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benstarr66.bsky.social

@benstarr66.bsky.social
190 followers 179 following 3.3K posts
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Reposted by @benstarr66.bsky.social
nanzhounoodles.bsky.social @nanzhounoodles.bsky.social · 17h
YOU hate Nader for throwing the 2000 election. I hate Nader for ushering in the era of Consumer as a primary political identity, touting the tort system as an alternative to normal democratic deliberation, and making things generally work worse in the USA.
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Push The Needle @pushtheneedle.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
You tax things you want less of. It’s why they tax cigarettes. To make it too expensive to bother with that bad habit It is a disgrace this logical fallacy is applied to housing. If you believe in IZ you don’t actually want more housing, you just want certain housing, which prevents other housing
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benstarr66.bsky.social @benstarr66.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I believe most just employ "taxes" to save on letters.
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Robin Wigglesworth @robinwigglesworth.ft.com · 25/09/2026
Gotta love a New York mayor shitposting about English football and certain people just not being able to cope.
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Michael Caley @michaelcaley.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
it is just fundamentally not the case that Zohran's governance has been characterized by either a) large new spending programs b) an insouciant approach to deficits he is instead plotting a new course for left politics which takes efficiency and budgeting deadly seriously
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The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 19/09/2026
Commenting on the rise of xenophobia in 1855, Lincoln wrote, “Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid.” One can only imagine his reaction to Bo French or Charles Haywood.
lnk.thebulwark.com
The GOP’s White Nationalism Problem Goes All the Way to the Top
The blood-and-soil extremists have donors, institutions, administration ties—and plenty of friends in MAGA.
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Opinion Today @opiniontoday.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Karl Rove: Why I’m Voting for a Texas Democrat 🎁Gift article: www.wsj.com/opinion/why-...
wsj.com
Opinion | Why I’m Voting for a Texas Democrat
Bo French’s bigoted tweet after a football game is part of a long and ugly pattern.
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benstarr66.bsky.social @benstarr66.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
A+ storytelling on the origination of the band Boston. www.bostonglobe.com/2026/09/16/m...
bostonglobe.com
He was an MIT grad with dreams of stardom. His 1976 debut album with Boston resuscitated rock music. - The Boston Globe
Five decades later, the band’s inaugural record continues to influence rockers. But it almost wasn't made.
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benstarr66.bsky.social @benstarr66.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
BC's unique position here seems worthy of follow-up from the Globe @chadfinn.bsky.social
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David Schleicher @profschleich.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
The Freakout is an example of something @annielowrey.bsky.social has written about eloquently. Americans are increasingly unwilling to support rate-lowering, base broadening tax reforms or the idea of taxes as shared sacrifice. Everyone is out to get their own tax breaks, including majorities!
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David Schleicher @profschleich.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
❗New Article❗ The Great American Property Tax Freakout! Since 2024, many states have radically reshaped their property tax systems.The changes are an example of a national trend of carving out influential groups from taxation, in this case a majority group: homeowners papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
papers.ssrn.com
The Great American Property Tax Freak Out
There has been a lot of news over the last two years, so it is understandable that neither the mass media nor the legal academy has focused on what is happening
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Ken Fang -- Very Asian @fangsbites.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Sweet Caroline must be banned worldwide from all sporting events. it's such a bad song.
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Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
This “game” on the White House website, a version of Snake where you play as a white man in a suit and you run around picking up identifiably black, Asian, and Latino men and putting them in orange jumpsuits, might be the most openly white supremacist thing I’ve ever seen the US government produce
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Ken Fang -- Very Asian @fangsbites.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
dlvr.it
Adam Schefter defends reporting on Patriots, Christian Gonzalez: ‘This was not a simple deal’
Adam Schefter reported one thing about the New England Patriots and Christian Gonzalez, and then they both did the exact opposite. Monday afternoon, Schefter went on The Pat McAfee Show and claimed a deal between the Patriots and cornerback Christian Gonzalez “wasn’t close.” “As of right now the talks are nowhere.. I was told yesterday…
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Andrew Lawrence @ndrew.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Screenshot of a headline and quote from the Financial Times following the 2024 election. The quote reads:

“I feel liberated,” said a top banker. “We can say ‘retard’ and ‘pussy’ without the fear of getting cancelled… it’s a new dawn.”
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nunnytoo.bsky.social @nunnytoo.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-harvard-...
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu
The Harvard Law Student Who Sparked Boston’s Underground Rock Revolution
With a botched lease on his hands, Ray Riepen launched a legendary rock club and turned a struggling FM station into Boston’s countercultural voice.
