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

yeah -- ground beef hit an all-time high last week, and nobody appears to be reporting on that www.bls.gov/charts/consu...

submitted 1 day ago • 80 comments

What the ever loving heck is this? Back then we had dumb presidents? I feel like folks should be familiar enough with logical fallacies to recognize blatant ad hominem attacks.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

We’ve bombed Iran. And dismantled our joint terrorism task force. And sent a third of the FBI to help ICE. And gutted the National Security Council. And a drunk guy is in charge at the pentagon. And our intelligence allies probably won’t share intel with us. Because people couldn’t vote for a woman.

submitted 1 day ago • 2766 comments

submitted 4 days ago • 14 comments

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

submitted 4 days ago • 557 comments

Illinois has enshrined protections to meet this very moment. In a time of increasing overreach and hateful rhetoric, it's more important than ever to reaffirm our commitment to the rights and dignity of the LGBTQ+ community. You have a home here always.

submitted 5 days ago • 254 comments

Pretty striking how trans people are two of the three reasons he gives for sending armed kidnappers into major cities, just detached scapegoating for the sake of scapegoating

submitted 7 days ago • 8 comments

DING DONG!! DING DONG!!!

submitted 12 days ago • 65 comments

Public schools are awesome. Chorus, band, orchestra plus plus plus. So much for the kids to do and learn. On top of that, diversity on full display and it makes life so much more fun.

submitted 16 days ago • 24 comments

When I feel powerless amidst all the crazy, it's helpful to me to just do something. My something was taking the time to talk to NPR about why we should not cut federal data collection. I realize it won't change many minds. But it was something: www.marketplace.org/episode/2025... #econsky #dataecon

submitted 19 days ago • 27 comments

Imagine outsourcing all your thinking to a guy who still only has two Pokémon badges after 80 hours of gameplay.

submitted 21 days ago • 88 comments

They are not looking for legal counsel. It is really good for folks generally to be aware of whether actions are legal or illegal since laws are part of our nation’s social contract.

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments

Huge opportunity for a political party that believes government can do good things. Public opinion is finally shifting after 50 years of right wing anti-government propaganda. This isn't the time for cowering and throat clearing www.cnn.com/2025/06/01/p...

submitted 22 days ago • 116 comments

It’s Fustilarian Friday again. This week: NSF all but abolished in the President’s proposed budget.

submitted 23 days ago • 2 comments

How RFKjr decimated the pipeline of new Covid and flu vaccines to reward his crony Matt Memoli.

submitted 24 days ago • 17 comments

Main character energy is OUT, this summer we’re bringing NPC energy. We’re posted up at the bar dropping lore and suggesting side quests. We’re leaning casually near a locked door and saying “I don’t think you have the key for that” when someone tries the handle. We’re staring at a tree.

submitted 25 days ago • 23 comments

I recently reviewed the public financing of all 134 facilities hosting MiLB teams, and it revealed that the stadium boondoggle problem may be worse at lower levels, bc these smaller municipalies lack the fiscal capacity to absorb the losses. www.yourobserver.com/news/2025/ap...

submitted 30 days ago • 2 comments

Since 1980, "small government" parties aim to erode/end official statistics when elected, so they can shape the narrative. Here's the 2010 episode in Canada, and why influential economists (including Carney) said it mattered. Unfolding in the U.S. now. www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-bu...

submitted 31 days ago • 0 comments

Boyle: We just verified with the congressional budget office and of 13.7 million Americans who will lose their health care because of their bill, exactly zero are undocumented immigrants

submitted 32 days ago • 372 comments

Warnock: You literally have, in real time, the leader of another nation-state—in this case, South Africa—there to talk to him about trade, and he’s saying, “Sorry, Mr. President, we don’t have a plane to offer you.” And you see why we have an Emoluments Clause in the first place.

