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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸

@decius.bsky.social
849 followers 2.1K following 1.3K posts

Republics are systems that require people to compromise with each-other.

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Reposted by Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸
Anna Bower @annabower.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
NEW: The Georgia State Election board is requesting Justice Department "intervention" ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The board sent request letters to Todd Blanche, Harmeet Dhillon, and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin. Docs obtained by @lawfaremedia.org: www.documentcloud.org/documents/28...
documentcloud.org
Formal Request for DOJ Intervention to Todd Blanche
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Dobbs:
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Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
"Trump [may] belong [to] the era of Marius and Sulla, the men who brought force and corruption into Roman politics on a scale nobody had yet seen...If America ends up an autocracy, Trump will not be its culmination but something closer to its forerunner." open.substack.com/pub/theunpop...
open.substack.com
America Can Pull Back From the Slippery Slope to Rome
The decline of the rule of law and our republic is not inevitable
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Jaz @jaz.sh · 27/09/2026
Okay so I've built a new Atlas, this time it lets you explore the conversations on Bluesky over the past 7 days graphically. It should update every ~6 hours and help you navigate the information environment that exists on here. I've learned a LOT about what people do here today... atlas.jazco.dev
atlas.jazco.dev
Atlas
A living map of what Bluesky is talking about: the past week's conversations, grouped into topics and regions and rebuilt every six hours.
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
What happened this weekend is the Trump Administration attempted to tack to a more moderate position on ICE enforcement because they’re losing the midterms, and they had to reverse course because of pushback from the agents themselves. They don’t have control over the thing they’ve set in motion.
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
My quote of the day How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. Anne Frank
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
#canada
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
This is extremely weird. America has 99 problems but a House of Lords ain’t one of them.
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Netzschleuder @netzschleuder.skewed.de · 26/09/2026
highschool: Illinois high school students (1958). A network of friendships among male students in a small high school in Illinois from 1958. 70 nodes, 366 edges. networks.skewed.de/net/highschool Ridiculogram:
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Pookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Reminder that in Canada upon becoming an engineer you get an iron ring made of a collapsed bridge, purposely designed to be uncomfortable, to remind you that your ethics demand you give a fuck even about the boring grudgework of such as double-checking your math. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring
en.wikipedia.org
Iron Ring - Wikipedia
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
“When we asked about the prospect of riots if Trump tries to overturn the election results, Ticktin said he was not concerned. “Believe me, our armed forces are a lot bigger than they are,” he said.”
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Reposted by Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸
Chris Bataille @chrisbataille.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This is where the next big shoe drops www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/w...
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Rachel Holliday Smith @rachelholliday.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
chat is this good www.axios.com/newsletters/...

1 big thing: Ø Link economy breaks
Total U.S. web traffic for top news sites
Visits to approximately 100 top sites;

