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

Lots of GOP House members have large numbers of federal employees in their districts. Yes, DC metro is hardest hit by DOGE, but the pain from cuts will be felt across the country. crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/...

submitted 3 hours ago • 1 comment

There’s a shutdown threat and constitutional standoff between Congress and the President, but reconciliation receives the most attention from many outlets. I can’t explain it. Glad to read pieces like this though. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

submitted 7 hours ago • 6 comments

It is hard to think of a better example of really poor framing in political coverage. "next savior"? a "responsibility he wants"? Just completely removes voters from the picture. A better question: do voters want him? Does he actually appeal to them?

submitted 1 day ago • 3 comments

Ah yes, putting the "fraud" into "we're finding waste and fraud in spending": wapo.st/3DcnJcP

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Great advice from one of the nation’s best civil servants, @erie.bsky.social eriemeyer.medium.com/so-you-still...

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

It’s a great thing that universities in other countries won’t take advantage of this opportunity to reel in smart, talented people.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

MORE #FOIA news

submitted 2 days ago • 5 comments

If GOP members of Congress and governors will need to directly beg the administration for spending/favors, I would expect to see a pretty sizable upswing in political spending at Trump properties in the near term. Yesterday was an FEC filing day (what, you missed it?) but for January activity.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Weird, huh? (Also, that's a terrible social image, @houstonchronicle.com) www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outl...

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

Insanity.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

For the record, it is not common for journalists to use AI to draft articles. Certainly not at reputable outlets. I helped draft STAT’s AI policy and we specifically forbid that. www.statnews.com/stat-policy-...

submitted 2 days ago • 7 comments

Great talk on how NYT is using A.I. in the newsroom by @zachseward.com (my boss). Spoiler alert: If A.I. is used, it's as a background element in the reporting process, often to find needles in document/data haystacks, and always with human review. www.zachseward.com/my-panel-at-...

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

A political party has three components: party in government party organization party electorate The Dem party in government is so strong that no one has challenged Schumer or Jeffries for the leadership despite an angry Dem party organization & electorate.

submitted 3 days ago • 4 comments

Legit love the idea of "hug reports" in open source development: pranavkhadpe.github.io/assets/publi...

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

A reasonably effective workaround for this problem is for educators to create lessons and lesson plans for people to use as system prompts for the models Info in prompts almost always overrides info baked into the model weights, unless the model itself has been actively trained for misinformation

submitted 3 days ago • 8 comments

After Texas' 2021 abortion ban, the rate of sepsis for women hospitalized with pregnancy loss increased by more than 50%, our analysis found.

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

The DOGE firings have nothing to do with “efficiency” or “cutting waste.” They’re a direct push to weaken federal agencies perceived as liberal. This was evident from the start, and now the data confirms it: targeted agencies overwhelmingly those seen as more left-leaning. 🧵⬇️

submitted 3 days ago • 248 comments

How do you link a government official to an anonymous social media account that asserts, among other things, that "America is a White nation?" Like this. www.texasobserver.org/ice-prosecut...

submitted 3 days ago • 61 comments

Rep. Sarah McBride, D-Del., sends out a fundraising email to Sen. John Fetterman's list, which I think is the first time I've seen her campaign use someone else's list:

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

If I were a journalist I would go through DOGE's wall of receipts and start calling the companies to ask them how they are responding to the federal government breaking their contract.

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

After the federal layoffs No staff to collect admission! So the JFK Museum is free Doubt this is a money-saver But free museum 👍🏼

submitted 4 days ago • 2 comments

Wow: City of Clarksdale, Mississippi got a court order yesterday directing a newspaper to delete an editorial criticizing city officials -- without a hearing. Here's the TRO issuing the prior restraint:

submitted 4 days ago • 256 comments

Saved for what, though?

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

Hey all, I need some feedback here and I am thinking of opening up this repo to some collaborators, but I started a doc to try to track the activities of DOGE across various agencies on their "IT modernization" crusade github.com/harrisj/trum... Feedback wanted on what is useful/would be better

submitted 5 days ago • 8 comments

Whatever Jack Blanchard's failings, his editor deserves particular blame for this getting published.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Our church went broke with $5 million in its endowment. Endowments aren't a magic pot of money - they have rules, often restrictive ones - and if we rely on them for too much, we become their prisoners.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Whole thread is good. I sometimes am surprised by fellow faculty who don’t understand a university’s “endowment” (big total) is really thousands of smaller funds often with donor strings allowing only specific uses. We learned this during 2020-21 when university budgets got kneecapped by COVID.

submitted 5 days ago • 2 comments

Baltimore "is the only place in Maryland where access to a car can determine academic success." www.thebaltimorebanner.com/education/k-...

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

The kids are alright (also, don't pick fights with creative teenagers).

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

If you have zero education, what you don't know is how to ask the right questions.

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

"Look, was flying safe when the Wright Brothers tried it? No, and everything turned out fine, so let's just take a breath and stop complaining." -- Some member of congress on a cable show soon

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

👀

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

One of the exercises I use in my data journalism class involves NC voter registration data where the data "shows" people aged 115 years+. My students are less credulous than the world's richest person.

submitted 6 days ago • 4 comments

i appreciate @jpt.sh, and owe him much, but i truly hope that there is no third wave of civic tech we need to move past the idea that technologists, merely because they are technologists, have something special and valuable to say about how our civics, politics, and social life are organized.

submitted 6 days ago • 3 comments

FANTASTIC ICPSR at U Mich is coordinating the archiving of at-risk federal data (all of it?) You can upload data you have & search for data you don’t have www.datalumos.org/datalumos/

submitted 9 days ago • 9 comments

Many of them are (subtly or not) encouraging it.

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

First mention of "enshitification" in my political fundraising emails inbox, from VoteVets today:

submitted 8 days ago • 3 comments

This is the most comprehensive Mississippi precinct results file we've ever produced.

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Feb. 14 update on converting official precinct results from the 2024 election: Done: MI, GA MS: 81 of 82 counties (+1) KY: 109/120 PA: 63/67 IN: 21/92 AZ: 10/15 OR: 29/36 (+5) NJ: 9/21 Interested in helping? github.com/orgs/openele...

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Mere observation isn’t the job.

submitted 8 days ago • 2 comments

CFPB's former chief technologist issues an urgent warning to the court that several years' worth of sensitive data is about to be destroyed, with damaging consequences storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

submitted 9 days ago • 53 comments