Keith Donald
LightNews LightNews
banner
kpdonald.bsky.social
Keith Donald
@kpdonald.bsky.social
65 followers 120 following 2 posts
Ending homelessness, social housing, biodiversity, ecology, land conservation, habitat restoration, climate action, food security, finance reform, antimonopoly practices, ubi, job guarantee, mmt, universal healthcare, mitochondrial disease parent
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Keith Donald
davidho.bsky.social
Want to see something really insane? Look at this website for USGS's Water Science Centers and Regions and see how many of their directors have "Former Employee" after their names. Everyone's gone! My best friend from grad school was one of them. Who's monitoring floods, droughts, etc?
Water Science Centers and Regions
A list of all of the USGS Water Resources Mission Area Science Centers and regions, hubs for critical water science funded by Federal, State, and other partners and stakeholders located throughout the...
www.usgs.gov
May 3, 2025 at 9:50 AM
Reposted by Keith Donald
davidho.bsky.social
The Merlin Bird ID app wouldn’t exist #WithoutNSF. 🪶
davidho.bsky.social David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · Apr 17
I've been taking early walks in the park to watch and listen to birds for my sanity, and the Merlin Bird ID app has been indispensable for identifying bird songs.

Merlin was funded by a grant from the NSF, the science funding agency that Trump is trying to destroy.

www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/...
Screenshot of a bird sound identification app in use. The screen shows an audio recording at 27.3 seconds, with a green pause button at the center. Above the timer is a spectrogram visualizing the bird sounds as a series of dark and light horizontal and vertical patterns on a gray background. Below the timer, the app provides a list of "Best suggestions" for bird species based on the recording. The top suggestion, highlighted in yellow, is "Common Chiffchaff," with a thumbnail image of a small brownish bird. Other suggestions include "Great Tit" (a black, yellow, and white bird perched on a branch), "Rose-ringed Parakeet" (a green parrot with a red beak), and "European Robin" (a small bird with an orange-red breast). Each entry includes a small arrow for more information.
May 4, 2025 at 4:30 AM
Reposted by Keith Donald
bencasselman.bsky.social
Excellent breakdown of yesterday's GDP report from @josephpolitano.bsky.social, who goes through all the ins and outs of how tariffs showed up in the numbers. #NumbersDay #EconSky
www.apricitas.io/p/tariffs-ar...
Tariffs are Already Stalling the Economy
Tariff Front-Running is Already Showing Up as Reductions in US GDP Growth
www.apricitas.io
May 1, 2025 at 1:06 PM
Reposted by Keith Donald
elisegould.bsky.social
While there's little sign of elevated UI continued claims in the national data, there is a significant uptick in UI claims for DC (four-week average). Regular state continued claims rose just 5.1% overall, but by 100.1% in DC. Federal funding cuts are already having an impact.
#EconSky #NumbersDay
May 1, 2025 at 1:21 PM
Reposted by Keith Donald
propublica.org
The request, spelled out in an email obtained by ProPublica, comes amid concerns that DOGE has overstepped its bounds in seeking highly restricted private information about taxpayers, public employees or federal agencies.
Inspector General Probes Whether Trump, DOGE Sought Private Taxpayer Information or Sensitive IRS Material
The request, spelled out in an email obtained by ProPublica, comes amid concerns that DOGE has overstepped its bounds in seeking highly restricted private information about taxpayers, public…
www.propublica.org
April 28, 2025 at 1:30 AM
Reposted by Keith Donald
robwdavis.bsky.social
NEW: Nike says most of the 1.1M people making its products earn 1.9X their local minimum wage. We obtained a payroll ledger for a Cambodian factory that supplied Nike for two years.

1% of the workforce earned that much.

Team effort with @sbmaneyphoto.bsky.social. www.propublica.org/article/nike...
Nike Says Its Factory Workers Earn Nearly Double the Minimum Wage. At This Cambodian Factory, 1% Made That Much.
Nike has made an expansive effort to convince consumers, investors and others that it is improving the lives of factory workers who make its products, not exploiting them. A rare view of wages at one ...
www.propublica.org
April 25, 2025 at 2:54 PM
Reposted by Keith Donald
financialtimes.com
Why our planet (and not just its people) should have legal rights

https://www.ft.com/content/9fb7e995-eba8-43ae-ab95-f85cfda0d126
Why our planet (and not just its people) should have legal rights
New books by Robert Macfarlane and Tony Juniper strengthen the case for granting the natural environment protection in law on par with personhood
www.ft.com
April 26, 2025 at 5:43 AM
Reposted by Keith Donald
nathantankus.bsky.social
NEW PIECE: I've been working for a while on a piece on social security death notices and payment finality. Just as I was finalizing it, including with a new legal memo!- it was reported that DOGE declared four MILLION people dead. Read all about the issues here