Traffic to news sites is plummeting in the
U.S. as tech giants steer people away from search and toward AI.
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 22/09/2026
Sen. Susan Collins helped steer millions in federal defense contracts to Navatek, whose CEO illegally funneled thousands of dollars to her campaign. The FBI sought to launch a probe and was eyeing Collins and other lawmakers. Then Trump gutted the unit in charge. THREAD 🧵
Martin Kao, CEO of defense contractor Navatek, poses next to Sen. Susan Collins for a photo. Collins is holding a model of a boat in her hands. Behind them is a large sign with the Navatek logo.
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Ultimately, the benefit of living with SCOTUS decisions I'm opposed to isn't just the ones that I like, its all the ones that never happened in the first place because we've drawn bright lines around our individual liberties in this country and the majoritarian legislature steers clear of them.
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
But it wasn't really 9-0. There was a concurrence/dissent, and in that 9-0 formulation, the dissent part would have been law. So you get into this place where the most radical judge will have a heckler's veto - Powerful coalitions can ignore the Constitution as long as one judge is OK with it.
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Now, I expect you to point out that Reno vs ACLU 9-0, and one of your proposals is to allow SCOTUS to overturn federal laws as long as they do so unanimously.
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I think that will work out in the interests of those large political coalitions, but I think it's a very dangerous deal to take. Sometimes bad laws don't get passed because they would be overturned if they were. Take that constraint away and the dynamics of the whole system will change.
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I completely understand and share frustrations with recent decisions and how slow that process is, but I think the deal you're suggesting we make is that we allow powerful political coalitions to get rid of the referees so they can execute their agendas more easily.
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
One clear error in your argument here is that "no amount of organizing will bring back the VRA." Objectively thats just not true. The powerful coalitions who can overturn federal laws can and do affect SCOTUS appointments and interpretation over time.
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Online forum operators are not a multi-million strong coalition of people who can do the kinds of political organizing that you are talking about that can overturn an unconstitutional law that undermines our rights. Our ONLY option is to have a referee we can go to when a play is out of bounds.
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I assure you that we would not be having this dialog right now on this open forum had that law remained on the books as it was written. We would have different online architectures. Our opposition to this was as loud as we could make it, but it didn't matter. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_W...
en.wikipedia.org
Black World Wide Web protest - Wikipedia
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
The question of the "most destructive laws" Congress has enacted is subjective. Take Reno vs ACLU (1997). The right to use swear words on websites is *certainly trite* compared to the VRA, but I've been running online forums since the early 90's, so this matter was personally important to me.
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Thank you very much for your thoughtful engagement with my reply. I hear you that you engage with the civil liberties consequences of these proposals directly in your book, and I will take a look at your argument there. However, FWIW, let me try to explain my concern more clearly.
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
A string of losses at SCOTUS has liberals talking about ending judicial review. Advocacy for these solutions makes them sound ideal because you aren't presented with a complete picture of the consequences.
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
To provide a specific example, take Dickerson vs United States. You're arguing that Congress ought to be able to overrule Miranda, and if you had your way they would have already done so. Engage directly with those real consequences rather than straw man hypotheticals about ballot box seizures.
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Going to the Supreme Court to challenge the Constitutionality of a federal law is the absolute last resort after years of advocacy and explaining have failed.
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Telling civil liberties advocates that we can address laws that violate fundamental constitutional rights by "organizing, engaging with our neighbors..." Don't you understand that we do that before we end up in court?
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I would appreciate seeing the potential negative consequences of these ideas engaged with rather than glossed over. Congress has often passed federal laws that, while very popular, threaten the Constitutional rights of individuals, and the court has overturned many such laws.
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
www.customink.com/fundraising/...
customink.com
Juan Linz was right, Supporting American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Inc.
Political scientist Juan Linz warned (1990) about the "perils of presidentialism," and presidential systems around the world continue to strengthen his case. Support the defense of constitutional gove...
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
There is going to be this flood of people who are furious about Citizens United who will show up "on here" gushing about this Elon Musk documentary. The left certainly has its intellectual blindspots, and they deserve to be called out when they are this obvious.
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Jameel Jaffer @jameeljaffer.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Also, censorship in the name of “national security” is the first refuge of scoundrels.
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Its amazing that you can hire a fully self driving (non-tesla) cab in the chaos of downtown San Francisco but Tesla hasn’t figured out how to make the things work automatically in the short, fully isolated tunnels between the Vegas convention center and Resort World.
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
They told him people are going to vandalize it.
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Corey Rayburn Yung @coreyryung.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
From the official Dept of Education account on X, an endorsement of Bo French's racist tweet about Indian students at a University of Texas football game. Just awful.
A photo of a Texas football game with a largely white audience shown and the caption "Make college football great again."
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Canadian History Ehx @cdnhistoryehx.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Within Lake Ontario, according to First Nations mythology, a great serpent lives under the waters. Known as Gá:šöje:ta’ (Gaasyendietha), the serpent is said to have arrived on Earth in a meteor. This is the story of the Meteor Dragon. 📸 NASA 🧵 1/6
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
The future will look different than the past. No one ... no one seems to want to accept that and move on to imagining it.
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Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
2d Circuit holds that no warrant and no suspicion is needed to search a citizen's cell phone at the border. According to the court, per Judge Menashi, the border search exception authorizes searches to find criminals crossing the border, and Riley does not apply. ww3.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/OP...
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Evan Greer @evangreer.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I think there is a good chance that if Democrats sweep Congress one of the first things they'll do is try to pass an Australia-style social media ban for under 16s. We need to start organizing against this right now. Ron Wyden can't be the only Senator who will understand this is terrible.
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Social Media Lab @socialmedialab.ca · 16/09/2026
As part of his broader push to make Canada less dependent on U.S. infrastructure & attract large-scale investment, today Mark Carney announced Ottawa support for a nationwide "sovereign internet" or a "sovereign broadband backbone." But what exactly does he mean by a sovereign internet?
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Social Media Lab @socialmedialab.ca · 16/09/2026
One reason behind this push for digital independence is the fact that Canadian-to-Canadian Internet traffic doesn't necessarily stay entirely inside Canada. Research cited in reporting by the Globe & Mail found that roughly 1/4 of the studied Canadian data journeys passed through U.S. interchanges.
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Patrick C Miller @patrickcmiller.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
You don’t have to join the hack-back program to inherit its risk www.csoonline.com/article/4222...
csoonline.com
You don’t have to join the hack-back program to inherit its risk
Washington's new private offensive cyber program gives vetted vendors an untested criminal shield while leaving substantial residual risk in private hands. Underwrite that exposure before the…
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
There's a warnin' sign on the road ahead There's a lot of people sayin' we'd be better off dead Don't feel like Satan, but I am to them So I try to forget it any way I can
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Its a great composition! Tron was truely groundbreaking in many ways.
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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I sent this to Cato as my statement on this evening’s Supreme Court decision rejecting Trump’s mail voting rule.
Screenshot reading, "A 7-2 vote at least got the job done, though the vote should really have been 9-0. A majority of the Supreme Court has refused to approve the Trump administration’s rule refusing to carry ballot mail for states unless they comply with various requirements that have threatened to throw the process into chaos as midterms approach. The majority barely explained its decision. Dissenting Justice Alito, joined by Thomas, showed undue credulity toward the administration’s dubious factual claims as to compliance burdens and the rule’s nonexistent security rationale. Alito also strained the legal materials to spare USPS a test for arbitrary and capricious conduct that it would rightly have flunked, and to suggest rather ungraciously that it is somehow states’ own fault that it’s too late in the day for them to comply.

