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

The Declaration of Independence noted that one of the King George’s tyrannical acts was: He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

submitted 2 hours ago • 1 comment

“But remember: the vast majority of art is not profitable. Neither are most of the things that make life survivable.” The state is not a business enterprise, and applying “business efficiency” logics to state stuff is incoherent. It’s a failure of civic formation that Americans believe otherwise.

submitted 4 hours ago • 3 comments

“But I didn’t save them — I didn’t save them,” she said…Jeff leaned forward and said with a seasoned assurance, “How could anybody save somebody from an AR-15?”

submitted 4 hours ago • 1 comment

Managers at agencies, you are in a tough spot, but that's why you are a leader. Get official guidance from your agency's Office of General Counsel, signed in writing, before proceeding with any of this malarkey, as well as any of the firings. You don't work for a consultant in the White House.

submitted 5 hours ago • 1 comment

⚡️💰UPDATE: The bill from Rep. Todd Warner (R) to rename Nashville’s airport “Trump International” has been tagged with a $10 MILLION fiscal note

submitted 5 hours ago • 50 comments

This isn’t drugs. This is him assuming other people don’t work because he doesn’t do that much work. Very common bad boss behavior. bsky.app/profile/rcma...

submitted 6 hours ago • 142 comments

Lol. I missed that the author of NIST 800-63 Appendix A had formally apologized for his sins

submitted 17 hours ago • 11 comments

I scored a 1590 the only time I took the SAT and a 179 on the LSAT, but nobody hired me to be a professional test-taker so I ended up working for the government instead 😭

submitted 5 hours ago • 0 comments

Good morning everyone! Exactly 1 political lever exists right now: the government will be not funded as of March 14. The Dems are signaling that they will not sign any appropriations bill without guarantees Russell Vought and Elon Musk are controlled. This is a correct strategy.

submitted 6 hours ago • 1 comment

been thinking a lot about this quote lately “There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said -- no. But somehow we missed it.” ― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

submitted 20 hours ago • 46 comments

This is the ultimate dick boss move from Musk - except he isn’t even the boss, he’s just a dick.

submitted 20 hours ago • 963 comments

"'We’re bringing attention to what’s happening to the parks, which are every American’s properties,' said Gavin Carpenter, a maintenance mechanic with Yosemite and military veteran who supplied the flag and helped hang it." www.sfchronicle.com/outdoors/art...

submitted 6 hours ago • 18 comments

You know who is good at rooting out fraud and ghost employees (which is not a thing) in government agencies?!? The inspectors general you fired!

submitted 6 hours ago • 18 comments

FFS this guy. 1) In my agency employees must fill out and electronically sign a time sheet (with smart card and PIN) every two weeks, as one basic check 2) With a one-day email deadline, lots of people on leave, in hospital, remote travel, or don't check their non-classified email daily

submitted 6 hours ago • 10 comments

Hegseth says firing of top military lawyers was about making sure "they don't exist to be roadblocks to anything that happens."

submitted 6 hours ago • 2929 comments

Trump and the Republicans are taking your money the old-fashioned way: by stealing it

submitted 8 hours ago • 0 comments

One thing DOGE has gutted is an effort to REFORM how the US divvies up donated organs. www.propublica.org/article/trum...

submitted 8 hours ago • 37 comments

Musk’s cuts are about demoralization and enshittification of public goods, making things break so that people stop supporting them. We must speak up for research and public workers, and support their unions in their legal fights to restore these jobs. open.substack.com/pub/annehele...

submitted 8 hours ago • 0 comments

DOGE = Damaging Our aGricultural Environment 😡😡 1/8

submitted 17 hours ago • 42 comments

Strong letter from Rep. Gerry Connolly (ranking Dem on House Oversight Committee) to acting OPM Director Chuck Ezell re: 5 bullets email. Calls it “illegal, reckless, and yet another example of the cruel and arbitrary chaos Mr. Musk” has inflicted. Says he must clarify non-response≠resignation.

submitted 17 hours ago • 45 comments

Students of American demography will note that this was when, proportionally, the US was accepting the most immigrants

submitted 17 hours ago • 7 comments

Depression in 1873 and 1894. Panic in 1907.

submitted 17 hours ago • 1 comment

I am sad to share that all Retirement & Disability Research centers have been ordered to stop work. My fellowship will no longer exist, and the work of so many talented researchers and dedicated staff will be cut short. www.ssa.gov/news/press/r...

submitted 1 day ago • 14 comments

This is the House Republican budget plan that Donald Trump endorsed. Trickle up economics.

