Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

@steve-kasner.bsky.social

Schumer should be replaced after leading this pointless shutdown fight (initiated several months too late) then tacitly approving their capitulation

It's also time for the Democratic Party to get creative: organizing mutual aid, direct action, and education events locally, with party funds & staff

Image is a screenshot from a news analysis by Luke Broadwater (NYT Nov. 10, 2025) at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/us/politics/trump-government-shutdown.html

The text in the screenshot appears below:

Some House Democrats, dissatisfied that Mr. Schumer couldn’t better control his caucus and hold the line on Democratic demands, called for him to be replaced.

“Senator Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced,” Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, said in a post on X. “If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?”
Some House Democrats, dissatisfied that Mr. Schumer couldn’t better control his caucus and hold the line on Democratic demands, called for him to be replaced.

“Senator Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced,” Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, said in a post on X. “If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?”

November 11, 2025 at 7:57 AM

Steve Kasner (he/him)

@steve-kasner.bsky.social

$41 million-dollar book?! Did AI (or AIs) produce this bizzare Google search result?

It was the 9th result returned by Google for this query: The unseen Verso second edition

(I'm in the Verso book club, so I'll just buy it there. For $10/mo, all new ebooks are free, all other books are 50% off!)

[The following is all the text shown in a screenshot from a Google search results web page. This was the 9th result at the bottom of the web page. There is also a small image to the right of the book description showing a book cover. But the image shows the cover of Enshitification by Corey Doctorow, which is a recently published and widely acclaimed and widely discussed nonfiction book about the internet becoming worse and worse, with more and more junk and inaccuracy. I've not read the book, but I heard an interview with the author on On The Media. So my description of Cory Doctorow's book is probably an incomplete oversimplification. (Just doing my part in the process he describes ;-) Anyway, here's the text of the search result, another example of enshitification:]

Buy books online. Support local bookstores.
https://bookshop.org

The Unseen - Nanni Balestrini

In spare but vivid prose, The Unseen follows Autonomy's trajectory through the eyes of a single working-class protagonist--from high-school ...

$41,755,256.00 · 3-day delivery · 30-day returns

Missing: second ‎| Show results with: second
Nearby stores

November 7, 2025 at 1:26 AM

Steve Kasner (he/him)

@steve-kasner.bsky.social

Millions of kilometers of thin plastic fiber optic cable litter Ukraine. There's enough to reach the Moon and back several times. (Russian drones have cables attached like kite strings to avoid signal jamming)

NPR-ATC 8/7/25 4min segment by Larson, Aslam, and Summers:
www.npr.org/2025/08/07/n...

Photograph is of part of a transcribed interview which aired on NPR all things considered on August 7th 2025.

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

The fighting in Ukraine is now dominated by drones. They've had a devastating effect on human life. A U.N. report earlier this year said that short-range drones are the deadliest threat to civilians in Ukraine, but experts are now also sounding the alarm over the long-term effects of drone debris, saying it could pose serious harms to both wildlife and people. In particular, researchers are focused on a type of drone that is tethered to the ground with a fiber-optic cable. The thin cable looks like a fishing line and unspools as the drone flies away. And once the drone crashes or explodes, the cable remains, and it's littered all over the Ukrainian front lines.

Here to talk more about this is Doug Weir, director of the Conflict and Environment Observatory in the U.K. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.

DOUG WEIR: Hi. Thanks for having me on.

SUMMERS: Thanks for being here. So Doug, if you could, just start by telling us, according to your estimates, how much of this cable is out there?

WEIR: It's very difficult to say. Some of the data on how many drones are being produced is not entirely clear, but we think that Russia's producing around 50,000 of these drones every month, which assumes that around 50,000 of these drones are being used and destroyed. We also think that this year, Russia will need about 6 million kilometers of fiber. So for reference, that's around seven times to the Earth and the moon and back.

SUMMERS: Wow.

WEIR: So we think it is a huge amount. We've tried to do some calculations, and that suggests that for every kilometer of the front line, we think there might be around 2,900 kilometers of this plastic cable.

For the full transcript visit this link:
https://www.npr.org/2025/08/07/nx-s1-5493263/fiber-optic-drones-are-leaving-miles-of-plastic-trash-along-ukraines-front-lines

September 25, 2025 at 3:33 AM

Steve Kasner (he/him)

@steve-kasner.bsky.social

Zelensky warns of a drones arms race. Like it or not, this war will end with a negotiated agreement. Hopefully, the agreement will include a section on drones that goes beyond airspace concerns. For example, drones with fiber optic cables could be banned.

Santora & Nechepurenko, NYT 24 Sept 2025:

The Ukrainian leader came to the dystopian picture of a world a wash in deadly drones, one that he said could eventually carry nuclear warheads. Ukraine has become a world leader in developing inexpensive drones and testing its innovations In real time on the battlefield. Russia is also deploying drones in antichrome systems, as well as electronic warfare, in its military offensive against Ukraine. The future, Mr zelenski said, will be even more dangerous as artificial intelligence is integrated into drones The regulation of that technology is as urgent as stopping spread of nuclear weapons, he said. The above excerpt is from an article in the New York Times on September 24 2025

September 25, 2025 at 3:05 AM

Steve Kasner (he/him)

@steve-kasner.bsky.social

GAZA GENOCIDE CONTINUES as world looks elsewhere, after Israel attacks yet another country — this time Iran.

‘Gazans are worried that Israel-Iran conflict will shift the world’s attention from their plight’ by Adam Rasgon NYT 6/14
www.nytimes.com/live/2025/06...

