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Tony Torres

@boisehokie.bsky.social
2.3K followers 10K following 973 posts

Nonprofit worker in the housing sector and public servant. I primarily post about Roman history, urbanism, and sports. Virginia Tech Hokie and Boise State Bronco. Optima vindicta est non similem fieri. Ut Prosim #KeepBoiseKind

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Dante Atkins @danteatkins.bsky.social · 5h
It's not hard. Both Yglesias moderates and Khanna leftists give MAGA politicians legitimacy because they want MAGA's base. Ossoff simply does not give a shit about the MAGA base, which allows him to speak with fierce clarity about MAGA politicians. He is willing to bet on an anti-MAGA majority.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 20h
My man ended USAID, condemning millions to death
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Sarah E. Bond @sarahebond.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
90% of how Rubio described “the West” while in Athens (e.g., "fierce individuality,” “relentless ambition”) is just a rehashing of ideas plucked from Ayn Rand. Encouraging people to “ethical egoism” is how we got this level of inequality—which now sits at a higher level than Ancient Athens ever had.
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Justin Levitt @justinlevitt.bsky.social · 23h
This is a big deal. DC fed judge says that DOJ's pursuit (and use) of the state voter files is unlawful, on a bunch of different grounds. And effectively confirms that for the 18 states that submitted files willingly, whoever collected the files at DOJ Civil Rights committed federal crimes.
storage.courtlistener.com
Memorandum & Opinion – #51 in COMMON CAUSE v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE (D.D.C., 1:26-cv-01352) – CourtListener.com
MEMORANDUM OPINION re the 29 Motion for Partial Summary Judgment and the 32 Motion to Dismiss, or in the Alternative, for Summary Judgment. See the attached document for details. Signed by Judge Spark...
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 13h
This stuff simply does not happen in actual democracies. We cannot & must not normalize it.
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Anjali Dayal @anjalikdayal.bsky.social · 22h
I don't want to dunk-quote on this person, but actually, this is a perfect illustration of the problem. we can't become accustomed to or expect or concede constant monitoring from armed troops as we go about our business. it should always make us recoil. there's danger in it becoming unremarkable.
screenshot of a post that reads "Not to be all "you're getting sold" National Guard troops spend all day standing in out of the way corners of DC. Not great that they're standing in front of a ballot drop box, but c'mon, people, use some common sense. They're not stopping anyone from dropping something off." it is a quote-post of a post from the DC Council that says "this is clearly not acceptable" and features a photo of national guard members standing around a ballot box in Foggy Bottom
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The Bi of Hormuz @joshstein.bsky.social · 22h
There is a point at which we’re going to need to have a real conversation about whether to hold rank-and-file officers accountable for facially illegal acts, and the National Guard convo there is going to be very uncomfortable for states who sent their guard members to DC.
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DC Council @councilofdc.bsky.social · 23h
This is clearly not acceptable
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Adam Keiper @adamkeiper.com · 15h
In a new Truth Social post, Trump explains why he should have received the Nobel Peace Prize—writing entirely in the voice of a man being forcibly removed from a Cheesecake Factory. Really unbecoming of a FIFA Peace Prize laureate.
Screenshot of a long Truth Social post from Donald Trump dated 9 October 2026. The full thing is here https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117414533410378018. It's too long for alt text, but begins:

******
This is the woman who received the Nobel Peace Prize over the Great United States of America, whose Representative, ME, settled eight Wars, and many other things. I know nothing about this woman, and neither does anyone else! In fact, to the best of my knowledge, no one ever heard of her other than the fact that she, very obviously, hates Israel. I don’t know what the woman has done. I settled 8 Wars, with letters being sent from every President and Prime Minister from the countries that I helped to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, and I’m about to settle, or win, two more, Iran and, Russia/Ukraine. They’re both happening at breakneck speed but, forget them, it’s the 8 that I’ve already settled, any one of which, in particular, Pakistan and India, would be far more than necessary to win the Nobel Prize. In actuality, I should have won 8 Nobel Peace Prizes, not just 1. The 8 Wars are:
 
Cambodia and Thailand
Kosovo and Serbia
The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda
Pakistan and India
Israel and Iran
Egypt and Ethiopia
Armenia and Azerbaijan
Israel and Hamas
 
