Look man, all I can tell you is I came up as a farm worker. And people love to tell me how workers like I was, are "the REAL farmers." And the wealthy landowners who employed us, aren't.

Kent Lind@camasonian.bsky.social · 6d ago

My great aunt who was a librarian in Philadelphia inherited a significant portion of what was the family dairy farm in rural central Pennsylvania. I don't think she had been back there since she was a child. She has certainly never milked a cow. Does that make her a dairy farmer?

I spent a chunk of my career focused on election security, speaking in closed door senate hearings (with voting machine vendors present), secretary of state events, and on panels with other experts in the election space. Anyway, this script is AI slop using partisan voter conspiracy prompts.

Is missing weather balloon data making forecasts worse? Launches at more than 25 National Weather Service sites are routinely being delayed from the early morning to the middle of the day, according to a Capital Weather analysis. Read the full story: www.capitalweather.com/is-missing-w...

NEW: Trump's firing of the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission last night is the latest disturbing step in his crusade to make it harder to vote and consolidate control of elections. Don't look away from this creeping authoritarianism.

CREW statement on Trump’s firing of Election Assistance Commission - CREW | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

The firing of Election Assistance Commissioners is part of Trump’s crusade to make it harder to vote and consolidate control of elections.

citizensforethics.org

I find this work inspiring!

Ex-NOAA employees re-create a valuable climate data site shut down by Trump

Former NOAA staffers have launched a new website that provides climate information. It replaces a government site that was shut down when the Trump administration took office.

npr.org

Let's check in on the Trump admin's garbage attempt at getting back some of the tech capacity it burned to the ground last year (It's not going well.) www.nextgov.com/people/2026/...

Tech Force set out to hire 1,000 technologists last year — it’s onboarded 10 so far

The effort is meant to infuse the government with young engineers, cyber and data workers. It follows the loss of almost 20,000 technology workers through the Trump administration’s efforts to downsiz...

nextgov.com

For decades, the IRS audited every President's return automatically, every year. The public deserved that reassurance.

Elizabeth Warren@warren.senate.gov · 3mo ago

Donald Trump's settlement makes it official government policy that Trump, his family, and his political allies are above the law. It's outrageously corrupt, and it must be stopped. I'm pressing for answers NOW.

“This tax season, as you wade through the absurdly expensive and complicated process of filing income taxes, remember to thank the Trump administration” for killing the Direct File program, Binyamin Appelbaum writes.

Opinion | Why This Tax Day Is Even Harder and More Annoying Than Usual

Tax preparation companies and Republicans are pursuing their shared interest in torturing taxpayers

nyti.ms

Merici Vinton led the team who created Direct File: a free, easy-to-use service that let you file your taxes without being upsold or having your data sent to Facebook. So who wanted it gone? full episode in the profile.

Court filing shows that CFPB leadership has filed a RIF plan to reduce agency staff from 1174 to 576. I hate all these monsters so much www.courtlistener.com/docket/69821...

Motion Filed – #01208836172, Att. #1 in National Treasury Employees Union v. Russell Vought (D.C. Cir., 25-5091) – CourtListener.com

MOTION [2166449] to modify stay, to remand record, to hold case in abeyance filed by CFPB and Russell T. Vought (Service Date: 03/31/2026 by CM/ECF NDA) Length Certification: 3,486 words. [25-5091] (J...

courtlistener.com

It's been a year and I am still fighting. I think dismantling 18F was a small, petty part of a large, systematic injustice. And since that day, we have only seen more and more of the administration's cruelty and capriciousness.

Alt18F@alt18f.bsky.social · 5mo ago

It’s been one year since the elimination of 18F. 🧵

You can kill the product but not the idea - today, 160 Congressional co-sponsors introduced a bill to bring back the IRS’ much beloved free tax filing product, Direct File. www.theverge.com/policy/88522...

Democrats to introduce bill aimed at resurrecting IRS Direct File

Democrats want to bring back Direct File.

theverge.com

Though this hasn't received much news coverage, we're sharing in case our community is interested in reading the report in full. Link in 🧵.

As we hit the one year anniversary of DOGE's start (and the subsequent disruption that followed), there still is a lot we don't know about its activities across the government. I have been tracking what I can here dogetrack.info and will continue to update editorial content and data this year too

This is why you start a project by listening to users and the people who have been doing the work. If you’re too arrogant to listen, you will miss the point and solve the wrong problem. Thanks again Matt!