Screenshot of text from nyt article linked above. Below are the paragraphs included in the screenshot plus a few more:

While Israeli military planes bombed Iranian nuclear sites and Iran fired barrages of ballistic missiles at Israeli cities over the past two days, Palestinians in Gaza were struggling to find food, connect to the internet and avoid strikes.

“Everyone is speaking about Iran now,” said Khalil al-Halabi, a 71-year-old retired U.N. official living in a partially destroyed home in Gaza City. “Gaza has become a secondary matter.”

Aid distribution sites in Gaza have been shuttered since Friday morning, which was shortly after the initial Israeli attacks on Iran began.

Finding flour, Mr. al-Halabi said, had become a nightmare for his family, with some street vendors selling a 55-pound sack for more than $350 dollars.

More concerning, he said, was that the Israel-Iran conflict could undermine desperately needed efforts to hammer out a cease-fire in Gaza.

Repeated efforts to clinch a deal between Israel and Hamas have failed in recent months, with Israel saying it would end the war only after dismantling Hamas, and Hamas saying it will not surrender.

Sharif al-Buheisi, 56, a resident of Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, said he thought the war would continue regardless of the fight between Israel and Iran.

“Israel and Hamas are in agreement about the continuation of the war,” he said. “They both benefit in their own way.”

Still, Mr. al-Buheisi, who was a university administrator before the war, said that any diminished focus on Gaza would have negative consequences for Palestinians. He argued that Israel would now be able to make contentious moves “without a real response from the international community.”

In particular, he said, he worried that the international community would not put enough pressure on Israel to fix the new system for delivering aid to Palestinians, which has had a chaotic, and often deadly, roll out.

Photo from Getty images. It portrays in elderly relatively short man with a sign in front of him that he is holding. The sign reads:

THIS HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR SAYS:
STOP THE GENOCIDE IN GAZA

The photo shows one person on each side of him, each with a hand on his back or shoulder, leaning in for the photo, clearly displaying support in solidarity with the Holocaust survivor who is standing against the genocide in Gaza. The image also includes the full details provided by Getty images about the photo. Unfortunately there is a woman to the left of him in the photo who goes unnamed and unmentioned in the caption by Getty images. She has long black hair and brown skin, and given her appearance in the context, it is likely she is Palestinian. The photo was shot at a large London demonstration in 2024 against the genocide in Gaza.

Here is the image info provided by Getty images:

Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos (c) is pictured with Dr Ismail Patel (r), founder and chair of Friends of Al-Aqsa, during the National Demonstration for Palestine rally in Hyde Park to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza on 27th April 2024 in London, United Kingdom. The event was organised by Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War Coalition, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Muslim Association of Britain, Palestinian Forum in Britain and CND. (photo by Mark Kerrison/In Pictures via Getty Images)

June 14, 2025 at 8:48 PM

Steve Kasner (he/him)

@steve-kasner.bsky.social

MN repealed state Medicaid coverage for undocumented immigrants, to avoid govt shutdown by GOP.

The right-wing populist & fascist tide is fueled by the precarity experienced by millions of working-class & middle-class voters. Precarity breeds resentment.

We need *Medicaid* (not Medicare) for all.

This is a screenshot from a Minnesota Facebook thread. It shows one comment and one reply, within a larger thread focusing on the contentious legislative vote in Minnesota to repeal Medicaid coverage for undocumented immigrants (or face a government shutdown, and an extended summer session until the GOP gets what it wants.)

The comment within this thread at the top of the screenshot is from Meghan Grimm Lorenzen:

“I pay 1500 for a family of 4 and have a large deductible on each of us. I support this BIG time.”

Indented below that comment is a reply by Josanne Wiorek:

“[To] Meghan Grimm Lorenzen: And now your medical bills will go up and you'll pay more. We all will. When uninsured people have to go to the ER, the hospital makes up for their loss by charging paying customers more. You support paying MORE.”

This is a screenshot from the abstract, or summary, of an academic article about the psychology and politics of ressentiment. (FYI: this term was popularized by Nietzsche. It can be defined as resentment in a political or social context.)

The entire article is open access, so anyone can read it; there is no paywall. The full article citation and URL appears below, and then the screenshot text will follow. (Please note that there is a button to listen to the full article on the web page.)

Capelos, Tereza, and Nicolas Demertzis. 2022. “Sour Grapes: Ressentiment as the Affective Response of Grievance Politics.” Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research 35 (1): 107–29. doi:10.1080/13511610.2021.20230

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13511610.2021.2023005#d1e195

The beginning of this article features the abstract, or summary. The first part of that abstract is what appears in the screenshot. Here is the text from the screenshot:

Abstract:
This article examines the psychological orientations and political preferences of citizens ‘in ressentiment’, a particular psychological state that is a characteristic feature of contemporary grievance politics. Similarly to the Fox in Aesop’s ‘Fable of the sour grapes’, in ressentiment the value of an impotent self and a desirable but unattainable object change to a morally superior self and an unwanted object, while maintaining an aura of victimhood [Demertzis, 2020. The Political Sociology of Emotions. Essays on Trauma and Ressentiment. London: Routledge; Salmela and Capelos, 2021. “Ressentiment: A Complex Emotion or an Emotional Mechanism of Psychic Defences?” Politics and Governance 9 (3): 191–203].

June 14, 2025 at 7:56 PM

Steve Kasner (he/him)

@steve-kasner.bsky.social

Wow! These folks really know how to burn cars.

Obviously, this calls for 4,000 National Guard troops & 700 Marines.*

*sarcasm alert. GIFT LINK:
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/09/u...

Screenshot of part of a June 9 New York Times article. I primarily took the screenshot for the photo. But the text above the photo reads

“The Trump administration is test-driving a novel legal theory that you can circumvent the restrictions on domestic law enforcement by the American military,” said Kori Schake, who is an expert on defense policy at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of a forthcoming history of civil-military relations.

