taniel.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

The IRS is eliminating the 'Direct File' program that allowed some people to file taxes for free. (What a sentence.) www.sfgate.com/news/politic...

submitted 2 minutes ago • 0 comments

Update on the OAKLAND mayoral race: Roughly 48K ballots have been counted, and Barbara Lee trails Loren Manuel Taylor by roughly 3 percentage points. There are roughly 42K ballots left, though, so this could still go in any direction. There won't be an updated count until Friday.

submitted 2 hours ago • 3 comments

Banning grace periods for mail ballots that are sent before polls close but arrive after Election Day would undoubtedly disenfranchise voters en masse. boltsmag.org/restrictions...

submitted 3 hours ago • 3 comments

“Many were afflicted by poverty, abuse. Maybe they were hungry or dropped out of school. There were so many issues we could have addressed. We could have prevented some of these crimes before they happened." Must-read from @bolts.bsky.social

submitted 12 hours ago • 0 comments

This is just as morally reprehensible as the lies being spewed by the Republicans. If you don't fight for "one hairdresser" (actually a makeup artist, but why not toss in a whiff of implied homophobia), soon they'll be coming for your other constituents, and then for you. Really disgusting

submitted 9 hours ago • 34 comments

“Vera leaders said DOJ revoked $5 million in federal grants that the institute was receiving to develop programs related to reducing recidivism rates and supporting victims… When DOGE members learned that the Vera Institute was no longer receiving federal funds, he started to wrap up the meeting.”

submitted 18 hours ago • 2 comments

First wave of results in the Oakland mayoral race show a tight race, with Loren Manuel Taylor at 48% and Barbara Lee at 46%. More ballots will come (this being a special election, hard to have too many assumptions about how that goes), and then RCV will be run if no one above 50%.

submitted 20 hours ago • 4 comments

ICYMI, this was today: 16- and 17-year olds in Newark voted in local school board elections. Why? City lowered voting age for school board races last month, to help teenagers get involved in matters that concern them AND develop habit of civic engagement. boltsmag.org/newark-teens...

submitted 22 hours ago • 16 comments

We should not, as a nation, throw people away. Because life is very long, and humans grow, and this piece is beautiful. boltsmag.org/north-caroli...

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

"taking nourishment" and "this press conference is an indication that I still have my wits about me" are pretty insane metrics for how a public official should decide whether to run, & yet it's this ubiquitous metric that explains a lot of Congress right now.

submitted 23 hours ago • 45 comments

In new statement on Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Maryland's Senator Chris Van Hollen says: "It should be a priority of the U.S. government to secure his safe release, which is why tomorrow I am traveling to El Salvador."

submitted 1 day ago • 23 comments

I spoke to the person who filmed Mohsen Mahdawi’s arrest: “He knew he was a target,” but remained calm. “He went like a Buddhist: peacefully, calmly, and serenely.” www.theverge.com/policy/64942...

submitted 1 day ago • 6 comments

My guide to the elections to watch in APRIL features two races that are happening today: —Oakland's mayoral race —and one legislative special (The latter is more for the sake of being comprehensive on legislative races than because it's actually competitive.) boltsmag.org/whats-on-the...

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

The DOJ lawyer who made the mistake of answering the court's questions about Abrego-Garcia candidly (eg yes he was mistakenly deported, a fact the Administration already has acknowledged), which got him put on administrative leave, has now been fired, ending his 15-year DOJ career..

submitted 1 day ago • 1174 comments

NEW: There have been very interesting efforts in North Carolina to give people who were sentenced to life without parole as children a shot at release. Bolts worked with Phillip Smith, who is a writer himself incarcerated in North Carolina, who tells this important story beautifully:

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

Today, 16- and 17-year olds will vote in the Newark school board election for the first time thanks to a student-led campaign to give teens more power at the polls. Newark is the 3rd city in the US, and first in NJ, to allow young people to vote in these elections. boltsmag.org/newark-teens...

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

Back at work after a short break tomorrow. I don’t need to ask what I’ve missed because it’s hard to miss the headlines and alerts. Instead, I’ll say I’m eager to roll up my sleeve and jump back into all the stories and projects we’ve been planning at Bolts & share more as soon as we can.

submitted 1 day ago • 4 comments

Cynthia Mendoza was left in solitary confinement during her pregnancy: “It was the most degrading, inhumane thing that I've ever gone through.” boltsmag.org/califor...

submitted 1 day ago • 4 comments

One of hundreds of people abducted by ICE and sold to slavery in El Salvador was a 19 year old with no criminal record in the US or Venezuela and no tattoos of any kind. An ICE kidnapper who grabbed him outside his house said, "He's not the one." The other said, "Take him anyway." So they did.

submitted 2 days ago • 692 comments

My new one @slate.com: The Judge Ruling on the North Carolina Election Fight Should Heed Bush v. Gore

submitted 2 days ago • 14 comments

Newark teens Yenjay Hu & Anjali Krishnamurti led an effort for Newark to lower the voting age in school board elections to 16. Their work paid off last year. The reform will used for the first time this coming week. boltsmag.org/newark-...

