Daniel Convissor

A Walkway Was Set to Open on the Queensboro Bridge. Until it Wasn’t.

Two months and one apparent mayoral briefing later (www.nytimes.com/2025/03/22/n...) the Queensboro is finally getting its pedestrian path: www.nyc.gov/office-of-th...

Democrats made public money for campaigns even more generous than expected Starting with the 2026 election, Gov. Kathy Hochul and legislative Democrats in New York agreed on many changes to the public campaign finance system.

ICYMI: using the budget, NY Democrats tweaked the public campaign finance system after it was used for the first time in 2024. @reinventalbany.bsky.social says the changes devised in secret undermine small donors and create an "incumbency protection program.”
www.timesunion.com/capitol/arti...

Why I’m Resigning from the NSF and Library of Congress I cannot participate in systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging.

"For me, the answer now lies in refusal, the withdrawal of participation from systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging."

Today I am resigning from the National Science Board and the Library of Congress Scholars Council.

I wrote about my decision in TIME.

time.com/7285045/resi...

Today, we re-issued a memo of opposition to S533 which would repeal the successful congestion pricing program. We ask Senators to vote NO. A vote of “Aye Without Recommendation” is unacceptable; it would be an embarrassment for this bill to move. buff.ly/0FGi6aF

Reality is harsh. :)

Woke up to an email from a European reporter who wants to interview me about what it's like to be a journalist living and working under an autocratic regime... rude!

Also notice the new carveout for "a person responsible for a child 7 years of age or older who is married and resides with an individual who complies with the SNAP work requirement." They're exempting married stay at home moms, fitting with their drive to get more women to make babies and stay home.

SNAP work requirements take benefits away from people without increasing employment www.nber.org/papers/w32441

Churchill: Downtown Albany has problems. Parking isn't one of them. At the recent Albany mayoral debate sponsored by CBS6, moderator Tom Eschen asked candidates how to address the "problem" of parking in downtown Albany.

Damn straight! Albany, NY has TOO MUCH car parking. @timesunion.com's Chris Churchill latest opinion piece BRINGS IT, using @parkingreform.org's data. www.timesunion.com/churchill/ar...

Hasan Piker detained at the border and questioned for hours over politics "They straight up tried to get something out of me that I think they could use to basically detain me permanently"

“The reason they’re doing [this] is to try to create an environment of fear, to try to get people like myself... to shut the fuck up,” Piker said on a stream recounting the details of the incident.

www.usermag.co/p/hasan-pike...

Let’s correct the record on Andrew Cuomo and his history of using Jewish fear & suffering as a political tool.

👀

What's interesting is that the Times itself has a higher standard for its own journalists. If I bought Eric Lipton a fancy dinner, he wouldn't be allowed to take it, even if I didn't say anything to him at the dinner about how he needed to quit defending the indefensible.

preliminary cbo analysis is out. the republican plan would cut more than $700 billion from health coverage and kick more than 8 million people off their insurance

finally for medicaid, they're MANDATING cost sharing (copays, etc.) for adults above 100% of the poverty line. maximum of $35 per service, and max of 5% of your income. so if you make 20k, a state might slap $1k of fees onto your medicaid. true sicko shit!!!!

they're going after people who are not parents or caregivers and who do not have disabilities. this is the people who they think "should be" working.

they have this apply to folks ages 19-64. you can collect social security at 62, but no medicaid for you if you do, even if you're in bad health.

onto work requirements. important to note that work requirements are actually all about *reporting* on your work. states that have implemented work requirements have led to disaster with huge numbers of people who are working still being kicked off their medicaid. this would be a federal mandate.

My hot tip for anyone who wants to build community but doesn't know how:

Plant raspberry bushes near the sidewalk/street.

Legality aside, how pathetic for the American head of state to fly around in the plane he got as a valentine from the Emir of Qatar. A kept little man.

Opinion | Qatar’s gift to Trump reveals a loophole big enough to fly a jumbo jet through A $400 million present shows how presidential libraries remain a blind spot in U.S. corruption law.

wapo.st/3YFsNyd

I'm in the Post talking about the plane.

Energy & Commerce text is out. Will go through it in this thread.

tl;dr: this'd be the largest Medicaid cuts in history, kicking millions off their health insurance, leading to tens of thousands of additional deaths each year

LOTS of bad stuff in this (but the very worst policy did not make it in)

pulling a critique of the bell curve from a university library but not the bell curve is as concise a way i can think of to describe the goal of the speech discourse in the past 15 years

Today I learned that the author of this 1977 op-ed was the most important college mentor for the current head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.

"No Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State."

Nothing in there says there has to be an obvious quid pro quo. Utter bullshit.

Trump Is to Accept a Luxury 747 From Qatar for Use as Air Force One

Trump continues to crash through standards of conduct once inconceivable for a POTUS. He also violates by orders of magnitude ethical standards he voiced for Biden and Clinton. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/11/u...

Another Navy jet falls into sea, marking fourth major mishap in months The latest loss of an F/A-18 fighter jet occurred during a failed landing aboard the USS Harry S. Truman, an aircraft carrier in the Red Sea.

Another Navy jet falls into sea, marking fourth major mishap in months
wapo.st/4dlyTda

Fucking fascists, Gestapo in Massachusetts edition...

serious question: who the fuck are these people

like, are these pardoned insurrectionists? are they even government employees? what agency do they work for?