She added that the administration appeared to be “blurring the line” between Title 10 federalization of the National Guard and the use of active-duty American milliary forces domestically, calling it “a dangerous undertaking.”

Then the photo appears, which I will describe in a moment. But first here is the photo caption and byline that appears right below the photo in somewhat fine print:

Burned cars in downtown Los Angeles on Monday after protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement.Credit...Alex Welsh for The New York Times

All right, I'm not great at describing photos, but this is a daytime photo of a street filled with oncoming cars. We can only see one lane of moving cars. And they are coming towards the photographer, but the photographer is standing in the parking area beside that lane. The photographer is standing where cars parallel park. But what we see instead of 2 parked cars are 2 piles of gray metal, which apparently is the only thing that could not burn in the fires that destroyed these cars. In the pile closest to the photographer, one can make out the wheels and maybe the axle and a whole bunch of other gray & blackened metal. In the car behind this one, one sees what appears to be the frame of a rooftop. It was probably an SUV. Below that rectangular structure of bars is a similar pile of metal like the one I just described. There is no color left, no doors left, no glass left, no seats left, perhaps not even a steering wheel left. These were extremely hot fires.

June 10, 2025 at 6:01 AM

Steve Kasner (he/him)

@steve-kasner.bsky.social

UPDATE: Ming Li Hui (Carol) is back in Kennett, MO, thanks to her lawyer, and perhaps the much-publicized outcry of people in & from Kennett, who mostly voted for Trump, but were dismayed by the arrest for deportation of their beloved cafe worker, neighbor, and friend
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/04/u...

Screenshot of article text showing the byline and the first three paragraphs. I am also including the headlines and subhead in text below:

‘Carol,’ Whose Detention Rattled Her Small Missouri Town, Is Released

Ming Li Hui’s detention by the immigration authorities brought the reality of President Trump’s immigration crackdown to rural Missouri, where supporters rallied for her freedom.

Listen to this article · 4:32 min Learn more
Share full article

Ming Li Hui, known to people in Kennett, Mo., as Carol, immigrated to the United States 20 years ago.Credit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times
Jack Healy
By Jack Healy

June 4, 2025

An immigrant waitress from Hong Kong whose looming deportation brought home the reality of President Trump’s immigration crackdown to her conservative Missouri hometown was freed on Wednesday after more than a month in jail.

“They released me,” the waitress, Ming Li Hui, better known as Carol to everyone in Kennett, Mo., said in a voice mail message left for her lawyer and relayed to The New York Times.

Her lawyer, Raymond Bolourtchi, said Ms. Hui, 45, had been released under a federal immigration program that offers a “temporary safe haven” to immigrants from Hong Kong and a handful of other countries who are concerned about returning there. The so-called deferred enforced departure gives Ms. Hui a reprieve but does not guarantee her future in the United States.

Screenshot of article showing the first five paragraphs below. (You also get some bonus paragraphs which did not fit within the screenshot:

“By no means are we in the clear,” Mr. Bolourtchi said. “But at this point I’m optimistic. It’s an immediate sigh of relief.”

Ms. Hui, who was born in Hong Kong, entered the United States 20 years ago on a short-term tourist visa and stayed long past its expiration, in the process building a life, having three children and becoming a beloved waitress serving waffles and hugs to the breakfast crowd at a diner in Kennett, a rural farming town in the Bootheel of Missouri.

She was ordered deported more than a decade ago but had been able to stay in the country through a series of temporary permissions from the immigration authorities that ended abruptly with her arrest in late April.

On Wednesday, the news of her release buzzed through the city of 10,000. Residents attending a City Council meeting asked each other: “Is Carol really out?” “Is she coming home?”

“I didn’t think it could really happen,” said Lisa Dry, a city councilwoman who called for Ms. Hui’s release.

The staff of John’s Waffle and Pancake House was elated. The diner, a morning mainstay in Kennett, rallied the community to bring attention to her story. Her co-workers organized a “Carol Day” fund-raiser, put petitions to free her on every table and swapped out the servers’ shirts with black-and-yellow T-shirts that read, “Bring Carol Home.”

“It took a whole village,” said Liradona Ramadani, whose family runs the restaurant.

Ms. Hui’s story drew widespread attention as it raced from the waffle house to the local newspaper, The Delta Dunklin Democrat, and beyond. The musician Sheryl Crow, who grew up in Kennett and whose name is on a sign announcing Kennett as her hometown, posted an Instagram message in support of Ms. Hui.

The public outrage and backlash to Ms. Hui’s arrest was remarkable in a town like Kennett, the seat of a rural county where 80 percent….

June 5, 2025 at 5:17 AM

Steve Kasner (he/him)

@steve-kasner.bsky.social

FYI — These are the countries affected by Trump's travel ban, issued via executive order on June 4.

The screenshot below comes from Allison McCann’s 6/4 NYT article, “See the Countries Under Trump’s New Travel Ban”

(Click ALT to read most of the article text.)

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Screenshot of text listing countries affected. Here is that list and more:

President Trump has targeted the citizens of a dozen countries as part of a new ban on travel to the United States and restricted travel from several more.

The restrictions touch more parts of the world and will most likely affect more people than similar travel bans that were introduced during the first Trump administration.

All travelers who are citizens of countries in the first tier will be barred entry, while those countries in the second tier face the suspension of certain visas.

All travel banned
Afghanistan
Chad
Republic of Congo
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Haiti
Iran
Libya
Myanmar
Somalia
Sudan
Yemen

Visas restricted
Burundi
Cuba
Laos
Sierra Leone
Togo
Turkmenistan
Venezuela

Shortly after he first took office in 2017, Mr. Trump tried to bar travelers from seven mostly Muslim-majority countries. Five of those countries are on the new list, plus several more countries across Africa, Asia and the Middle East, as well as Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela.

