Ravi Garla 👾

Advocacy + Movements + Digital. Views my own but likely cribbed from smarter ppl. Current: @NTI_WMD Past: @Everytown, @MomsDemand, @ClimateReality, @ACLU_NorCal

[Ravi Garla 👾 @ravitown]

✅ Read Herbert’s Dune: Messiah

[Timothée Chalamet @RealChalamet]

DUNE: PART THREE

[Lina Khan @linamkhan]

In 2022 Twitter was caught lying when it collected people's personal data under the pretext of security but then used it for ad targeting.

We held it accountable through an @FTC consent decree that required it to take basic steps to prevent data abuse, like limiting employees' access to people's sensitive data.

Now Musk is asking the Trump administration to terminate the consent decree, suggesting that US leadership in AI requires allowing X to deceive people about how their data is used.

This important filing from Secretary Chopra explains why Musk's petition should be denied.

[ProPublica @propublica]

🚨 ATTN local journos: We're seeking reporters in 6 newsrooms — in 6 different states — to join our Local Reporting Network.

Launched in 2018, our program aims to help create vital, investigative journalism in communities where such stories might otherwise not be done.

🧵👇

[Headquarters @HQNewsNow]

Trump: The game tonight is gonna be amazing. If they beat us we'll say it was rigged just like the election in 2020

[Samantha Power @SamanthaJPower]

Starting in early 2025, Elon Musk and the Trump administration began terminating USAID's programs and firing its staff — with Musk himself boasting about "feeding it into the woodchipper." One year ago today, USAID was officially dissolved, its remaining programs haphazardly folded into the State Department. Amid all the lies and misinformation that have followed, some facts about what has actually been lost:

• USAID saved more than 3 million lives a year at a cost of less than $10/month per American. That is what was destroyed. On purpose.
• According to Boston University's Global Impact Counter — which tracked deaths attributable to the cuts until it stopped operations in February 2026 — an estimated 781,000 people died preventable deaths in the first year, including 518,000 children.
• Global child mortality (the number of children who die before their fifth birthday) rose in 2025 for the first time in 35+ years — by 200,000 additional deaths.
• USAID's 50-country disease surveillance network — the system that cut outbreak response times from 2 weeks to 48 hours — is gone. We are now watching an unprecedented Ebola outbreak unfold in real time — with the highest first-month caseload and death rate in modern history.
• Programs reaching 93 million women and children were cut 92%. TB programs cut 56%. Water and sanitation cut 86%. Over 2,000 health facilities permanently closed.
• 25 million fewer people received humanitarian assistance in 2025. The overall humanitarian budget was slashed 74% — from $14.1 billion to $3.7 billion.
• 363 million people face acute hunger in 2026. The famine early-warning system that would have seen it coming went dark for five months.
• $1.7 billion in democracy and governance funding (election monitoring, anti-corruption work, support for independent media and civil society) was terminated.
• 360+ independent media outlets lost funding. Hundreds of legal clinics closed.
• Far from saving money, the Trump administration itself has already said the dismantlement will cost taxpayers at least $19.2 billion in cancellation fees, severance, and penalties. That's more than half of USAID's annual budget — spent on destruction and closeout, not support for vulnerable people.
• American farmers, universities, and businesses are among the casualties too. USAID partnered with more than 3,500 U.S. companies and maintained 17 university-based research labs. Its work with U.S.-based contractors and the private sector generated hundreds of thousands of American jobs and multiplied the return on every dollar spent. Those markets and partnerships are gone.

[Ravi Garla 👾 @ravitown]

@AlecStapp Fair. What’s your take on research showing that new housing projects received far more support when you couple w rent freeze?

If you care about real world results, isn’t it wise to consider human behavior?

[Laura J. Nelson @laura_nelson]

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and Miranda Kerr help erase $550 million in medical debt for Californians https://t.co/q3uaktdDz4 @QWongSJ

[Gregg Carlstrom @glcarlstrom]

The methodology here seems lousy. "Don't establish Christianity as our national religion" is somehow coded as a left-wing view. It's in the First Amendment!

