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emwhitley.bsky.social
New to social media, trying to join the 21st century. The water seems fine. Avatar is Rings of Saturn captured by Cassini courtesy of NASA titled Gravity's Rainbow dated April 23, 2018 https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/targetFamily/Saturn
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A "significant share" of companies surveyed by the Federal Reserve said they raised the prices of goods and services unaffected by tariffs. One company said they did this to "enjoy the extra margin before tariffs increased their costs." See the problem here? www.axios.com/2025/06/04/t...

One after another access journalist is reporting a convo with Trump where Trump says Musk has a problem. None asked why Trump let him have unfettered access to the govt, and our data, for the last four months, then. And what he'll do to make sure Musk didn't do permanent damage.

UPDATE: The Pentagon’s watchdog is looking into whether any of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s aides were asked to delete Signal messages that may have shared sensitive military information with a reporter.

White House quietly pressures Senate to ease Russia sanctions, per WSJ. Trump’s team urges Sen. Graham to soften his bill, prioritizing Moscow ties over Ukraine invasion punishment. Aides say they’re pushing to change “shall” to “may.” www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

Why are Trump and certain tech billionaires trying to build new dystopian cities and democracy-free "zones"? It reflects a scary tech idea called "The Network State." For @techpolicypress.bsky.social, I wrote about why you should be deeply concerned 👇 www.techpolicy.press/trumps-gaza-...

In amongst all the excitement I fear many have missed this outstanding bit of trolling by Friedrich Merz. The Chancellor gifted Trump a gilded framed copy of his grandfather’s German birth certificate... reminding Americans that Trump is both the child and grandchild of migrants.

“They had things like the U.S. Digital Service and 18F, the internal consultancy ... . They had that expertise in house, and they sacked them all. You have to wonder why they’ve done that.” 🤔

Kristi Noem, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, wants to slash the Coast Guard’s shore infrastructure budget by 90%, a move that some lawmakers said would push the service’s housing, facilities and piers into further disrepair.

And who they didn't approve of

From @nytopinion.nytimes.com “Too many Christians are transforming Christianity into a vertical faith, one that focuses on your personal relationship with God at the expense of the horizontal relationship you have with your neighbors,” writes our columnist David French.

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We love a goofy, bucktoothed, and smiling parrotfish in Coral City 😁🏳️‍⚧️🦜🐟 #stripedparrotfish #parrotfishjungle #parrotfishcapitaloftheworld #bucktooth #goofy #smile #protogynoushermaphrodite #supermale #terminalphase #coral #coralhead #coralcitycamera #miami #portmiami #biscaynebay #coralcity

81 years ago, America's bravest generation stormed the beaches of Normandy in hopes of freeing Europe from the clutches of a brutal authoritarian. Today, we face authoritarianism on our shores. We owe it to ourselves, our country, and that great generation to fight for freedom here at home.

Day 56. 🇺🇸

Let them fight 🤺

A good read

President Trump is warping government agencies intended to serve the American people and turning them into authoritarian sledgehammers aimed at demolishing his perceived foes. Here’s how we’re using FOIA requests and litigation to fight back: americanoversight.org/investigatio...

Great @mjtoma.bsky.social piece on Trump-Musk: "Any eulogy for this relationship must first and foremost be a eulogy for the United States of America...It’s tragic that working Americans are held hostage to this madness." Yes. The story is what this says about USA: newrepublic.com/article/1962...

If you need a breather from all this bullshit, here's a photo of Earth. From Saturn. We're that slightly brighter star at centre right.

The Big Fucked Up Bill, is NOT a spending bill. It’s a government restructuring bill, that consolidates power in the executive, defunds critical services to the point of absurdity, removes the power of our courts to enforce the law and dramatically curtails voting rights. It’s Project 2025

As usual, the cruelty is the point. Missouri has lived under the boot of a GOP supermajority for 22 years and they have consistently defunded schools. And now they are planning to close schools for the severely disabled.

We have an official ruling

“The legacy sewing pattern brands Simplicity, Butterick, McCalls, and Vogue, commonly referred to as the Big 4, have been sold to a liquidator.” One dollar. I had a dollar! craftindustryalliance.org/parent-compa...

We don’t need to back off the American Gestapo and we don’t need to respect its agents. People exercising state violence are not entitled to anonymity. Nor are the people directing the state violence.

Government employees aren’t even allowed to have Democratic Party friends. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/05/u...

This should be a national debate, not an executive power grab. 📌 The Posse Comitatus Act prevents the president from using the military as a domestic police force.

ICE is denying people the right to due process, abducting and trafficking them to foreign countries and locking them up indefinitely in dangerous prisons. Now they’re preparing the military to deploy on US soil and in our communities to help. This is authoritarianism.

Banks are aiming to issue cryptocurrency. Lawmakers just put a line in the GENIUS Act saying when a bank issuing crypto goes bankrupt, crypto investors get paid before regular depositors. In other words: your savings account becomes crypto’s bailout fund. www.levernews.com/cryptos-new-...

Further purges of the US security services. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/05/u...

Golly, I guess the federal government was pretty efficiently staffed when DOGE arrived.

A reporter on CNBC (Rick something) said the same thing this morning. He interrupted a panelist speaking and shouted it. If the people losing Medicaid coverage could have gotten 'employers' insurance, why did we need Medicaid expansion to start with?

Our new Tracking Poll: Approximately 10 million MAGAs and non-MAGA Republicans in the Marketplaces, almost half of total enrollment. I will have more to say about this in my column on Tuesday.

We used to be a serious country that opposed fascism

Did anybody think this was NOT happening? Don't be silly. These AI companies steal data to feed into their machines. Why wouldn't they use data given freely?

Some tarantulas keep frogs as 'pets'. The frogs eat ants & other small bugs that might attack the eggs or young spiderlings of the tarantula & the tarantula provides shelter in their burrows. What's more: the tarantula will attack predators that might threaten the frog. (📷: Emanuele Biggi)

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My wish to you is that you find true happiness. 🫶🫂🫶 #eastcoastkin #scape #escape #blackandwhite #photography