What happened under the previous travel bans?
The introduction of the 2017 travel ban led to immediate chaos and confusion as hundreds of travelers were detained at airports across the country and more than 60,000 visas were provisionally revoked. Federal judges blocked the ban within a week.

Overall, travel from the countries banned in 2017 was relatively low to begin with, though people from Iran and Syria had arrived in the thousands each month. A back-and-forth in the courts throughout 2017 delayed implementation, and then the Covid pandemic hit, halting travel globally.

But after President Joseph R. Biden Jr. lifted the bans in January 2021, travel from those countries — and from Chad, Libya and Yemen — more than rebounded.

Mr. Trump ended up issuing a series of four travel bans in his first term, with each version modifying its predecessors in order to pass legal scrutiny. It took almost a year before any ban actually took effect.

June 5, 2025 at 4:34 AM

Steve Kasner (he/him)

@steve-kasner.bsky.social

Hopefully the controversial provisions — to limit judges’ power to hold people in contempt for violating court orders; and to block states from regulating AI for 10yrs — will be removed. They don't affect fed revenue, so they make the budget bill ineligible for a simple majority vote in the Senate:

Screenshot from same NYT article of one paragraph:

Both Ms. Greene and Mr. Flood have urged Republican senators to strike the provisions that they are concerned about. That may well happen, since both could run afoul of the special rules that Republicans are using to push the legislation through the Senate on a simple-majority vote, shielding it from a filibuster and Democratic opposition. Such bills must comply with strict rules that require that all of their components have a direct effect on federal revenues.

June 4, 2025 at 10:46 PM

Steve Kasner (he/him)

@steve-kasner.bsky.social

2 GOP House reps, like MTG, say they didn't know of 2 controversial provisions in budget bill. GOP reps should stop ignoring their “Democrat” colleagues. (And at least ask their staff to read the bill.)

M Gold, “After Muscling Their Bill Through the House, Some Republicans Have Regrets” NYT 6/3-4:

Screenshot including following text (The text below also includes additional sentences that did not fit into the screenshot):

Last week, Representative Mike Flood of Nebraska admitted during a town hall meeting in his district that he did not know that the bill would limit judges’ power to hold people in contempt for violating court orders. He would not have voted for the measure, he said, if he had realized.

And as lawmakers returned to Washington on Tuesday after their weeklong break, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said that she had been unaware that the mega-bill she voted for would block states from regulating artificial intelligence for a decade.

“Full transparency, I did not know about this section,” Ms. Greene posted on social media, calling it a violation of states’ rights and adding that she “would have voted NO if I had known this was in there.”

The remorseful statements highlighted the realities of legislating in the modern age. Members of Congress, divided bitterly along partisan lines and often working against self-imposed political deadlines, have become accustomed to having their leaders throw together huge pieces of legislation at the very last moment — and often do not read the entirety of the bill they are voting on, if they read any of it at all.

2nd Screenshot from article. Text below includes what's in screenshot plus the final paragraphs in the article:

Still, Democrats swiftly criticized Ms. Greene and Mr. Flood for failing to properly examine legislation that both of them had backed and at various points championed.

“PRO TIP: It’s helpful to read stuff before voting on it,” Representative Ted Lieu of California said, responding to Ms. Greene’s post.

And throughout the debate on the bill, Democrats repeatedly voiced their objections to the language that would bar states from setting their own regulations on artificial intelligence.

“I even brought this provision up during the debate,” Representative Brendan Boyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat, wrote on social media. “I welcome those on the other side to join me in opposition to it.”

The language that Mr. Flood said he opposed, which could shield Mr. Trump and members of his administration from being held in contempt for disobeying court orders, was part of a larger push by Republicans to address injunctions that have blocked the president’s executive actions.

The measure was advanced out of committee three weeks before the policy bill passed the House. Still, at a town hall last week, Mr. Flood told constituents in Nebraska that it was “unknown to me when I voted for the bill.”

Met with boos from the crowd, he added: “I am not going to hide the truth.”

June 4, 2025 at 10:32 PM

Steve Kasner (he/him)

@steve-kasner.bsky.social

Excerpt from The New York Times article, "A Missouri Town Was Solidly Behind Trump. Then Carol Was Detained“ by Jack Healy, who interviewed residents in Kennett, Mo. & spoke by phone with Ming Li Hui (known as Carol) from jail.

Published & updated May 28 & 29, 2025.

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/u...

Screenshot of text from "A Missouri Town Was Solidly Behind Trump. Then Carol Was Detained“ by Jack Healy, who interviewed residents in Kennett, Mo. & spoke by phone with Ming Li Hui (Carol) from jail.
New York Times
May 28 & 29, 2025

Ms. Hui’s arrest has forced a rural Missouri county where President Trump won 80 percent of the vote to face the reality of an immigration crackdown.

Many are now asking how you can support Carol and also Mr. Trump.

“I voted for Donald Trump, and so did practically everyone here,” said Vanessa Cowart, a friend of Ms. Hui from church. “But no one voted to deport moms. We were all under the impression we were just getting rid of the gangs, the people who came here in droves.”

She paused. “This is Carol.”

End of screenshot text. What follows is The first few paragraphs of the article:

The first sign of trouble came early this month when Carol didn’t show up for her shift at John’s Waffle and Pancake House.

She was as reliable as the sun rising over rice and melon fields in her adopted hometown, Kennett, Mo., a conservative farming hub of 10,000 people in the state’s southeastern boot heel, where “Missouri” becomes “Missour-uh.”

