Dad. Husband. Organizer. Immigration & criminal justice advocate.
Austin, TX
- Tweets 9,072
- Following 2,048
- Followers 3,215
- Likes 11,019
I'm going to keep this account live, but will be tweeting regularly from bsky.app/profile/blibal.bsky…
Hope to see you there!
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Bob Libal https://bsky.app/profile/blibal.bsky.soc retweeted
Quite a scandal: Biden was prepared to spend a few hundred thousand dollars on Teslas for the State Department, and the Trump administration altered that to $400 million, then back-dated the records to make it look like Biden did it.
State canceled the contract after @DropSiteNews exposed it.
DOGE should ask us for tips in saving actual money for the taxpayer, beyond just canceling Reuters subs
BREAKING: NPR has obtained a State Department document revealing that the Biden administration planned to allocate only $483,000 in the 2025 fiscal year for electric vehicle purchases—far less than the $400 million Drop Site revealed was being set aside for Tesla vehicles under the Trump administration (until a recent quiet revision to the procurement document).
A former White House official familiar with the plans suggested the $400 million allocation to Tesla was a deliberate move, not a clerical error.
The State Department and Tesla had agreed to research armoring electric vehicles under Biden, but no funds had been earmarked for “Armored” Teslas. The approved $483,000 budget was intended for light-duty EVs, and another $3 million was set aside for supporting equipment, like charging stations.
The revised procurement document indicates it was originally published in December, at the end of then-President Joe Biden's term, but it doesn’t appear in the Internet Archive for that month.
Read Drop Site’s story 🔽
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"Musk is one of the greatest beneficiaries of the taxpayers’ coffers."
washingtonpost.com/technolog…
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New from me and @HRW:
Vehicle pursuits by TX troopers and local law enforcement have killed at least 106 people and injured 301 in counties participating in Texas’ Operation Lone Star.
hrw.org/news/2025/02/13/us-t…
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Important piece from the @statesman today.
Commercial vehicle roadside inspections — important tools to keep highways safe — have plummeted since Gov. Abbott deployed hundreds of highway patrol officers to his troubled border program Operation Lone Star
statesman.com/story/news/sta…
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Buried in this excellent @FrancescaDnunz Texas Observer story, a revelation that incoming border czar wears a Punisher skull on his windbreaker.
The Punisher skull has been by some law enforcement to show support for right-wing vigilante justice.
texasobserver.org/border-spe…
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Today (Saturday) is an important run-off election day in Austin.
Get out and support progressive candidates @MikeSiegelTX for Austin City Council D7 and Fernando de Urioste for AISD board! You can vote at any of these locations until 7pm.
votetravis.gov/current-elect…
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Today is the last day to EARLY vote in Travis County run-off. Get out and support @MikeSiegelTX for Austin City Council D7 and Fernando de Urioste for AISD board today!
You can vote at any of these locations until 7pm.
votetravis.gov/current-elect…
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Austin run-off early voting starts today! I strongly recommend folks vote for:
✅ @MikeSiegelTX for ATX City Council, D7
✅ Fernando de Urioste for AISD Board
Polls are open 7am-7pm. Early voting runs through Dec. 9th. Election day is Dec. 14
votetravis.gov/current-elect…
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The people who profit from incarceration of human beings are feeling great right now.
If you need another reason to get involved in fighting this administration, here's a good one.
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Joe Biden should not hand the keys to a mass deportation machine to Donald Trump.
Take action, @POTUS!
"One of the ways that deportation is facilitated is by having detention capacity," says Silky Shah, executive director of @DetentionWatch. She says the Biden administration could hamper the Trump team's promised mass deportations if they “start shutting down facilities now.”
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Going to try to make the migration: bsky.app/profile/blibal.bsky…
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Some rare good news in my email:
Great to see @gusbova named the permanent editor-in-chief of the critically important @TexasObserver!
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I've watched Texas' treatment of immigrants devolve to depths I couldn't imagine a decade ago.
But even I'm unprepared for the wanton cruelty to immigrant children we are going to see in 2025...
Rep. @NateSchatzline's HB 1072 would create a database of undocumented children
An employee participating in Operation Lone Star would also conduct a wellness interview with the child
Database would include the fingerprints of a child
#txlege
capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup…
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Bob Libal https://bsky.app/profile/blibal.bsky.soc retweeted
Tom Homan was picked as Trump's next border czar.
Before the election, Homan ran Border 911, a non-profit that started out as part of The America Project, an org founded by serial election deniers: Patrick Byrne and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.
texasobserver.org/border-911…
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Bob Libal https://bsky.app/profile/blibal.bsky.soc retweeted
Elon Musk once fired someone at Twitter for not laughing at his 69 joke, so let's just say his staffing decisions are not exactly going to be high quality.
Elon Musk was among Donald Trump’s most visible and powerful surrogates on the campaign trail. He remains within the inner circle, joining calls with world leaders and weighing in on staffing decisions. to.pbs.org/4fpT0qS
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This is interesting to me, given the narrative... And San Diego County's vote is only 3/4 in.
Obviously a huge swing towards Trump, but the border as a whole is much more Democratic than the rest of the country
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It appears that this is the man that Trump will tap to lead the largest deportation force in history....
huffpost.com/entry/thomas-ho…
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