About 1,500 soldiers w/ 11th Airborne Division in Alaska have been placed on prepare-to-deploy orders with a mission in Minnesota in mind, defense officials tell me tonight. Unclear if some or all of them ultimately will go. News reported tonight by ABC News, too.

The entire non-defense discretionary budget is $783 billion. To run the entire rest of the US government outside of Social Security and Medicare. It is impossible to add $500 billion to the DOD budget. Nor, as a policy matter, should we, especially at a time all social services are breaking.

“Tell me how this ends” - Gen. Petraeus, 2003

👏 After decades of advocacy from FCNL’s advocacy network and the broader peace movement, the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) in Iraq has finally been repealed!

This story by @mikebaker.bsky.social is a tale as old as time - public funds leached away for worse products by private equity. Doubly infuriating because volunteer FDs are the purest form of service. Neighbors helping neighbors. 1/ www.nytimes.com/2025/12/14/u...

After letting funding lapse for nearly two years, Congress voted to renew crucial federal funding that rural counties and schools have counted on for a quarter century.

Good piece on Lane County’s use of drug deflection dollars to provide temporary housing for folks awaiting drug treatment. Helps keep people connected to services and easier for providers who don’t have to track down someone who is homeless & moving around. www.wweek.com/news/2025/11...

Today’s xkcd made me cry. In a good way. xkcd.com/3172/

The distance in time between now and when Microsoft Office replaced drop down menus with the ribbon bar at the top is the same as the distance between then and the fall of the Berlin Wall

Yeah :D

Oregon is suing the Trump administration for allegedly holding back emergency grants promised to the state for emergency management, disaster-relief and homeland security operations. buff.ly/otQvJT3

When I got out of college, I rented a room in my buddy’s double-wide. He was a firefighter. I was a firefighter. I made $26,000 that year and had 0 kids. He had 3 kids, 2 jobs, rented out a room - and still needed food stamps to make ends meet and put good food on the table for the kids.

I can’t stress this enough: you cannot understand politics without reading this paragraph about why there’s no such thing as a 1/3rd pound hamburger

Picture of the East Wing demolition of the White House taken on my flight out of DCA.

Report examining the employment history data of more than 3m finance & tech workers at companies that rolled out office mandates found that turnover among women is almost three times as high as that of their male co-workers, and that women are more likely to take a lower position if they leave

Healthcare premiums (and pension costs) are eating local government budgets. At my last city, the full cost of my family plan was like $48k. I paid 5% of that. But between insurance, pension, and other benefits and payroll taxes, my total comp was close to 2x my salary. It’s not sustainable.

Willamette Couch Street Wallowa

Cyberpunk is a warning not an instruction manual, episode 2475

I’m super privileged to send my kid to an amazing school. You know what she did last year for pre-k? Played in the woods and wetlands. Made a papier-mâché egret that she saw in the wetlands. Learned about playing with friends. Perfected her technique on the swing. None of this nonsense.

How your email finds me

I really need to spend less time on my hobby of book buying and start to read some once in a while.

Guardsmen on the mall with their M4s this morning. To my memory this is the first time I’ve seen the guard with long guns. Even during the days after Sept 11 they only carried sidearms.

Portland is divided into 6 quadrants.

I’m just a local government guy, but I don’t understand this attitude around public records. If it’s exempt, I’ll articulate the exemption and defend my position as needed. If not, sure, whatever, have the records. I’m just the custodian, not the owner. They’re *public* records.

One of my best public sector management lessons was “lawyers advise, managers decide”. When an attorney says something can’t be done, it’s incumbent on you to ask questions and figure out if that’s opinion, law, or a gray area. Then to go back and find a path that satisfies these concerns.

* Trump Says He’ll Fire Labor Statistics Head After Weak Jobs Data 🤡 @bloomberg.com

Someone just alerted me to this news by being snarky about it and friends, I HAVE BEEN WAITING SINCE I WAS PREGNANT WITH THE DAUGHTER WHO JUST GRADUATED FROM COLLEGE FOR A SEQUEL TO BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM. Snark however much you want, internet stranger, I am choosing joy!

Bail reform has a ton of nuance to it. Kim and Koh (2021) show an aggregate increase in property crime in NJ. Ropac & Rempel (2023) show a decrease in felony re-arrests in NYC, but not for repeat offenders. Oregon detained more felony defendants pre-trial post-bail reform (Dooley, 2024).

Elect more millennial parents of young children to get better childcare and elder care policies!

Michael Collins for AP Euro. I’m pretty sure it was on Laserdisc.

This is dumb on Axon’s part. I’m sure part of it is not wanting to build out these features. But there’s another part that I think is important, is that’s it’s immaterial which parts are AI and which are human. That’s a very SV view, but it’s not appropriate for LE. Justice is clunky on purpose.

Apple Music is generating “all-time favorite tracks” playlists from the last decade of your usage. How to tell in one quick glance that I have a preschooler. 😂😂

In 45 states child care for two kids costs more than a mortgage. In 49 states child care for two surpasses what families pay in rent.

A big problem I have with all the AI boosters is when they say things like, "if you just use them right, they're great!" Buddy, after 30 years in tech I can tell you that the one thing people will NOT do is use anything right.

Thanks to @aprilehrlich.bsky.social & @opb.org for covering this story!

Numerous teachers told me that they are wasting many hours of their lives giving thoughtful feedback to robots

100% endorsement for this. Also will sign a petition to prohibit schools from having 3 apps or web platforms for different tasks for your child. Attendance, health, and parent directory? Do we need 3 logins for this?

I’m an average mid-level civil servant. This has been (just part of) my week: Work on implementing Oregon’s complex recycling modernization act Mitigate the workload on local governments to create local emergency planning committees for Hazmat Work on legislation for criminal justice reform

This is perhaps a universal tale of government: someone from outside has a good idea and instead of thinking it through, tries to will it into being - and then everyone else has to spend their time trying to kill the thing that should not be.

Happy Public Service Recognition Week?

I truly think the brain damage from sleep deprivation is an evolutionary thing to make you forget how terrible the first few years are so that you’re tempted to have more kids and perpetuate the species. (Speaking as a parent of 1).

What an amazing grassroots effort. I cannot wait to see what comes from projects like this!

I worked at a gas station/ repair shop in high school and college. My first job after college was a firefighter. There’s an immense value to blue collar work. It also wrecks your body, which is why we invented social security in the 1930s. And why I went to grad school and have a white collar job.

1/ I wonder if there's a complement to Mettler's _Submerged State_ thesis: the successful state thesis. In brief: American government has *in many ways* been so successful for so long that Americans have forgotten why they need it, making anti-government rhetoric more appealing.

The value of teachers is that you can read Ender’s Game and have a takeaway more insightful than “hyper smart kids learn from tablets and take over the world through force of argument and intellect”

This is somehow a verbatim transcript of a conversation in my house.

millennials will be like i know a banger and it's the reading rainbow theme song. and they're right

They're called public records for a reason. Starting today, WIRED will *stop paywalling* articles that are primarily based on public records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, becoming the first publication to partner with @freedom.press to offer this for our new coverage.