Michael Derby
@michaelsderby.bsky.social
9.6K followers 890 following 5.3K posts
Fed and economy reporter with @reuters.com, ex-Wall Street Journal. Failed musician, guitar holdout, I really like pedals.
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
Pinned
michaelsderby.bsky.social
If you've got something you'd like to share with me, do so securely with Signal. Here's how to reach me.
michaelsderby.55 Signal
Reposted by Michael Derby
grahamsteele.bsky.social
The government is shut down, so government workers, contractors, and beneficiaries aren't being paid. Yet the Treasury Department is using $20 billion in unappropriated funds to aid the right-wing government of Argentina in their upcoming elections.

An undemocratic abuse of financial statecraft.
washingtonpost.com
The Trump administration confirmed that the U.S. bailed out Argentina.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he had directly bought Argentine pesos in global currency markets in a bid to relieve pressure on the nation’s embattled President Javier Milei, a supporter of President Trump.
The U.S. just bailed out Argentina, Treasury Secretary confirms
The US Treasury has finalized a $20 billion financial rescue of Argentina, including a currency swap arrangement with the country's central bank.
www.washingtonpost.com
Reposted by Michael Derby
donmoyn.bsky.social
"30-year-old conservative lawyer and activist who is Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, which deals with federal employee whistleblower complaints and discrimination" cancelled his colleague's hotel room so she would be forced to stay with him.
www.politico.com/news/2025/10...
In late July, Paul Ingrassia, the White House liaison for the Department of Homeland Security, arrived at a Ritz-Carlton in Orlando with a lower-ranking female colleague and others from their department. When the group reached the front desk, the woman learned she didn’t have a hotel room.

Ingrassia then informed her that she would be staying with him, according to five administration officials familiar with the episode. Eventually the woman discovered that Ingrassia had arranged ahead of time to have her hotel room canceled so she would have to stay with him, three of those officials said.
michaelsderby.bsky.social
WashPost reporters now getting the experience of the WSJ news side.
michaelsderby.bsky.social
New York AG James, a Trump foe, indicted for bank fraud: “Trump, a Republican who campaigned for reelection in part on a vow of retribution after facing a slew of legal woes since his first term in the White House ended in 2021, has repeatedly assailed James.”
www.reuters.com
Reposted by Michael Derby
annabower.bsky.social
Per Fox News, a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia is currently weighing whether to charge NY AG Letitia James with mortgage fraud.
Fox News & @FoxNews
X.com
BREAKING: A federal grand jury is meeting in the Eastern District of Virginia court, weighing charging NY AG Letitia James with mortgage fraud, two sources confirm to Fox News.
Reposted by Michael Derby
ianbassin.bsky.social
Hamilton warned that without Senate confirmation, a president might appoint officials "who had no other merit than that of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure."
annabower.bsky.social
MSNBC reports that Lindsey Halligan presented the case to the grand jury

bsky.app/profile/anna...
annabower.bsky.social
Per Fox News, a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia is currently weighing whether to charge NY AG Letitia James with mortgage fraud.
michaelsderby.bsky.social
Trump government uses US taxpayer funds to bail out an ideological ally in Argentina after his libertarian policies went awry. Via Reuters
www.reuters.com
michaelsderby.bsky.social
Hell yes.
junoryleejournalism.com
David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)
SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.
Reposted by Michael Derby
martyswant.bsky.social
New AI policy scoop from me:

I dug through lobbying disclosures and online ad-spending to see which tech groups are trying to get NY's governor to veto an AI safety bill.

