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Reposted by Brian Wasik

Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 5h

Friday night: ~1,250 fired in CDC, immediate pushback.

Saturday: administration says layoffs were in 'error'.

*But* does not specify how many.

Now, @axios.com reports ~600 remain RIFed by an admin that blends incompetence & malice to public health.

Mismanagement should have consequences.

Axios @axios.com · 5h

About 600 CDC staff in offices dealing with health statistics, injury and violence prevention, congressional outreach and human resources are out of work as a result of the Trump administration's mass layoffs of agency workers Friday, sources familiar said.

CDC purge hits 600 workers in key offices despite reversals

The casualties include employees working on health statistics, injury and violence prevention, congressional outreach and human resources.

www.axios.com

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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 9h

“We didn’t consent to playing it, as we believe the Hatch Act clearly prohibits using public assets for political purposes and messaging. … We believe consenting to playing this video on Port assets would violate Oregon law." /1

PDX chooses not to air video of Sec. Noem blaming Democrats for shutdown

The Port of Portland is choosing not to broadcast a new video that shows DHS Secretary Kristi Noem blaming Democrats for the federal government shutdown."Democr

katu.com

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Brian Wasik @brianrwasik.bsky.social · 5h

If this spread was in New Haven a decade ago and I missed it I failed.

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Philadelphia Inquirer @inquirer.com · 6h

Every day at noon, no matter how busy, Johny Merida Aguilar left his construction job and hurried to his 5-year-old son's school to feed him. His son has brain cancer and generally only accepts food from his father.

Merida Aguilar was arrested by ICE in September and faces deportation to Bolivia.

He was caring for his 5-year-old son with brain cancer. Then he was detained by ICE.

A court has temporarily blocked Johny Merida Aguilar's deportation to Bolivia.

www.inquirer.com

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Deb Houry @drdebhoury.bsky.social · 9h

Congress needs to demand transparency re these CDC firings and what happened. I don't think "miscoding" is the reason nearly 50% of those fired were rescinded. Maybe it was the public awareness that programs like global health, suicide prevention, and measles response were being eliminated...

Fired but Fighting (National Public Health Coalition) @firedbutfighting.bsky.social · 1d

No one knows what is happening. Now, we are hearing some of the CDC RIF notices might have been in error.
Error = Miscoding

Where are we hearing this? Through media of course! No one is being transparent with CDC staff.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/h...

We continue to track the cuts. Stay tuned.

a picture of a giraffe dancing with the words welcome to the circus

Alt: a picture of a giraffe dancing with the words welcome to the circus

media.tenor.com

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Brian Wasik @brianrwasik.bsky.social · 8h

He did just have that 'yearly' at Walter Reed. These seem to coincide with health discussions. Doesn't have to be anything in particular in visit to just get data that you are in twilight years.

Brian Wasik @brianrwasik.bsky.social · 8h

The first VP would have an aneurism at the debasing of civic virtue.

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 9h

This two-parter below is exactly why it's hard to make clothes in the United States.

Let's look at how much it costs to produce a button-up shirt in the US. 🧵

Someone on Twitter replies to me: "meh. buy american or stfu."

Two hours later, in a separate thread, the write: "$30 for a single button-up is ridiculous unless it is decent quality silk."

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Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social · 11h

For my piece today at @zeteo.com i wanted to truly underscore how punishingly stupid american fascism is now. Like, my original proposed headline for this was:

Our Democracy Is Imperiled Because One Old Man Won’t Stop ‘Yelling’ At His TV. zeteo.com/p/trump-addi...

Trump’s Addiction to Watching Fox Is Killing American Democracy

Our country is falling apart because one old man, Trump advisers and former administration officials say, won’t stop ‘yelling’ at his TV.

zeteo.com

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Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 18h

Pope Leo quotes Hannah Arendt:

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist."

www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news...

Pope Leo calls for news agencies to stand as bulwark against "post-truths," lies and manipulation

Pope Leo XIV has encouraged international news agencies to stand firm as a bulwark against the "ancient art of lying" and manipulation.

www.cbsnews.com

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Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 10h

My take from last night...

The administration operates with equal parts malice and incompetence, but the incompetence ends up being a form of malice, so on balance, it’s mostly malice towards all and charity for none.

substack.com/home/post/p-...

With Malice Toward All and Charity for None: Oct. 10-11 CDC (Un)Firing Edition

A post interpreting the Friday night firing of more than 1,000 CDC experts only to have some of these layoffs termed an ‘error’ & reversed on Saturday night.

substack.com

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Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 12h

This is a good catch. The statutory authorization supposedly being used to transfer R&D funds to regular payroll is, in fact, expired, just like the regular appropriations are also expired.

