Ariel Kennan

It me.

You made the right choice! A lot of stuff closed with the storm a few weeks ago, and this one looks even worse. Cozy at home is different than cozy in hotel room!

Understanding Mamdani's Vision His inauguration speech challenges the left to govern

Great analysis of Mayor Mamdani's speech from @pamherd.bsky.social and @donmoyn.bsky.social! donmoynihan.substack.com/p/understand...

Jumaane Williams choked up as he told little Black boys they deserve to be loved.

Zohran spoke of a constituent who said the campaign had made room for softness in people’s hearts.

Three generations sang “Over the Rainbow” and “Bread and Roses.”

Another politics is possible—and it’s here. ❤️

Love for this city and its people. What a beautiful celebration to start the year, and a new era.

“To those who insist that the era of big government is over, hear me when I say this: No longer will City Hall hesitate to use its power to improve New Yorkers’ lives.”

Watch the whole speech.

BREAKING: Zohran Mamdani wins the New York City mayoral race, NBC News projects. nbcnews.to/4nIzNUC

2 MILLION VOTES: NYC! All before 9 p.m.

More of our election coverage can be found here at thecity.nyc

Food is a basic human need. How we respond in this moment will define whether we care for our neighbors—or allow millions to go hungry.

A group of civic tech nonprofits is issuing a statement on recent SNAP disruptions.

Read here: beeckcenter.georgetown.edu/statement-on...

Digital Benefits in the News Sharing the latest stories across public benefits programs and digital service delivery

This month’s Digital Benefits in the News starts with journalism telling the stories of those impacted by the federal shutdown disruption in SNAP and WIC.

Thank you to our community for all their work.

➡️ Read our full newsletter here
beeckcenter.org/4nrSKuq

What Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful’ Bill Means for NYC Momentous decisions loom for state and city officials, who will either have to reduce services or find a way to absorb huge cuts in federal aid.

What Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful’ Bill Means for NYC

www.thecity.nyc/2025/07/07/t...

Press on.

Many states' Medicaid programs have a different name, but local reporting is connecting the dots on One Big Beautiful Bill's massive cuts On May 22, House Republicans passed their budget reconciliation omnibus — the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” — which would cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid, among other spendi...

Millions of Americans enrolled in HuskyHealth, BadgerCare, TennCare, KanCare or other confusingly-named state health insurance programs might not even know they're the ones about to be kicked off of Medicaid. www.mediamatters.org/health-care/...

"A lot of currently eligible people are actually going to lose benefits," said Pamela Herd, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, who studies the effects of administrative burdens. "Not because they're ineligible, but because they can't handle the set of massive roadblocks Republicans are putting in their way."

Listen to @pamherd.bsky.social!

NYC, vote if you haven’t already!

Hey New York, tomorrow starts early voting AND it's the last day to register to vote ahead of the primary! Register here: www.vote.nyc/page/registe...

We are excited to be back at #CfASummit and to be part of a community building a people-centered, digitally-enabled government for all.

@codeforamerica.org

SSA changes phone fraud policies after finding very little fraud The change follows reporting by Nextgov/FCW about the policy and its contributions to a slowdown in retirement claims processing.

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

DOGE Cuts Pull AmeriCorps Volunteers Off of Disaster Relief Jobs The youth volunteers who were working on projects ranging from rebuilding homes destroyed in storms to distributing supplies for hurricane recovery were suddenly pulled from service. Why? DOGE cuts.

NEW: i spoke with several young AmeriCorps volunteers around the country who were abruptly pulled off projects building homes, readying forests for wildfire season, and working at food banks Tuesday afternoon. they are now on their way home thanks to DOGE cuts —

Trump and DOGE Claim Power to Falsely List Living Persons as Dead in Social Security Records | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities The Trump Administration has made a shocking claim: that it can declare living people dead to cut off their access to government benefits and the broader U.S. financial system. According to reporting....

The Trump Administration has made a shocking claim: that it can declare living people dead to cut off their access to government benefits and the broader U.S. financial system.

Thread on my colleagues’ new blog 🧵

www.cbpp.org/blog/trump-a...

A whistleblower's disclosure details how DOGE may have taken sensitive labor data A whistleblower tells Congress and NPR that DOGE may have taken sensitive labor data and hid its tracks. "None of that ... information should ever leave the agency," said a former NLRB official.

NEW from me: A whistleblower says DOGE may have taken sensitive labor data...and then someone posted a threatening letter to his door.

www.npr.org/2025/04/15/n...

I did an actual 😮 when reading that passage this morning.

MATHIEU VAN DER POEL (ALPECIN-DECEUNINCK) WINS PARIS-ROUBAIX FOR A THIRD CONSECUTIVE YEAR 🪨🪨🪨

Musk’s Latest Fraud Finding Isn’t What It Seems His team found cases of seemingly fake people receiving unemployment benefits. But that fake data exists for a reason.

During the pandemic the Labor Department suggested states create "pseudo records" to track unemployment fraud while protecting identity theft victims -- basically, records of real fraud tied to make-believe people.

This week DOGE discovered those make-believe people. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/12/u...

Trump administration overrode Social Security staff to list immigrants as dead A senior executive who objected was marched out of his office and put on leave, while earlier warnings about the agency’s deaths database were ignored.

SCOOP: Trump admin overrode objections from Social Security staff to label ~6,000 living immigrants dead. A senior exec who objected was escorted out of the building, and earlier warnings were ignored. The immigrants include 13, 14 & 16yos who staff didn't find criminal records for: wapo.st/3RKSQQt

Nothing about this sounds efficient…

Pretty much every agency did this, most well before April. And ai.gov is also redirected to whitehouse.gov

Musk’s Latest Fraud Finding Isn’t What It Seems His team found cases of seemingly fake people receiving unemployment benefits. But that fake data exists for a reason.

Proud to see my colleague @jenphillips.bsky.social with @aimstettner.bsky.social & @micheleevermore.bsky.social in the @nytimes.com setting the record straight on UI fraud claims, how fed gov & states worked to balance security & access, and the capacity states need. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/12/u...

Pressuring Migrants to ‘Self-Deport,’ White House Moves to Cancel Social Security Numbers (Gift Article) By placing migrants in Social Security’s “death master file,” the Trump administration is seeking to cut off their access to credit cards, bank accounts and other financial services.

❗ The Trump Administration is planning to falsify government records to declare alive people dead.

This triggers a nightmare, cutting them off from benefits, banks, credit, insurance.

If they can do it to one group, they can do it to anyone--in error or in malice

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/u...

Alternative headline: Acting Head of IRS Resigns Rather Than Break the Law