Laura Moy

This might be my favorite one so far but I’m a huge fan of the whole series, please keep them coming!

Contempt please

Live updates

60 Minutes found no criminal record for 75% of the Venezuelan migrants the U.S. sent to a mega-prison in El Salvador. https://cbsn.ws/4lC4Vp5

Other than using signal probably one of the easiest things most people can do to boost their digital security is get a password manager and start using real passwords instead of your dogs name or FaceID

135. The Trump Reckoning Reaches the Court How the justices navigate the six pending emergency applications from the Trump administration will tell us a lot about how much (or how little) the Court will be a bulwark against the President.

With *six* emergency applications now pending before #SCOTUS, covering four different (but all major) policy disputes, I thought it might be helpful to break down what each case is about, the timing, and the stakes.

The latest (unscheduled) "One First" is here:

www.stevevladeck.com/p/135-the-tr...

“I mean, you have the human, who is a huge jerk, constantly booping you on the nose and telling you to “PUT [YOUR] TEEFS AWAY.” What an evil thing to do. What a creep, what a jerk. Like who derives joy from that?”

This guy is in one of the worst prisons in the world with no way out and may spend the rest of his life there because, it appears, he has an autism awareness tattoo in honor of his little brother.

www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Video of the international student at Tufts being arrested by "federal authorities" in Massachusetts has been released and it's terrifying.

They're not even uniformed officers. Just secret police thugs in hoodies and masks.

From WCVB: youtu.be/PuFIs7OkzYY

Happening now: The court has moved on to oral arguments on a challenge to a FCC program that subsidizes telecom services to schools, libraries, and underserved areas with potential to further curtail the power of federal agencies. Listen live: www.supremecourt.gov/oral_argumen...

graph of NIH basisfor new drugs

A pie graph worth keeping in mind as the NIH budget plummets jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... for 356 new FDA drugs approved

My dad was diagnosed with cancer in 2019. He was asymptomatic and they only caught it because of some diagnostic tests he received as part of an NIH study of a totally unrelated condition.

I keep thinking about the fact that he would not be alive today if it weren’t for that research.

Commissioner Bedoya's @bedoyaftc.bsky.social statement on his illegal firing promised "more to say" at this testimony:

Trump administration freezes $175 million in federal funding to Penn According to a White House tweet, Wednesday's decision is a result of Penn's

They are coming for every university, if you think you’re safe because it hasn’t been yours yet I don’t know what to tell you. Join AAUP, refuse to comply, organize your colleagues

Joint Judiciary [Mar 19, 2025] Duration is only an estimate.

Looks like FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya, who was illegally fired yesterday, will be presenting today at 1:30 PM MT (3:30 ET) before the Colorado legislature on "The Role of States in Protecting Affordability." I predict 🔥🔥🔥! Livestream link: sg001-harmony.sliq.net/00327/Harmon...

1/ Dear everyone who just went grocery shopping and saw this,

There’s a person in government who could flick his pen and investigate what the hell is going on with eggs. No, not your congressman. His name is Andrew Ferguson. He’s the new head of the @FTC. Has he done that? No

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Is Being Told to Stop Its Work. 5 Ways That Could Impact Consumers Like You. - Consumer Reports The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is being told to stop its enforcement and litigation work and suspend all rulemaking. How the changes could impact consumers.

www.consumerreports.org/consumer-pro...

Oh and here's the link to submit a filing: www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings.... You can select "express comment" up at the top of the window to submit a comment by simply typing something brief into the window. Or if you prefer to file your comment as an attachment, choose "standard filing."

P.S. If you're curious what other commenters are saying on this matter, you can see all filings in the docket here: www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/...

And here's the full notice from the FCC announcing establishment of the docket: docs.fcc.gov/public/attac.... The notice includes links to both the full transcript and the edited video of the interview. There are also instructions for folks who would prefer to comment by mail.

For ease of reference, here is the complaint (by the Center for American Rights against WCBS) that members of the public have been asked to comment on: www.fcc.gov/ecfs/documen...

Screenshot of ECFS submission form showing how to select the correct docket by entering 25-73 into the "proceeding(s)" field and choosing the "News Distortion Complaint" docket from the dropdown.

A public comment on this matter can be filed by using the FCC's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS), entering 25-73 into the "proceeding(s)" field, and selecting the "News Distortion Complaint" docket.

Given the value of transparency and demonstrated interest in this ongoing FCC matter, the FCC has determined that the public interest would be served by making the transcript and video available and by opening a docket to seek comment on the issues that have been raised. Thus, materials can be found here (video) and here (transcript), and we hereby establish a docket to seek comment on the CAR Complaint. We have concluded that establishing this docket would, in this case, permit broader public participation and thereby serve the public interest.