In the 20 years since she arrived from Hong Kong, she had built a life and family in Kennett, working two waitressing jobs and cleaning houses on the side. She began every morning at the bustling diner, serving pecan waffles, hugging customers and reading leftover newspapers to improve her English.

“Everyone knows Carol,” said Lisa Dry, a Kennett city councilwoman.

That all ended on April 30, when federal immigration officials summoned Carol, 45, whose legal name is Ming Li Hui, to their office in St. Louis, a three-hour drive from Kennett. Her partner, a Guatemalan immigrant, had voiced suspicion about the sudden call. But “I didn’t want to run,” Ms. Hui said in a jailhouse phone interview. “I just wanted to do the right thing.”

She was arrested and jailed to await deportation.

June 2, 2025 at 1:14 PM

Steve Kasner (he/him)

@steve-kasner.bsky.social

After its –01.1% decline in 2024 global sales, Tesla was banking on the +16% increase forecast for 2025.

But 2025 sales are plunging deeply into the red. “Tesla’s sales [in Europe] fell for a 4th month in a row, down 49% year-on-year”

2025:
kfgo.com/2025/05/26/c...

2015-2024, plus 2025 forecast:

This is a "Graph Time" bar chart of the annual change (in percentage) in Tesla's global new vehicle deliveries from 2015 through 2024, plus the analyst forecast for 2025.

The chart has the following heading (or title):
"Tesla's global sales are expected to bounce back 2025."

At a glance, one can see that Tesla had a positive growth in vehicle deliveries (presented by vertical green bars of varying sizes rising above the x-axis) in 2015 through 2023.

In 2024, Tesla had a 1.1% decline in vehicle deliveries, so there is a very small red bar which drops BELOW the x-axis for 2024. (Other sources state that the decline in 2024 sales / deliveries was Tesla's first decline since 2012.)

For 2025 there is a light gray bar rising ABOVE the x-axis, showing PROJECTED growth in Tesla sales. The explanatory note regarding 2025 states: "analyst forecast +16%".

I posted this chart to dramatize the difference between the global sales growth that was forecast for 2025 (and presumably needed, considering the unusual decline in 2024) and the recent news (see URL in post) that Tesla sales numbers are plummeting in Europe.

To provide you with the exact figures represented by this chart, I used Deep Seek to create a little spreadsheet based on the official delivery numbers. These numbers and percentages correspond with the bar chart.

| **Year** | **Deliveries** | **Annual Growth Rate** |
|----------|---------------|------------------------|
| **2015** | 50,580 | — |
| **2016** | 76,230 | **+50.7%** |
| **2017** | 103,020 | **+35.2%** |
| **2018** | 245,240 | **+138.0%** |
| **2019** | 367,500 | **+49.9%** |
| **2020** | 499,550 | **+35.9%** |
| **2021** | 936,172 | **+87.4%** |
| **2022** | 1,313,851 | **+40.3%** |
| **2023** | 1,808,581 | **+37.6%** |
| **2024***| 1,789,226 | **–1.1%** |

May 27, 2025 at 7:38 PM

Steve Kasner (he/him)

@steve-kasner.bsky.social

The world post-USAID & Gaza:

Gaza is just the beginning. The militarization & privatization (via mercenary forces) of humanitarian aid as an undisguised weapon of war & ethnic cleansing is expected to be the new norm across the globe, post-USAID & Gaza.

www.npr.org/2025/05/15/n...

This is a screenshot of the NPR all things considered web page for this particular 4 minute audio segment. The “card” image generated by the URL did not show the last sentence of the summary, which I took as the gist of the segment.

The text from top to bottom in this screenshot reads:

The U.S. is working on a new plan to deliver aid in Gaza

May 15, 20255:02 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
By Fatma Tanis

4-Minute Listen

Israel has blocked the entry of aid for weeks, accusing Hamas of theft. The U.S. says its plan will address Israel's concerns. Experts say it may change humanitarian responses in conflict zones.

I underlined the last sentence in red, because that's what makes this report worth listening to.

May 15, 2025 at 11:30 PM

Steve Kasner (he/him)

@steve-kasner.bsky.social

The Trump administration is telling the so-called refugees to connect with relatives here. In the absence of relatives, the admin says they will be connected with an organization.

The Episcopal Church has help settle refugees in the past, but refuses to do so now ✊

www.npr.org/2025/05/12/n...

The headline below, and the two paragraphs that follow are in the image as a screenshot of article on NPR website. But the alt text below includes the entire article. (This is one in a series of short articles on the NPR website regarding these so-called refugees. NPR includes an article on the reality in South Africa which contradicts Trump's claim that their land is being seized. Zero and has been seized by or through the government.)

-----

Episcopal Church refuses to resettle white Afrikaners, citing moral opposition

Refugee advocates in the U.S. have noted how unusual it is that the Afrikaners were processed so quickly — there were about three months between Trump's executive orders and the first group's departure for the U.S. Often, applications for refugee status in the U.S. can take years to process.

The Episcopal Church announced on Monday that it is terminating its partnership with the government to resettle refugees, citing moral opposition to resettling the Afrikaner refugees.

In a letter sent to members of the church, the Most Rev. Sean W. Rowe — the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church — said that two weeks ago the government informed them that "we are expected to resettle white Afrikaners from South Africa whom the U.S. government has classified as refugees."

The request, Rowe said, crossed a moral line for the Episcopal Church, which is part of the global Anglican Communion that boasts among its leaders the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a South African icon and celebrated opponent of apartheid.

A U.S. government employee, who was not authorized to speak to the media, told NPR they considered what is happening in this case "immigration fraud."

The Afrikaners arrival comes after Trump effectively suspended the U.S. refugee admissions program in January.