"Let’s hope this spells an end to this bad rule. Congress is unlikely to authorize it by law, and the President lacks authority to do it on his own."
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
The 90’s … this was composed in 1981.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
NEW: DHS's Inspector General releases a scathing report about the Everglades detention camp known as "Alligator Alcatraz." The OIG finds that the now-closed camp, violated multiple ICE standards. The OIG also confirms detainees were punished with placement in a metal cage in the Florida heat.🧵
OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Staff also reported that time spent in the small metal enclosures is closely monitored, and
detainees are not locked in, even though we observed locking mechanisms on the enclosures.
Figures 11 and 12. Small Metal Enclosures; Observed January 21, 2026

Underneath is a picture of a metal cage that is 4 feet 3 inches wide by 4 feet 3 inches long, and 7 feet 9 inches high. The cage itself is placed on a tiny spot of fake turf, and then surrounded by another chainlink fence with razor wire on top. The cage is covered by a roof, but it's entirely exposed to the outside otherwise, meaning mosquitos and no air conditioning.
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Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
BREAKING: SCOTUS denies the Trump administration’s request to enforce the new U.S. Postal Service rule for the 2026 elections. Justices Alito and Thomas dissent. More to come at Law Dork. www.lawdork.com
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 26A305
UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE, ET AL. U.
CALIFORNIA, ET AL.
ON APPLICATION FOR STAY
[September 14, 2026]
The application for stay presented to JUSTICE JACKSON and by her referred to the Court is denied. The Government is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge to the District Court's preliminary injunction. And the equitable factors applicable for obtaining emergency relief from this Court do not favor a stay.
JUSTICE KAVANAUGH, concurring.
In my view, based on the briefing the Court has received at this interim stage, there is at least a fair prospect that the final rule falls within the Postal Service's statutory authority. See 39 U. S. C. §401(2). But applying the rule in the 2026 elections would be arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act because state and local election officials do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections. See 39
U. S. C. §3001(m); 5 U. S. C. §706(2)(A). For that reason, I concur in the denial of the application for stay.
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Engage directly with the negative consequences of the thing you’re proposing and clearly explain why they’re acceptable rather than just pretending that they don’t exist.
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Tom Cross 🇨🇦🇺🇸 @decius.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
You never see people with this point of view focus specifically on civil liberties cases and explain clearly why they think it would be better if Congress is able to ignore the Bill of Rights.
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