If you have 5 minutes to spare and some thoughts about the allegations that 60 Minutes engaged in impermissible news distortion, FYI the FCC has invited public comment on these allegations. More details and info on how to comment below:

Update: They were removed from our reviewer assignments completely. I'm so sorry to all those graduate students. Anonymous to protect the identity of the NIH employee I spoke to...I am on study section next month to discuss F awards. We were just instructed to put the F31-Diversity applications on the bottom of our priority list for review because there is a chance we may not be able to review them. My heart is breaking for the grad students and their mentors that put so much work into these just for them to be disqualified and thrown out.

Just in case you thought that removing DEI criteria would mean that everyone is competing equally: NIH is removing grad students from underrepresented backgrounds from the applicant pool altogether. Their applications will not be considered. Other students, not from these backgrounds, will be.

February 5, 2025 Dear Chairman Ferguson: The day he was sworn into office, the President declared the cost of living to be an emergency. It’s been over two weeks since then. Here’s ten things you could do immediately to help people stay afloat—and to make sure our staff stays informed about the most urgent problems people face. You’d have my support for all of them, immediately. • Egg prices are exorbitant. A lot of people can’t even find them on the shelves. There’s a public request from Farm Action for us to investigate potential price-gouging and anticompetitive coordination in the egg industry. You could open an investigation into egg production and marketing practices. • People who need cash are going online to get loans and advances. Many of them don’t get the funding they’re promised or are charged illegal hidden fees. You could direct agency staff to conduct a sweep of financial services to identify companies that seek to illegally profit from people in crisis. • Rent is too high. Some corporate landlords and property management companies have used deceptive ads, hidden junk fees, and other illegal tactics to trick people into higher rents. You could direct agency staff to investigate if the nation’s largest landlords and management companies are deceiving tenants into paying higher rents. • Not enough new homes are coming to market. Research suggests that homebuilding markets are highly concentrated and may result in billions of dollars of new inventory not coming to market. You could announce plans to study the effect of concentration in the housing supply chain on home prices. • Misclassification lets lawbreakers steal thousands of dollars from workers. It also lets some companies effectively rig contract competitions. You could act on the public request from a group of contractors to investigate how misclassification affects contract competitions in the commercial construction industry. • Drug shortages drive up drug prices and delay cr…

• Commercial trucking is the backbone of the country. Some companies run training programs for new drivers that force those drivers to repay exorbitant sums if they have to quit trucking early. You could ask staff to investigate Commercial Drivers’ License training programs to ensure that those programs aren’t unfair or deceptive. • Many older Americans lack companionship. So-called “pig-butchering” scams send them seemingly innocent texts, engage them in conversation, and then defraud them of their life savings. Some of the scammers are often victims of trafficking. You could work with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to join their initiative to crack down on these scams. • As you know, a lot of these ideas have come up during our open commission meetings where members of the public tell us about their problems, what we’re doing right, and what we’re doing wrong. I urge you to schedule the next open commission meeting ASAP so the American people can tell us what we should focus on. None of this is partisan. I don’t think any of it is controversial, either. I urge you to help people with the cost of living. Sincerely, Alvaro M. Bedoya Commissioner

Egg prices. Cash advance apps that rip you off. Landlords who trick you into higher rent. Housing prices. Wage theft. Drug shortages. Sports betting. CDL schools. Pig-butchering scams. Here's 10 things FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson could do today to help people with the cost of living.

Settings > Privacy > Disappearing Messages > [pick a default disappearing message timer].

Just be in the habit of having messages disappear. There really is no reason to keep messages indefinitely.

You can also change the timer for specific conversations as much as you want.

NEW: Sources tell my office that Treasury Secretary Bessent has granted DOGE *full* access to this system. Social Security and Medicare benefits, grants, payments to government contractors, including those that compete directly with Musk's own companies. All of it.

For anyone who could use a little furbaby joy today. 🐶

[D]uring the course of our civilization and since we have inhabited this country, our experience shows that the German, the Irishman, and the Scandinavian come here to make their homes with us and become a part of us. They fraternize with us and we absorb them. They are of our own race, having the same customs, manners, and religion. Where a German came here twenty-five or thirty years ago and reared his family, you cannot now point out his boys as being of German extraction, in contradistinction to other boys of American parentage; you cannot distinguish the difference between the sons of Irish parents and the sons of parents who were born in the United States. They become homogeneous. Their assimilation is completed within one generation.

Rep. Page of California argued that whereas white Europeans would quickly assimilate in American society, Chinese people were incapable of assimilation.

This idea of building immigration policy around concepts of "assimilation" with "American culture" has been around forever—and arguably is the very foundation of American immigration law. Consider, for example, some of the justifications expressed in Congress for Chinese Exclusion: