Laura Summers

YouTube video by MSNBC BREAKING: Federal prosecutors won't comply with Trump retribution campaign, MSNBC reporting reveals

…new MSNBC reports reveal federal prosecutors pushing back, refusing to go to trial against Fmr. FBI Dir. James Comey and vowing not to buckle to pressure to charge New York Attorney General Letitia James.

youtube.com/watch?v=3j3b...

YouTube video by Senator LBR (Lisa Blunt Rochester) Morning update on the big ugly bill

It's sunrise, and Republicans are scrambling behind closed doors to get the votes for their big ugly bill.
 
Here's what we know: this bill would slash vital programs, and those huge cuts don't even cover the cost of their billionaire tax breaks.
 
Stay tuned today.

NYT headline: “Kennedy Advises New Parents to ‘Do Your Own Research’ on Vaccines” Subheader: “In an interview with Dr. Phil, the health secretary offered false information about vaccine oversight and revealed a lack of basic understanding of new drug approvals.”

“And I’m like, what do you mean, you ‘do your own research’? You running a double-blind study in your living room, dawg?”
- A guy walking ahead of me with his friends on a NYC sidewalk in 2021, also my favorite overheard dialogue of the entire pandemic

It’s a month since the administration detained and disappeared a green card holder, a lawful permanent resident.

We cannot allow this to be normalized or forgotten.

This guy is in one of the worst prisons in the world with no way out and may spend the rest of his life there because, it appears, he has an autism awareness tattoo in honor of his little brother.

www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Even more reasons for very modest optimism Ten more.

I offer you these reasons for very modest hope not because I want you to deny the awfulness of what’s occurring, but because I want you to see we are not necessarily doomed.

Here’s this week’s summary of 10 reasons for very modest optimism. robertreich.substack.com/p/even-more-...

As a professor of English, allow me to try, humbly and with the proper respect, to offer an appropriate response to the President’s address:

Fuck you, you fucked-up fuck, and fuck all the fuckers who willingly fuck with you, especially. You can all fuck all the way off, and then fuck off some more.

“We urge the Administration to rescind this guidance…”

www.childrenshospitals.org/news/newsroo...

5 former Secretaries of Defense call on Congress to exercise oversight responsibility on Trump-Hegseth firing of senior military leaders:

The "dismissals raise troubling questions about the administration’s desire to politicize the military and to remove legal constraints on the President’s power."

I’m so sorry for your loss 💔

What’s maddening is that these folks are fine with abortion bans because they don’t believe it impacts them. Yet all reproductive health is tied. The anti-abortion movement doesn’t support fertility treatments either. They reject the concept of reproductive health and “unnatural” technologies.

YouTube video by Indivisible Stop the SAVE Act

MAGA has a bill that would disenfranchise someone you know. The SAVE Act is the GOP’s attempt at mass voter suppression disguised as an election integrity bill: indivisibleteam.medium.com/maga-has-a-b...

This Maddow segment gave me hope 💙

On Being in Community joycevance.substack.com/p/on-being-i...

DOGE recommended firing workers at:

-FDA, which oversees Neuralink

-FAA, which oversees SpaceX

-USAID, which probed Starlink

-CFPB, which oversees Tesla's financing arm and a potential payment platform on X.

"Conflict of interest" is a severe understatement.

Every accusation is a confession.

Do It For Gilda The too-short life of a comedy genius is a reminder to the rest of us to make good use of the time we are given.

This is the lesson of Gilda Radner’s too-short life, @adriennelaf.bsky.social writes: For God’s sake, don’t bother with fear. Just go for the thing you want, with your whole heart.

Anyone else listening to the Wicked soundtrack and sobbing? Extra appropriate these days. 😭💔

Same. Sign me up.

This is absolutely insane. Musk’s DOGE crew just straight up *took* $80 million from an NYC bank account!

This fight will not be easy. What we're dealing with now is one of the worst stress tests our nation has ever endured. But I believe that we will survive. Do not descend into despair. We Can (And Must) Keep Up The Fight

This fight will not be easy. 

What we're dealing with now is one of the worst stress tests our nation has ever endured.

But I believe that we will survive. 

Do not descend into despair.

oh no do tariffs cause inflation?

It’s almost like this was their plan all along

Lovinggg the #ingridsweater in Magpie quartet worsted in Spicy Beaver. Always something fun going on.

Nobody wants an emergency, but perhaps we should want some of the remarkable things that can happen during them. On the top of my list of those things is how in the immediate aftermath of a hurricane, a fire, an earthquake,  people take care of each other and work together without the kind of vetting and fretting whether they agree entirely about politics or religion or other matters. We are in an unprecedented emergency in the United States with fallout that poses threats to environments, economies, human rights and even survival beyond our borders, and we could use some of that energy. As political scientist Erica Chenoweth said in Saturday's Meditations in an Emergency interview, "The best study on the subject in my opinion suggests that in the long term, institutions really can’t save us; that civil society and mass mobilization are a more potent check on a backsliding democracy in the long term than relying on institutional checks and balances alone."  Right now the courts are doing important business as they render verdict after verdict against Trump and Musk thanks to lawsuits brought by states, federal employees, and others with standing. Some of the Democrats in office are being amazing, and others in the opposition party are being waffles, milquetoasts, cookies that crumble, and other  refined-carbohydrate items. As is now clear, the administrative branch of the federal government of the United States is engaging in a coup attempt against the legislative and judicial branches, against the law and constitution itself, and against your rights and mine and the security and stability of the world. They can be defeated and at a minimum held in check, and the sooner they are the more limited the damage. But as Chenoweth points out, it's up to us. Are we up to it?

In this emergency, I think it likely that we are going to need to pitch a very big tent and invite everyone in who doesn't want to live in a dictatorship... www.meditationsinanemergency.com/big-tents-an...

You have questions. Mostly of the "What Can I Do to Resist This Coup?" variety. Choose Democracy has answers. Here's a really handy guide to the how/what/why of organizing... Share widely. Link here: choosedemocracy.us/what-can-i-do/

The Nature of Our Power: A Conversation with political scientist Erica Chenoweth By Rebecca Solnit • 8 Feb 2025 View in browser "The best study on the subject in my opinion suggests that in the long term, institutions really can’t save us; that civil society and mass mobilization are a more potent check on a backsliding democracy in the long term than relying on institutional checks and balances alone." That's what political scientist Erica Chenoweth told me when I asked them if we could have a conversation (by email, below in full) about the current constitutional crisis/coup attempt and what we can do about it. Chenoweth is a hugely influential scholar of nonviolent social change, best known for their empirical research that not only documents what makes civil resistance work but demonstrates that it works, often extremely effectively. They direct the Nonviolent Action Lab, which studies how people have built movements and developed strategies to resist authoritarianism successfully and documents how nonviolence can be effective. There's no one I wanted to hear from more in this constitutional crisis, and I'm grateful I can share their insights with all of you.

"The best study on the subject in my opinion suggests that in the long term, institutions really can’t save us; that civil society and mass mobilization are a more potent check on a backsliding democracy in the long term..." meditations-in-an-emergency.ghost.io/the-nature-o...

Opinion | The assault on DEI? It’s aimed at resegregation. The GOP leaders attacking inclusion programs want to go back to an era when White men ran everything

My latest.

As journalists and writers, we have a duty to use language that is accurate and describes our current reality.

I’m no longer going to talk about DEI/Anti-DEI.

Let’s be clear. We are facing racial purges and re-segregation.

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...