J. Emory Parker 🏳️‍🌈
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jaspar.bsky.social
J. Emory Parker 🏳️‍🌈
@jaspar.bsky.social
Pulitzer prize winning editor and news developer. Bluesky elder. Now: Data Editor at @statnews.bsky.social
✉️ [email protected] 📸 jemoryparker 🐘 @[email protected] | Signal: jaspar.01
Pinned
New from me: Here it is, everything I know about every change I've been monitoring on data.cdc.gov plus an archive of every file that's been removed or altered.

www.statnews.com/2025/02/14/t...
STAT is backing up and monitoring CDC data in real time: See what's changing
STAT is backing up and monitoring CDC data in real time: See what's changing.
www.statnews.com
Reposted by J. Emory Parker 🏳️‍🌈
paragraph 48: "In Mr. Trump’s second term, Ms. Britt has voted in line with the president 100 percent of the time."
February 5, 2026 at 7:43 PM
Reposted by J. Emory Parker 🏳️‍🌈
over the next 3 years, be ready for seeing a lot of coverage of Republican lawmakers, business leaders, university leaders who did absolutely nothing to stall Trump (on the contrary) — about how *actually* they were wringing their hands all along. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/u...
February 5, 2026 at 8:31 PM
The State Fair is a lot of fun!
When this is over, and it is warmer, please consider a trip to the Twin Cities. It’s a gorgeous, generous place with great museums and cultural spots, and a walk/blade/bike around the lakes cannot be beat.
With employees afraid to work and customers fearful, Minneapolis businesses are losing $10 million to $20 million in sales a week, according to city estimates.
February 5, 2026 at 9:32 PM
Reposted by J. Emory Parker 🏳️‍🌈
On Capitol Hill, a growing number of lawmakers — including a handful of Senate Republicans — want Kristi Noem to resign or be fired.

A new poll shows the American mainstream agrees. www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...
New national poll shows most Americans want Kristi Noem out at DHS
After federal agents killed Renee Good, polls showed a public backlash. After federal agents killed Alex Pretti, it got worse.
www.ms.now
February 5, 2026 at 9:30 PM
Reposted by J. Emory Parker 🏳️‍🌈
Despite two court orders to return Emilio Pena Jimenez to Minnesota from a detention center in Texas, the government sent him to Mexico.
Despite judge’s order, ICE sent an immigrant to Mexico instead of returning him to Minnesota
The government says the undocumented immigrant voluntarily left the U.S. His attorney is seeking a contempt of court finding as the federal courts remain overwhelmed by immigration cases.
bit.ly
February 5, 2026 at 6:59 PM
Reposted by J. Emory Parker 🏳️‍🌈
With employees afraid to work and customers fearful, Minneapolis businesses are losing $10 million to $20 million in sales a week, according to city estimates.
Minneapolis businesses losing millions in sales each week as ICE operation continues
Immigrant-owned businesses are bearing the brunt of the losses from Operation Metro Surge, but effects are widespread.
bit.ly
February 5, 2026 at 9:20 PM
Reposted by J. Emory Parker 🏳️‍🌈
NEW: Records reviewed by WIRED show DHS’s facial recognition app (Mobile Fortify) isn’t designed to actually "verify" identity—despite DHS claims and its agents relying on its matches to support probable cause in the field.
ICE and CBP’s Face-Recognition App Can’t Actually Verify Who People Are
ICE has used Mobile Fortify to identify immigrants and citizens alike over 100,000 times, by one estimate. It wasn't built to work like that—and only got approved after DHS abandoned its own privacy r...
www.wired.com
February 5, 2026 at 8:29 PM
The story says she thought about it a lot and it made her sad, but also that she did nothing about it and not only did she not speak out about it when she had opportunities, she continued to echo anti-immigrant talking points instead.
“.. I’m sad for our country,” she said. “I don’t think that the escalation that we’ve seen, particularly in Minnesota, I don’t think it is. … ”

She paused for another eight seconds ..

“.. productive.”

@nytimes.com #ALsen
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/u...
February 5, 2026 at 7:16 PM
Reposted by J. Emory Parker 🏳️‍🌈
While reporting this, I had something happen that's never happened. A comms rep for one of the co's disputed my reporting and said what I was telling them was untrue because it was not in Grok, xAI's chatbot.

I was looking directly at the files. And this person was using AI to challenge the truth.
Epstein had many known connections to Silicon Valley CEOs, but less known was how he made money from those relationships.

We did a deep dive into how he got dealflow in Silicon Valley, giving him shots to invest in Coinbase, Palantir, SpaceX and other companies.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/b...
Jeffrey Epstein’s Money Mingled With Silicon Valley Start-Ups
www.nytimes.com
February 5, 2026 at 5:38 PM
Reposted by J. Emory Parker 🏳️‍🌈
Epstein had many known connections to Silicon Valley CEOs, but less known was how he made money from those relationships.

