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esbraum.bsky.social

@esbraum.bsky.social
227 followers 56 following 92 posts
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Reposted by @esbraum.bsky.social
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 09/10/2026
Ossoff: "I think Pete Hegseth is frankly a deeply unwell person who seems to relish this kind of brutality all the while he's running a department that is falling into chaos. The guy cannot run the military competently and is spending his time with this kind of obscene medieval spectacle."
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Oliver Willis @owillis.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
a big part of ossoff's rhetorical success is it doesnt contain the compromise and caveats that are a baked-in part of democratic party rhetoric. theres no pretending that his opponent is just misguided or will be pulled back from the edge by "the good republicans." ossoff is saying "fuck this guy"
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Justin Baragona @justinbaragona.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Status reports that ABC News deleted that explosive story about the Trump kids getting billions in federal contracts for their companies. ABC hasn't explained why they nuked the story, even as Trump has crowed about its deletion, sparking a firestorm behind scenes. www.status.news/p/david-elli...
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Daniel Drezner @dandrezner.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
"Bessent’s behavior was a factor—and sometimes the most-important one—in the departure of multiple key officials, people familiar with the matter said.... Bessent has dressed down senior advisers and junior staffers alike over issues large and small." www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
wsj.com
Inside Bessent’s Treasury: Tension, Turnover and Unmet Economic Goals
Ahead of midterms that could turn on high prices and borrowing costs, the secretary dresses down officials.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Pete Hegseth picked Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey to lead a Pentagon future of war project. It's: -Corrupt! Big Trump donors. -Conflict of interest! Defense contractors who will recommend their products. -Dangerous! Embeds techno-fascists deeper into US defense architecture. My latest, in @ms.now:
ms.now
Opinion | Oligarchs like Elon Musk are tightening their grip on the Pentagon
A new initiative named Project Meridian is just one way GOP donors’ influence over defense policy is increasing.
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Coach Finstock @coachfinstock.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
People forget that J6 was successful. Everyone who participated was let out of jail and the guy who perpetrated it is President again. There were no consequences. They have plenty of incentive to do a much bigger and worse version.
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 09/10/2026
Right-wing Christians are such deeply repulsive people.
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Yes this is stupid but it’s also a corrupt transfer of taxpayer money to a political ally www.washingtonsun.com/agencies/fbi...
washingtonsun.com
FBI Is Angling to Hand the UFC a No-Bid Contract to Train Agents
The contract would expand an existing partnership between the Trump administration and the UFC.
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DC Council @councilofdc.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
This is clearly not acceptable
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David Simon @audacityofdespair.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Every penny less at the gas pumps before November is worth 10,000 dead Ukrainians. Vote as if Trump is on the ballot. He fucking is.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Russia has shortages, long lines, and imposed limits. Ukraine has knocked out about 1/2 (!) of Russia's refining capacity. And they're going to export a million tons of diesel? Yes, Trump is again siding with Russia against Ukraine, Europe, law, and democracy. But that won't make fuel appear.
themoscowtimes.com
Moscow Gas Stations Reimpose Fuel Limits as ‘Second Wave’ of Shortages Hits Russia - The Moscow Times
Fuel purchase restrictions are beginning to make a comeback in some regions as persistent shortages continue to dog the domestic market following months of Ukrainian drone strikes on oil refineries, i...
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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
New working paper: the Norwegian wealth tax was a huge success. The "exodus" of wealthy people never happened (less than 100 individuals left). Tax revenue increased by 71.5%. No changes in business activity or investment. www.nber.org/papers/w35854
Taxing Entrepreneurial Wealth: Evidence from
Norway, 2021-2025
Marius A. K. Ring
WORKING PAPER 35854|
DOl 10.3386/w35854
ISSUE DATE October 2026
Whether imposing higher taxes on business owners adversely affects business activity by constraining investment and inducing capitalist flight is a central question in the ongoing debate on how to tax the ultra wealthy. To shed new light, I exploit a series of related Norwegian reforms during 2021-2024 that increased dividend tax rates, removed migration-related capital gains tax loopholes, and nearly doubled the effective marginal tax rate on business wealth. These reforms spurred international debate and, allegedly, an "exodus" of Norwegian billionaires (Financial Times,
2023). While I document clear effects on migration, these responses are concentrated among the top 0.1% of the wealth distribution and mostly confined to 2022 and 2023. My results indicate that at most 100 individuals left due to the reforms. I find no evidence of significant outmigration or reduced inflows of startup founders or inventors. I estimate that absent any outmigration, wealth tax revenues would have increased by 75% from 2021 to 2024. Reform-driven outmigration lowers the revenue gain to 71.5%. My findings further show that outmigrating owners' firms remain economically active and do not reduce investment. In a broader set of analyses, I examine whether business outcomes are affected, regardless of whether owners outmigrate, since firms may reduce investment both due to liquidity constraints or distortions to owners' savings decisions. I compare firms owned by Norwegian individuals subject to the wealth tax with firms owned by foreigners and other tax-exempt entities. By merging historical ownership data from Orbis with the Norwegian shareholder register, I perform these analyses on both Norwegian and foreign-domiciled firms.
Across settings, I find no evidence that Norwegian-owned firms pay out more dividends or invest less after the reforms,…
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 04/10/2026
Remarkable: an industry that is dying because it can't compete in the market writes a Republican president, asking him to keep the industry alive by brute force, and he says, ok. What would it take for the GOP to lose its reputation as the "free market" party? Seriously, what would it take?
nytimes.com
The Coal Industry Asked for a Rescue. Trump Obliged.
In a previously unreported letter, a top lobbyist floated the idea of using emergency powers to keep aging coal plants open.
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A.R. Moxon @juliusgoat.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Hey, I’m just asking questions. Ignorant questions, bigoted questions, questions that have been repeatedly answered for many years. Sorry, but I’m not listening to answers right now; I’m far too busy asking questions. It’s called being intellectually curious.
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Jared Yates Sexton @jysexton.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
People would understand what's going on if it was a tinpot dictator in a supposed "2nd or 3rd world country," but the belief in American exceptionalism has just absolutely pulverized any ability to recognize what's happening here because the evidence is just undeniable at this point.
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Jared Yates Sexton @jysexton.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
For the record, the American order should go away. It was lousy and brutal. But having it bought out by dictators and oligarchs in order to further their interests that made it lousy and brutal in the first place is fucking disgusting and I'm exhausted by people pretending it's not happening.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The techno-dystopia I actually fear is a future where most people think truth is whatever Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or Grok say, and the very small number of people who control those systems use that to manipulate for their own ends, making our current epistemic crisis seem small in comparison.
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Evan Sutton @evansutton.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Worth note: at the time of this atrocity Anthropic was the LLM powering the Maven Smart System in partnership with Palantir. Don't let Dario's bullshit fool you. There is no "good" frontier AI company.
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Wagatwe Wanjuki @wagatwe.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
the sad part is that survivors fought like hell to even get expulsion for rapists on the table. when I was an activist > 10 years ago, administrators were *shocked* that we wanted expulsion as a disciplinary option.
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McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 29/09/2026
"Can a rapist’s prose elicit remorse for sexual assault? What word count best equates to appropriate jail time? In this class, we will dissect what empathy and accountability might look like so undergrads may successfully mimic them on paper in pursuit of avoiding just punishment." buff.ly/5na4oMY
buff.ly
Announcing Cornell University’s Newest Writing Course: Rape Essays 101
“Can a rapist’s prose effectively elicit remorse for sexual assault? What word count best equates to appropriate jail time? In this class, we will dissect wh...
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
There is a moment at the very very end of Abdul El-Sayed's podcast with Ezra Klein (book recommendation section) where he talks about the idea of "speaking truth to pain" and this will be staying with me for an extremely long time. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/o...
But there’s also something about truth to pain. We talk a lot about truth to power, but I think it’s actually a lot harder to speak truth to pain. I say that as someone who went to medical school, realizing that in a lot of our politics right now, we’ve got to get a lot better at speaking truth to pain if we’re going to get through some of these challenges that we have.

What does “truth to pain” mean?

It’s one thing to look power in the eye and say: You’re wrong about this. But there’s a way in which pain is very difficult to reason with. Because when somebody is in their pain, they’re in their trauma. They see that pain, and they may not see what’s causing it.

I remember just very explicitly being in a trauma ward with a gunshot wound patient and watching this big guy with his hand on his gunshot wound. All the folks are trying to pull his hand off his pain, that point of his gunshot wound, this clear vulnerability.

And this emergency room doctor had the presence of mind to be like: Everyone, stop. And she looks him in the eyes, and she’s like: I get that really hurts, and I’m so sorry that you’re here. You don’t want to be here. We don’t want you to be here. But if you don’t let us fix this, you could die. So I’m going to take your hand, and I’m going to move it off, OK? Because I need to get there so that you can live.

She was speaking truth to pain. He understands he’s at the hospital, he needs care, but he also doesn’t want anybody to touch the wound. Which is a natural thing. And I think it is a really great metaphor for how we think about a lot of these challenges we talked about today.
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Dare Obasanjo @carnage4life.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I love that the U.S. government now has ideas so dumb that the fact checks are simply “yeah this isn’t a parody, it’s real”
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Michael Spicer @michaelspicer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Most TV is just this now.
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Daniel Drezner @dandrezner.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Dear America.gov, Go fuck yourself. Dan
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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I give up. I’m moving into a cave.
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David Simon @audacityofdespair.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Brown people are coming. They are coming for your jobs. They will be sleeping in your guest room. They will piss on your lawn. They will steal all your shit and sell scary drugs. The brown people are going to run amok and ruin everything. Oh wait. There's an election coming up. Never mind.
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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
If I Were Still Voting in Calif dept: —US needs much, much more progressive tax code, w much more robust IRS enforcement, than now. Doesn't have either, via Reagan/Gingrich-era-onward GOP —Doing it state-by-state won't work. They just move to Nevada —Worked for smog/car emission stds. But not tax
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Sarah Kendzior @sarahkendzior.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
All these elected officials do is go on cable news to blab about problems we know really well because they dedicated decades of their lives to not solving them.
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Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 25/09/2026
I have blamed The agents That hacked Your website And which You probably Reasonably thought I controlled Forgive me I am rich And unaccustomed To taking responsibility
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Eugene Vinitsky 🍒 @eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
A rich person can never be held accountable. Therefore, a rich person must never make a societal decision
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Jared Yates Sexton @jysexton.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Just helping with editing here. These bots aren’t sentient. They’re doing what they’re programmed to do. OpenAI, a private company supposedly bound by laws, committed federal crimes.
Screenshot of BBC article: OpenAI bots (struck through) meddled with multiple US government agency sites
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esbraum.bsky.social @esbraum.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Or… morality? Responsibility? Ethics? Sincerity?
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Kashana @kashana.blacksky.app · 20/09/2026
Americans: oh, look, a systemic issue. I will solve it individually
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Micah @rincewind.run · 21/09/2026
congratulations to everyone on reinventing Worse Cable
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Steven (with a PH) @sjksalisbury.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Christening a baby is nothing like christening a ship. I know that now. Once again I can only apologise.
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Eoin Higgins @eoinhiggins.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
You’re right—that plane shouldn’t have gone there. That’s my fault, and I should have made sure there wasn’t a terminal in the landing path. Would you like me to call emergency services, or assist with lining up takeoffs?
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Endless Mike @squirrelsquirrel.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
It is right and just to constantly talk about how much things were *supposed* to cost if AI shitheads weren't constantly making everything worse
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Ken Tremendous @kentremendous.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I wish there were a single sentence that could simultaneously encapsulate and explain every single problem we have in modern society.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
We already have an AI kill switch: cut power to servers. Really want to talk existential threat? Fine. We humans have many ways to blow things up. Like data centers. Panicky discourse assumes the first priority is protect tech company investments and expand their businesses. But why should it be?
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ceej @ceej.online · 18/09/2026
Mulder looking at a drawing of big titty Bigfoot
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Jill Weinberger @jillybobww.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I don't understand how these people work doorknobs, let alone establish reputations as geniuses. It's like we gave all the power in the world to the students of the Midvale School for the Gifted.
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Funranium (AKA Phil Broughton) @funranium.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
The self-described "AI Safety" people are not particularlt interested in safety as a concept members of the public or safety professionals would recognize. They're just cult members with different colored robes and shaped ritual daggers. They're still sharp.
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Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
No responsible news outlet should go to the White House as long as this ban on their colleagues is in effect. It’s time for big media to show some backbone. Also, any apologies about that embarrassing WHCA dinner yukking it up with Trump and his apparatchiks? www.nytimes.com/2026/09/19/b...
nytimes.com
CNN and MS NOW Reporters Barred From White House After Trump Announces Ban
The prohibition on certain journalists was a stark escalation in President Trump’s war on the media, and will probably face a legal challenge.
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Noah Berlatsky @nberlat.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
it's antisemitic for a non Jewish person to deny Jewish identity to Jewish people he dislikes. It's racist for a white person to deny that Black people are Black if they don't vote for him.
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Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
White House correspondents, D.C. bureau chiefs, and media execs: The German government expelled Dorothy Thompson from the country in August 1934. She's remembered and respected today for her important coverage and analysis over the next decade of the German regime. Be like Dorothy Thompson.
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esbraum.bsky.social @esbraum.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
There’s nothing “intelligent” about any of what’s being built here. The term AI is wishcasting; it credits algorithms with sentience, and by repeating it we are furthering the goals of those who benefit from it.
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Jared Yates Sexton @jysexton.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
If you want an example, here. The major corporations are already training their AI to engage in corporate espionage and subterfuge. And yet, Google, one of the most powerful companies in the world, gets to hide behind the “rogue AI” bullshit and avoid consequences.
Guardian story with edit: Google says its Gemini AI model hacked three other companies with says its Gemini AI model crossed out
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tweety fish oh wow like a chimera or something spoooky @sifu.tweety.fish · 19/09/2026
eliminate EV subsidies, ban cheap overseas EVs, ban EV component import, deport people bringing battery technology to the US, pay billions to kill clean energy projects, end fuel economy standards, and then do THIS is such an elaborate prank on the American people you almost have to respect it
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Courtney Milan @courtneymilan.com · 19/09/2026
When someone claims that a mistake just happens in the system, and it's always the same kind of mistake, and it always benefits the person who set up the system... It's not a mistake. It's happening on purpose.
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