americanzoomer.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

How it started/How it's going

submitted 3 hours ago • 308 comments

Relevant History: The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 established the first comprehensive merit-based civil service system in the US. It was intended to do away with "The Spoils System" where people got government jobs for their political loyalty, a system we've returned to.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was started by France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, West Germany and Italy, in 1952. The wish was to make coal and steel production a common concern, to make it difficult for a single country to build a new war machine.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

New: Ex-Twitter workers keep winning severance claims against Elon Musk. Employees are 20 for 20 so far in getting full severance from Musk via arbitration, including four people who were laid off after the "Fork in the Road" ultimatum www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

submitted 1 day ago • 73 comments

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

The U.S. has officially recorded its first measles death since 2015. Texas health officials have confirmed that an unvaccinated child has passed away from measles amid a massive outbreak that has impacted nine counties in West Texas. 👉 meidasnews.com/news/the-uni...

submitted 1 day ago • 1756 comments

Bezos destroying the post opinion pages is just another reminder: Conservatives think free speech is when they can say what they want and when you can say what they want.

submitted 2 days ago • 156 comments

If Bernie's Social Security bill was made law in 2021, Musk would have paid $2.9 billion more in taxes, Social Security would've been financially sound for 75 years, benefits would've increased by $2,400 and 93% of Americans would have paid Zero more in taxes. The only one "entitled" is Musk.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

When I see Elon Musk demonstrating that he is Not Very Smart I think about the time that he stated on Twitter that the ISS is bright in the sky because it has lots of lights on it (it's bright because it's huge and reflects sunlight). I’d like his answer on if a guy further away is actually smaller.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

Super excited for us at Split Ticket to be collaborating with the Washington Post for a year-long column on elections!! First up, we’ve got a deep dive on how moderation wins more votes, and extremism loses them — this is why the GOP House majority is so thin www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

submitted 3 days ago • 21 comments

The Speaker, who is a young earth creationist, who thinks the world is about 6000 years old, and believes that dinosaurs were on Noah's Ark wants to talk about algorithms and code. Who also blames “radical secularists” for misrepresenting the “facts” at the Ark Encounter in Kentucky.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

New in PN: Despite the hype, DOGE hasn't found a shred of fraud "With nothing to show for its efforts to find actual fraud, it has become clear that DOGE is the enforcement arm of a Trump administration that has no interest in working with Congress to implement its policy priorities."

submitted 4 days ago • 418 comments

Getting rid of Section 230 would be a big win for the giants such as Meta & Google, who can afford armies of lawyers. It would run out of business community-driven alternatives like Blueksy, and would enable widespread censorship.

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

This is how I would respond to the email Musk sent to government employees. 1. Slipped out the back, Jack 2. Made a new plan, Stan 3. Didn’t need to be coy, Roy, just listen to me 4. Hopped on the bus, Gus, don’t need to to discuss much 5. Dropped off the key, Lee and set myself free #Emails2DOGE

submitted 5 days ago • 28 comments

The reply email inbox for this “what did you do last week” email is [email protected], so, you know, definitely don’t send them any unrelated messages that would interfere with their ability to carry out Elon’s dumbass bullshit

submitted 5 days ago • 363 comments

the stock market is now below where it was when Joe Biden left office

submitted 6 days ago • 253 comments

Just to be crystal clear, the so called “Department” of Government Efficiency spent 40 million in one month, in one year that's 480 million for 100 “staff” - which is 4.8 million per staffer. And these staff are just spending all day on USASpending.gov by the way. Zero audits have been done.

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

New: DOGE's spending has been secret. No longer. My colleagues have uncovered it. www.propublica.org/article/doge...

submitted 7 days ago • 862 comments

Forget the myths the media has created about tech bros. The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Trump FTC getting ready to go after social media companies (I'm sure it will skip ExTwitter, and possibly now Meta) for their First Amendment protected editorial discretion. www.regulations.gov/document/FTC...

submitted 7 days ago • 34 comments

This is also what happened when Elon said that if the United Nations could present him a plan to solve world hunger he would pay for it and then they presented him a plan and he ended up rage tweeting that the UN didn’t have oversight to where to would go and put it all into his own foundation.