We did a deep dive into how he got dealflow in Silicon Valley, giving him shots to invest in Coinbase, Palantir, SpaceX and other companies.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/b...
Jeffrey Epstein’s Money Mingled With Silicon Valley Start-Ups
www.nytimes.com
February 5, 2026 at 3:21 PM
Reposted by J. Emory Parker 🏳️‍🌈
After 6am this morning in Whittier, Minneapolis—FOUR BLOCKS from where Pretti was murdered.

18 agents with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) markings smashed an apartment window, ran in, and came out with one man.
February 5, 2026 at 1:41 PM
Reposted by J. Emory Parker 🏳️‍🌈
The Washington Post gutted the health team which I helped to lead despite our stories being among the most widely read, impactful and adept at reaching new audiences.
February 5, 2026 at 4:17 PM
A pet peeve I’ve developed is when people describe Minneapolis as a small or mid-sized city. The Twin Cities are the nations’s 16th largest metro, between Seattle and Tampa, both of which I’d consider in the tier of “big” (but not “major”) US cities.
February 5, 2026 at 3:23 PM
Reposted by J. Emory Parker 🏳️‍🌈
Posties: Please send me your resumes. DM me for my email if you don't already have it.
February 5, 2026 at 3:09 PM
Reposted by J. Emory Parker 🏳️‍🌈
Crucial from @brianbeutler.bsky.social: Anyone selling warehouses to ICE for camps should prepare for video leaking of "people inside being tortured." They'll have to answer for atrocities "in their communities."

On the pod we went big on Trump's new vulnerabilities:
newrepublic.com/article/2061...
Trump Reveals Hint of Panic on ICE as Prison Camps Anger MAGA Country
As Trump’s planned ICE detention camps face resistance in unlikely places, a sharp observer of Democrats explains how this moment is handing them a major opportunity to seize control of this debate.
newrepublic.com
February 5, 2026 at 1:06 PM
Reposted by J. Emory Parker 🏳️‍🌈
Trump at the National Prayer Breakfast: "We worked hard on getting rid of the Johnson Amendment. You can say anything you can. Now, if you do say something bad about Trump, I will change my mind and I will have your tax exempt status immediately revoked."
February 5, 2026 at 2:50 PM
Reposted by J. Emory Parker 🏳️‍🌈
After Trump tells NBC News he could maybe use a "softer touch" on immigration, we immediately get the "different tone" narrative from CNN.

Brianna Keilar: "A change of tone for the president. Softer touch."

David Chalian: "He acknowledged learning something that this requires a softer touch."
February 4, 2026 at 7:44 PM
Reposted by J. Emory Parker 🏳️‍🌈
🚨HOLY CRAP. The Trump admin just took a SLEDGEHAMMER to due process, largely eliminating the Board of Immigration Appeals process and MANDATING DISMISSAL of ALL appeals (which cost $1,000 thanks to OBBBA) filed after tomorrow unless a majority of the BIA votes to hear the case.
February 5, 2026 at 2:37 PM
Reposted by J. Emory Parker 🏳️‍🌈
Bezos knows exactly why they are losing subscribers and has decided DOD contracts are more lucrative.
The morning after mass layoffs, The Washington Post publishes this as their lead editorial. The owner and publisher clearly have no idea why they are losing subscribers. Meanwhile they have destroyed a storied brand.

Support independent media. hubs.ly/Q03M8rql0
February 5, 2026 at 2:12 PM
The other thing giving me daily whiplash is how I wake up to UK news about some new character from their politics being in hot water over the Epstein files only to scroll a bit more and see the American elite discourse is like “oh so it’s illegal to send lingerie to 14 year olds now??”
February 5, 2026 at 2:08 PM
Very funny how people are now doing this concern trolling “has the release gone too far?” bit when every single person knows full well the difference between being mentioned in the Epstein files and being a main character in them.
February 5, 2026 at 1:26 PM
Reposted by J. Emory Parker 🏳️‍🌈
very weird “I am Spartacus” thing happening right now with the worst people on earth
February 5, 2026 at 12:06 PM
Reposted by J. Emory Parker 🏳️‍🌈
‘One officer told me that I "had no chance of returning to Minnesota" and that "the best thing for (me] is self-deportation." …
She offered me $2600 to self-deport.
I refused.
I wanted to talk to my attorney.
They didn't tell me the judge had already ordered my release and return to Minnesota.’
February 5, 2026 at 6:04 AM
Reposted by J. Emory Parker 🏳️‍🌈
I feel exactly the same way about all of the scientists who were RIF’d or had their funding denied.

The ripple effects are enormous and will undermine public health for decades to come.

It will take a beat for the general public to see it, but it’s coming.
One more comment on the Post debacle: this hurts journalism broadly. Good journalists will go do something else. The rest will be fighting for fewer jobs and everyone will earn less. Fewer people will take up the career. The damage done is to the ecosystem, as well as the paper.
February 5, 2026 at 4:23 AM