Bright D Limm 임대중

Prisons, Prose & Protest - #35 Rants, Musings and More

Happy Black History Month! In this February edition of Prisons, Prose & Protest, I share information about the first Black bookstore in the United States. I recommend a couple of podcast episodes about the inspiring organizing happening in Minnesota, several good recent articles and essays, and more

No shade intended to others whose lane is child care policy, but at least among those whose work intersects with my own in elections + leg/budgets, I can't name one person who's proven to be more prescient in anticipating how the post-election period has played out than @littlelistmaker.bsky.social.

Your lack of attention to Hochul's child care record prior to Zohran's election does not make it true that he has significantly pushed her left on child care. I'm really sorry, but he has not.

Enormous thank you to everyone who supported the petitions and other work demanding NIH implement its ME/CFS Research Roadmap:

We’ve had a HUGE win in Congress ordering NIH to create a plan for implementation! 🥳

Absolutely serious real talk: join the DSA and the Working Families Party if they have chapters in your towns, friends. They're not built up as strongly everywhere, but without them, we would not have Mamdani in NYC right now. Key orgs in this movement.

been hearing some of the sentiment like "why can't we have what New York has" and while i trust that NY and NYC specifically has elements making it conducive to organizing (a history of militant labor, movement organizing, just lots of people, and high density) i think the lesson is to just start

Hello, robin! Thanks so much for your kind words. (And I don't know if you remember, but I followed you back in the days when were on the bad site. I'm very glad to cross paths with you here and to see you've rightly received the respect and trust of so many people here. 🙏)

Thanks for engaging proactively and constructively with me.

(2) If she wins the primary, how she governs thereafter will likely depend on how well Delgado will have done, both in # of votes and how popular his platform has become. Ex: though Cynthia Nixon got only 35%, Cuomo later passed much of her platform (incl. full school funding, legalizing marijuana).

(1) No, he won't need to generate her margin of victory in order to avoid punishment, though he certainly will help her receive many votes she otherwise wouldn't have. What matters in this context is the verifiable action; marginal value is hard to measure, esp. this early on; public support is not.

Thanks very much for making time to read my thread and for sharing your good questions. Here my answers / assumptions for each of your questions.

The problem with the Democratic Party is that they don't want Trump, but they don't want to fix the reasons you have Trump in the first place.

Proof of this is here in NY where Hochul and State Democrats have STILL not passed NY4ALL.

Right after I took office today, I co-sponsored my first bill, a centerpiece of our campaign & close to my heart: the New York for All Act.

Assemblymember Karines Reyes has long championed this critical legislation. We must prohibit state & local cooperation with Trump's deportation machine.

Practicing or curious about transformative justice?

There's still time to register for this FREE session Feb 12, 6:30-8PM ET.

Unrecorded, w/ASL & live captioning. Attendees will receive Zoom link the day of the event.

No prior experience required! Click here: form.jotform.com/260155795389...

FTP Friends & Foundations Network Open House Hello! You're filing out this form because you've expressed interest in joining your local Friends of the Library or Library Foundation group--or are already involved in some way. For The People is ...

February 19, 6:30–8:00 p.m. ET - @librariesftp.bsky.social is organizing an open house for people who are interested in joining their local Friends of the Library or Library Foundation group—or are already involved in some way. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Bright is who I trust on inside-baseball NY political analysis.

(In addition, this reads to me - as a quondam New Mexico political operative type - as exactly on point; this is the kind of analysis work I do to judge the political possibility space.)

🙏 That is such high praise coming from you. Thank you, and I hope I continue to earn it.

Also: I hope sometime to learn more about your days as a quondam political operative!

A thread to mull over for Oregonians

This is the most important one thing to know about NY politics in 2026.

Even though Hochul will win the primary + the general, and many of our Left electeds will endorse her, the rank + file Left must campaign hard and vote against her in the primary to shift the balance of power in the state.

🎯 100%. Thank you for saying this.

Following Bright as a Wisconsin and now Minnesota person is like following an extremely disciplined and strategic person from the near future. He works on problems I look forward to having.

I love the imaginative and the eloquent shape of this thought!

Thank you for the kind personal words, and may you and your comrades in Minnesota soon face improved, similar conditions of struggle 🙏

So in short: thank the universe that Z's our mayor, but don't interpret his endorsement as a statement of values.

See it for what it is: the reality of his immense vulnerability to Hochul in protecting NYC from the governor's ability to impose austerity on NYC.

It's up to us to do what Z cannot.

As someone who was up close + active in the 2014, 2018, and 2022 races, I can tell you from direct experience that the Dem primary for governor is the single-most important determinant of NY's political direction for the next 4 years. If we don't fight this year, NYS will likely move to the right.

That's a word about Z's condition; now a word about the impact of this primary race on New York State.

During 2015–2018 and 2022–2025, NY's politics drifted to the right. But from 2018–2022, they moved to the left.

What was the difference? In 2018–2022, the Left waged a good gubernatorial primary.

In short:

• Zohran did what he could by running for mayor on a platform that centered raising taxes on the rich and popularizing it while running.

• As mayor, Z is now subject to gubernatorial retaliation, meaning he has lost basically most of his power to rally the people against the governor.

To start, Zohran is our guy on the inside. But he's still on the *inside.*

No person on the inside—not even the most charming mayor of NYC in recent memory—is more powerful than the governor.

State budget law gives the governor nearly unilateral power to fiscally starve every city of state funds.

I usually avoid sharing what feels like "inside baseball" political analysis here, but this merits an exception because of the stakes + scale involved.

Zohran isn't "wrong" to endorse Hochul; he has no choice. But for primary voters to back Hochul would definitely be unwise. Let me explain why. 🧵

Sojourners for Justice Press's February Newsletter is here: tinyurl.com/5n6eby6c - Of course we are focused on Black History Month and publications by Black people.

Thanks very much for writing. 🙏