Additionally, I stopped Iran from having a Nuclear Weapon, and blowing up the entire Middle East and, ultimately, far beyond! I saved more lives than anyone in History and, as Maria Corina Machado, a truly fine person, stated to the Media when she gave me her Nobel Prize of last year, “Donald Trump settled many Wars, and deserves the Nobel Peace Prize more than any person that has ever received it.” Based on my record of PEACE, a record like no one else has ever achieved, I agree! I got back all of the hostages in Israel, including the final 28, both living and dead, and worked with Hamas to do it — Nobody believed this was possible! I removed the World’s Evil Dictator, Nicolas Maduro, from Ve…
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Again, you (& I) live in a country where there are concentration camps & people are being disappeared. We can argue about what exactly to call this particular form of partially autocratic political regime, but it’s not a full democracy.
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Again, he doesn’t follow laws or court orders, so the solution cannot be more laws or court orders. Juan Linz was right & our system is terrible. But we should stop pretending otherwise. bsky.app/profile/mcop...
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billkittle.bsky.social @billkittle.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
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Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
I've been immersed in research on Reconstruction in Lousiana and it's a very difficult truth to absorb that the white terrorist movement in the South was among the most successful terrorist movements in global history. Took 10 years but it won a total & complete victory through murder and atrocity.
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 08/10/2026
It’s really remarkable to me that 10 years into this people feel compelled to “clarify” Trump’s homicidal and often genocidal fantasies. It is deranged for the president to daydream about American cities in states he hates getting blown up. Full stop.
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Seth Cotlar @sethcotlar.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
A world in which citizens of each nation are taught to be rigid and bellicose nationalists, while nations unapologetically pursue maximal national power. Luckily History contains no examples of that going badly.
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rax ‘levon honkers’ king @raxkingisdead.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
a little louder for the cheap seats in the back
One of the biggest myths is that men rape by mistake. Like, "Oh, they need consent training." But research is very clear: Sexual violence is not a mistake. It is an intentionally made decision by people who know they don't have consent. They just don't prioritize consent over things like status, power, domination, and sexual gratification.
For my research, I got a certificate of confidentiality from the National Institutes of Health, so my notes couldn't be subpoenaed. One of the reasons I call them perpetrators in my work is because every single person I interviewed confessed in that context. The first question I would ask them was, "When you received that email from Title IX that you were under investigation, did you know what it was about?" Every perpetrator I interviewed said "yes." If sexual assault were a miscommunication, you would be wondering, What have I possibly done wrong? That is not the way that any of them reacted because they knew.
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
No, come on man. Where have you been for the last 40 years?
Debt/GDP since 1970s.
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Matt Binder @mattbinder.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
the tech industry is about to invent books
Andrew Yeung 
@andruyeung
X.com
We created gyms because modern day work no
longer required physical activity. Without exercise,
our muscles atrophy.
I predict we'll need gyms for our brains too, once Al
starts doing our knowledge work.
10:53 PM • 10/4/26 • 1.3M Views
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Tony Torres @boisehokie.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
I finally experienced a hammam and OH MY GOD!!! #Uzbekistan
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Omri Marian @omrimarian.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
They said they are going to dismantle the administrative state, so they're doing it. The problem is that the administrative state is the only state. There is no other state.
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Imagine if the national media covered American politics through the lens of which party actually competently staffed & governed the country when it was in power, instead of covering it as horse races, theater, & grading on a curve for the One Special Boy & the far right authoritarian party.
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Schooley @schooley.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
The Federal government is currently staffed like the graveyard shift at a 24 hour grocery store.
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Jesse Eisinger @jeisinger.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
If we have some kind of financial crisis, we’re going to be in deep shit www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
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Scare-a Wrath 👻🎃 @toasterposey.art · 07/10/2026
I care, because someone taught them to talk like that.
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onion person @junlper.beer · 06/10/2026
one of the deepest sicknesses in the world are the people who feel personally attacked over other people getting the same rights as them
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 06/10/2026
interesting that conservatives were militantly “we must reward hustle” when the target was affirmative action at elite universities and now, when faced with the success of south asians and other groups, it is “i think we are too meritocratic”
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Schrödinger's Sneetch Belly @rtodkelly.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
It's absolutely bonkers to me that this image led directly to this tweet.
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Tony Torres @boisehokie.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I’m on vacation so I am late weighing in on recent events involving awful men and boys both across the country and at a local school in Boise. I’m just going to say it to anyone who is listening and anyone who needs to hear it./1
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Tony Torres @boisehokie.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Plov!!! #Tashkent #Uzbekistan
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
America today is a country where regulators won't allow private companies to air interviews of the opposition on TV, but declare that taxpayer funded propaganda is fine.