submitted 32 days ago • 422 comments

This is absolutely terrible news. With the shifting regulatory climate (i.e., antivax ratfuckery), Moderna has withdrawn their application for their eagerly anticipated COVID-flu combo vaccine. This vaccine offered better protection than getting each shot separately. h/t @merz.bsky.social

submitted 32 days ago • 400 comments

When you reduce staff, you have to cut services. It’s incumbent upon the people to express that these services have value to the folks making these decisions.

submitted 33 days ago • 0 comments

No one: US Senate: what if we take a fringe financial technology with absolutely no use cases outside illicit finance, and make it a systemic risk?

submitted 34 days ago • 22 comments

The biggest story few are talking about: CBO projects that the government's interest rate never exceeds 3.6% over 30 years. If rates remain at 4.5%, that adds $40 trillion more to interest costs over 30 years - as much as adding a second Defense Department.

submitted 35 days ago • 1 comment

Here's the last thing Pope Francis said about Universal Basic Income before he died. He described it as "strict justice" in light of unpaid care and also public investment in R&D and infrastructure. "Every fortune is the product of many people and many generations." UBI is our rightful inheritance.

submitted 34 days ago • 6 comments

Cato has published my comprehensive review of the ~240 Venezuelans the US government renditioned 2 months ago to Salvador’s notorious prison. We identified FIFTY who came legally, never violated any immigration law, but are imprisoned at the US government’s request and at US taxpayer expense.

submitted 35 days ago • 261 comments

Did you know that when your local rural hospital shuts down because of the Medicaid cuts, the 75-mile drive to the nearest one that isn't shut down is still 75 miles no matter how good your insurance is?

submitted 35 days ago • 165 comments

If secure bike parking were as available and trusted as car parking garages, you’d likely see more openness to detouring onto safer, quieter streets—just as drivers do. The theft fear makes bike infrastructure behave more like a rolling safe zone than a transportation network.

submitted 36 days ago • 11 comments

people need to internalize, very quickly, that federal research grants are a hypercompetitive contracting process not charity, and that what Uncle Sam gets in return for that money is American dominance in the future

submitted 36 days ago • 162 comments

GOP plans to increase the tax rate by 74% by 2031 for people earning $15,000 yearly.

submitted 39 days ago • 709 comments

The World Health Organization’s pandemic agreement represents a powerful commitment to global health and security, writes @nschwalbe.bsky.social #WHA78 www.bmj.com/content/389/...

submitted 40 days ago • 1 comment

DeLAURO: Are you planning to break the law by impounding appropriated funds? RFK Jr: If you appropriate the funds, I'm going to spend them D: We have! You're cutting the NIH by $18b. Congress appropriated those funds. How can you justify cutting billions from the biomedical research budget?

submitted 40 days ago • 741 comments

There was one thing RFK Junior said today that made a lot of sense so I’m gonna share it:

submitted 40 days ago • 232 comments

Portugal is taking online disinformation and fake news seriously. As part of a broader attempt to encourage media literacy, it’s offering 15-18 year olds a free digital subscription to a range of respected newspapers and magazines as well as online upstarts that don’t spread lies. (Monocle)

submitted 40 days ago • 122 comments

My daughter’s speech therapist went out of business because Medicaid reimbursement rates were too low. We do not have Medicaid. I’m going to keep posting this until people understand that when Medicaid gets cut everyone loses services.

submitted 42 days ago • 161 comments

This is the reminder that SNAP makes money because ensuring people have enough to eat is a basic economic multiplier

submitted 41 days ago • 34 comments

The topline impacts of the GOP budget bill on health care is 13.7 million more uninsured, increased costs for consumers, and massive cuts to the hospitals and health providers we all rely on. But there's lots of details that each are infuriating in their own way.. small stuff with big implications.

submitted 42 days ago • 10 comments

This one hurts. Digging through old newspapers is actually a really important part of democracy.

submitted 42 days ago • 1 comment

staffers are still cleaning up the Kristi Noem mess after she got gutted/filleted by @chrismurphyct.bsky.social this is A MOMENT. #MustWatch 🧢 @trumpfile.org

submitted 46 days ago • 1396 comments

The response every sane person expected… #econsky

submitted 48 days ago • 9 comments