I also interviewed the RAISE Act's co-sponsors for their POV on the bill's urgency & their thoughts on heavy tech opposition.
An intense battle over the RAISE Act is entering its final stretch
New York State's AI bill is more ambitious than California’s SB 53 — and is facing opposition from Andreessen Horowitz and other tech groups
www.transformernews.ai
Reposted by Michael Derby
schraubd.bsky.social
I have to point out that the day before this 9th Circuit panel revved up to decide that Portland was too dangerously war-torn to rely on regular law enforcement to keep order, my Portland-based law school somehow safely hosted a different 9CA judge for a normal law school event.
Reposted by Michael Derby
scottlincicome.bsky.social
I know the term "millionaire" ain't what it used to be, but it still amazes me that in 2023 almost 18% of US households - 24M in all - were worth at least $1M. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
michaelsderby.bsky.social
Dallas Fed: "A new, high-frequency estimate of break-even employment shows a dramatic reversal in immigration flows, combined with cyclical shifts in labor force participation, has caused the monthly break-even requirement to collapse ...to about 30,000 in mid-2025."
Break-even employment declined after immigration changes
Recent employment reports show U.S. payroll employment growth has cooled from its torrid pace in previous years, raising the question of whether this signals a healthy rebalancing or the start of a co...
www.dallasfed.org
michaelsderby.bsky.social
Fed's Barr with a warning on inflation: "I am skeptical of assurances that we should fully 'look through' higher inflation from import tariffs...There has been nothing 'one-time' or predictable about these tariff increases."
michaelsderby.bsky.social
Imagine your boss gave you assignments through Twitter DMs.
gtconway.bsky.social
Apart from helping Comey's selective prosecution defense, this also means the president of the United States uses direct messages on Truth Social to communicate with cabinet officials.

I didn't know that, but we can be sure intelligence agencies all over the planet already did.
michaelsderby.bsky.social
Given the targeting of Soros related operations in all of this, it's again worth noting Trump's Treasury secretary was high up in the financier's operation.
michaelsderby.bsky.social
Trump accelerates efforts to use nation's law enforcement to target his political enemies: Stephen Miller "is deeply involved" in going after non profits and educational institutions. Via Reuters
www.reuters.com
michaelsderby.bsky.social
Trump accelerates efforts to use nation's law enforcement to target his political enemies: Stephen Miller "is deeply involved" in going after non profits and educational institutions. Via Reuters
www.reuters.com
Reposted by Michael Derby
radleybalko.bsky.social
Nothing remotely resembling an insurrection is happening anywhere in the country. Any violence associated with protest has been isolated, mild, and, in nearly every case, instigated by federal law enforcement. If we let Trump get away with calling dissent an insurrection, our republic is over.
BREAKING: Trump Admin 'Seriously' Considering Using the Insurrection Act, Reports NBC
President Trump is "seriously" considering invoking the Insurrection Act in order to more easily deploy National Guard troops to major cities as part of crime crackdown, NBC reported on Wednesday
www.mediaite.com
Reposted by Michael Derby
emptywheel.bsky.social
"We have no king," Illinois says, updating the court on all the authoritarian things Trump has said since Monday.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Since Plaintiffs’ Monday morning filings and the Court’s initial hearing that afternoon, the
Trump administration has continued its purposeful defiance of the lawful bounds of its power to
create a federal military occupation of Illinois.1
 Indeed, in the past few days, the President has
repeated his disdain for any guardrails on those powers. A few hours after the Monday hearing in this case, Trump issued an after-the-fact memorandum invoking 10 U.S.C. § 12406 to federalize
National Guard troops that Secretary Hegseth had already deployed into Illinois. That same day,
Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller asserted the authoritarian view that the President
has “plenary authority”—sweeping and unlimited power—to federalize National Guard troops and
dispatch them to American cities like Chicago. The next day, Trump told press in the Oval Office
that he might just invoke the Insurrection Act to “get around” judicial orders blocking his unlawful
troop deployments, like the one last weekend in Oregon. Then just yesterday, Trump himself
posted on social media that the Governor of Illinois and Mayor of Chicago should be jailed.
These were not empty threats. They were made even as defendants dispatched a third state’s
National Guard to Illinois in federalized status, this time from California, and without any new
deployment order specific to Illinois. This lawless targeting by the President and his administration
of people and places he does not favor will not stop without court intervention. 

The Court can and should stop this authoritarian march. We remain a nation of laws, we
have no king, and the President has no such “plenary authority” to federalize National Guard troops
and deploy them into the streets of Illinois. The Court should enter a preliminary injunction against
defendants’ federalization and deployment of any state’s National Guard, or deployment of U.S.
military, into Illinois over the objection of its Governor.
Reposted by Michael Derby
bradheath.bsky.social
A woman who was shot multiple times by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents did not ram them with her car and had her weapon stored in her purse at the time of the incident, according to her lawyer, contradicting accounts by the Department of Homeland Security.

www.reuters.com/world/us/bod...