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

The CISA manages the .gov domain registrar and the national public key infrastructure (PKI). This means Elon Musk has the ability to shut down any federal, state, or city department/agency/commission using a .gov domain. (The DoD manages .mil domains, they are not under CISA authority)

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

The difference between 8 million and 8 billion is about 8 billion. Or, to put it another way, 8 billion is also a 1,000x more than 8 million. Forget the myths the media has created about tech bros. The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

If you wanted to cut waste, fraud, and abuse, you would empower the inspectors general. If you wanted more waste, fraud, and abuse, you would fire them.

submitted 11 days ago • 2290 comments

Musk said DOGE would be maximally transparent, and it is, it’s so transparent its database is open to the public!

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

This letter, from now-resigned prosecutor Danielle Sassoon to Pam Bondi, is worth reading in full. Simply put, there is no non-corrupt reason for dismissing Eric Adams’ case. The Trump DOJ is itself obstructing both justice and the rule of law. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

submitted 14 days ago • 75 comments

In the week before Trump took power, CFPB: - ordered Equifax to pay $15M - ordered a major auto lender to return $10M to customers - ordered CashApp to refund $120M to customers - sued Capital One for cheating people out of interest payments This week it's closed.

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

This is an absolutely astonishing report. DOGE did a complete takeover of CFPB’s systems at the root. This is identical to worst case scenarios for the most devastating cyberattacks by foreign actors, only this is an internal threat

submitted 17 days ago • 69 comments

Wrote a response to the Musk/Trump supporters who keep yelling jubilantly at me "the people voted for this so shut up" www.techdirt.com/2025/02/10/n...

submitted 17 days ago • 22 comments

NEW: How did Elon Musk actually recruit for DOGE? Using Palantir-linked, young engineers who fanned out across online chat groups and Discord servers: www.wired.com/story/elon-m...

submitted 19 days ago • 66 comments

NEW: An internal email obtained by WIRED from a threat intelligence team monitoring US Treasury systems advised labeling DOGE operatives an "insider threat," adding that it recommended suspending their access "immediately." | www.wired.com/story/treasu...

submitted 20 days ago • 336 comments

I linked DOGE staffer Marko Elez to a deleted X account that advocated repealing the Civil Rights Act, backed a “eugenic immigration policy,” and wrote, “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity." He just resigned. www.wsj.com/tech/doge-st...

submitted 21 days ago • 1575 comments

New: @propublica.org is tracking who's in Musk's DOGE crew. 20+ names so far including some that haven't yet been reported.

submitted 21 days ago • 34 comments

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments

A federal judge has just ordered Musk to get out of Treasury’s computers. We are fortunate there are good lawyers representing democracy. Normally that would end the matter, but in this era there are legit questions about compliance & enforcement. We live on the edge of a constitutional crisis.

submitted 21 days ago • 864 comments

A teen DOGE staffer recently given access to government systems worked at a startup known for hiring convicted hackers. Someone using a Telegram handle associated with him also solicited a cyberattack-for-hire service in 2022. All raising questions about his vetting. www.wired.com/story/edward...

submitted 22 days ago • 1277 comments

If Joe Biden had brought George Soros in as an “efficiency expert” and let him have widespread access to federal government data, Republicans would have impeached Biden and sent a rocket to the moon using the fire coming out of Fox News hosts. But Elon Musk? No problem.

submitted 22 days ago • 3 comments

If you want a long, but very thorough, read on just how crazy dangerous the situation is with Elon, @brockm.bsky.social has laid it all out in a single article. Please read it. www.techdirt.com/2025/02/05/t...

submitted 22 days ago • 78 comments

Hi Bluesky! I’m a 26-year-old Democrat and programmer. I spent over two years at Twitter leaving when Dorsey left. I’m now focused on getting good people elected down the ballot and building tech for positive change. Excited to be here!

submitted 26 days ago • 0 comments