Ira 'Bluebeard Homer' Goldman @kdbyproxy.bsky.social · 13h

Not that Trump/Vought/Hegseth gaf, but among other ways in which the law says this may NOT be done:
A) The part of 8005 I've underlined in green says money transferred to another account is "available… for the same time period" as that other account; that other acc't expired on Sept 30.

1/

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Nicholas Slayton @nslayton.bsky.social · 12h

The Texas Military Department confirmed to @taskandpurpose.com it had replaced some of the 200 National Guard troops sent to Chicago for not being "in compliance" with validation standards. This came after photos of heavyset NG members were widely mocked. taskandpurpose.com/news/texas-n...

Some Texas National Guard troops replaced in Illinois after failing to meet standards

An unspecified amount of Texas National Guard troops were replaced in Chicago, shortly after photos of their appearance were mocked.

taskandpurpose.com

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Brian Wasik @brianrwasik.bsky.social · 11h

Someone send this woman grass clippings

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Brian Wasik @brianrwasik.bsky.social · 11h

Its surreal.

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Boo!-per Lund @cooperlund.online · 11h

I don’t think it’s good that we have an entire class of media elites who believe that people getting mad at them means they’re doing a good job, but identifying that makes me wonder if it’s actually better to not get mad at them and deprive them of what they want.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 12h

Hi Sally. When Weiss published a supposed expose on the death of George Floyd, a veteran criminal justice reporter showed in deep detail that the piece was not just wrong but filled with falsehoods and misrepresentations. Weiss did not retract the piece. What do you think of that?

Sally Jenkins @sallyjenx.bsky.social · 14h

This is really smart. Amazed at the hysteria over the ascendance of a woman entrepreneur who clearly knows how to cover and sell news and who's not afraid to take on a mob. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Don’t Bet Against Bari Weiss

The new editor in chief of CBS News triumphs over her critics.

www.theatlantic.com

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 1d

About a month ago, the Trump administration got rid of the de minimis exemption, whereby packages valued under $800 could slide in without import duties. Now there's a backlog as the government can't process all of this paperwork, leading to UPS just destroying packages

Business Insider headline reads: UPS is telling customers that their packages coming to the US are marked for destruction.

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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 14h

At first i thought the majority on the court was just a bunch of hardcore gop partisans with brains pickled in right wing propaganda but after seeing them do these softball book tour interviews with right wing outlets I'm convinced they're just neutral arbiters doing their best.

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Brian Wasik @brianrwasik.bsky.social · 14h

GOP leadership could even spin it as downsizing and targeting waste/fraud/abuse. I don't care.

Have some pride in your institution and Article I powers, you cowards.

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Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈 @josephpolitano.bsky.social · 14h

My “don’t worry about China, it will all be fine” shirt has people asking a lot of questions that are already answered by my shirt

A tweet from Donald Trump that reads “Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine! Highly respected President Xi just had a bad moment. He doesn’t want Depression for his country, and neither do I. The U.S.A. wants to help China, not hurt it!!! President DJT”

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Prof Gavin Yamey @gavinyamey.bsky.social · 15h

The lab leak conspiracy theorists running the US health agencies are getting kookier & kookier 🤦‍♂️

In fact, research shows that “the Lyme disease bacterium is ancient in North America, circulating silently in forests for at least 60,000 years” (medicine.yale.edu/news-article...)

Jonathan Howard @joho.bsky.social · 1d

Makary is now saying that Lyme came from a lab too.

youtu.be/bQovoQaaE4w?...

Silly Makary says COVID and Lyme came from labs.

YouTube video by Jonathan Howard

youtu.be

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Brian Wasik @brianrwasik.bsky.social · 14h

There's nothing stopping Congress from deauthorizing/defunding the OMB Director and his office.

Robert Cruickshank @robertcruickshank.com · 15h

This is good. The next step is to impeach him or defund his office.

Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 16h

Sens. Schumer, Merkley, Murray, and Peters are calling for the resignation of OMB Director Russell Vought.

"By impounding billions of dollars … and aggressively pursuing the illegal use of pocket rescissions, Vought has done everything in his power to gut the federal government piece by piece."

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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 15h

Shared courtesy of my Penn History colleague, Ben Nathans

Image: A variation on Benjamin Franklin’s “Join, or Die” engraving, originally published in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1754. Each segment of the snake has the name of a university sent Trump’s “compact”: Texas, AZ, Vanderbilt, USC, Dartmouth, UVA, Brown, Penn, MIT.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 16h

a key thing about vought — and all of these guys — is that they have a totally top down and hierarchical vision of the world. they believe that the cultural changes they hate can be turned off by destroying the federal government because they can’t imagine that they emerged bottom-up in society

Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 17h

What he’s railing against is a profound shift in culture, status… He’s obsessed with the idea that America is controlled by a leftist “ruling elite” - but “elite” isn’t defined socio-economically or by political power, it means something like: Getting to define “real America” and who gets to belong.

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