iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Stephen Erich @stephenerich.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

For Protestant Christians trying not to get political: do you realize that, in the 16th century when the Protestant reformation occurred, the Catholic Church was a political power?

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Stephen Erich @stephenerich.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

We need moral leaders who understand and embrace pluralism. That’s it.

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Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley @pressley.house.gov · 07/05/2025

Moms who work full-time all year are paid just 74 cents for every $1 paid to dads. And that wage gap only widens for working moms of color. We need bold policies like #PaidLeave, the Paycheck Fairness Act, and the ERA to close the wage gap once & for all. #MomsEqualPayDay

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NPR @npr.org · 03/05/2025

A few days ago, President Trump issued an executive order seeking to block all federal funding to NPR, the latest in a series of threats to media organizations across the country.

Public media is under threat. Millions depend on the NPR Network every day. Silencing journalism is one way to silence truth and erode the power of the people. Donate now.

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Tristan Snell @tristansnell.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

"It's hypocrisy to call yourself a Christian and chase away a refugee or someone seeking help, someone who is hungry or thirsty, toss out someone who is in need of my help. . . . If I say I am Christian, but do these things, I'm a hypocrite." - Pope Francis

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NY Times Pitchbot @nytpitchbot.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

The penguins have learned their lesson. by Susan Collins

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Brennan Center @brennancenter.org · 04/04/2025

The Brennan Center is in the fight to stop the SAVE Act — and any effort to restrict the freedom to vote. Stay informed by subscribing to The Briefing, our free weekly newsletter: bit.ly/3yZ0JfB

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David Frum @davidfrum.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

There is about to be a staggering amount of smuggling into the United States. In addition to searching for fentanyl, the 25,000 customs officers at America's land crossings, airports, and seaports will also have to watch for Nintendo consoles, Android phones, and jars of cloves.

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 04/04/2025

ProPublica’s investigative reporters rely on a careful playbook for finding waste, fraud and abuse within government agencies. It bears little resemblance to the approach deployed by DOGE against the Social Security Administration or USAID. By @sengelberg.bsky.social

propub.li

How Investigative Journalists Actually Find Fraud, Waste and Abuse

While investigative journalists immerse themselves in minutiae to identify waste and fraud, Elon Musk’s team has taken a chainsaw approach to spending based on cursory examinations. That might help…

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Stephen Erich @stephenerich.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

April 5, at the Washington Monument

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C-SPAN @c-span.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

Sen. Schumer: "Would the Senator yield for a question?" Sen. Booker: "Chuck Schumer, it's the only time in my life I can tell you no." Sen. Schumer: "I just wanted to tell you, a question, do you know you have just broken the record?"

youtu.be

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) Sets Record for Longest U.S. Senate Floor Speech

YouTube video by C-SPAN

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Reuters @reuters.com · 01/04/2025

LIVE: Senator Cory Booker continues marathon speech decrying Trump policies

youtube.com

LIVE: Senator Cory Booker continues marathon speech decrying Trump policies

YouTube video by Reuters

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NPR @npr.org · 28/03/2025

Gavi, which helps countries purchase and distribute vaccines, is among thousands of programs determined to be "inconsistent with the national interest or Agency policy priorities."

npr.org

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, has its billion dollar grant cut by Trump administration

Gavi, which helps countries purchase and distribute vaccines, is among thousands of programs determined to be "inconsistent with the national interest or Agency policy priorities."

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 13/03/2025

NEW: The biggest DOGE-related layoffs are in and around Washington, D.C. In the week ending Feb. 22, unemployment claims in D.C. rose 25% from the week prior and were four times as high as one year earlier — and that’s only the beginning.

propub.li

Washington Blues: A Government Town Faces a Gloomy Future

For years, Washington, D.C., was insulated from many of the economic forces that decimated many older U.S. cities. Now, as Elon Musk’s mass layoffs shake everything from employment to real estate,…

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NPR @npr.org · 12/03/2025

The former Philippine president is the first former leader from Asia to face charges at the International Criminal Court. Human rights groups say his violent crackdowns left up to 30,000 dead.

npr.org

Rodrigo Duterte is in custody in The Hague for crimes against humanity trial

The former Philippine president is the first former leader from Asia to face charges at the International Criminal Court. Human rights groups say his violent crackdowns left up to 30,000 dead.

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Brennan Center @brennancenter.org · 12/03/2025

There is no modern precedent for sending U.S. citizens who are convicted of crimes to other countries for punishment, or “banishment” as it has been formerly called and practiced.

brennancenter.org

El Salvador's Offer to House U.S. Prisoners is Illegal

It is illegal to expatriate U.S. citizens for a crime.

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Ben Lorber @benlorber8.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

Right now there is clear, overwhelming opposition to Mahmoud Khalil’s abduction across the moderate, liberal, progressive & left spectrum. This kind of loud unity is what authoritarians are afraid of. To keep it up we need every institution & public leader to join the chorus.

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Ethan Corey @ethanscorey.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

I don't think I've ever had that happen with a FOIA request! www.cnn.com/2025/02/18/p...

CNN was first notified of the firings at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in response to a freedom of information act request for records related to the security clearances of Musk and anyone from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) who has been granted access to sensitive or classified government networks.

“Good luck with that, they just fired the whole privacy team,” an OPM email address responded to CNN’s FOIA request.

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Equal Justice Initiative @eji.org · 19/02/2025

On this day in 1923, the U.S. Supreme Court held that Indian immigrants had "unmistakable and profound differences” from "white" immigrants and they were legally barred from becoming U.S. citizens.

calendar.eji.org

Feb. 19, 1923 | U.S. Supreme Court Rules Indian Immigrants Ineligible for Citizenship

Learn more about our history of racial injustice

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Brennan Center @brennancenter.org · 19/02/2025

The Trump administration is taking aim at our free, fair, and secure elections. Read: bit.ly/4i15hmk

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Chad Loder @chadloder.dev · 17/02/2025

I'm starting to think that maybe robber barons aren't buying newspapers and social media sites to promote the free flow of information.

