Joe Germuska

"According to the employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they fear losing their jobs or other forms of retaliation, the policy would be implemented quietly and would not be put in writing."

www.npr.org/sections/sho...

Louisiana forbids public health workers from promoting COVID, flu and mpox shots

An NPR investigation found Louisiana health officials told staff to stop promoting vaccines for COVID, flu and mpox, holding flu shot events or otherwise encouraging the public to get those vaccines.

This could be super useful for journalists and local civics nerds — in one place, neighborhood-level shapefiles and 2020 demographic data for 206 US cities that have "city-defined neighborhoods"

paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
data: dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtm...

City-Defined Neighborhood Boundaries in the United States - Scientific Data

Scientific Data - City-Defined Neighborhood Boundaries in the United States

as age verification laws spread, the general public needs to understand the risks as well as the benefits.

@noupside.bsky.social provides a (characteristically) clear and balanced guide here

Noema Magazine @noemamag.com

The growing number of AI agents roaming the internet will eventually force us to verify what the old web mostly presumed: that there is a morally & legally accountable person somewhere in the chain, @noupside.bsky.social writes. #aiagents #identitytheft

We Need A Way To Prove Personhood Online | NOEMA

The growing number of AI agents roaming the internet will eventually force us to verify what the old web mostly presumed: that there is a morally and legally accountable person somewhere in the chain.

Guardian: NSA detected phone call between foreign intelligence and a person close to Trump

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

NSA detected phone call between foreign intelligence and a person close to Trump

Whistleblower says that Tulsi Gabbard blocked agency from sharing report and delivered it to White House chief of staff

"In any other administration, at any other time in American history, this level of corruption would be a political disaster — a scandal that could bring down the administration. For the Trump administration, it is a Tuesday."

jamelle @jamellebouie.net

wrote about the president’s flagrant and destructive corruption in a column that references street fighter, the simpsons, machiavelli, and a host of revolutionary-era americans (gift link)

Opinion | The White House Gold Rush Is On

related:

"When the attention economy transforms society into a massive thirst trap, what happens to politics?"

www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-attent...

The attention economy is devouring politics

Social scientists need to understand how. As do we all.

Probably should have done this before the conference, but I made a BlueSky starter pack from all of the handles included in the #NICAR25 schedule data

go.bsky.app/JVQ7hXm

I was reminded of the time in 1991 when ACT UP activists put a giant condom over Senator Jesse Helms's house.

I found this 2008 narrative from one of the provocateurs if you want the whole story

https://www.poz.com/blog/in-memory-of-je

In Memory of Jesse Helms, and The Condom On His House [VIDEOS] - POZ

On September 5th, 1991, I put a giant condom over Jesse Helms' house. Why? Because, as the condom

@weareravenous.com 's @shokdiesel.bsky.social points out one of the few real downers about Chicago's food culture: the city's relentless antagonism to street food vendors

www.weareravenous.com/email/814924...

A World-Class Food Scene Requires Street Food Vendors

Chicago seems hellbent on sanitizing its downtown and making room for the underseasoned.

“On closer inspection, however, it turned out that the image was not a photograph of a real event in Portland, but instead a fabrication created by combining two photographs of scenes that unfolded in South America nearly a decade apart.”

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Republicans post fake image of Oregon protest – using photos of South America | Portland | The Guardian

A federal judge had blocked Trump’s request to deploy California national guard to Portland

"I'd wanted to warn people that extremists are not monsters, they're regular people who think and do monstrous things. … And I had not understood initially how much the "leaders" didn't really understand or control their own movement…"
www.forever-wars.com/they-want-to...

'They Want To Be A Part of History': Elle Reeve on the Extremely-Online Fascist Resurgence

As we brace for the fallout of the attempted Trump assassination, the journalist and 'Black Pill' author talks to FOREVER WARS

another good nugget from #ATmosphere conf delivered by @eclecticcapital.bsky.social:

ATProtocol could offer "open enough to scale, closed enough to mean something"

‘the successful outcomes will look more like "guilds" and "collectives" than traditional startups’

ATmosphereConf 2026

ATmosphereConf is the global atproto community conference. Join us in Vancouver, Canada, March 26th - 29th, 2026.

You live in Chicago (North side). Your Christmas tree is done for the season. I got a guy (two guys actually) who can take care of that for you. Through January 16

Truly shocking to read the list of things the Trump administration wanted to take control of at Harvard.

Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/u...

Harvard Will Not Comply With a List of Trump Administration Demands (Gift Article)

Federal officials said they would freeze the money after Harvard said it would not submit to requests to overhaul hiring and report international students who break rules.

The New York Times @nytimes.com

Breaking News: Trump officials said they would freeze $2.2 billion in grants to Harvard after the university refused the administration’s demands.

Harvard Will Not Comply With a List of Trump Administration Demands

Federal officials said they would freeze the money after Harvard said it would not submit to requests to overhaul hiring and report international students who break rules.

Good stuff from OG news nerd @mattwaite.bsky.social

www.poynter.org/commentary/2...

PolitiFact's new platform is a reminder that ideas outlast technology - Poynter

As PolitiFact retires the platform that powered its first 19 years, its original developer argues ideas matter more than tools

“my conclusion is that non-fascists who stay on X do so for a simple reason: they have a completely faulty understanding of how power works in the digital sphere and operate according to mental models of social media that simply do not match reality.”

Danielle Citron @daniellecitron.bsky.social

@robin.berjon.com wisely tells us when we post on X, it’s like writing for the Daily Stormer and when you engage with the platform even without posting you are lending it credibility and ad dollars. Here is his post on not feeding the trolls berjon.com/fascintern-m...

Fascintern Media

We are facing a coordinated international fascist movement that works with explicit backing from Moscow, Washington, and tech monopolies, and is propagating itself through its own media apparatus. Yet...

There are Friday news dumps and then there are 6:20 pm on Thanksgiving Friday news dumps

www.northwestern.edu/leadership-n...

Agreement to Restore Federal Funds: Leadership Notes - Northwestern University

Earlier today, the University reached an agreement with the federal government to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in critical research funding.

Love this: @medillschool.bsky.social professor Ava Francesca Battocchio (and collaborators) translated their academic research into a zine guide for people moderating locally-focused online community groups

Download the PDF: drive.google.com/file/d/1xgHi...

bald eagle dead from bird flu a little too on the nose maybe

chicago.suntimes.com/health/2025/...

Bald eagle found in northwest suburbs may have died from bird flu, expert says

A raptor was discovered earlier this month in Busse Woods near Elk Grove Village, and may have been part of one of six known pairs in Cook County. Avian flu is wreaking havoc not just on barnyard bird...

“I often get the impression that mainstream media is more concerned with presenting itself as calm and evenhanded than accurately representing reality.”

https://meditations-in-an-emergency.ghost.io/maybe-you-should-shout-fire-in-a-crowded-theater-if-its-on-fire-the-coup-continues/

Maybe You Should Shout Fire in a Crowded Theater (If It's On Fire): The Coup Continues

Yesterday the Associated Press ran a story with this sentence in it: "Last week, regional managers for the General Services Administration, or GSA, received a message from the agency’s Washington headquarters to begin terminating leases on all of the roughly 7,500 federal offices nationwide, according to an email

Thanks to @archive.org for the pointer to this excavation of Psyche Pscene, a late 60's early 70's independent zine published here in Chicago

jessejarnow.com/2024/04/psyc...

TIL about the Mobile Bookstore Society
themobilebookstoresociety.com
and it immediately made me glow that such a thing exists

“72 builders and dreamers, growing every week”

h/t @emiliaruzicka.bsky.social and this is why I love #SRCCON so dearly

💖 @opennews.bsky.social

new @onthemedia.bsky.social podcast about the history of FEMA (and conspiracy thinking abt FEMA) is off to a good start

www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm...

Mount Weather was interesting to hear about as a fan of the tv show Paradise

And great audio like the "Duck and cover" song and "FEMA blues"

On the Media | American Emergency: the Movement to Kill FEMA | WNYC Studios

On the Media is a weekly show that uses the media as a lens to understand our world.

Coincidentally I listened to the first episode of a new podcast about this today.

Orson Welles' righteous indignation is awesome to hear

www.radiodiaries.org/post/orson-w...

Orson Welles and the Blind Soldier

In 1946, radio host Orson Welles heard of a shocking crime and pledged to solve it... on the air. Three-part series.

Larry Glickman @larryglickman.bsky.social

When Tom Homan, Trump and other Republicans defend the masking of ICE agents, I can't help but think of Orson Welles announcing on his radio show his intention of identifying the South Carolina police officer who violently attacked and blinded the uniformed Black veteran Isaac Woodard in 1946.