submitted 3 days ago • 3 comments

"Tough on crime" is never about actually reducing crime, but just about social control, example number quabillion. "Tough on crime"--a term that should always get scare quotes bc it is never used sincerely--is not about safety. It's about making disliked groups suffer.

submitted 15 days ago • 7 comments

He once faced discipline over allegations he punched a 13-year-old. He’s now one of the officers approving felony charges in Chicago’s new bypass program, which allows police to file more charges without a prosecutor’s review. boltsmag.org/cook-co...

submitted 4 days ago • 5 comments

This is happening in spite of the fact that the president is not in charge of the Smithsonian. It's not an executive branch government agency, rather it's chartered by Congress and under a board of regents created by statute, none of whom are even appointed by the president.

submitted 4 days ago • 87 comments

You asked us many questions about immigration detention: Why did sheriffs become such huge players in detaining immigrants?Who is making money off of this? Can local governments stall detention efforts? Bolts invited an expert historian to answer you. boltsmag.org/the-pas...

submitted 4 days ago • 2 comments

Hours ago, @politico.com revealed that DOGE is working with DHS on automating mass deportation efforts — likely explaining why many US citizens, green card holders, and even a Canadian (in Canada) got threatening emails last night terminating “your parole” and telling them to leave the US in 7 days.

submitted 4 days ago • 305 comments

not a iota of care about hiding it www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/u...

submitted 4 days ago • 10 comments

Big news: The North Carolina Supreme Court rejected the GOP's challenges to tens of thousands of ballots... but accepted GOP's challenge to thousands of overseas ballots — all cast only in 4 blue counties — which could (likely?) be enough to overturn the supreme court race.

submitted 5 days ago • 27 comments

Today I spoke w/ @psfrench.bsky.social part-time Staff Writer @bolts.bsky.social about her coverage of the wrongful conviction of Jimmie "Chris" Duncan. As Chris fights to prove his innocence, Governor Jeff Landry is trying to make it easier to execute people quickly open.spotify.com/episode/12h9...

submitted 6 days ago • 2 comments

Thread unpacks what the “BUT” and screengrab mean:

submitted 6 days ago • 3 comments

A disgraced former Milwaukee cop with credibility issues helped seal the fate of a gay Venezuelan makeup artist sent to El Salvador's notorious prison. Cross was fired from his position as a Milwaukee Police Sergeant in 2012 after driving his car into a family’s home while intoxicated.

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

this whole article, it’s hard to know where to start www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/u...

submitted 6 days ago • 12 comments

What a grim paragraph www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/u...

submitted 6 days ago • 154 comments

Which is why he is still trying to sabotage the US Postal System.

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Not a single time in this article glorifying the need for sprawl to address the US's affordable housing crisis is there a mention of the vast transportation costs of sprawling living patterns. Nor is there mention of the fact that sprawl is directly linked to disinvestment in urban cores.

submitted 6 days ago • 118 comments

In a new social-media campaign from the American government, the federal agency ICE promised to prevent ‘illegal’ ‘ideas’ from entering the country.

submitted 6 days ago • 12 comments

New: Conservatives are moving quickly to reject more ballots by ending "grace periods" for vote-by-mail. In the last few weeks alone, we've seen movement on this in Kansas, Utah, West Virginia, at the 5th Circuit, and through Trump's EO. boltsmag.org/restrictions...

submitted 7 days ago • 6 comments

The filing deadline for Virginia's elections has passed. Democrats filed candidates in 96 of 100 House districts, and Republicans filed candidates in 66 of 100 districts, per virginiamercury.com/2025/04/08/f...

submitted 6 days ago • 14 comments

Virginia Democrats adopted a reform this year to automatically restore people's voting rights when they leave prison. But the measure has to survive several more obstacles to amend the constitution, Bolts explains: boltsmag.org/virgini...

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

NEW: Indiana's legislature adopted a bill yesterday that bans the use of student IDs for voting. (On to the GOP governor.) The bill was championed by the GOP over the objections of voting rights groups & student organizers. I wrote about it last month: boltsmag.org/indiana-bann...

submitted 7 days ago • 12 comments

BREAKING: Trump-appointed federal judge blocks all deportations from southern district of Texas under Trump's Alien Enemies Act proclamation for Venezuelan alleged gang members. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

submitted 7 days ago • 33 comments

NEW: Kansas and Utah in recent weeks have passed laws that ban mail ballots that arrive after Election Day, but have been postmarked before polls close. And Trump issued an executive order claiming to ban them. All this, while GOP actions are threatening mail: boltsmag.org/restrictions...

submitted 7 days ago • 8 comments

This is the literal destruction of knowledge. Mississippi libraries are being ordered to remove academic research on race and gender from library databases. mississippitoday.org/2025/04/08/m...

submitted 7 days ago • 194 comments