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Every country has these people, in roughly the same proportion. The problem is our deeply broken, wildly anti-majoritarian electoral, legislative, & judicial institutions: bsky.app/profile/mcop...
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
👇🎯 Also why Musk and all the DOGE guys need to go to jail for the rest of their lives. They had no authority at all to dismantle USAID or anything else.
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The working assumption about 🇺🇸 politics needs to be that we are going to have 20-30% of voters supporting far right authoritarianism, as is now true in ~every rich democracy. We can reform our institutions to ensure the 70% can govern, or we’ll always be one election from the fascists getting 51%.
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
“Opposition parties do win unfair elections, & a restored US democracy will remain unconsolidated until both major parties commit to its defense” This is why we need multiparty democracy reforms. The far right authoritarian party is highly unlikely to moderate under our existing institutions.
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Tony Torres @boisehokie.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Day 2: Istanbul comes from the Medieval Greek “eis tḕn Pólin”, pronounced [is tim ˈbolin] literally "to the city". Well, at last, I am going to the city. #Constantinople, Queen of Cities, here we come! ##Romans #Istanbul
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Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I know it's just repeating the obvious at this point, but there have to be really extreme consequences for this kind of lawlessness.
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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Pietas was, of course, the defining virtue of Rome's legendary ancestor-hero Aeneas. Vergil, meanwhile, gives the the unique arts of Rome as "to crown peace with laws, to spare in war the humble and to war down the proud" in the Aeneid. These guys are ignorant of the culture they claim to idolize.
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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I feel the need to note that the Romans don't really present 'power' (potentia, vis) as their chief virtue. Instead, the Romans were "always harping on fides ['faith, trust']" (Dioc. Sic. 23.1); Cicero gives the virtue where Rome surpasses others as pietas (piety, Cic. Har. resp. 9.19).
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Susan Rinkunas @susanrinkunas.com · 30/09/2026
To recap: three GOP-led states that wanted the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade in order to "send abortion back to the states" are now asking the Court to strike down abortion protections in blue states
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Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The Supreme Court’s majority gave no reason for its literal life-and-death decision to wipe out an appeals court order issued earlier today and which was, on its face, intended to be temporary in nature. Sotomayor wrote tonight’s dissent. Order and dissent: www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...
The Court's decision to vacate that stay interferes with the Sixth Circuit's routine administrative handling of a capital case and unnecessarily prevents that court from giving due consideration to Pike's claim. Worse, the Court grants such extraordinary relief solely to allow the State to execute Pike before litigation over her conviction has properly run its course in the lower courts. I see no reason to short-circuit the ordinary process of appellate review, particularly in light of the grave consequences of an erroneous de-cision. Tennessee's desire to expedite Pike's execution by a few days or even weeks cannot outweigh her "fundamentalinterest in [her] own life." Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U. S. 1,
9 (1985).
In capital cases, "[a]ppreciation of our own fallibility, and respect for the judgment of an appellate tribunal," demand caution before "acting irretrievably." Bowersox v. Williams,
517 U. S. 345, 347 (1996) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). Indeed, this Court often states that it is "'a court of review, not of first view?" McLane Co. v. EEOC, 581 U.S. 72, 85 (2017) (quoting Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U.S. 709, 718, n. 7
(2005)). Today, the Court, as it has too often lately, chooses to overlook that principle precisely when it matters most.
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Zoomer Antimillenarian @surcomplicated.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Not true. The stage-managed *appearance* of due process is something a lot of authoritarian states put real investment into, because it directly affects the perceived legitimacy of the government.
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Zoomer Antimillenarian @surcomplicated.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
It's astonishing just how committed this SCOTUS is to burning its own institutional legitimacy to the ground.
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Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
By my math, the order was filed 11 minutes after the Trump administration's reply brief came in.
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Zoomer Antimillenarian @surcomplicated.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
This isn't a court at all. They're literally not even reading the fucking briefs before making "decisions".
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Matthew Gertz @mattgertz.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
🇺🇸
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Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Not just impeachable. Impeachment, both pres. and agency heads, is the only option. It's impeachment or nothing. Courts won't stop it. Other tools are impotent. Put them on trial the only way you can. Even if you can't get 2/3, use process as punishment. Make it miserable and costly. It can be done.
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Mark Hamill @markhamillofficial.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
It's inconceivable to me how someone who lost in a free & fair election can incite an angry mob to attack his own government, (the very definition of treason) & be allowed to run for any office ever again.
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Again, 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...
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
It's not a "phenomenal moment." I don't care that Klobuchar dunked & won the rhetorical battle. It's a five-alarm fire for American democracy & it needs to be treated as such by everyone in the media & our political system & our society.
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I don't find the Schmitt Senate fiasco remotely funny. It's just McCarthyism but more incompetent. It's appalling, & a constitutional order that can't end this level of unserious lying & extremist nonsense isn't worth saving. We need massive institutional reform to make sure it never happens again.
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