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benstarr66.bsky.social @benstarr66.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Seems to allow suburbs off the hook and not carrying their weight.
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 03/09/2026
Making everyone feel like there's a fixed pie of resources and their slice is shrinking and everyone is out to fuck everyone else creates fertile ground for conservatism & eventually authoritarianism. The absolute core conviction of online leftists to the contrary is endlessly baffling.
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 03/09/2026
Convincing young people that America is poor & no one can afford anything & everyone is living paycheck to paycheck & their economic future is doomed ... IS NOT GOING TO LEAD TO MORE PROGRESSIVE POLICY. People who feel anxious & under threat do not respond with openness & generosity! Look it up!
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George Pearkes @peark.es · 03/09/2026
People really want Trump to be an economic disaster and sorry, it's just not playing out that way. There's no doubt his policies have reduced growth relative to an alternative baseline, but the US economy is in great shape for the near to medium term, even more so given everything he's thrown at it.
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David Rothschild @davmicrot.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Republicans' largest donor (by far) is hosting a robust debate on his platform about whether Jews are white. Corporate Media will ask precisely 0 Republicans about their largest donor's all-consuming misogyny, xenophobia, antisemitism, he will instead by referred to as a visionary industrialist.
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OB Chargn @obchargn.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
A public health professor is walking through a PARKING LOT and has an epiphany that society doesn’t allow for physical exercise anymore. She decides it must be due to the rise of e-bikes: www.forbes.com/sites/bernad...
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Joe Fish @sadbusdriver.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
working paper arguing that the 2019 NYC strengthening of rent control lead to substantially less property maintence and lower housing quality. beaubressler.github.io/papers/rent_...
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AkivaMCohen @akivamcohen.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
And you wonder why Jews don't believe the folks who insist they're "just antizionist, really"
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John Zuraw @jzuraw.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Most importantly, El-Sayed campaigned and appeared with Piker. He functionally promoted Piker as a Democratic Party surrogate. That's bad for the Democratic Party.
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Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
this is so incredible I can’t stop laughing because he forgot to include Reagan
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Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
"Her platform focuses on technocratic solutions like the theoretically best possible zoning policies rather than building power for the working-class by challenging capital." Good thing LA's zoning status quo is not devastating the city's working class or anything.
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Max Dubler 🏳️‍🌈 @maxdubler.com · 25/08/2026
I am once again asking American government to stop using land use permitting processes as the site of public deliberation about broad social changes.
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benstarr66.bsky.social @benstarr66.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Good evidence for old school conservative perspective that govt is inherently flawed.
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Schooley @schooley.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
The weirdest thing is for all the press that insists on staying on X, how little coverage there is of the insane hate Elon Musk promotes there every day.
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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Playing in our faces
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Cameron 🇺🇸🗽🦅 @cameroncorduroy.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
this is an established pattern from Track AIPAC, anybody who's elevating them at this point is extremely suspect (from my article in @liberalcurrents.com)
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shauna @goldengateblond.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
so when this 1st screenshot about natalie harp was making the rounds yesterday, it came up in a group chat i’m in — and our smartest member (guy who knows a lot about a lot) taught us some things i wish i didn’t know but now i know them so you have to know them too!
The author noted that while no one in the Trump camp suspects a sexual relationship, there is nonetheless a conviction that Harp
is hopelessly in love with Trump and determined to be his "higher purpose bride."
"It's a Christian devotional relationship, one Trump aide told Wolff.About that "christian devotional relationship"
They're trying to wrap Christian terminology around it but this has zero history in Christianity afaik — it's just pretty much what you would guess. Devoted young "bride" who worships someone as a living god. Back in the day, if they lived, they caused succession fights, so most successful governments learned to entomb them with their Pharoah.
She's a true believer. She is literally symbolically married to her god. It's really traditional in cults - places where the religio-political leader is a sort of living god.
Standard among pharaohs, King David had one, many kings had them, many modern cults have them.Basically, a young and very impressionable person of the appropriate gender who wants to be the bride of the cult leader; when the cult leader is very old, it becomes quasi-symbolic, but they can actively seek to become the keeper of the leader and essentially his voice, so can become quite powerful in the cult.
So often, established priests deal with this by essentially encouraging human sacrifice of the brides as part of the funeral process.
When they don't, this person can sometimes become dangerously powerful in the aftermath.
But this would explain why everyone is so sensitive about her being mentioned or noticed.