Other "left-leaning arguments" include "America should remain a democracy" and "the EU is not an adversary"

[YIMBYLAND @YIMBYLAND]

CONGRESS PASSES THE 21ST CENTURY ROAD TO HOUSING ACT!!!!!

HOUSE: 358-to-32
SENATE: 85-to-5

- Bipartisan reform to fix housing shortage & lower costs (no big new spending)
- Streamlines permitting, zoning & NEPA reviews to speed up building
- $200M+ Innovation Fund + grants for local govs to boost housing supply
- Lets CDBG funds build new affordable homes; raises bank investment cap to 20%
- Limits large investors (350+ single-family homes) from buying more
- Expands & modernizes HOME program + rural housing reforms
- Boosts manufactured/modular homes (easier rules, higher FHA limits)
- Whole-home repair pilots, voucher inspection fixes & veteran housing tweaks

ALL KNEES WILL BEND TO YIMBY 🏗️🏗️🏗️

[Trey Yingst @TreyYingst]

President Trump spoke with the Iranians overnight warning them not to close the Strait.

"You close it and you won't have a country," Trump said he told Iranian officials. "You won't even make it back to your fu*king country."

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

Ben Shapiro: "This MOU appears to be a disaster that does not achieve any of the signal goals that were set by the administration at the beginning ... in my opinion the vice president, the chief negotiator, has not well served the president"

[Ravi Garla 👾 @ravitown]

@JeremyBWhite I’m getting nostalgic for the perennial dialysis machine ballot q.

[Ravi Garla 👾 @ravitown]

Outa-state whiners: we had to wait a whole week.

In-state winners: “Primary election voter turnout would be 41%. That would mean the highest voter turnout so far in the US among the 26 states that have held primary elections…, and a rate nearly 2X that of most other states.”

[David Dayen @ddayen]

This is correct. It didn't change anyone's life to wait a week for CA primary results, and while speeding that up a bit is fixable, what's overlooked is turnout for the primary, in an all-mail system, is the best in the nation so far.
https://t.co/TpSo4RKTSl

[U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. @SenBillCassidy]

Reagan is rolling over in his grave. Iran’s nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works and will undoubtedly leverage it in the future. Now, Iran gets to build brand-new infrastructure under this deal.

Before the war, the strait was open, Iran was being crushed by sanctions, and 13 service members were still alive. Now, 13 Americans are dead, families have paid billions at the pump, sanctions will be lifted, and the bombing has stopped. This is the worst foreign policy blunder in decades.

[Ravi Garla 👾 @ravitown]

Can I feel icky about zoos in general but also be sad that LA zoo is in crisis?

[Noah Goldberg @Noah__Goldberg]

In bad municipal news... the Los Angeles Zoo lost 23% of its membership in a single year. Zoo membership dropped from 36,914 in April 2025 to 28,440 in February 2026.

Now, a civil grand jury is calling for the zoo to be run privately.

via @LATvives

https://t.co/zgT5LUHbd6

[Ravi Garla 👾 @ravitown]

“has been noticed by Reddit moderators and Wikipedia editors, namely that their websites are getting flooded with promotional content from brands trying to do AEO, or AI-engine optimization”

[Jason Koebler @jason_koebler]

New: Researchers quantify how easy AI search is to manipulate. 13 words buried in a random Reddit comment can poison AI search results. They suggest this is not easy to stop: "The way you can attack these systems is so much dumber than you think it is"

https://t.co/NRBhFH8nhM

[Danielle Butterfield @likebutterfield]

Roku City is famously a swing state.

This move will put Roku/Fox behind just YouTube + Hulu for political ad supported streaming viewership + will have major implications for 2028.

Immediate q: will Roku provide spending transparency reports like @Meta and @Google?

[Ravi Garla 👾 @ravitown]

@FareedZakaria Except the election results don’t show anything. Caruso outperformed Pratt in Mayoral, and lower GOP combined statewide percentage than 2022 or even 2018 primaries.

[Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk @LACountyRRCC]

🚁 Why do we use helicopters on Election Night?

For many decades, we have partnered with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department to fly ballots in on Election Night. Helicopters help deliver ballots from faraway Vote Centers to the Ballot Processing Center faster.

@LASDHQ