Joshua Tauberer
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Joshua Tauberer
@joshdata.me
Civic technologist and engineering manager. Founder @govtrack.us. More active at https://mastodon.joshdata.me/@josh.
Reposted by Joshua Tauberer
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The 51st is a worker-led nonprofit news source for D.C. Our reporting is rooted in our conviction that local journalism is meant to make people’s lives better — no paywalls, ever. But that's only…
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December 25, 2025 at 2:45 PM
Reposted by Joshua Tauberer
Wild dissenting opinion

Issue is the law was misread by BOTH sides of the suit, but the mistake was caught by a prof

Under Alito-Gorsuch logic, if both sides misinterpret the original intent of the law, the misinterpretation is then law

So much for originalism!

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/24/u...
December 24, 2025 at 8:23 PM
Squee joins the liberal justices to block the national guard from engaging in protective services in places where the military is prohibited from doing so. Which means still OK in DC.
December 23, 2025 at 9:10 PM
Reposted by Joshua Tauberer
🚨 Do you support and want more independent local journalism in D.C.? Help us get there! Over at @51st.news we're looking for 3,000 new subscribers, whether paid or free, by the end of the year. We've also got a great match offer on any contributions! 51st.news/why-were-set...
Why we're setting our sights on a different kind of goal
In 2025 — a year unlike any other — we’re taking a non-traditional approach to year-end fundraising.
51st.news
December 16, 2025 at 2:53 PM
Reposted by Joshua Tauberer
People who believe the liberal arts are inherently bullshitting unsurprisingly extremely excited to replace the liberal arts with bullshitting at scale as a service and charging for it
December 14, 2025 at 7:08 PM
Reposted by Joshua Tauberer
this isn't the point but it is funny and kind of a broader point that the focus of the subhead is "architects" and then they replaced what was, in the original photo, labourers.
I guess it's fitting that it's a reimagined, worse version of someone else's artwork
December 12, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Nobody should be surprised when this happens either.
It’s gonna be darkly funny when the court rules 6-3 that California’s gerrymander is impermissible
It's good—very good, and very important—that district courts keep issuing these 100-page rulings upholding the law. It must be incredibly dispiriting to see them overturned in a two-page, lawless, unsigned order, but please, keep them coming. They expose SCOTUS' corruption like nothing else.
December 5, 2025 at 2:02 AM
Reposted by Joshua Tauberer
4/ We're part of a program called NewsMatch that doubles donations to small nonprofit newsrooms like ours up to $15k — including the full-year value of a monthly membership, if you join us now.

Want to be living in a D.C. that tells its own story? This is the moment to invest in all of our future.
Join The 51st
The 51st is a worker-led nonprofit news source for D.C. Our reporting is rooted in our conviction that local journalism is meant to make people’s lives better — no paywalls, ever. But that's only poss...
51st.news
December 2, 2025 at 5:58 PM
Reposted by Joshua Tauberer
AI is unique in that it was born at stage 3 of the enshittification process, its creators hastily backfilled imaginary competencies for steps 1 and 2 that only dipshits believe are real, and it's sliding into 4 before our eyes, taking a mountain of money with it. Pretty innovative!
December 2, 2025 at 4:49 PM
Reposted by Joshua Tauberer
Know someone who'd love @51st.news? Here's some info about their referral program. And you can also find them on Flipboard.

51st.news/referral-cha...
flipboard.com/@51stnews
November 26, 2025 at 5:59 PM
Donated! If this is new to you check out the thread.
hi friends, I’m so thrilled @publicgood.tech is on BlueSky! I've been a board member since 2021 & I care deeply about this org: the only one dedicated to supporting the people who do the very hard work of civic tech

Heads-up: I’m asking for donations give.socialgoodfund.org/t4pg-fund?re...
November 22, 2025 at 10:25 PM
Reposted by Joshua Tauberer
Speaking of journalism needing more money... we need more money. But we also need readers! You can help us by subscribing (on a paid or free basis!) and telling your friends, family, and anyone who will listen to subscribe to @51st.news
For our end-of-year campaign, we’re setting a Big Goal that anyone reading this can help us achieve.
We need your help finding 3,000 new newsletter subscribers by the end of the year — paid or free.
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November 19, 2025 at 9:17 PM
Cheney's lies were on the critical path to my career in govt accountability.

At the start of the Iraq War I believed surely the government couldn't lie that blatantly. My embarrassment at my naivete changed how I viewed government.

(My origin story came before this but it's on the path.)
November 4, 2025 at 1:37 PM
But did he get to shoot one last man in the face before he died.
November 4, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Whose heritage did they think they were promoting?? It was White Heritage all along.
October 31, 2025 at 8:22 PM
Soldiers that are paid by private entities are called mercenaries.

Just saying.
October 24, 2025 at 6:55 PM
I was wrong on this. SNAP and some other entitlement programs rely on annual appropriations even though they are considered mandatory spending because the authorization is written as an entitlement, I guess.

www.cbpp.org/research/foo...
October 24, 2025 at 12:16 PM
Normally SNAP comes out of multi-year mandatory spending and wouldn't be subject to an appropriations lapse, but SNAP itself expired on Sept 30, also, by coincidence. At least that's the best I can make of what's happening.

So this is not actually caused by the shutdown, I guess?
Yesterday DSS informed states they won't be providing SNAP benefits on Nov 1 due to the shutdown
I spoke to a number of affected people
The abject panic is real
Young families, senior citizens
GOOD people

Make no mistake:
This is on Republicans
They MUST negotiate and end this shutdown
Now!
At least 25 states plan to cut off food aid benefits in November
The pause in benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program would begin in states from California to Alabama just before the busy holiday season.
www.politico.com
October 23, 2025 at 11:27 AM
The White House demolition is being privately funded by Google, Lockheed, and others, according to The Hill.

If the President can just privately fund whatever government programs lack appropriations, that's another nail in the coffin of the Constitution.
October 22, 2025 at 12:43 PM
Reposted by Joshua Tauberer
Covering all the bases!
Republican Leaders are simultaneously saying that the Jews funded No Kings rallies AND No Kings rallies were promoting antisemitic h/t @atrupar.com
October 20, 2025 at 5:27 PM
Reposted by Joshua Tauberer
i am the guy at antifa hq who makes sure everyone has their 1099 in order before a big "protest"
It’s going to take ages to pay all these people
October 18, 2025 at 11:36 PM
Christian white men are going to have to work a lot harder to convince me they don't actually talk like this. Because the evidence is piling on that that's actually how they are.
Torba is a piece of shit, but this idea that men talk like racist assholes by default and it’s somehow anti-masculine to criticize it is fucking untrue and men should push back against it. No, “male communication” is not racist and sexist and hateful when the conversation is being had by good men.
No, this is how Nazis talk in their own spaces. I don’t know abut this dude, but I never talked about gassing people and raping women when I was hanging out with my pals.
October 17, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Bari Weiss, now leading CBS News, peddled the conspiracy theory that I personally - called out by name - shilled for the Harris campaign in how I ran GovTrack.

This shit is personal to me. The Right made it personal.
October 7, 2025 at 11:21 AM
In “As a Jew” Sarah Hurwitz is on a search for blame. And I don't like where it leads. A book review.

joshuatauberer.medium.com/in-as-a-jew-...
In “As a Jew” Hurwitz is on a search for blame
If you can relate to Sarah Hurwitz’s ambition, as I very much do, of wanting to connect deeper and more authentically to what it means to…
joshuatauberer.medium.com
October 2, 2025 at 3:43 PM
Reposted by Joshua Tauberer
September 21, 2025 at 2:06 PM