitoring system earlier this year, scientists, fishermen and Congress fought back. On Saturday, a 238-foot ship set sail to reinstall the first batch of monitors in the waters of the Pacific.

Let books be. Today kicks off #BannedBooksWeek, an annual observation started more than 40 years ago in response to a sudden surge in attempts to censor or remove books in libraries, schools, and bookstores. Sound familiar? Find ways to get involved and spread the word: https://bit.ly/4yvixbB.

Joshua tree preservation projects scrapped after Trump administration blocks funding

In two years we've gone from a standard where the President's budget proposal was a set of suggestions Congress would ignore to where Congressional appropriations are now a set of suggestions the President ignores.

Worried about El Niño? Here’s what San Diegans need to know to prepare

New from @datahistorian.bsky.social at Can We Still Govern?: The Trump administration's "radical proposal" to alter the Census would add a citizenship question, exclude non-citizens for Congressional calculations, and remove questions about race/ethnicity. 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-2030-c...

Voter registration deadlines are SUNDAY in Alaska, Rhode Island, South Carolina. And MONDAY in: Arizona, Arkansas Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, and *Texas*. If you live in these states, verify your registration now, literally.

The CDC wants to redesign its annual health survey. Their proposed changes would make people with intellectual and developmental disabilities "invisible." www.statnews.com/2026/10/01/c...

A powerful El Niño is already influencing extreme weather around the planet. During the last strong El Niño, federal agencies ramped up research in the hope of improving weather forecasts. This year, they won't be matching that effort. trib.al/dkJLZ2X

More than 1.2 million children lost access to food aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program between July 2025 and 2026, according to a new analysis. https://to.pbs.org/4dwuKEf

An acoustic expert has released an immersive “sound map” of the famous trail featuring sound recordings he took along his thru-hike.

I’ve been reporting on the CDC for years, and have written about many of its troubles over the past year. I was still shocked by the extent of the staff losses and political interference I found when reporting this one. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/26/h...

Well, most of the Smithsonian website appears to be working again. The Inspector General site is still unavailable, though. oig.si.edu

I really hope this is just a tech glitch but who knows with this administration...the Smithsonian website home page is loading, but all other links are returning 404 errors. www.si.edu

HUGE EXCLUSIVE from @bloomberg.com Inside the US ‘Kill Chain’ That Destroyed an Iranian School Pentagon investigators discovered that flawed intel, outdated imagery & overreliance on AI contributed to a missile strike that killed 123 children in Minab 🎁 www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

If Trump wanted to crown himself emperor in the national cathedral alito and thomas would support it

Local and state officials are advising voters to return their ballots to official drop boxes instead of relying on the Postal Service.

The person overseeing the U.S. Global Change Research Program has no understanding of global change.

Indigenous leaders say the US government's decision to close 3 National Archives sites was made without tribal consultation. buff.ly/KCGAvUK

I somehow discovered Sisterhood is Powerful in high school and still have the copy I bought then. It was such an inspiration and lifesaver for a young lesbian/feminist in early 1980s Indiana, and it instilled in me deep and lasting respect and gratitude for Morgan as an activist and poet.

Gloria Steinem, the journalist, organizer and co-founder of Ms. whose name became inseparable from the modern movement for women’s equality, died Wednesday at her home in New York City.

The Trump administration has filed 36 emergency applications since last February, which have generated 31 conclusive rulings. In those 31 rulings, the Court has voted *for* Trump in whole or in part 27 times (87.1%), and against him four times (12.9%). Here's a chart covering all of these rulings:

If you’re in the US, expect maps on your phone to start showing you “Lake America” soon, now that the US Geological Survey has updated the GNIS. The USGS is a fabulous resource for spatial data in so many ways. And now it has to implement this stupid shit, for the most spiteful of reasons. Gross.

I know it’s hard to watch all these beautiful things be carried away by time and see the wrong things growing in their place. But listen. Listen. We have to be the beautiful things now. It has to be us. It has to be us. Courage.

This is the letter kids got at the end of Dolly’s Imagination Library. I defy you to read this and not cry.

Who is Matilda Joslyn Gage, and why don’t we know more about her?

"Work on the analysis was not conducted by career civil servants at the Census Bureau, and the team behind it included individuals affiliated with the America First Policy Institute, a think tank started by officials from Trump's first administration.." www.npr.org/2026/08/19/n...

The Bureau of Land Management is rounding up thousands of mustangs around the U.S. and quietly selling them on the cheap to buyers who are exporting them for slaughter abroad, an examination of government records by The New York Times found. nyti.ms/4grb8Co

Breaking News: Trump officials are moving to open nearly 45 million acres of wilderness in national forests to new roads and logging, removing protections that had been in place since 2001.

“The loss of the Arctic Report Card would be significant not only for the scientific community, but also for decision-makers and the public,” says @zacklabe.com. eos.org/research-and...

How do we track terminations of federal data? Since the 2025 admin change, disappearing federal datasets have sparked widespread concern and confusion. Today, dataindex.us published the Federal Data Terminations Tracker—the most policy-relevant, verified source of terminated federal datasets.