www.crisesnotes.com/the-crisis-a...
The Crisis at Social Security Illustrates Elon Musk and DOGE’s Plan: Explode the Number and Severity of Improper Payments.
Subscribe Over the past month I needed a break to deal with organizational issues, including getting the Notes on the Crises Manhattan office(!) set up and needed time to continue a number of investi...
www.crisesnotes.com
April 25, 2025 at 4:46 PM
kpdonald.bsky.social
Helpful framework for thinking about the implications of the US’s current economic policies: privatebank.jpmorgan.com/nam/en/insig...
Is the deficit threat being overhyped? | J.P. Morgan Private Bank U.S.
Actually, the U.S. fiscal deficit has been a crucial ingredient in recent economic growth. Here’s a framework for when the deficit may start to matter—for the economy and markets.
privatebank.jpmorgan.com
April 24, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Reposted by Keith Donald
reichlinmelnick.bsky.social
NEW: A SECOND story was released today of a Venezuelan man disappeared by the Trump admin. Neiyerver Leon is a barber who entered legally seeking asylum in June 2023. ICE arrested him on March 13 and accused him of being in TdA.

Days later, he vanished off the face of the earth.
Leon Rengel was briefly held at East Hidalgo Detention Center, a private facility in La Villa, Texas, used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Then — nothing. His alien number, a way to track his whereabouts, vanished two days later from ICE’s online system. He disappeared. ICE agents told Gutierrez her boyfriend had been deported to his home country. But the family has searched in Venezuela, and he isn’t there, she said. “I’ve been to the ICE office. I’ve contacted the FBI. The DEA. Everyone told me the same thing: He was deported,” Gutierrez said. “But where to? He never arrived in Venezuela.” It’s possible that the Trump administration deported Leon Rengel to a mega-prison in El Salvador, where hundreds of other Venezuelans were sent last month — but there is no official record to confirm it.
April 22, 2025 at 6:38 PM
Reposted by Keith Donald
tomaskenn.bsky.social
Bill stripping child labor protections in Florida to allow minors to work without breaks and before 6am and after 11pm on school nights just passed its final House committee. Public testimony was limited to one minute. Same bill DeSantis said is meant to replace migrant workers.
April 22, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Reposted by Keith Donald
premthakker.bsky.social
NEW— Nearly 200 US college presidents affirm their schools as places where "faculty, students, and staff are free to exchange ideas and opinions…without fear of retribution, censorship, or deportation."

Signers include Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, UPenn, Brown, Tufts

Notably absent: Columbia
"As leaders of America’s colleges, universities, and scholarly societies, we speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education. We are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight. However, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses. We will always seek effective and fair financial practices, but we must reject the coercive use of public research funding. America’s system of higher learning is as varied as the goals and dreams of the students it serves. It includes research universities and community colleges; comprehensive universities and liberal arts colleges; public institutions and private ones; freestanding and multi-site campuses. Some institutions are designed for all students, and others are dedicated to serving particular groups. Yet, American institutions of higher learning have in common the essential freedom to determine, on academic grounds, whom to admit and what is taught, how, and by whom. Our colleges and universities share a commitment to serve as centers of open inquiry where, in their pursuit of truth, faculty, students, and staff are free to exchange ideas and opinions across a full range of viewpoints without fear of retribution, censorship, or deportation. Because of these freedoms, American institutions of higher learning are essential to American prosperity and serve as productive partners with government in promoting the common good. Colleges and universities are engines of opportunity and mobility, anchor institutions that contribute to economic and cultural vitality regionally and in our local communities. They foster creativity and innovation, provide human resources to meet the fast-changing demands of our dynamic workforce, and are themselves major employers. They nurture the scholarly pursuits that ensure America’s leadership in research, and many prov…
April 22, 2025 at 2:21 PM
Reposted by Keith Donald
nathantankus.bsky.social
NEW PIECE: I've decided to finally publish a piece from four years ago that is unfortunately very relevant today: defending the Federal Reserve's status as an independent agency doesn't require embracing the ideology of "central bank independence"

