Two opportunities to get involved in the city this week, from @colleengrablick.bsky.social's Civics Roundup:
• Tuesday, Oct. 7: @freedcproject.bsky.social's Ward 3 campaign orientation
• Wednesday, Oct. 8: "Angry" hour for pissed-off optimists benefiting @peacefordc.bsky.social

ICYMI, the federal government is still shut down.

Here's what that means for the people of D.C.

#FF @jasmineeharris.bsky.social @mariatown.bsky.social @crenny75.bsky.social @akwyz.com @neilmilliken.bsky.social @debraruh.bsky.social @judgewren.bsky.social @sabrinaep.bsky.social @xoulwing.bsky.social @icarszoey.bsky.social @yep4rights.bsky.social @disabilityrightsca.bsky.social @aapd.com

And will be in excellent hands with the brilliant @ashleyallison.bsky.social 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/02/media/the-root-go-media-ashley-allison

If you haven’t worked in the federal government during a past shutdown, it may be hard to know how drastically this breaks from past practice and the law.

I was furloughed from HHS in 2013, and our out-of-office messages were studiously neutral. To do otherwise would have violated the Hatch Act.

Ridiculously, Medicare Telehealth coverage keeps are getting tied to continuing resolutions. Bills could be passed separately. But political bureaucracy. This means Medicare Telehealth waivers are kaput as of today. My latest for @motherjones.com www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

This will be an essential resource, and my hope is that it makes it easier for academics who are called to public scholarship as a way to fight the encroaching darkness.

Our nation’s public servants & the folks who rely on government in any way (which is most of us) should not be collateral damage in a political fight within a dysfunctional Congress. It’s bad governance. It’s bad management. It’s bad leadership, & we should demand better from our elected officials.

There are many, many reasons to be frustrated with government, and there are probably just as many opinions and arguments on how to make it run better.

Shutdowns cost our economy. The last shutdown in 2019, which lasted for a continuous 35 days, cost the United States an estimated $3 billion in lost GDP.

A 2019 Senate report found that the three government shutdowns in 2013, 2018, and 2019 wasted nearly $4 billion of taxpayer dollars. Imagine how much public good could be done with this money. www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/u...

Shutdowns cost the government money, and they make our government run more inefficiently before they’ve even begun. When a shutdown looms, agencies have to take time away from the things they are actually supposed to be doing to create contingency plans. Employees have to spend time preparing.

If people have an issue with their benefits, there isn’t anyone to help fix it. Air traffic controllers keep working, but without pay. The FDA has said that it won’t be able to ensure that meat & eggs are safe to eat. Some programs like SNAP could have benefits interrupted if the shutdown is long.

If and when a shutdown happens, critical resources like social security benefits checks, Medicaid and Medicare payments, and student loan disbursements continue to go out. However, oversight of all of these programs stops. New enrollment for federal programs either slows significantly or stops.

Sometimes, people do not have the luxury of being able to hold out to get retroactive pay.

This has since changed, and legally federal workers are supposed to get retroactive pay after a shutdown ends and appropriations occur. While this change removes some of the fear I had over a decade ago, a disruption in your pay schedule can have extremely detrimental effects on your daily life.

At the time, there was no guarantee that federal workers would receive back pay after the shutdown ended, and I remember asking my landlord for flexibility on rent payments because I wasn’t sure I’d have enough in my account to cover my bills.

As we await news of a government shutdown, I’m thinking back to my time as a federal employee. In 2013, the government shutdown for a little more than two weeks. I was confused, frustrated, and scared.

The work of disabled scholars counting on federal funding for their projects and access needs is evaporating in a haze of Trump, after we fought SO HARD for equitable access. Many of these scholars are in the ADA Generation!

So, a project that I’m working on is getting some media attention, and that feels pretty cool.

I should note: this article lets at least one highly dubious claim from administration brass go unchallenged. So bad as this picture of Trump’s SSA looks, the reality’s probably worse.

Gift link below.

In making unsupported claims about autism, the Trump administration is "pointing the finger" at parents and making them feel guilty, says autism community advocate Colin Killick.

Citing concerns about DEI, the Department of Education has halted funding for programs that support students with combined hearing and vision loss in eight states.

“How low can you go?” one advocate asked. “How can you do this to children?”

By @jodiscohen.bsky.social @jsmithrichards.bsky.social

This is what she lives with every day now: “The fear of leaving your family and letting them know, ‘If I don’t return, it’s not because I am abandoning you.’”

Powerful story by @chabeli.bsky.social for @19thnews.org.

Muriel Bowser is worse than the mayor from Jaws. This executive order is like putting chum into the water to welcome sharks to your beach. #FreeDC

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...