"Across the country, refugee resettlement agencies have closed or cut staff, and for refugees about to fly to the U.S., their travel authorizations were canceled, thousands are now stuck wa…

May 12, 2025 at 8:01 PM

Steve Kasner (he/him)

@steve-kasner.bsky.social

COME AND SEE

USSR, 9 May 1945: The war against Germany ends. The USSR lost 27 million people in that war. The USA lost 250k. Two superb antiwar war films by Russian directors depict the Nazi invasion and resistance from a child’s POV:

Come and See (Klimov, 1985)
Ivan's Childhood (Tarkovsky, 1962)

This is a screenshot of the cover illustration for a DVD from The Criterion Collection. It has very little text. Along the left side, it reads in relatively small print: THE CRITERION COLLECTION. Most of the image is a color illustration. Bottom of the image there is a black bar centered in which is the text: COME AND SEE. Below that it says A FILM BY ELEM KLIMOV. The director's name is slightly larger than the preceding three words. All text in the image is in caps

The illustration itself is in color. It is mostly green due to the uniform the person is wearing and the background which appears to be forests & lakes. One might imagine that the figure is standing on a hill or mountain. The image is of an exhausted and scared looking boy, probably a teenager. He is white and his eyes are surrounded by blackish discolored skin, perhaps from lack of sleep, and in conjunction with his stare, the discolored skin around his eyes suggest that he is seen a lot of horror. His lips are cracked and his skin appears to be cracked on each end of his lips. His hair is closely cropped or cut blonde yellowish hair and it appears to have been cut or shaven in a hurry some weeks before this illustration/image. He is wearing a military uniform which is green and he has a rifle slung over his shoulder, though his shoulders are actually out of view but the top of the rifle or barrel of the rifle is in view pointing upward behind his back with the strap in the front. It is the image of a very scared young man or teenage boy in a uniform carrying a gun and the uniform and gun don't seem to fit him or look out of place. It suggests this boy should not be any uniform and is severely traumatized. The uniform is that of the Belarusian or Soviet military.

This image is a screenshot of the DVD cover or advertisement for the criterion collections edition of the film Ivan's Childhood. Along the left side of the image are the words THE CRITERION COLLECTION. Along the bottom of the image towards the left are the words written in kind of a scrawl, definitely not a nicely designed font that you might see in a newspaper etc. The words read as follows:
Ivan's Childhood
A Film By
Andrei Tarkovsky

The image is difficult to describe. The bottom half of the image is grayish and appears to be perhaps a reflection in water, still water, depicting two burnt trees with shortened busted up limbs and no leaves pointing downward, because this is a reflection presumably. But this part of the image could also be an perhaps more likely is in some ways, a gray cloudy smoky sky with those two trees The image is just upside down, suggesting perhaps the world has turned upside down, as this is a disturbing film about the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union and the resistance.

The upper part of the image is shot from within something that appears to be an old rounded or (perhaps rounded from partial collapse) wooden structure with an opening on one end and planks or sticking out in uneven ways from the structure. So the opening of that structure and those uneven planks create the frame for the top half of the image. In the middle of that frame is a boy standing looking into the distance. Behind the boy are burnt trees with no leaves and deformed branches and It appears to be smoky and cloudy. The entire image is in black and white, or more specifically grayscale.

May 9, 2025 at 11:20 PM

Steve Kasner (he/him)

@steve-kasner.bsky.social

Screenshot of paragraphs 1-7 from the NYT article at
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/08/h...

Screenshot of paragraphs 1-5 in New York Times article. Headline and subheads are included in this alt text:

Migrants Are Skipping Medical Care, Fearing ICE, Doctors Say

Since President Trump announced plans for mass deportations and rescinded protections for hospitals and clinics, health care facilities have seen a jump in no-shows.

By Emily Baumgaertner NunnNina Agrawal and Jessica Silver-Greenberg
May 8, 2025
Updated 11:54 a.m. ET

A man lay on a New York City sidewalk with a gun shot wound, clutching his side.

Emily Borghard, a social worker who hands out supplies to the homeless through her nonprofit, found him and pulled out her phone, preparing to dial 911. But the man begged her not to make the call, she said.

“No, no, no,” he said, telling her in Spanish that he would be deported.

Ms. Borghard tried to explain that federal law required hospitals to treat him, regardless of his immigration status, but he was terrified.

“He said, ‘If I go to the emergency department, that will put me on their radar,’” she recalled in an interview recounting the incident.

Screenshot of paragraphs 6-7 in New York Times article:

Across the country, doctors, nurses and social workers are increasingly concerned that people with serious medical conditions, including injuries, chronic illnesses and high-risk pregnancies, are forgoing medical care out of fear of being apprehended by immigration officials. Since the Trump administration announced plans for mass deportations and rescinded a Biden-era policy that protected spaces like hospitals, medical clinics and churches from immigration enforcement, doctors said they have seen sharp increases in patient anxiety and appointment no-show rates.

If the trend continues, health care officials say, the list of consequences could be long: Infectious diseases circulating unnecessarily; worsening health care costs because of untreated chronic illnesses; and dangerous birth complications for women who wait too long to seek help, among others.

May 8, 2025 at 10:10 PM

Steve Kasner (he/him)

@steve-kasner.bsky.social

Missing from coverage about Trump's Meet The Press interview:

Number of questions about Trump’s labeling of Rep. Jasmine Crockett as “definitely a low IQ person”: 0

…about racism or white supremacism: 0

…about Israel, where Trump will soon be: 0

…about Gaza: 0

…about Canada as a 51st state: 5

https://crockett.house.gov/about

screenshot from “About the Congresswoman” page on official site of Texas rep Jasmine Crockett. A photo on the left and column of text on right.

