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

I had a front row seat to watch 18F get started a dozen years ago by some of the smartest and most dedicated public servants I’ve ever met. Their work saved countless lives, and yes, hundreds of millions, probably billions, of dollars. But just as significantly: it made government more responsive.

submitted 3 days ago • 13 comments

Back in the mid-20th century, the FBI could place an individual under surveillance solely for being LGBTQ. This is what enabled the anti-queer witch hunts of the McCarthy era. Now, DHS permits surveillance of LGBTQ people again. Just being queer makes you a suspect. www.advocate.com/politics/dhs...

submitted 3 days ago • 16 comments

My latest piece for @teenvogue.com delves into the horrific story of popular skincare ingredient Retin-A. Before Retin-A was approved by the FDA in 1971, it had been tested on hundreds of incarcerated Black people in Philadelphia, without their informed consent. The survivors still bear the scars.

submitted 2 days ago • 71 comments

dems are probably going to eat shit from fox & newsmax & the NYT for this for a news cycle. or until the recession hits. you’re going to hate that i’m asking this, but if you have a dem senator who voted to stop this, you should call & tell them “good job. we like when you fight. keep it up.”

submitted 19 hours ago • 47 comments

280 million acres of national parks? Gone? SPEAK UP.

submitted 16 hours ago • 18 comments

Senate Democrats blocked a GOP-led bill that would ban transgender athletes from women’s and girls’ sports at federally funded schools and educational institutions.

submitted 18 hours ago • 62 comments

Every public good — research science and data — and service they are wrecking, Americans will have to pay a private corporation 10x the amount for They’ve decided your kids only need a high school education and then can be “workers” History doesn’t exist anymore What aren’t people getting here?

submitted 15 hours ago • 12 comments

100% it's a monetary issue too. When I write posts debunking viral misinfo I LOSE subscribers (aka lose vital subscription revenue I rely on to pay rent) bc ppl don't like to have their narratives challenged. If I was to just feed these moral panic viral misinfo stories I'd be making thousands of $$

submitted 15 hours ago • 11 comments

NEWS: The USAID official put on leave for disseminating two memos about Rubio's failure to push through life-saving foreign aid was in the process of writing a THIRD memo when fired. We obtained it. It's far more alarming than the first two. www.thebulwark.com/p/what-a-wee...

submitted 1 day ago • 248 comments

@coin-indivisible.bsky.social @indivisibleclack.bsky.social @washcodems.bsky.social @multdems.bsky.social

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Hope to see you there

submitted 1 day ago • 1095 comments

That because Garry Kasparov is right: They don’t expect to have to win again.

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

Pete Hegseth just reportedly ordered the US military’s Cyber Command to “stand down” from all planning against Russia. Analysts have been ordered not to follow or report on Russian threats. One inside source said, “Putin is on the inside now.”

submitted 2 days ago • 1325 comments

This script is now updated to reflect Trump and Vance's Oval Office ambush on Zelensky. That being said, this is also a good time to make clear the American people are with Ukraine no matter what the Russian client in the White House does. I'm a regular donor to Come Back Alive - you can be too!

submitted 1 day ago • 3 comments

Foreign press coverage of our collapse into competitive authoritarianism has been vastly better than that of our own press & is the mirror image of @brendannyhan.bsky.social's "What would you say if you saw this happening in another country?" We <are> the other country & they see us for who we are.

submitted 1 day ago • 6 comments

Here's a question to ask: if he's a special government employee he has to file a conflict of interest OGE-450 form & have it signed by a White House lawyer. If he owned any crypto, he had to disclose, & if he did, the WH attorney would say either he has to sell it or he can't work on crypto. Did he?

submitted 1 day ago • 16 comments

Seeing a Palestinian and an Israeli stand together on stage, winning the Oscar's Best Documentary for "No Other Land" was one of my happier moments since October 7th. Basel Adra and Yuval Avraham gave a joint message of peace and hope, calling for justice and showing that we are better together.

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

old Soviet joke for our times: Guy stops by the newsstand every day, scans the front page, doesn’t buy the paper. One day the vendor asks what he’s up to. Guy says: “looking for an obituary.” Vendor says “those are towards the back of the paper, comrade.” Guy says: “not the one I’m looking for.”

submitted 1 day ago • 284 comments

The Heritage Foundation is the extreme right-wing org behind the recent Trump Supreme Court picks & much of Project 2025. They're surveying folks about DOGE. You know what to do. secured.heritage.org/the-doge-sur...

submitted 1 day ago • 11 comments

The Bay Area weather radar (KMUX) has been out of service for more than 24 hours now. An expensive broken part needs to be replaced and specially ordered, but that may not be possible due to ongoing freeze on government credit card spending, I’ve been told.

