Reposted by BrentMark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 1hAgain, a constitutional order that cannot prevent this - literally, the most minimal, baseline standard of the rule of law & the plain meaning of the text of the document - is not really worth saving. 3568
Reposted by BrentDan Nexon @dhnexon.net · 1hIs multiparty democracy is a panacea? No. Can it be designed in ways that make it worse than two-party democracy? Yes. Is our current system preventing a fascist government from destroying the country? No. That's all you need to know. 3267
Reposted by BrentDan Nexon @dhnexon.net · 1hU.S. politics are better with MAGA getting a 32% vote share in a PR House than a MAGA-controlled Republican party getting 46–54% vote share in an FPTP system. 34610
Reposted by Brentjamelle @jamellebouie.net · 12hi think cox should spend less time weeping about polarization and more time working to convince his co-partisans not to abandon pluralism and liberal democracy 1563776484
Reposted by BrentCalliope @calliope5431.bsky.social · 30/09/2026This is the Western leftist experience of the Cold War. It's one reason why *The Jakarta Method* is so infuriating. The US was not the sole actor in the world from 1945-1991. Local governments (Suharto, Operation Condor) were responsible for their own actions. 3315
Reposted by BrentNicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Trump expressed support for the Iraq war as it started. He later criticized Bush for not stealing oil or doing enough war crimes (namely targeting innocent family members of insurgents). Then he acted on that vision of war with Iran, and it's failing badly. Enough Trump-absolving revisionist BS. 433353
Reposted by Brent"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Man, you have to be just...really racist...not to come away from spending basically any time at all at an American university with a nearly boundless faith in the power of American assimilation. All sorts of students whose ancestors came from all over, utterly and completely American, all the way. 1050167
Reposted by BrentAunt Fancy @auntiefancy.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Arguably the civil war was as much about northern states not wanting to be legally required to enforce the slavery laws of southern states as it was about the south wanting to continue enslaving people. Just mentioning that for no particular reason. 15216
Reposted by BrentBrian G. aka urbanbohemian 🪩🥂💖 @urbanbohemian.com · 30/09/2026We're on Bluesky, put the link in your post. Put the link in your post. Put. The. Link. In. Your. Post. Links in posts aren't buried or de-prioritized here. This is one of the last platforms you don't have to make interested users do detective work to find the link. Just put it in the post. 82032648
Reposted by BrentKyle Orland @kyleor.land · 30/09/2026[SENATOR ERIC SCHMITT]: So you’re telling me under oath that you've never played World of Warcraft? [JACK SMITH]: Correct [SCHMITT]: WELL THEN *unveils poster* please explain this picture of you farming gold in Eversong Woods! [SMITH]: That is Elden Ring, sir. 357690
Reposted by BrentMark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 30/09/2026It's not just that it's a false dichotomy. It's also that "culture wars" is yet another example of how we are only able to discuss Every. Single. Topic. In. 🇺🇸. Politics. using the talking points & terminology of the right. We & the media are under no obligation to do that: bsky.app/profile/mcop... 15015
Reposted by BrentNed Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Incredible chutzpah from a Congress whose one major legislative act was a budget bill that among other things imposed significant new administrative burdens on Medicaid recipients 4431112
Reposted by BrentZack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp.bsky.social · 30/09/2026People used to see philosophical ethics and philosophy of mind as flights of fancy that we, as a society, funded because they were abstractly interesting. In the AI era, they've become two of the most relevant fields of inquiry to the human future. A pretty good argument for academic freedom! 4448
Reposted by BrentNick Kodama 🌳👻 @nickkodama.bsky.social · 30/09/2026hey is the strait open yet 491144162
Reposted by BrentDan of the Year @downwithdan.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Ah yes the circle of life 13595251591
Reposted by BrentMark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Again, he doesn’t follow laws or court orders, so the solution cannot be more laws or court orders, & we need to stop deluding ourselves about that: bsky.app/profile/mcop... 513342
Reposted by BrentJohn Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 30/09/2026Said this before, but you could write an interesting book on the books/films/music that were huge in their time but rapidly disappeared from any collective knowledge. Only hardly anyone would read it, because they wouldn't recognise them. 7028234