The paragraph is the first paragraph on the page. It reads as follows:

Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett has purposefully made every decision with one goal in mind: protecting the civil liberties of those in underrepresented communities. As a public defender, civil rights attorney, State Representative, and United States Congresswoman, Jasmine Crockett dedicates her life to public service, with the goal of serving justice and ensuring equality for all.

-----

The photo takes up about 1/3 of the screenshot. The photo shows a relatively dark-skinned black African American woman, on a stool (photo shows her from the waist up, stool out of sight) in front of an American flag to her right. Most of the backdrop behind her is the typical photo backdrop with different shades of blue and a bit of white mixed in to recall the sky.

She appears to be about 40. long hair pulled & braided back, so it goes behind her neck, mostly out of sight. Because she is a public figure it is worth noting She can be described as an attractive woman by typical American standards, allowing for black skin :)

She is wearing a close-fitting long sleeved top which is zippered up (offcenter) and has a collar up covering the lower half of her neck except for small exposed area where the tips of the collar touch. It's a simple straight collar similar to those traditionally worn by men in China.

The outfit is checkered in off-white + light sea green (?) squares. The outfit covers all of her that is in the frame except for her head and upper neck

May 5, 2025 at 10:57 PM

Steve Kasner (he/him)

@steve-kasner.bsky.social

Is NEA giving lip service to diversity? Or is it encouraging racial segregation?

The NEA cancelled $ for many projects w/ black & intl artists, while saying future projects will fit w/ Trump’s values — and “elevate” HBCUs & colleges for Hispanic students.…

Gift:
www.nytimes.com/live/2025/05...

This is a screenshot of the first five paragraphs of a May 3, 2025 New York Times article by Michael Paulson. The article is included in the live updates section of the NYT website. The text in the screenshot reads as follows:

The National Endowment for the Arts withdrew and canceled grant offers to numerous arts organizations around the country on Friday night, sending a round of email notifications out just hours after President Trump proposed eliminating the agency in his next budget.

The move, although not unexpected, was met with disappointment and anger by arts administrators who had counted on the grants to finance ongoing projects.

In Oregon, Portland Playhouse received an email from the endowment just 24 hours before opening a production of August Wilson’s “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” an acclaimed work that is part of the playwright’s series of 10 dramas about African Americans through the course of the 20th century. The N.E.A. had recommended a $25,000 grant for the show, which would have paid about one-fifth of the production’s personnel costs.

“Times are tough for theaters — we’re already pressed, and in this moment where every dollar matters, this was a critical piece of our budget,” said Brian Weaver, the theater’s producing artistic director. “It’s ridiculous.”

The emails were sent to arts administrators from an address at the endowment that did not accept replies. “The N.E.A. is updating its grantmaking policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the president,” the emails said. “Consequently, we are terminating awards that fall outside these new priorities.”

This is a screenshot of next three paragraphs (paragraphs 6 thru 8) in the May 3, 2025 New York Times article by Michael Paulson. The article is included in the live updates section of the NYT website. The text of these three paragraphs reads as follows:

The emails went on to say that the endowment would now prioritize projects that “elevate” historically Black colleges and universities, and colleges that serve Hispanic students. The emails also said the endowment would focus on projects that “celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, foster A.I. competency, empower houses of worship to serve communities, assist with disaster recovery, foster skilled trade jobs, make America healthy again, support the military and veterans, support Tribal communities, make the District of Columbia safe and beautiful, and support the economic development of Asian American communities.”

Some of those affected expressed skepticism about the email’s nod to support for diversity initiatives, noting that many of the withdrawn grants had been to support work by artists of color.

“It’s strange that the Trump administration is trumpeting their priorities to serve diverse America while canceling grants for our August Wilson play,” Mr. Weaver said. Among the other examples of canceled support for diverse work: Yale Repertory Theater in Connecticut got an email saying that its project to develop and produce a stage adaptation of the Zora Neale Hurston short story “Spunk” was losing a $30,000 grant.

May 3, 2025 at 10:30 PM

Steve Kasner (he/him)

@steve-kasner.bsky.social

GENOCIDE

In a hunger crisis, “children are most likely to die…because of the ways malnutrition weakens their bodies. Children in hunger crises experience ‘wasting’…as a result of severe malnutrition”
www.rescue.org/article/why-...

This is Rashaf, starving in Gaza
www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/...

May 2, 2025 at 1:50 PM

Steve Kasner (he/him)

@steve-kasner.bsky.social

Do you prefer cocaine, snuff, or smallpox scabs?

In the 1700s, people first fought smallpox w/ variolation — by blowing dried scabs into noses of the uninfected. 1–2% died but smallpox usually killed 30%+

Would RFK Jr prefer this vax method? Or find it triggering?
www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/s...

The early history of smallpox inoculation is described on an NIH webpage and that web page is a source for the information above:

https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/smallpox/sp_variolation.html

If you want more information, you can go to the World Health organization web page on the history of the smallpox vaccination. The WHO page is far more detailed actually:

https://www.who.int/news-room/spotlight/history-of-vaccination/history-of-smallpox-vaccination/

But my own summary text is based on it NIH web page. The NIH URL was not accompanied with a so-called card or image from the article. So I found an image on a BBC article (photograph attributed to Getty images) and I made a screenshot of that image plus the caption plus the paragraph below it.