submitted 17 hours ago • 211 comments

submitted 19 hours ago • 0 comments

From a FOIA perspective, "the entire federal workforce should write down and email what they did last week" is extremely funny

submitted 20 hours ago • 193 comments

PRAMS is the source of data for basically every effort to limit infant mortality and all the health dangers mothers face before and after birth. So a pretty big deal the Elon and Co decided to cancel the program.

submitted 23 hours ago • 68 comments

This attack on maternal and infant health makes me wild. Pregnancy, birthing, and labour are all dangerous. People routinely died before modern medicine and they are maimed or die still. We are undoing hard fought, lifesaving work and now you have to hear about my uterus in punishment: a 🧵.

submitted 23 hours ago • 1 comment

NIH advisers have been unable to meet and recommend funding for research grants because the Trump admin has blocked the ability to post meetings in the Federal Register, which is required before advisory councils can meet. 🧪 wapo.st/4hOuZed

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

What’s laughable is how little waste they have found. Every Silicon Valley enterprise I’ve been a part of blows a month’s rent daily on sushi and Uber Black

submitted 1 day ago • 15 comments

Current status: we're smuggling eggs in from Mexico now. So let's talk about WHY Mexico's egg industry has been stable- while US egg prices are through the roof! 1. Mexico puts people in jail for price-fixing. 2. Mexico lets farmers vaccinate their chickens against bird flu.

submitted 1 day ago • 30 comments

Side note. There are eight members of the joint chiefs. the chair is black. the CNO (navy) is a woman. the other six are white guys. chair and the cno got fired tonight.

submitted 1 day ago • 1090 comments

I feel like I'm going insane every time I see a media story about DOGE that doesn't also mention the fact that the Government Accountability Office exists and performs the exact function that DOGE pretends to, only in a credibly constitutional, non-partisan, and conflict-of-interest-free manner

submitted 7 days ago • 186 comments

again: "ICE operates by Vampire Rules" is an objectively true and also funny statement

submitted 1 day ago • 11 comments

Great letter from my colleagues @sbagen.bsky.social, @mjschlanger.bsky.social and other legal scholars across the country explaining why it is not necessary to start eliminating university programs because Trump

submitted 3 days ago • 6 comments

another great example along with Wired and Teen Vogue of how real journalism these days can be a lot braver at outlets where no one is trying to get in good with the White House press secretary they’re out here with us, reporting on what’s happening to us all, instead of trying to get inside access

submitted 1 day ago • 33 comments

This is climate arson, yes, but also the entire value proposition of Tesla, the reason for its insane stock price, is that it would end up the Amazon of electric cars: the only real game in town. Killing off non-Tesla electric car infrastructure is a gift to Musk.

submitted 1 day ago • 555 comments

This is key to understanding the building outrage & backlash that extends way beyond the hurt of those fired. Firing people for no reason is brutal & loathsome but the even larger overall offense is wiping out all the fired people’s jobs with them, all the purposes & needs & value those jobs serve.

submitted 1 day ago • 40 comments

btw, i will tell you this - i have been talking to people all day, and the media is missing, whether intentionally or not, how absolutely, volcanically angry the people who have been fired are, not because they lost their jobs, but because their jobs matter, to us

submitted 1 day ago • 62 comments

alright, for the evening crowd, i've got a rhythm worked out and have already had the opportunity to talk to a few of you. if you're interested in participating, read the write-up here and then holler at me using the instructions and we can figure out a time that works.

submitted 1 day ago • 4 comments

after hearing from several of you last night, i think i have a general structure for this. it's subject to change based on feedback, but if you're a current, fired, or currently-being-litigated federal worker, i want to hear from you. here are the details.

submitted 2 days ago • 9 comments

"During the meeting, Ukraine was told it faced imminent shutoff of the Starlink service if it did not reach a deal on critical minerals, said the source, who requested anonymity to discuss closed negotiations." Astonishing betrayal of an ally. www.reuters.com/business/us-...

submitted 1 day ago • 151 comments

Just look at these paragraphs from the AP story. Hegseth called Brown unqualified solely because he's Black. Then they fired him... and replaced him with a white guy so indisputably unqualified that he requires a Presidential waiver. This is what "merit" means to them. apnews.com/article/trum...

submitted 1 day ago • 493 comments

There’s only one reason to fire and replace the JAGs and it ain’t a good one.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

by the way these are literally the exact same dumbass motherfuckers, not like them, the literal exact same fucking guys, saying government is inefficient and you should cancel it to give them all the governments money so they can provide you services instead

submitted 2 days ago • 32 comments