Shaunna Thomas

👋🏼 Big news! After 13 years I’m transitioning out of the org i co-founded @UltraViolet and @gracepanetta19 wrote all about it. I’m excited to support my dear friend @arishahatch as interim ED who brings a new feminist vision + strategy. Onward! 19thnews.org/2025/02/shau...

Breaking down buzzwords: What's the difference between a "progressive" and "establishment Democrat?" See: artificial intelligence says @GregCasar, head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus

"They sent me a Google doc and I watched them write and rewrite the statement multiple times."

Yeah nah sorry we weren't born yesterday Chris

Have had a very weird past 48 hours. Initially I reached out to 3 Dems recently endorsed by super PAC Leading the Future about whether they’d be accepting: Ritchie Torres, Rob Menendez, and Val Hoyle. Seemed like a pretty reasonable question I’d expected they were prepared for, since I was asking 4 days after the endorsement was announced. The PAC is funded by OpenAI president Greg Brockman, venture capital investors Andreessen Horowitz, and others, and their critics claim the PAC is anti-regulation. Hoyle’s office initially gave me a fairly critical statement distancing themselves from LTF, and I wrote up a simple story. The statement wasn’t that surprising, since Hoyle had vehemently opposed federal preemption of state AI laws before - and LTF likes preemption. Then I reached out to LTF for comment. This is standard practice for reporters, to ensure everyone has a chance to say their piece, They gave me a fairly straightforward statement. Candidates and PACs aren’t legally allowed to coordinate, so I didn’t expect some big, orchestrated response. All pretty normal. It was after that that things got weird. Hours after I initially talked to them - but about 7 min after hearing from LTF - Hoyle’s office reached out to ask if they could change their quotes. Suddenly they were more appreciative of LTF’s endorsement, saying that she would “refuse to ignore industry” but wanted to advocate for workers. They sent me a Google doc and I watched them write and rewrite the statement multiple times. Then she appears to have ‘preempted’ our story with a series of X posts and videos. (Credits @ShakeelHashim for that joke lol) I’m not sure what made them change their tune so dramatically, long after the working day was done. But their about face seems symptomatic of a changing political environment, in which AI is becoming a more salient political issue and candidates must be careful how they talk about accepting support from AI PACs (LTF and others). Hoyle has received almost $300k in support from a LTF affiliated PAC - a nice boost for any political candidate - but can’t lose her pro-labor bona fides either. More details and analysis in my latest for @ReadTransformer (link in reply)

The FCC wants to require ID verification for every phone activation in America, including prepaid phones. Those are the phones journalists, abuse survivors, and whistleblowers depend on to stay anonymous. The excuse is robocalls. The result is a national identity check on one of the last semi-anonymous communication tools we have. reclaimthenet.org/the-fcc-wants-…

Wow. When the OpenAI-Andreessen-Palantir SuperPAC first went after him - he was in third place. Now he's in first place!

Interesting nugget in @JBKSchlossberg's latest FEC filings: OpenAI investor, Sam Altman ally and AI super PAC donor Ron Conway and his wife Gayle both donated the max allowed to Jack Schlossberg's campaign. It's only $14,000 total ... but interesting, given that an AI super PAC Conway funds has spent $2.64m opposing Schlossberg's NY-12 rival, Alex Bores. Schlossberg has also presented himself as not taking money from AI companies.

Great, but it’s no longer just about refusing #Palantir contributions. We don’t want our pension funds invested in Palantir either. @TomDiNapoli, stop “calling out” Palantir and start divesting. #NY

SCOOP: A pro-AI dark money group backed by a powerful super PAC funded by execs tied to Palantir and OpenAI, has been secretly paying influencers to push pro-AI, anti-China propaganda on TikTok and IG. wired.com/story/super-pa…

Jesus christ. Palantir and OpenAI execs got caught real bad here. They hired an agency to try get left wing creators to shill for big AI industry. Some creators refused (good on them) Any time you see an IG video from a creator saying they love AI, it's probably paid content.

That AI number is a big fat jump ball for Dems to seize

Affordability is not a "hoax," and it has to be more than a slogan. Democrats need to be more than an anti-Trump Party. We need our own pro-working class agenda. We're proud to announce @USProgressives's New Affordability Agenda --> nytimes.com/2026/04/28/us/…

Speaking of Targeted Victory, their staff are repeatedly sharing the content of this pay-to-play influencer guy who is now attacking both @realhumansfirst & @AOC/@BernieSanders’ data center moratorium bill. Is @LeadingFutureAI paying for all this astroturf dark-money undisclosed lobbying too, just like they were paying for fake-AI-generated “news” articles?

Three years ago, I was proud to sponsor the Adult Survivors Act in New York with @LindaBRosenthal to hold sexual abusers accountable. In DC, a bipartisan bill was passed to End Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment, to stop the silencing of survivors. It’s horrifying to learn that the CEO whose sexual misconduct disclosure shocked the world during that brave survivor’s Congressional testimony in 2021 is now headlining conferences.

Outrageous. A survivor accused Zia Chishti of horrific behavior during Congressional testimony on behalf of the push for the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act. Now, Chishti is the keynote speaker at @paklaunchdotcom, which is backed by global companies.@awscloud @Meta @LinkedIn @BCG — WHY are you supporting this?politico.com/news/magazine/…

Let me get this straight… OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit. Open source. For everyone. “To benefit humanity.” Then he raised billions of dollars. Then he closed the source code. Then he converted to for-profit. Then he scraped the entire internet without asking anyone. Then he used YOUR writing YOUR art YOUR code to train his models. Now he’s on stage saying you’ll pay HIM to access intelligence. Just like a water meter. He stole all of your data. He built the product with your work. And now he’s going to bill you to use it… Corporate greed has reached an all time high, and they’re not even hiding it anymore…

Just out: Schumer-tied fundraisers at Fulkerson Kennedy & Co. have teamed up with lobbyists for OpenAI, a16z, and others to send House and Senate staffers on junkets. The AI companies involved are already spending millions against Dems via super PACs. readsludge.com/2026/03/11/ai-…

At his election night party, @bradlander says to supporters that with their help, Andrew Cuomo is being sent back to the suburbs & Zohran Mamdani will be the Democratic nominee for Mayor.

I agree with Donald Trump that an unelected bureaucrat should be fired. Let’s start with Elon Musk.

Huge congrats to @SLThomas for 13 years of amazing work and a terrific organization that will continue that legacy. Excited to see what @arishahatch will do as she takes the helm!