The BBC article focuses on the fearful opposition to smallpox vaccinations or inoculations in the 1800s:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leicestershire-50713991

At the top of my screenshot from this BBC article is a rather large photograph. The photo has been edited to show a yellow background & tint. Photo features an actual human foot cut off above ankle, which has been preserved, presumably in a medical museum or research institute. The photo shows how pervasive smallpox scabs can be — 60% of the foot, on all sides, especially from tips of toes and bottom of foot, is covered by raised sores or scabs. (As mentioned the photo is largely yellow. The foot itself is grey with yellow tint.) Scabs on the foot range from the size of a dime to the size of a quarter and scabs at tlhe bottom of the foot have a few small thread-like tendrils hanging down.

The caption below photo reads:

The "speckled monster" - shown on this preserved foot - had devastated entire cultures.

The paragraph in the article below the photo is also included in the screenshot:

Smallpox, called the "speckled monster" due to its distinctive blister-like rashes, had killed millions since medieval times.

May 1, 2025 at 8:48 PM

Steve Kasner (he/him)

@steve-kasner.bsky.social

Trump corruption news:

A UAE govt-backed fund in Abu Dhabi made a $2B deal to use the Trump family crypto firm’s new “stablecoin” to complete a transaction between their state-backed Emirati investment firm MGX & Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world.
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/u...

Screenshot of a few paragraphs from the New York Times article published May 1, 2025 about all the conflicts of interests regarding the UAE/MGX & Binance transaction using a cryptocurrency coin created by the Trump family firm World Liberty, which was created in August 2024 to profit from cryptocurrency. The screenshot text reads as follows:

“Virtually every detail of Mr. Witkoff’s announcement, made during a conference panel with Mr. Trump’s second-eldest son, contained a conflict of interest.

MGX’s use of the World Liberty stablecoin, USD1, brings a Trump family company into business with a venture firm backed by a foreign government. The deal creates a formal link between World Liberty and Binance — a company that has been under U.S. government oversight since 2023, when it admitted to violating federal money-laundering laws.

And the splashy announcement served as an advertisement to crypto investors worldwide about the potential for forming a partnership with a company tied to President Trump, who is listed as World Liberty’s chief crypto advocate.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/us/politics/trump-cryptocurrency-usd1-dubai-conference-announcement.html

May 1, 2025 at 6:39 PM

Steve Kasner (he/him)

@steve-kasner.bsky.social

Miller is a white supremacist & his racism trumps any desire to avoid charges of hypocrisy. I think his uncle buried the lede. Miller isn't seeking to deport Jews or anyone who is seen as white in the 21st-century US.

See Jean Guerrero’s book Hatemonger about his intense racism since adolescence.

This is a screenshot of the book cover of Hatemonger by Jean Guerrero. The subtitle is: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the white nationalist agenda. The image on the book cover shows Steven Miller in clear sharp focus in the upper left corner. It shows his upper body, but it's clear that his arms are folded in front of him and he is standing up looking downward and the image shows him looking down upon a blurred image of Trump & cabinet members or advisora sitting beside Trump. Everyone sitting at the table is blurred. The only person on the cover who is not blurry is Stephen Miller. FYI: this book is available in audio format as well as print format. It was published during Trump's first term.

May 1, 2025 at 3:40 AM

Steve Kasner (he/him)

@steve-kasner.bsky.social

Trump admin is threatened with contempt & sanctions if they block funding to nonprofits giving legal services to undocumented minors who enter the US without guardians.

Congress approved this funding until Sept 2027 & Trump signed into law a budget mandating the funding.

NYT, full 2-para article:

Screenshot of a two paragraph article in the New York Times updates section dated April 29, 2025 by Minho Kim. The text in the article reads as follows:

“ A federal judge in California blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to cut funding to nonprofits that provide legal services for undocumented migrants under 18 who entered the United States without adult guardians. In her opinion, the judge, Araceli Martínez Olguín, warned the administration of contempt and sanctions if it does not comply with her order. Nearly 130,000 children without a parent or legal guardian crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally in fiscal 2022.

Congress approved funding for direct legal representation for such unaccompanied children until September 2027, and the budget bill that President Trump signed into law in March also mandates funding for their legal services. ”

The article includes two embedded links:

“blocked“
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.447078/gov.uscourts.cand.447078.87.0.pdf

“in fiscal 2022”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/us/migrant-children-legal-representation-funding.html

April 30, 2025 at 10:04 AM

Steve Kasner (he/him)

@steve-kasner.bsky.social

AmeriCorps — the domestic version of PeaceCorps — is basically destroyed by Musk/Doge.

Libertarians used to argue against such programs, saying the private sector would take over. Nobody even pretends that will happen now.

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/u...

www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/...

This is a screenshot of three paragraphs from Sunday April 27th New York Times Updates section, (which basically covers the latest catastrophes and injustices committed by the Trump administration). In this brief article, the sudden and apparently unexpected destruction of nearly all of AmeriCorps is described:

“The nonprofit that represents AmeriCorps’ state commissions, which organize state-level community service programs funded by the federal agency, has said that commissions in all 50 states; Washington, D.C.; and several territories had major AmeriCorps grant funding canceled without notice on Friday evening. Some states, including California, have had all their grant funding cut.

The cuts will shutter more than 1,000 programs and abruptly end the service of more than 32,000 AmeriCorps workers, the nonprofit, America’s Service Programs, said on Saturday.

Last week, at the direction of Elon Musk’s DOGE team, AmeriCorps cut nearly all federal staff and ended of its major service programs.

The Washington Post was the first to report on Friday’s cuts of nearly $400 million in grant programs.“

The above article included two embedded links:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/us/politics/doge-cost-americorps-community-service.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/04/25/americorps-grant-cuts-doge/

April 27, 2025 at 8:10 PM

Add to Home Screen

Light up
your news

Add to Home Screen

Light upyour news

Sign in to Lightnews

Sign up to start reading

Connect Bluesky

Connect with Bluesky

Light up
your news