Reposted by BrentRadley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 30/09/2026These ads go in the same category as brazen, easily disproven lies after ICE killings. It’s not about persuasion. It’s a display of power. They could have passed them off as PAC-funded. They added “paid for by the U.S. government” because they want us to know they can break the law with impunity. 331622474
Reposted by BrentNicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026US withdrawal from Iraq was scheduled a few years in advance. But with Iran hitting US bases there, and Iran-allied Iraqi militias launching drones at Saudi Arabia, the withdrawal looks—to everyone in the region, and the wider world—like the US under fire ceding more of the Middle East to Iran. 1727883
Reposted by BrentNicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Buying fast food for my family, it’s over $50, which feels like a lot. Not unreasonable from the restaurant, but like going out to dinner, not grabbing something cheap. So I looked up fast food prices, and they’ve risen faster than inflation. Add that to the why people say stuff’s expensive list.crews.bankChart of the Day: Fast Food InflationToday’s Chart of the Day shows the inflation of fast-food prices over the last of 10 years vs. actual inflation of everything else. 1926691
Reposted by BrentGreg Pak @gregpak.net · 29/09/2026why don't you call it America Intelligence mr trump i guess you hate America huh 1617118
Reposted by BrentToby Buckle @polphilpod.bsky.social · 29/09/2026like idk if you've met people, but getting really emotionally invested in minor things & refusing to back down is kinda what we do 1797
Reposted by BrentSherrod Brown @sherrodbrownoh.bsky.social · 29/09/2026NEW AD: Listen to this sh*t. 37589952807
Reposted by BrentCalliope @calliope5431.bsky.social · 29/09/2026So much of Silicon Valley has the need to cloak themselves in a mystique of one form or another, when the truth is that Thiel got lucky during the dot-com bubble making a direct-to-pay app. He has no special moral or intellectual authority, he just wrote some code for PayPal. 1105
Reposted by BrentCalliope @calliope5431.bsky.social · 28/09/2026This box was opened when the dot-com bubble enriched the most antisocial people on Earth, it's indirectly why Lord of the Rings and Marvel were mainstream blockbusters rather than cult films. The solution is just "take money away from Silicon Valley and the oddballs who run it." 071
Reposted by BrentJeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 28/09/2026What’s even wilder is how VT (where I live) & WY are such mirrors: tiny population, hard weather, heavily armed, little policed, rural mountain states that are big on hunting and make a big deal of their cow heritage but survive on tourism. 108417
Reposted by BrentJeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 28/09/2026I imagine some of this kind of work, if maybe not as much, got done in other administrations. But you wouldn’t know about it. How can so many politicians not understand that politics involves making the work visible, with an emphasis on who it’s for, not who did it? 819035
Reposted by BrentTim Daw @timdaw.bsky.social · 27/09/2026Historic England vanishing archive - details of why it is broken : www.sarsen.org/2026/09/hist...sarsen.orgHistoric England’s Vanishing ArchiveNot just the aerials. The lot. Historic England still holds the negatives, the prints and the scans. What the public lost, in early Sept... 510153
Reposted by BrentNit Nurse With Wound @dannybirchall.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Sweet Jesus. So concerned about stopping people right-clicking your public collection of images that you put the whole lot in a private DRM provider that goes under, and the whole lot is fucked. Sweet. Jesus. 36130
Brent @bk4us.com · 28/09/2026Something I always think whenever I see a center vs. left debate on Bluesky: "[...] such operations are more successful when they exploit pre-existing and often genuine fault lines within coalitions that authoritarians want to see fracture." 000
Reposted by BrentNicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Under Trump, the U.S. went “who cares that these relationships are mutually beneficial, you need us, pay us tribute.” And in response, most countries are going “no, what we need are mutually beneficial relationships with reliable partners, and there’s a whole world out there, we’ll go elsewhere.” 820464
