John Skiles Skinner

A terrorist targeted federal workers last week. There wasn’t much reporting on it. But I’m not finished thinking about it! 🧵 An anti-vaxxer fired more than 500 gunshots into CDC Atlanta, shattering 150 “blast-proof” windows on 6 buildings. Employees were pinned down in terror.

The message of War Pigs — that war is evil, and that rich warmongers will go to Hell — is an impeccably textual Christian message. The Satanic Panic had to invent hidden messages in Ozzy Osbourne's music to justify hating and fearing him. A bag of tricks they are still pulling from.

Re-reading the report of the Social Security whistleblower, it is striking how many times good people within SSA tried to keep DOGE from committing crimes. Here's my understanding of the timeline 🧵

A few people have sent this to me wondering if it is accurate My take is, the central claims are factually inaccurate yet the overall picture presented is fairly accurate 🧵

Sasse's signature legislation was the "Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act," a nonsense bill designed to gratify a conservative conspiracy theory. He wasted his whole life on culture war lying.

Further building blocks in the Trump / Silicon Valley data juggernaut, for automating loyalty tests and repression as a service. OPM was the federal agency used by Musk to send his "5 bullet points" emails. It remains compromised.

A lot of men are discovering (unwittingly) that they have never been good partners to women, and moreover they have never even seen a good male partner. Generations upon generations without a role model.

What's the deal with boondoggle government contracts, like $100 million for a software system that doesn't actually work? It's not an imponderable mystery. Usually, it's simply because no government employee has expertise in the thing the government is buying. So they get taken advantage of.

"because it explicitly says LGBTQ" You know those videos on how to identify illegal discrimination a new job makes you watch during your first week? This is more than that. More illegal than the textbook example.

As a personal act of resistance to fascism, lately I consolidated all my vaccination history into a single spreadsheet, then I looked up vaccination recommendations and calculated what shots I was overdue for. Then I scheduled them. It felt really empowering and reassuring.

Thank you @lorenzofb.bsky.social for accurately reporting that the Social Security Administration is *still* under the control of DOGE. This information is needed for the story to make sense. techcrunch.com/2026/03/10/d...

Privacy was the norm at government agencies before Trump 2. It's hard to explain how hard Musk and DOGE busted through all the safeguards.

Events so far: Whistleblower @chuckborges.bsky.social claims DOGE kids illegally copied your Social Security data Tech bros at SSA deny it Then they admit it Another whistleblower claims DOGE kid took the data to a new job at a private company Tech bros at SSA deny it What's next?