Hillary Hartley

@cityplanto.bsky.social Biidaasige Park is amazing! And…it desperately needs shady spots. It’ll be lovely in a decade if the trees stay healthy, but in the meantime you need to put some covers over some of the park benches and picnic tables.

Great interview with @emilytav.bsky.social and @kathypham.bsky.social on “civic tech.” Love the comment that civic tech = civic duty + technology.

Maurene Comey's goodbye note to SDNY colleagues:

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.

SCOOP: DOGE moved to kill Direct File, the IRS's popular free tax filing tool, days after meeting with private tax filing software lobbyists.
www.wired.com/story/doge-d...

Those ears! 😍

If you’re with a state agency or legislature who needs help figuring out how you’re going to modify your benefits systems to deal with federally mandated changes (e.g. employment verification), contact us at @usdigitalresponse.org. We can help for free, thanks to grant funding. There’s no catch.

Agree. She’s incredible. Love that she’s writing and pushing on that moral arc.

Anyone still using Swarm? The latest update makes me think the only people using it are in their 40s & 50s. 👀 🤣 (bigger fonts for old eyes)

Nvidia’s market cap passed 4 TRILLION. Someone tell me why we need companies worth trillions of dollars. Similar to billionaires…..I think the answer is: We don’t.

See you there this weekend? :)

FAFO… 👀 ready to see the 34 million able bodied folks on Medicaid get right to work harvesting crops.

The Death of US AID The most consequential legacy of DOGE will be human misery on a massive scale

“This will be one of Elon Musk’s legacies, and the most consequential one for human life. A man who talks about saving our species condemned millions to death because he could not discern reality from a paranoid fantasy.”— @donmoyn.bsky.social
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-death-...

🙄🫠

Civic Spark August 16-17, 2025 Toronto civic-spark.com

We’re putting on a conference!

Join us at Civic Spark 💥 August 16-17, 2025

civic-spark.com

Maybe you’ve felt the gap — between the problems we face and the systems meant to solve them. Maybe you’ve seen how those closest to the issues are pushed aside.

Help change that. 🧵

If you live in the United States, you are in greater jeopardy today than you were 6 months ago. So is your family. So are your friends & neighbors.

Virtually all the important parts of the U.S. government created to protect us are being shut down, gutted, or marginalized.
— @djrothkopf.bsky.social

The WIRED Guide to Protecting Yourself From Government Surveillance Donald Trump has vowed to deport millions and jail his enemies. To carry out that agenda, his administration will exploit America’s digital surveillance machine. Here are some steps you can take to…

Donald Trump has vowed to deport millions and jail his enemies. It's already happening.

To carry out that agenda, his administration will exploit America’s digital surveillance machine. Here are some steps you can take to evade it.

Live Updates: Man Impersonating Officer Kills Minnesota Lawmaker and Her Husband

When the public sees a US Senator tackled and cuffed at a press briefing, of course this shit is going to happen. 😭 www.nytimes.com/live/2025/06...

She Won. They Didn't Just Change the Machines. They Rewired the Election. How Leonard Leo's 2021 sale of an electronics firm enabled tech giants to subvert the 2024 election.

So, this takes Elon’s tweets about how Trump would have lost without him a little beyond just messing with X’s algos.

open.substack.com/pub/thiswill...

FWIW, I still think this; but two weeks later and now we’ve got Elon claiming he’s with the 80% that are in the centre. So, can’t tell if this is aging well or not. 😆

Republicans' new Medicaid red tape will push Missouri to the brink and block healthcare for millions • Missouri Independent The budget bill passed by the U.S. House will kick millions of people off of Medicaid by piling on new red tape.

Today in the @missouriindependent.com
I shared how new Medicaid red tape imposed by Republicans will kick over 10 million people off their healthcare, including more than 180,000 people in Missouri ‼️

missouriindependent.com/2025/06/06/r...

Hot take: it’s time for the Democrats to go hard to the center. They’ll lose the most left-leaning but they might just save the U.S. from fascism.

Proud of this team! 💪🫡🥹

The Internet of Consent - Anil Dash A blog about making culture. Since 1999.

The entire modern internet has been built on platforms that don’t believe in asking for consent. What if we started demanding a culture of consent online? www.anildash.com//2025/05/27/...

Opinion | We’re international students at Harvard. We’re afraid to write this. But we have to speak up. Three student leaders on Trump’s attempts to throw them out of the country.

We’re international students at Harvard. We’re afraid to write this. But we have to speak up. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Again, they told us what they were gonna do. But the electorate is ignorant and doesn’t care to dig deeper than what they hear in rallies. 😩

What DOGE gets wrong about tech and government Lessons learned by civic tech, forgotten by DOGE

New, from me:
The DOGE project was sold as tech disruptors who would revolutionize government. To try to understand why DOGE has failed, I point to lessons that other technologists who worked in government learned, but DOGE ignored. 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/what-doge-...

It’s too bad they’ve taken all of 18F’s blog posts off the internet where they talk about how they were doing exactly that.

YouTube video by MSNBC Real mission of DOGE seen in new insights on federal data and privacy

@maddow.msnbc.com & @juliaangwin.com Thank you for covering this topic so masterfully. We joined government to deliver human-centered programs and services while protecting the privacy of everyone in our country.

The DOGE data grab is extremely concerning.
youtu.be/-vtJRpu4XUw?...

Also, if you haven’t already — Get Out and VOTE

We need thoughtful policy interventions matched with private sector investments -- and you won't get that by parachuting DOGE-like teams into ministries. You get that by matching the expertise of government with expertise from the private sector.