www.crisesnotes.com/just-another...
Just Another Administrative Agency: Preserving Central Bank Discretion Without Illusions
The extensive “Notes on the Crises Investigative Journalism Source Wish List” can be found here. All listed items are important to me. As always, Sources can contact me over email or over signal (a se...
www.crisesnotes.com
April 22, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Reposted by Keith Donald
brendannyhan.bsky.social
New from @npr.org: Hundreds of scholars say U.S. is swiftly heading toward authoritarianism www.npr.org/2025/04/22/n... featuring our latest Bright Line Watch report brightlinewatch.org/accelerated-...
Hundreds of scholars say U.S. is swiftly heading toward authoritarianism
Most — but not all — political scientists are deeply troubled by the president's attempts to expand executive power, according to a national survey.
www.npr.org
April 22, 2025 at 12:53 PM
Reposted by Keith Donald
bencasselman.bsky.social
President Trump’s trade war will lead to slower economic growth around the world -- with the U.S. economy bearing the brunt of the damage.
Alan Rappeport reports on the latest IMF forecasts:
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/22/u...
Global Growth Expected to Sputter Amid Trade War Fallout Fears
The International Monetary Fund expects slower growth and higher inflation in the U.S. as a result of President Trump’s trade policies.
www.nytimes.com
April 22, 2025 at 1:09 PM
Reposted by Keith Donald
richpossemato.bsky.social
From Nobel prize winning cancer researcher Bill Kaelin
Killing the Science Golden Goose - The American Journal of Medicine www.amjmed.com/article/S000...
Killing the Science Golden Goose
In the 1970’s I was probably one of the last American high school students who was told that if you wanted to go to medical school, you should learn to speak German. This was because in the late 19th ...
www.amjmed.com
April 18, 2025 at 10:54 AM
Reposted by Keith Donald
themorrancave.bsky.social
The CDC eviscerated divisions that oversee a database on accidental deaths and injuries AND the team that maintains a tool for tracking sexually transmitted diseases.

The EPA will stop requiring that industry measures greenhouse gas emissions.

If you don't measure, it's not a problem, right?
Trump’s War on Measurement Means Losing Data on Drug Use, Maternal Mortality, Climate Change and More
By slashing teams that gather critical data, the administration has left the federal government with no way of understanding if policies are working — and created a black hole of information whose con...
www.propublica.org
April 18, 2025 at 11:03 AM
Reposted by Keith Donald
marisakabas.bsky.social
We've reached the point where Republicans are flying to El Salvador to visit one of the most vicious prisons in the world to have photo ops so they can prove their loyalty to the President of the United States.
April 16, 2025 at 5:03 PM
Reposted by Keith Donald
financialtimes.com
Trump says end of Fed chair Powell’s tenure ‘cannot come fast enough’

https://www.ft.com/content/8b8a6582-039d-4d56-b1cb-95e70badb4e5
Trump says end of Fed chair Powell’s tenure ‘cannot come fast enough’
Attack follows pressure from the US president for the central bank to cut interest rates
www.ft.com
April 17, 2025 at 10:29 AM
Reposted by Keith Donald
docsirianni.bsky.social
Not the headline I want to post. But for everyone trying to understand what’s happening at UMass Chan, why things are so difficult, this is what’s happening. We are a service institution. We educate; we care; we give; we serve rural MA. We dont make money. Our own govt is crushing us. Link below
April 17, 2025 at 10:32 AM
Reposted by Keith Donald
propublica.org
NEW: Amid increasing reports that U.S. citizens have been caught up in the Trump administration’s immigration dragnet, a dozen members of Congress have written to the government with pointed questions. None has received a reply.

By @nicolefoy.bsky.social
Congress Has Demanded Answers to ICE Detaining Americans. The Administration Has Responded With Silence.
Amid increasing reports that U.S. citizens have been caught up in the Trump administration’s immigration dragnet, a dozen members of Congress have written to the government with pointed questions.…
www.propublica.org
April 14, 2025 at 11:00 AM
Reposted by Keith Donald
nathantankus.bsky.social
It's finally out! Drink coffee, drink soda, take whatever stimulate you prefer. This is extremely long, even by my verbose standards. But its the absolute minimum word count I thought I could tell the "foreign exchange liquidity crisis" aspect of this with.

www.crisesnotes.com/is-the-trump...
Is the Trump Tariff Financial Crisis A Crisis of the Dollar? It Doesn’t Seem to Be … Yet
SubscribeTip! For those just tuning in: I wrote a piece a day for the first three days of this week on what we should probably now term the “Trump Tariff Financial Crisis”. I am coming to you Sunday ...
www.crisesnotes.com
April 13, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Reposted by Keith Donald
propublica.org
Previously, the arrests of pro-Palestinian voices on university campuses would’ve drawn instant attention from the DHS civil rights office’s First Amendment watchdogs, attorneys in the compliance branch said. That guardrail is gone.

By @davidmcswane.bsky.social & @hannahallam.bsky.social
“They Don’t Care About Civil Rights”: Trump’s Shuttering of DHS Oversight Arm Freezes 600 Cases, Imperils Human Rights
The closure of the 150-person office, which protected the civil rights of both immigrants and U.S. citizens, strips Homeland Security of its internal guardrails as the Trump administration turns DHS…
www.propublica.org
April 13, 2025 at 3:00 AM
Reposted by Keith Donald
carlbergstrom.com
This is bullshit—of course the US could apply diplomatic pressure to have him returned—but if it is allowed to stand, the executive branch has the power to disappear people permanently without any sort of due process.

That in turn will be the end of all other constitutionally guaranteed rights.
kyledcheney.bsky.social Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social · Apr 12
BREAKING: Trump administation attests that Kilmar Abrego Garcia is alive and secure but is under the "sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
April 12, 2025 at 11:47 PM