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justputmeg.bsky.social
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Today, February 23, is the birthday of Jo’Zie Shane Brown. He died at 7 in his home. Nicknamed “Turkey” by his mom, Jo’Zie was a star in the classroom, on the basketball court and the football field. He enjoyed video games and time spent with his Little Eagle football teammates.

Alarmed leaders of the Social Security Admin opened investigation into an employee they believed was improperly sharing info with Musk DOGE, violating privacy & tax laws. So Trump has hired him as our new acting Social Security Chief www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

“More than a quarter of the contracts listed by DOGE were actually already paid, the Journal found, saving no money. For instance, DOGE listed $168,000 in savings for terminating a contract with HHS for an Anthony Fauci museum exhibit. It had already been fully paid.” Beyond parody.

WIRED health & biotech writer here. If you're a USDA employee working on the government's response to the H5N1 bird flu outbreak and would like to speak securely about what's happening at the agency, please reach out to me on Signal at emullin.06. I can honor requests for anonymity.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Translation: We’re cyber fucked: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/o...

Inside job

What do voters think about Elon Musk and his rampage through the US Government? A banger episode of The Focus Group pod with @karaswisher.bsky.social ‬⁩ who blows my mind with a couple of insight about Elon’s endgame.

Listen to @radiofreetom.bsky.social! "Now that Trump has captured the intelligence services, the Justice Department, and the FBI, the military is the last piece he needs to establish the foundations for authoritarian control of the U.S. government."

New: Elon Musk’s team has descended on an already understaffed Social Security Administration, which now faces further workforce cuts and closures of vital local offices. The consequences could be significant for millions of the most vulnerable Americans. www.propublica.org/article/doge...

Running thread of people trying to normalize the sieg heil. It's not an "Elon gesture", it's not autism, it's not your heart going out, it's not parody or trolling. It's fucking despicable. Don't ever let this shit become normal. Fuck any excuse given, there is none. Zero tolerance. 1. Elon Musk

I still can’t believe that Donald Trump berated a governor and said “I am the law” yesterday. And it was like the fourth most important news of the day.

We are arms dealers to terrorists.

Trump pardoned the sentence of arguably the single biggest drug trafficker in American history on his second day in office!

Found myself thinking today about this Twitter thread I wrote up in 2018 meditating on the possibility that the party of Lincoln & Douglass, the party that saved the union & refounded it on the principle of equality, might end up replacing the Constitution with white nationalist authoritarianism.

okay, it’s time for me to finally weigh in: it’s probably a bad sign that guys are just doing sieg heils in public again

The Google AI results at the top of searches are so pointless. We have a resource (the internet!) that knows everything, and instead of going to the source, it's like you asked your stupid cousin who is trying to recall the information from a podcast he heard last week.

This is Kegan. She has a broken leg and dislocated hip from being hit by a car. Even though she's in pain and can hardly move, her tail never stops wagging. You can help us cover her much needed surgery and support her recovery below ❤️‍🩹 15outof10.org/kegan

Today, Feb 21, is the birthday of Carmen Marie Schentrup. She died at Marjory Stoneman Douglas in 2018, 1 week before her 17th birthday. Carmen was an excellent student who maintained straight As, had already been identified as a Natl Merit Finalist & accepted into the honors program at Univ of FL.

NEW: Pregnancy became far more dangerous in Texas after the state banned abortion, according to ProPublica’s first-of-its-kind analysis, which found the sepsis rate for women hospitalized as they miscarried in the 2nd trimester shot up by more than 50%. https://propub.li/43487Tj

Here's a look at how the DOGE claim of $55 billion in estimated savings -> ~$16 billion in "receipts" -> (actually ~$8 billion because of a typo) -> = just $2 billion in verified potential savings Contract data shows the math doesn't add up:

this is devastating and also an achingly beautiful portrait of an amazing woman and a lovely relationship. www.npr.org/2025/02/20/g...

The good news is i saved you 60 billion dollars. The bad news is that is a typo i saved you 600 dollars and also your plane is falling out of the sky

The Senate has taken the incredible/inevitable decision to confirm Kash "Qanon" Patel as director of the FBI The Deep State must be shaking in their boots www.wired.com/story/kash-p...

The CDC has an ultra-competitive 2-year program to train "the best of the best" to lead public health labs. Most of the current class were terminated over the weekend. www.science.org/content/arti... (by @meredithwadman.bsky.social)

Pay attention, folks. A massive betrayal of this country is happening before our eyes.

Trump is dismantling America's defenses against Russian intelligence and political-warfare operations as he allies himself with Putin against Ukraine and our NATO allies. He is openly inviting a Russian attack on Europe -- and the subversion of American democracy. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/20/b...

Democratic leaders are about to learn a very real, very hard lesson about the differences between appeasement and fighting hard and "strategic silence" versus a sustained media messaging campaign. They're now going to face life-changing investigations and likely arrests.

NEW: A first-of-its-kind analysis by @propublica.org found that the sepsis rate in second-trimester pregnancy loss hospitalizations increased by more than 50% after Texas’ near-total abortion ban went into effect in September 2021. www.propublica.org/article/texa...

I remember in 2020 being astounded when Trump fielded a press question about QAnon. This internet cult is so widespread it’s being MENTIONED in the White House. It’s getting WAY out of hand! Now a regular guest on QAnon podcasts is the FBI director. www.nbcnews.com/politics/jus...

An example of how question wording matters in surveys: Democrats are more concerned than Republicans about "gun violence," while Republicans are more concerned than Democrats about "violent crime." (For context, ~80% of all US murders involve a gun.) www.pewresearch.org/politics/202...

So if you criticize Elon Musk, Trump’s DOJ will send you this letter. Members of Congress must have the right to forcefully oppose the Trump Administration. I will not be silenced.

The root that tears apart your foundation begins as a seed of distrust, hate, and blame. The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

US Rep Michael McCaul of Texas, one of Biden’s critics on Afghanistan, said in a recent interview with CBS News that the U.S. needed to “live up to our word” to protect Afghan allies. “Otherwise, down the road, in another conflict, no one’s going to trust us.” www.texastribune.org/2025/02/19/t...

Trump’s executive orders have blocked entrance to the country for thousands of Afghans, including those who worked with the U.S. military and their relatives. Story by @lomikriel.bsky.social www.texastribune.org/2025/02/20/t...

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

1/29: First plane crash in 16 years in DC 1/31: Crash in Philly 2/5: Delta flight struck in Seattle 2/6: Flight wrecks in Alaska 2/10: Crash in Scottsdale 2/12: Military jet crashes in San Diego 2/16: Crash in Covington, GA 7 crashes since the WH congratulated itself for “restoring aviation safety”

REVEALED: we identified the operator of an overtly racist X account, "GlomarResponder," as ICE Assistant Chief Counsel James Rodden, based on an overwhelming number of biographical details matched through publicly available documents, other social media activity, and courtroom observation.

Clapping when your plane lands now seems appropriate again

The Freedom of Information Act is an essential pillar of transparency and democratic accountability for the US government. Eliminating the capacity to comply with laws in general, and FOIA specifically, is a ticking grenade under our democracy.

Democrats must make clear that, of course, we believe in changing government for the better - and show how different that is from Trump's destruction of government's capacity to protect workers, consumers, and families.

NEW: You need to update Signal to protect against a Russia-developed phishing technique that uses manipulated QR codes to link your Signal to an attacker’s device, thus giving access to all your messages going forward. @agreenberg.bsky.social reports: www.wired.com/story/russia...