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Prem Sikka @premnsikka.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

‘This is a coup’: Trump and Musk’s purge is cutting more than costs, say experts. Congress sidelined, judiciary silenced, judges threatened, media afraid, critical journalists barred from briefings, workers fired without notice, Govt Depts & regulatory bodies closed. US won't be the same again.

theguardian.com

‘This is a coup’: Trump and Musk’s purge is cutting more than costs, say experts

In slashing staff and disabling entire agencies the administration is lacerating the structures of US democracy

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Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

On Friday night, HHS ordered CDC to take down all flu vaccine campaign materials from its website. Materials are starting to come down. For example, a campaign explaining that flu shot can reduce flu severity from "wild to mild" is now offline. Left image is from Friday, right is now Meanwhile...

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PBS News @pbsnews.org · 16/02/2025

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday signaled that he was moving ahead with U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal to transfer the Palestinian population out of Gaza, calling it “the only viable plan to enable a different future” for the region.

buff.ly

Israel's Netanyahu signals he's moving ahead with Trump's plan to move Palestinians from Gaza

Netanyahu discussed the plan with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who kicked off a Middle East visit by endorsing Israel's war aims in Gaza, saying Hamas “must be eradicated.” That created…

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Tristan Snell @tristansnell.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

First the Super Bowl. Now the Daytona 500. He's not a real president -- he just plays one on TV. And it's costing the American people TENS OF MILLIONS in extra, unnecessary, wasteful spending. Maybe THAT is what "DOGE" should be cutting?

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Jacob Bogage @jacobbogage.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

🚨 SCOOP: DOGE is seeking personal taxpayer data at IRS, sources tell me. 🚨 Trump admin is pushing IRS to agree to an MOU that would give DOGE access to granular data on every taxpayer, business and nonprofit in the country.

washingtonpost.com

Musk’s DOGE seeks access to personal taxpayer data, raising alarm at IRS

Musk’s DOGE seeks access to personal taxpayer data at IRS

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Stephen Erich @stephenerich.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

DEI is important. I work in it. And I’ll talk about it. I would love to see schools in all 50 states take a stance for it and refuse federal funding. But heck, I wonder if it isn’t the biggest fight right now.

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Charlotte Moore-Lambert @charlottereads.com · 15/02/2025

a timely reminder that @bookshop-org.bsky.social recently launched their own Ebooks service! you can read them in your web browser or on your iPhone or Droid device, and every Ebook you buy from them supports an independent bookstore ☺️

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ex-Lethality Jane @lethalityjane.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

The measles outbreak in Texas is reminding me of the public letter Roald Dahl wrote about losing his daughter to measles in 1962, just before the vaccine was publicly available.

Excerpt from a public letter Roald Dahl wrote encouraging people to vaccinate their children.

Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

“I feel all sleepy,” she said.

In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.

On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles. I was unable to do that for Olivia in 1962 because in those days a reliable measles vaccine had not been discovered. Today a good and safe vaccine is available to every family and all you have to do is to ask your doctor to administer it.

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NPR @npr.org · 13/02/2025

The acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and two top Justice Department officials in Washington, D.C., resigned after the case against New York City's mayor war order dropped.

npr.org

3 top U.S. prosecutors have resigned over order to drop Eric Adams case

The acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and two top Justice Department officials in Washington, D.C., resigned after the case against New York City's mayor war order dropped.

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Texas Tribune @texastribune.org · 13/02/2025

NEW: The Trump administration has flown about 100 immigrants from El Paso to Guantanamo Bay. The Tribune and ProPublica spoke to the relatives of three of them, who say that they have been left entirely in the dark about their loved ones.

texastribune.org

U.S. claims migrants held at Guantanamo are “worst of the worst.” Their families say otherwise.

The Trump administration has flown about 100 immigrants from El Paso to Guantanamo Bay. ProPublica and The Texas Tribune identified nearly a dozen of them and spoke to relatives of three of them.

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LawyerJesse @lawyerjesse.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

When the fork in the road is really just a rusty spoon. 🥄💼 The federal government’s latest workforce shakeup is chaotic, confusing, and—predictably—ineffective. Meanwhile, Trump II is launching a full-scale constitutional assault. What does it all mean? 🔗 Read more:

buff.ly

When the Fork in the Road is Really a Rusty Spoon

Fractionally Legal v.29 looks at what businesses (and the Federal Government) need to know about terminating employees, and the constitutional order, two weeks into Trump II.

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Stephen Erich @stephenerich.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

At first glance I thought this was an Onion headline. Amazing.

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Stephen Erich @stephenerich.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

How about a social media platform that requires users to get a license? With a whole course and testing process. That is then moderated with real world consequences. Like driving a car with rules of the road or maintaining a professional certification with a code of ethics. And really vetted users.

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Stephen Erich @stephenerich.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

Can we reframe diversity, equity, and inclusion through the lens of etiquette? Emily Post, the classic expert on etiquette, is known for saying “Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.”

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Stephen Erich @stephenerich.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

New post on Substack! open.substack.com/pub/antiraci...

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Jesse Eisinger @jeisinger.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

NEW: The Trump admin told a US-funded aid group that gives food & medicine to starving children in Sudan to shut down. Children would die. They’re defying the order. But the aid world is in chaos. Brett Murphy & Anna Barry-Jester: www.propublica.org/article/trum...

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