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Kevin Erdmann @kevinerdmann.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Boom! Shout it from the rooftops! www.pew.org/en/research-...
pew.org
Mortgage Lending Standards Are Too Tight
Over the last two decades, homeownership has drifted out of reach for many Americans, especially young adults, racial minorities, low- and moderate-income households, and those who live in rural areas...
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Ben Raderstorf @raders.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
This is one of those arguments that sounds like slopulism but is actually, if anything, understated. 56% of Colorado river water goes to GROWING FEED FOR LIVESTOCK IN THE DESERT.
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Stephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 17/08/2026
Great piece on the lackluster effects of California’s new housing laws. Legislators have finally challenged anti-density NIMBYism, but by loading on inclusionary zoning and wage requirements, they’ve made newly legal housing too costly to build www.theatlantic.com/economy/2026...
theatlantic.com
The Real Reason California Can’t Build
In trying to accomplish every objective and accommodate every interest, all at once, the state set up its housing agenda to fail.
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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
The Recurring Speed Camera Discourse is a bit exasperating really because, look, we all know what's actually happening is people just want to be able to commit the pertinent crimes and don't like being punished for it, but people come up with obvious post-hoc pseudo-woke rationalisations for this.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
A person without any govt position, who has numerous financial conflicts of interest, should not conduct US foreign policy. And that’s before we get to the fact that he uses this role to corruptly solicit money for himself. It’s wrong. Many seem to have accepted it, but I’ll never stop objecting.
nytimes.com
Kushner Meets With Hamas to Advance Trump’s Gaza Plan
The president’s son-in-law met the Palestinian militant group’s leaders in Egypt, officials said. He will soon see Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli leader.
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dibuckman.bsky.social @dibuckman.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
The best way for a candidate to champion trans rights is to garner enough votes to win an election and hold public office.
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Max Dubler 🏳️‍🌈 @maxdubler.com · 14/08/2026
Good morning. Someone is always going to make money on housing. I would rather see developers make money building new homes for people to live in than the situation we have now, where landlords and property owners are getting rich off of housing scarcity.
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Max Dubler 🏳️‍🌈 @maxdubler.com · 14/08/2026
Unfunded inclusionary zoning is a failed policy experiment and cities should zero out their requirements.
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M. Nolan Gray 🥑 @mnolangray.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
The evidence is by now clear and policymakers/planners are slowly starting to respond to it: unfunded inclusionary zoning programs ultimately hurt housing production and affordability. www.bostonglobe.com/2026/08/13/b...
bostonglobe.com
‘20 percent of zero is zero’: Some progressive cities are slashing their affordable housing mandates. Should Boston? - The Boston Globe
The plan — paired with major new city spending on dedicated affordable housing units — underscores how desperation is prompting some left-wing strongholds to make surprising compromises.
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Ari Ofsevit @ofsevit.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
This is more Markey performative nonsense. The right answer is to use the money to electrify commuter rail and make it accessible. Way more ROI on that! www.bostonglobe.com/2026/08/03/m...
bostonglobe.com
Pointing to Massachusetts’s fare-free experiment, Markey, Pressley press for a $25 billion federal free transit plan - The Boston Globe
The proposed legislation points to the success of free bus pilots that federal lawmakers say made Massachusetts a “national leader in fare-free transit policy."
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benstarr66.bsky.social @benstarr66.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
"This matters more than anything I can think of in this moment." Wut??
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Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
One thing you can see in the latest Stancil blowup is that a sizable share of this website thinks that good intentions are the only thing that matter in policymaking, and expressing skepticism that a policy will really work as intended is equivalent to stealing food from the poor.
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Steven Lucy @slucy.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
In New York in particular I would look at what zoning or other regulations are preventing a good supply of stores with price competition. That's a much better use of city staff members' time than trying to learn how to run a grocery store, a thing that is pretty hard. And double SNAP.
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Corinne Low @corinnelow.com · 29/07/2026
Those not as Online might not be aware of the full scope of Musk's turn towards white nationalism. @jamellebouie.net has done a great service in thoroughly documenting + contextualizing it so I could send to family members who still think of him as the "tesla genius." www.nytimes.com/2026/07/29/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Elon Musk Is a Menace to Society (Gift Article)
Why does the owner of X get a pass for what he says and does there?
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Ken Tremendous @kentremendous.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Had Bari Weiss been hired by CBS-Paramount to secretly run a "Producers" scam and destroy all of "60 Minutes"'s value as quickly as possible it's difficult to imagine what should would've done differently.
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The discourse is broken @brokendiscourse.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
OK, this is a particular lane of slopulism that I’m passionate about, and it’s actually really dumb and bad and doesn’t understand how groceries work at all.
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