merici retweeted
The median net worth of Black American households declined by 25 percent from 2022 to 2025, according to newly released Federal Reserve data cepr.net/publications/black-…
America.gov will be an "AI-driven clearinghouse for Americans to get services from the federal government."
Functions to include passport renewals and tax filing.
washingtonsun.com/trump-whit…
On accuracy, we wanted to make sure that an IRS product could be trusted to always right, for all scenarios. The tax code is hard and to translate the tax code into a tax filing service, we worked with IRS and Treas lawyers to make sure that taxpayers got the right answers.
merici retweeted
The Trump admin is having DOGE set up an AI powered website called America dot gov where you can try to file your taxes or get a passport.
The main way to use it? An AI chat bot.
Getting stuck in a doom loop on America dot gov is a hell of a metaphor for the Trump era.
merici retweeted
do our parents next
Meta will enforce a two-hour daily limit on Instagram and Facebook for children as part of a record $17.1B settlement with 29 states over social media addiction claims:
• The “Productive Pauses” for children include mandatory pauses after 15 minutes of continuous use and again at 60 and 90 minutes to interrupt endless scrolling
• “Nighttime blocks” restricting children’s access from 12:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.
• Limited school-time access for children, eliminating push notifications on weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. during the school year
• Robust age assurance measures to more effectively verify the age of young users
• Safer, age-appropriate content controls, including stronger safeguards against bullying, content promoting eating disorders, and content related to suicide and self-harm
• Stronger, more user-friendly parental controls
• Limits on social comparison features, including beauty filters and visible “like” counts, that have been linked to poor mental health outcomes in kids and teens
• Both the implementation and effectiveness of the features will be regularly assessed by an independent auditor and the settling states
variety.com/2026/digital/new…
merici retweeted
I wasn't keen on elevating the Harp story but this usefully frames it in a way with real political salience.
merici retweeted
MacFarlane: Some national park service workers are so alarmed, they leaked internal spreadsheets that show where the money is going.
We added the numbers together and found for the white house grounds for the vanity projects, the beautification and the needed upgrades: They've set aside $323 million for this year…
$323 million compared to $7 million for the white house in 2024. That's a 5,000% increase.
National mall has a ten fold increase from 2024 for projects that are the president's priority.
Doesn't mean the money is directly being starved out of Yosemite, Yellowstone, Mount Zion, Grand Canyon. But we checked those parks all have significantly less funding allotted for them this year than they did two years ago, and there's a $30 billion backlog of deferred maintenance
They are going to have to shortchange important projects throughout America to marshal donated money or taxpayer money on things like a reflecting pool, a helipad, a ballroom, and other vanity projects.
The measles lobby - @JennyMcCarthy - thanks you
merici retweeted
“In 2014, Fauci managed and directed the funding for research for an Ebola vaccine. When a Dallas nurse caught the virus while she cared for a dying man, Fauci put onprotective gear and went into the isolation room himself. Eight days later, he walked the nurse out in public and hugged her.”
theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0…
merici retweeted
This is a bleak July jobs report:
-23,000 jobs lost in July. (Losses occurred in retail, finance, hospitality, local gov't education)
-264,000 people leave the labor force
-Wage growth falls to 3.2% = lowest in 5 years (and totally wiped out by inflation right now)
***Lowest labor force participation rate since February 2021***
The Fed's job just got a lot harder. The labor market is stalling again. Many industries shedding jobs or flat.
merici retweeted
We got Amazon's own chatbot to snitch on Amazon.
We worked with a researcher to grill Walmart and Amazon's AI bots on the companies' Made in America labeling.
The bots revealed that Amazon and Walmart both made a calculated decision to let sellers lie about where products are made — because the business incentive to do so is larger than the legal risk of the FTC coming after them.
merici retweeted
New from me:
Until recently, the gap between comfortably-off and just-getting-started could plausibly be crossed in a decade or two of hard work.
Growth in asset prices means that’s no longer true.
My column on moving from income world to wealth world: ft.com/content/6a35508c-c0bd…
merici retweeted
NEW INVESTIGATION: Ask Amazon's AI shopping assistant for "Made in USA" fly fishing reels, and it says, "Sorry, I don't have access to that information."
Ask for "Made in China" reels, and you get a full comparison table with purchase recommendations.
merici retweeted
Spain just won the World Cup. How do they develop these players?
Check out this thread from Merici. She’s been a soccer mom in both Spain and the US and happens to have expertise in government services. And she’s experiencing first hand the benefits of real federations and funding.
In the US, it’s all about profit. But change is afoot. The USMNT is talking about tearing down the system and starting over. The Let Kids Play Act from @ChrisForPA and @ChrisMurphyCT takes aim at the vulture investors that feed off our kids. It would kickstart efforts to bring a better system to our country.
