Merici

At Yosemite, Rangers Are Scarce and Visitors Have Gone Wild

At Yosemite, Rangers Are Scarce and Visitors Have Gone Wild www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/u...

Government can build efficiently. Take the IRS free file tool for example. The problem isn't a lack of can-do by the government. It's wealthy companies who have stepped in to block the development of government capacity, and who killed the free file tool when Democrats finally made it a reality.

Health Dept. to Freeze $10 Billion in Funding to 5 Democratic States

“Minnesota, New York, California, Illinois and Colorado will be cut off from around $7 billion in funding for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which provides cash assistance to households with children, according to two people familiar with the matter.”

Monstrously cruel.

Although Machado ultimately said she was dedicating the award to Trump, her acceptance of the prize was an “ultimate sin,” said one of the people. “If she had turned it down and said, ‘I can’t accept it because it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she’d be the president of Venezuela today,” this person said.

WH sources say Venezuela's opposition leader committed the "ultimate sin": She accepted the Nobel Peace prize.

“If she had turned it down and said, ‘I can’t accept it because it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she’d be the president of Venezuela today,” one said.

www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

this is your mission. our pedophile president needs you to jump out of a helicopter to kidnap a head of state and his wife so some oil ceos can make a lot of money. we’ll be watching from a resort in florida that still serves wedge salad and checking how many retweets we get. good luck soldier

With Help of Lina Khan, Mamdani Looks to Quickly Cut Costs for New Yorkers

With Help of Lina Khan, Mamdani Looks to Quickly Cut Costs for New Yorkers www.nytimes.com/2025/12/26/n...

My first MozzFest! What a crowd, what an agenda. Nice to be around optimistic leaders speaking truth to power. And, of course, to see @melissaryan.bsky.social

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...

SCOOP: Direct File is officially dead.

The IRS emailed states yesterday telling them that the free, online tax filing service won't happen next year and has no future launch date.

Republicans and tax prep companies both opposed the service.

www.nextgov.com/digital-gove...

Direct File is survived by its code, lovingly preserved on GitHub for potential revival whenever the leaders of the executive branch are no longer bent on looting the country.

Good read, thanks for sharing.

The West Wing is now just the Wing.

You can check out the Direct File open source code on GitHub:

github.com/IRS-Public/d...

Today is the last day the IRS accepts tax returns.

It’s also the last day to use Direct File, the IRS’ beloved, free tax filing service, before it’s shut down.

💔 ✊❤️

Yep, boy howdy, and absolutely.

I’m not a civic tech person, but I know some good ones — @erie.bsky.social, @merici.bsky.social, @waldo.net. A Democratic Party serious about rebuilding state capacity would give folks like them the latitude to supplant contractors with internal tech.

SCARBOROUGH: The Nebraska Rural Health Association says at least 6 rural hospitals would have to close bc of the big beautiful bill

FLOOD: Here's the deal: Some hospitals that are rural hospitals are going to eventually have to transition from being acute bed hospitals into being an ER model

We are worse off, by far, without Direct File. Just look at the metrics!

I'm proud to know @merici.bsky.social and @cmgiven.bsky.social; thanks @mattbracken.bsky.social for covering.

fedscoop.com/direct-file-...

The real work: building a gov that operates with the same user-centric, technology-strategic approach that made DF successful, but at an agency-wide scale.

The first rule of gov transformation: there are a lot of rules. And there should be-ish. We don't need to wait for permission to rewrite them.

While Direct File accomplished a lot of things, it didn't change the institutions it touched.

Yes, we proved excellent digital experiences are possible. Yes, we achieved satisfaction rates higher than Netflix. But we also learned that brilliant products alone don't change institutions.

Direct File Is the Floor, Not the Ceiling "The first rule of government transformation is: there are a lot of rules. And there should be-ish. But we don't need to wait for permission to rewrite them. Let's go fix and build some things and sho...

I gave a talk at the @codeforamerica.org summit about what we learned building Direct File and why it should be the bare minimum standard for gov services, not some miraculous exception.

And the product model approach shouldn’t just be for product teams, but all teams.

fas.org/publication/...

The pro-cancer lobby rn 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥳🍾🎉😘💋💋💋

The pro cancer lobby has gotta be 🥰

This administration just dropped the CFPB case against the Navy Federal Credit Union which defrauded our servicemembers to the tune of $95 million in illegal overdraft fees.

U.S. may require visa applicants to post bond up to $15,000 to enter country The State Department is proposing requiring applicants for business and tourist visas to post a bond of up to $15,000 to apply to enter the United States.

The State Department is proposing requiring applicants for business and tourist visas to post a bond of up to $15,000 to enter the United States, a move that may make the process unaffordable for many.

DOGE Put Free Tax Filing Tool on Chopping Block After One Meeting With Lobbyists A key operative from DOGE initiated plans to potentially kill Direct File, the free tax filing tool developed by the IRS, after offering assurances it would be spared from cuts.

WIRED reported that DOGE decided to kill Direct File after a single meeting with lobbyists.

www.wired.com/story/doge-d...

IRS Chief Says Direct File Is ‘Gone,’ Other Audit Tech Is Coming The Biden-era IRS free filing tool, Direct File, is “gone,” IRS Commissioner Billy Long said.

The IRS Commissioner confirms what we’ve known for months: Direct File is dead. After initial signals of interest from DOGE, turns out they aren’t actually interested in modern, efficient services that ppl love & the Trump admin finally admits it

news.bloombergtax.com/financial-ac...

‪6000 trucks are loaded and ready to deliver food. But are blocked by Israel, with the US and UK watching passively on the sidelines ‬

‪https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c0k77xm651jt‬

Inside Gaza's Nasser Hospital - where there's virtually no food for malnourished children Huda, 12, is a patient at Nasser Hospital. But with almost no food left, medics are struggling to treat the children and toddlers.

Hospitals have no food for patients

news.sky.com/story/inside...

Journalists In Gaza Are Documenting Their Own Starvation — TIME As hunger tightens its grip on Gaza, local journalists documenting the crisis are now starving alongside the people they cover.

If starving children won’t move you to action, what about journalists?

apple.news/AUEoyDFk_TgS...

People in Gaza are 'walking corpses' - with one in five children malnourished, says UN Most of the youngsters the UN sees are "emaciated, weak and at high risk of dying if they don't get the treatment they urgently need", while the UNRWA's frontline health workers are surviving on "one ...

A fifth of the children in Gaza City are malnourished and 100 people, most of them youngsters, have died of hunger the UN reports

news.sky.com/story/people...

I cannot believe that the dems, dnc, and most electeds on every side are sitting on the sidelines as this happens.

I don’t know how you can ask for voters’ trust if you can’t work towards humanity here-