Matt Henry 🥄@matthenry.fyi · 8mo ago

This tweet from Big Balls says the new “Tech Force” website is their first using the “America Design System.” Here are just a few reasons why that sucks. 🧵

ICYMI: This weekend, we published the @wired.com guide to digital opsec for teens (tho it applies to pretty much everyone!) We hope you and the kids in your life will read it and stay safe out there. No paywall! @lhn.bsky.social and JP Aumasson report: www.wired.com/story/digita...

The WIRED Guide to Digital Opsec for Teens

Practicing good “operations security” is essential to staying safe online. Here's a complete guide for teenagers (and anyone else) who wants to button up their digital lives.

wired.com

The "DOGE is gone" articles are clickbait but this one gets it closer to the truth: DOGE is not gone, it just claims to have "no centralized leadership" anymore -- in other words, its leadership is hiding in an attempt to avoid blame.

DOGE no longer has ‘centralized leadership’ under White House tech team, personnel head says

The team that was altered to house DOGE — formerly the U.S. Digital Service — is also still doing its own technology work across agencies.

nextgov.com

Thank you for putting in your skill and attention into making digital experiences better for the whole public. I also hold out hope for a future where the government wants to build quality services.

Matt Henry 🥄@matthenry.fyi · 9mo ago

Someday it’ll be time to build again and I’m enough of a glutton for punishment to come back and help when that time comes. Unfortunately, the great things federal government tech built in the last decade+ are just going to burn or at least decay until then. 9/

The administration has pulled the plug on IRS Direct File, a tool that helped eligible taxpayers file for free. This decision comes despite Direct File’s immense popularity with its users.

Direct File won’t happen in 2026, IRS tells states

The free service that allowed taxpayers to file online directly with the IRS was used by hundreds of thousands of taxpayers in 2024 and 2025, who gave it high marks — although tax prep companies and R...

nextgov.com

Our friends at @usdigitalresponse.org are hosting the 2025 Digital Service Champions Awards to recognize folks doing great work in #civictech. Nominations close this Friday, October 10. ⏳ Government awards: usdr.link/champions-government Individual awards: usdr.link/champions-individual

"The inspector general’s office for the General Services Administration ... said it will look at the impact of several DOGE-backed projects at GSA—including its mass termination of government leases and its decision to shutter its tech office 18F."

New legislative branch data map courtesy of the Congressional Data Task Force & Congressional Data Coalition: github.com/LibraryOfCon... kudos Steve Dwyer + @americalabs.org #opengov #opendata

Shot: "The last [18F] report urged the courts to 'start small.'" Chaser: "In mid-2022, the administrative office awarded a five-year, $298 million contract to General Dynamics Information Technology." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/u...

Federal Courts Slow to Fix Vulnerable System After Repeated Hacking

nytimes.com

The resignation letter that the government does not want you to see

"Young stressed that those working on digital tools within the federal government 'have a responsibility to the security and privacy of the public.'" @not-young.bsky.social

How Healthcare.gov’s botched rollout led to a digital services revolution in government

The botched rollout of a federal website 12 years ago became a turning point for digital services across government.

federalnewsnetwork.com

This week, I’m honoring the State Dept foreign and civil servants whose service was cut short. No one can take away their impact.. in every flag they stood beside, the rooms where diplomacy took shape, and the global ties they built. We will feel this loss for years. Images from my last visit.

The Ku Klux Klan Acts (passed in 1870 & 1871 to protect 14th amend rights) were particularly focused on masked gunmen who violated the civil rights of Black people. We should remember this history when masked law enforcement ofcrs are deployed in our communities. open.substack.com/pub/sherrily...

A top House Democrat is asking Microsoft for information about a DOGE staffer's GitHub account connected to whistleblower allegations of sensitive data leaving the National Labor Relations Board.

Top House Democrat ask Microsoft about DOGE code allegedly tied to NLRB data removal

A top House Democrat is asking Microsoft for information about a DOGE staffer's GitHub account connected to whistleblower allegations of sensitive data leaving the National Labor Relations Board.

n.pr

“Systems break and it takes days to fix them because no one is left who knows how,” they said. It’s making modernization projects take longer because of time dedicated to “putting out fires” where “the guy who knows how to fix it is gone.” www.nextgov.com/modernizatio...

Workforce cuts could complicate IRS goal to modernize in the next two years

Agency leaders say they want to complete the “vast majority” of its modernization efforts within the next couple of years.

nextgov.com