The paw paws are ripening in DC. 51st.news/where-to-fin...

This will be hard to enforce, as it will require humans to assess context, but it’s a response to the networked hostility that’s hurting the reputation of this platform. (That aside, given how social media works, @bsky.app & @safety.bsky.app team should refer to us all as creators, not “users.”)

Bluesky Safety@safety.bsky.app · 2d ago

Dogpiling or harassing users is unacceptable. We have taken recent action against accounts for this behavior, and we will be increasing our efforts, consistent with our Community Guidelines.

X censors & removes the accounts & tweets of people governments dislike, from Turkey to India. You can’t be a “global town square” if you don’t support press freedom, Internet freedom, & human rights by default against authoritarian actors. This is just more platform propaganda that hides the truth.

Ahead of the midterms, Trump isn’t even being subtle about his brazen politicization of federal disaster relief aid, explicitly tying approvals to campaign endorsements and election results. It’s one of the underappreciated scandals of his second term. www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

Trump approves disaster relief funds for 7 red states, after denying aid to blue states

Ahead of the midterm elections, the president isn’t even being subtle about his scandalous politicization of disaster aid.

ms.now

A nugget of welcome news from yesterday: the stopgap funding bill the House passed yesterday (already passed by the Senate) would block the OMB rule that would have hugely exacerbated politicization of federal grantmaking www.politico.com/news/2026/09...

In any government of the People, the records generated by public business belong to the public, not to presidents, legislators, mayors, judges, & officials entrusted with upholding our laws. Justices & officials in the judicial branch generate public records, not private papers. Fix it, Congress.

How the Supreme Court Locks Away Its Own History (Gift Article)

After Justice Scalia died, the justices held private negotiations about locking away their papers. We may not see the ultimate record of the Roberts court for decades.

nytimes.com

The idea that Supreme Court records are somehow special and not government records owned by the public is antithetical to representative government. Big "government of men, not laws" energy here.

Tom “T.M.” Wolf@tomtmwolf.bsky.social · 3d ago

Shocking story in here of Byron White and his clerks shredding his papers… www.nytimes.com/2026/09/01/u...

Perimenopause is *so* hot right now. Read @knibbs.bsky.social on the VC-backed, telehealth push to put millions of women on hormones--whether they need them or not:

Inside the Perimenopause Industrial Complex

How an alliance of tech startups, MAHA operatives, and actual medical experts made millennial women the new face of hormone therapy.

wired.com

The @nytimes.com reports that a whistleblower at @usps.gov alleges Trump officials are defying court orders on Americans voting by mail www.nytimes.com/2026/09/01/u... @blumenthal.senate.gov published the disclosure: www.blumenthal.senate.gov/imo/media/do... & asked the Postmaster-General questions.

Whistle-Blower Says USPS Is Secretly Proceeding on Trump’s Mail Voting Plan Before Midterms (Gift Article)

A report detailed “grave concerns” that a new system being rushed into use by the U.S. Postal Service could imperil millions of mail ballots ahead of the midterm elections.

nytimes.com

🇺🇸🏛️🦮🦮If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog. Or two.

Hello, DC. 700+ miles later, I am back to your hot, humid climes, enjoying cleaner air after the rain. Thank you for greeting us with a thunderstorm for the last miles of our journey from Maine. Nature’s perilous wonders & regional drivers made for a bracing reintroduction to our nation’s capital.

Absolutely heartbreaking. Read and bear witness.

Sally Hayden@sallyhayd.bsky.social · 5d ago

One of the most horrific stories I’ve ever reported was published this weekend. Please, everyone privileged in this world, read it and really think about what it means not to have freedom of travel. www.irishtimes.com/life-style/p...

Hiking in Acadia National Park amidst mist, sunshine, waves, & wildlife is a religious experience, for me. I’ve been refilling my soul with the wind & wilds of Maine & Cape Cod this summer, seeking healing & resilience in clean water & quiet woods against the cold, leaner seasons ahead. Onwards.

Former leaders of the National Archives are urging a federal appeals court to reject the Trump administration's effort to ignore the Presidential Records Act, a decades old law that requires presidents save all official records from their time in office. https://cnn.it/46oZwej

The Democratic Party has let a consulting industry exploit elderly donors in its name, wreck its reputation and finances in the process, and walk away rich whether the party wins or loses. When a mirror is held up, the instinct is to break the glass rather than look. On why the press looks away:

The Bulwark Killed an Investigation into Political Fundraising Spam After Its Publisher Took the Consultants’ Side

This is a story about the Democratic Party captured by its consultants, and about what happens when the pro-democracy press is asked to say so.

data4democracy.substack.com

BREAKING: After the Washington Post fired me last year for speaking the truth in the wake of the Charlie Kirk killing, I fought back. And I'm happy to announce: I won my case against the Washington Post. They have been ordered to reinstate me immediately. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/24/b...

Washington Post Ordered to Rehire Fired Columnist Karen Attiah

An arbitrator ordered the newspaper to reinstate Karen Attiah, who was fired after posting about “white men who espouse hatred and violence” following Charlie Kirk’s killing.

nytimes.com

Karen Attiah beat Bezos' Washington Post The arbitrator found no cause, no misconduct, nothing, & sent her back to work I join @maddow.bsky.social at 9 PM ET tonight to discuss this win for Karen & for journalists everywhere - TN

Washington Post Ordered to Rehire Fired Columnist Karen Attiah (Gift Article)

An arbitrator ordered the newspaper to reinstate Karen Attiah, who was fired after posting about “white men who espouse hatred and violence” following Charlie Kirk’s killing.

nytimes.com

The fundraising texts you delete are working on someone. It’s infuriating and heartbreaking. An 85yo in Ohio gave more than double the value of his home. A 91yo in an Indianapolis senior facility gave 25K times. The DCCC/DSCC don’t just tolerate the spammers who exploit seniors. They take part.

Hook and Squeeze

How Democratic consultants, committees, and party leaders built a fundraising spam pipeline that funnels money from a captive pool of elderly donors into their own operations.

data4democracy.substack.com

Study after study shows campaign ads barely move the needle. So where does money’s real power come from? I ranked the five ways money corrupts politics—from least to most corrosive. What I’ve learned from 15 years of tracking political money:

Money Doesn't Buy Elections. It Does Something Worse.

Campaign ads barely move the needle. The real influence is hiding in plain sight.

open.substack.com

@adambonica.bsky.social is dropping bombshells on Substack. He has uncovered astonishing predatory practices in Democratic fundraising, which has been sold out to consultants. AND his NYT invitation to publish has been rescinded bc of legal threats. 🚨👀❗🔥 data4democracy.substack.com/p/hook-and-s...

Hook and Squeeze

How Democratic consultants, committees, and party leaders built a fundraising spam pipeline that funnels money from a captive pool of elderly donors into their own operations.

data4democracy.substack.com

This picture says a thousand words. Democratic Party fundraising is primarily funding itself, rather the consultants they hire, to the tune of 50 - 65% of what's raised is going to more money-seeking activity. This is shocking enough, but wait til you hear who the money is coming from. 👨‍🦳👵

Why did NYT spike @adambonica.bsky.social's superb opinion piece? "The only objections came, and could only ever have come, from the consultants and party leaders the essay held accountable" he writes. "The capitulation was not to controversy but to power" data4democracy.substack.com/p/with-fear-...

With Fear and Favor

Institutions don’t have courage. They have incentives.

data4democracy.substack.com

Dan Froomkin/Press Watch/Heads Up News@froomkin.bsky.social · 3w ago

Those frantic, hysterical political fundraising texts aren’t for you, they’re designed to take advantage of known cognitive vulnerabilities among seniors, says this twice-spiked(!) report from @adambonica.bsky.social data4democracy.substack.com/p/hook-and-s...

Did you catch that the Trumpies want to permanently end appliance efficiency standards? They have saved US consumers billions of dollars over the years, but they are a mild inconvenience to the makers of less efficient appliances, so.

DOE wants to ‘permanently end’ appliance efficiency requirements

A proposed rule would create an “obstacle course of restrictions” bogging down the Department of Energy’s appliance efficiency program, a consumer advocate said.

utilitydive.com

4 easy miles at Little Long Pond in the mist, before the rains came in. Spotted a common loon & chick, Pied-billed grebes, & red squirrels, but nary a wild blueberry. The season is shifting. Onwards.

Crown copyright & the thinking behind it remain pernicious, like the urge to monetize public records that should be free & open, like publicly funded research. Closing & opening LANDSAT data show why. science.nasa.gov/mission/land... Do better @10downingst.bsky.social: UK should lead on open data

Andrew@openpolicy.bsky.social · 2w ago

@digiphile.bsky.social It’s bad enough that the UK government has and uses copyright to obstruct data access and re-use (unlike the US situation), but this would be turning the clock back at least 15 years.

Re-upping this piece, substantially revised to include new reporting on the neutering of Inspectors General. A former IG said: “All the adults have left the room. All these new IGs are lining up behind political leadership as if they’re lapdogs.” donmoynihan.substack.com/p/governing-...

Governing without Accountability

Trump only wants to be President of some of America, not all of America

donmoynihan.substack.com

This is an absolutely terrific piece of investigative journalism. The Inspector General system was created to create an internal watchdog to track abuses within the executive branch. Under Trump it has been completely neutered. Trump is firing IGs who do their job, and replacing them with loyalists.

Natalie Alms@almsnatalie.bsky.social · 2w ago

You may remember that Trump fired nearly 20 inspectors general last year after he took office. The transformation of the system of watchdogs has continued since. They're "scared to do anything," one senior OIG official told us of those who are left. www.notus.org/agencies/tru...

“Flailing regimes dehumanize minorities to distract from their failures. When the economy collapses or a war goes badly, they find a tiny group of people, make them the enemy within, & rally the country against them.”— Julia Curler

The Wrong Kind of American

The Trump White House needed me—until the fact that I am trans became public.

theatlantic.com

"…imposition of policy without the participation of those being governed should be an affront to anyone who believes in democracy."— @chenderson.bsky.social www.washingtoninformer.com/dc-vaccine-p... #NoTaxationWithoutRepresentation #DCStatehood

D.C. Built a Vaccine Firewall. Trump's New Order Is About to Test It

D.C. lawmakers enacted a law allowing local doctors to bypass new federal vaccine mandates, setting the stage for a potential clash with the White House.

washingtoninformer.com

BIG news this morning: Moderna and Merck say their mRNA cancer “vaccine” worked in a late-stage melanoma trial www.statnews.com/2026/08/19/m...

Moderna and Merck say mRNA cancer vaccine succeeded in late-stage melanoma trial

A personalized mRNA cancer vaccine succeeded in a late-stage melanoma study, results that could herald a new, powerful approach in oncology.

statnews.com