Reposted by BrentGreg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 26/09/2026Trump is raging at news orgs for refusing to cover his reception of Xi after he banned three from the White House. The real lesson here: When institutions join together to resist his abuses of power it actually works, sending him into a helpless fury. New from me: newrepublic.com/article/2158...newrepublic.comTrump’s Angry Tirade Over Failing Press Ban Reveals His Achilles’ HeelTrump is furious that news organizations are fighting back against his vile efforts to punish their colleagues—because collective resistance to his authoritarianism actually works. 792240642
Reposted by BrentEd Burmila @edburmila.bsky.social · 26/09/2026The meaningful divide in the Democratic party for the foreseeable future is going to be a lot less about center vs left ideology and a lot more about people who grasp this vs people who don’t. 962097
Reposted by BrentRachel Hallie @dazedrachel.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Ngl, it does really frustrate me that the media narratives surrounding the Dem party are inevitably controlled by people in the least competitive districts, who project their local politics on everyone else. Where are the opt-eds saying how national Dems can learn from Abigail Spanberger? 27921
Reposted by BrentJeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Link to "'Tremendous Hypocrisy:Dartmouth provost accused of using AI to write op-ed about AI use" in @bostonglobe.com. Our prez says, "Thoughtful people on our campus can and should disagree about those norms." What? We can disagree about violating ethics codes w/out disclosure? archive.is/JoJbAarchive.is 33911
Reposted by BrentDaniel Gilmore @gilmored85.bsky.social · 25/09/2026"Democrats are about to win big but I dont feel anything except for dread." Yeah, I get it man. Talk to a therapist. Its not normal to respond to good things with thinking that you're being tricked. 620522
Reposted by BrentMark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 07/09/2026You can’t write about every other country’s far right party like this, & then continue to not call the Republican Party a far right party & write about them as if they’re the 🇩🇪 Christian Democrats or 🇬🇧 Tories. It’s both factually wrong & bad journalism. And yet, it keeps happening every day. 421147
Reposted by BrentNicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Any China hawks, especially the “can’t support Ukraine because we need all that equipment in case of China-Taiwan” types, objecting to Trump kissing up to Xi? They were awfully quiet when Trump allowed AI chip sales to China, and when he used up way more munitions in Iran. So I’ll guess no. 213522
Reposted by BrentBiggie @biggienotsmalls.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Should be reposted every month.... 338109603825
Reposted by BrentNicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 25/09/2026On top of the immorality of casting Russian aggression and Ukrainian self-defense as the same, there’s a huge practical problem: doing so prolongs the war. Putin and Russia are the ones choosing war. They’re doing it in pursuit of conquest. We get peace only when they’re forced to choose otherwise. 413738
Reposted by BrentHoward French @hofrench.bsky.social · 25/09/2026It surely says something about the United States that so few of its TV announcers and politicians can pronounce that exceedingly simple-to-say name of the country's supposed biggest rival, China: Xi. Ignore the spelling and say SHE (as you do the female 3rd person pronoun). 2125
Brent @bk4us.com · 25/09/2026I don't even use AI, and I think I'm getting AI-induced psychosis—simply from wondering if every other thing I see online is real or not. 000
Reposted by BrentDoctor Charlton Cussans PhD @charltoncussans.bsky.social · 24/09/2026I don't like that Israel is Like That but I get why Israel is Like That. 513829
Reposted by BrentZack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp.bsky.social · 24/09/2026I know this list is engagement bait by design, but the idea that LOST would be 70 spots ahead of COMMUNITY is preposterous www.nytimes.com/interactive/...nytimes.comThe 100 Best TV Shows of the 21st CenturyMore than 500 influential stars, showrunners and other notable names in the world of TV voted on the best series released since Jan. 1, 2000. See what they chose. 3191
Brent @bk4us.com · 24/09/2026Not seeing much about a diesel export ban today. How much you wanna bet they announce on Friday after the market closes? 100
Reposted by BrentMax Dubler 🏳️🌈 @maxdubler.com · 24/09/2026Some people get into political activism not because they want to change their material circumstances for the better, but because they enjoy righteously condemning everyone who is not as morally pure and radical as they are. You cannot work with these people because they will never be satisfied. 871075
Reposted by BrentRadley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Yep. Said it at the time -- Harris's people should have been touting the Biden administration's anti-enshittification policies every day of the campaign. 629541