submitted 1 day ago • 77 comments

In a leaked recording, State Senator Elena Parent (D-42) said she’d vote for Republican transgender healthcare bans because trans rights are too “unpopular." "You can go right to heck. I don’t think I will lose re-election based on you screaming at me"

submitted 1 day ago • 594 comments

This is the second time USAID/State is punishing people revealing the truth that Marco is killing children. They're quite desperate to hide this fact, as if the reporters in Africa or court declarations are making it up.

submitted 1 day ago • 79 comments

NEW: USAID's acting asst administrator, Nick Enrich, has been placed on leave after sharing a memo detailing how political appointees have "wholly prevented" staff from continuing life saving aid.

submitted 1 day ago • 165 comments

Donald Trump promised he wouldn't cut Medicaid. This week, his friends in DC voted for a bill that would leave 3.4 million Illinoisans, including 1.4 million children, in the dust. Another middle finger to working families and the most vulnerable in our state.

submitted 1 day ago • 97 comments

Today, in a meeting at the White House, the only person actually defending American interests was Zelenskyy. Let that sink in.

submitted 3 days ago • 543 comments

This is the most wretched campaign of deliberate, explicit persecution the United States has perpetrated against a minority group in decades. Many of the most important people in politics and journalism are busying themselves trying to figure out how little to say or do about it.

submitted 10 days ago • 253 comments

Imagine being a teenage girl now. Your male peers are all watching Andrew Tate and doing Nazi salutes and every week the most prestigious magazines in the world run a piece about how it’s a social emergency that you’re not having babies in the 10th grade.

submitted 2 days ago • 72 comments

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

NIH operates three cycles of grant review, approval for funding, and actual notice of award right now all three cycles are blocked if noncompeting awards are frozen, that's a fourth block American science is running out of oxygen because of an acute airway obstruction

submitted 2 days ago • 9 comments

not only will we lose a ton of specialized expertise, we will have a hard time ever getting it back because if we manage to pull ourselves out of this, the people who are interested in these jobs will know they do not come with the stability it was assumed they did

submitted 3 days ago • 33 comments

Just read this graf. Share it with people you know who don’t pay attention to politics or news.

submitted 3 days ago • 853 comments

Musk’s hackers burglarized "a vast trove of information about the entire federal workforce” on OPM computers even as Trump was being sworn in — that is "hours before Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, was officially created by an executive order.” www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

submitted 4 days ago • 113 comments

NEW: Where does Speaker Mike Johnson live? In a house owned by a big GOP donor at the center of a pastor's campaign to break down the church/state wall. From @josh-kaplan.bsky.social, @justinelliott.bsky.social and @amierjeski.bsky.social of @propublica.org. www.propublica.org/article/mike...

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

We can’t match Elon Musk’s millions in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election. But we can all help stop a MAGA takeover of the highest court in this battleground state. No matter where you live, you can take action to elect Susan Crawford on April 1: indivisible.org/scowis2025

submitted 5 days ago • 24 comments

We’re all-in on electing @crawfordforwi.bsky.social and stopping Elon Musk from buying a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. @ezralevin.bsky.social explains why this upcoming election is a big deal for anybody who cares about our democracy. Let’s get to work: indivisible.org/scowis2025

submitted 5 days ago • 14 comments

The U.S. #NationalWeatherService, housed within #NOAA, is a truly world-class meteorological predictive service, perhaps singularly so. It costs only ~$3/yr per taxpayer, & yields ~10:1 return on investment--saving economy 10s-100s of billions, not to mention thousands of lives.

submitted 27 days ago • 62 comments

I can't think of a faster way to undermine the country than simultaneously firing government workers, cutting scientific research, rolling back protections on public health & environment, & cutting essential services. It's like the US was defeated in war and is being occupied by a hostile enemy.

submitted 5 days ago • 625 comments

Rubio terminated 5800 USAID contracts – more than 90% of its foreign aid programs – in defiance of the courts. Here’s a list of just some of the lifesaving awards that were terminated. Nearly all were Congressionally mandated. They’ve saved millions of lives. 🧵

submitted 4 days ago • 438 comments

Department of Education launched a DEI snitch portal if you want to flood it with spam. enddei.ed.gov

submitted 4 days ago • 112 comments

REMEMBER KIDS when flooding a snitch form, DON’T use obvious troll responses that can be filtered out with a query Use PLAUSIBLE FAKE data that will take TIME and EFFORT to run down. This poisons the entire data pool and makes it useless

submitted 4 days ago • 44 comments

"They have found no fraud, just democracy at work. They’re apparently eager to see what happens when it no longer does." www.wired.com/story/doge-w...

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments