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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Thanks! And also, O/T: After four years of cranking out these pieces, and seeing the entirely-foreseeable unfold, Deb and I moved .... to China.

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Judge as you will: His offense in 1980, which he admitted (and he was the one to call the EMT and cops), and what he has done in the 46 years since then. YMMV.

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

But Talarico is running for a six-year term. (The wonderful Doug Jones was in a two-year special-election seat.)

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Yes. (Signed, former writer for Texas Monthly.)

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Spent 2+ weeks in Dallas in August. In district that went for Trump in 2016, 20, 24. Absolute heart of Cornyn territory this year. Saw *hundreds* of Talarico signs. Exactly one for Paxton. Yards signs are not votes. But was interesting. Cornyn would have coasted in.

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Agree with all of the below, with this distinction: -Alito is the most *predictably* partisan-R member of the court. -Roberts is the most *consequentially* partisan-R member.

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Judge his life since 1980 as you choose.

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Jen, all the difference a space makes! ( Betw "In" and "excusable"...) Agree with your assessment.

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Flawed? I'll assume so. Like nearly everyone in that industry. And many others. But to my personal first-hand knowledge, a major pro-environment force for *decades.* (Also, was force behind recent Ken Burns documentary on Thoreau—and Henley saved Walden Pond from developers.)

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

First-gen tech billionaires had some sense of obligation. Long before Gates, Intel founders: Noyce, Moore, Grove. Packard foundation. Schmidt Family Fdn (Google) continues to be incredibly generous. Gates set an early example, under Buffett tutelage. Zuck was dawn of different, worse generation.

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

2/ And something more I love about Mackenzie Scott is that she has given away more than $25 billion, and she STILL HAS AS MUCH MONEY as when she started her donations. Amazon stock has grown faster than she can give the money away.

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Colette Delawalla, PhD @cdelawalla.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

This is slightly out of my normal lane, and I could charge six (hell maybe seven) figure to deliver this message as a consultant, but I’m gonna do it for free. Because I’m ✨enraged✨ People in the think tank/policy/inside the beltway DC world have ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE how mad people are abt Cornell. 🧵

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Agree. (And have been wishing that she were connected to my mother's Mackenzie lineage. Alas, it appears just to be a name her parents liked.)

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

People point out that the philanthropy of Rockefeller, Carnegie, Mellon et al was *after* their rapacious-capitalist stage. But still, they *did* those things. (Henry Ford is a special case..)

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Was talking with somebody last night about whether today's plutocrats were objectively "worse" than original Gilded Age. Them: "Well, what are your examples?" Me: "Big three: Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg. "Then Ellisons, Kochs, Singer, Schwarzman. Princelings like Lutnick, Uihlein. No contest."

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Someone should do a piece on this. There is *SO* much more money easily available on the right.

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Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Heather MacDonald of the same Manhattan Institute that employes Chris Rufo. When institutions show you who they are, believe them.

Ayfkm Heather Mac Donald?

She’s doing apologia for the Cornell 7

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I go out of my way to refer to him as "John 'Roger Taney' Roberts." Back in the olden days there was "Lawrence 'Yogi' Berra." And before that "George Herman 'Babe' Ruth." It's in that tradition.

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

In his new book 'Profiles in Cowardice,' Jacob Weisberg devotes his final chapter to John Roberts. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/14/b... -Preening to be seen as another John Marshall. -Destined to be known forever as this era's Roger Taney.

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Fortunately, people at NYT recognized that this was a historically bad sub-head for a story. It now reads: "is the latest sign of how the White House is asserting more control over grants." But SOMEONE WROTE THAT ORIGINAL HEADLINE.

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Will tell more later on but for now: -You already know that any phone call "from Google" or "from G security center" is automatically bogus. They NEVER call. -But it can be interesting to hear the spiel from AI-generated native-US voices. And alarming, about what they know. -Main point: Hang up.

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

From me, most before paywall, contrasting long Playboy interview w Donald Trump in 1990 w long Time magazine interview this week. TL;DR His crabbed world-view is the same. But his cognitive terrain is alarmingly shrunken This only makes him more dangerous. fallows.substack.com/p/midterm-co...

fallows.substack.com

Midterm Countdown, 33 Days to Go: Language from Our Leader.

It’s not just your imagination. Donald Trump’s active vocabulary, his train of thought, his ability to filter are all in rapid decline. We’re watching a leaky balloon as it deflates.

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Am I right in remembering that Rufo *boasted* about drawing attention to the Haitians of Springfield, including "they're eating cats" etc? I know that Vance and Trump magnified this. But wasn't Rufo the initial vector?

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Yes. Fortunately, not on SCOTUS.

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I view him that way. But I Am Not A Lawyer.

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I will miss all the stories about Hasan Piker! Some publications will have a big news hole to fill.

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

And one more time, prescient JP Stevens dissent: “Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year’s presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation’s confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law”

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Somehow not everyone is aware of fact alluded to below. So one more time: John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett were all on GWBush 2000 'Florida Recount' team. (Which made GWB first prez in 112 yrs to 'win' after losing popular vote. Now they 'impartially' rule on our future.)

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Man who could order a nuclear attack. From Eric Cortellessa TIME interview. time.com/article/2026... H/t @katzish.bsky.social

Do you trust Sam Altman?

I like him. Do I trust him? Who do I trust? I like Sam Altman. Smart. Dario's smart. They're all smart. We're dealing with a very high level of IQ. Very very high level. That's a good thing. I like that. I like it. Did you see the story about my uncle?

The one who taught at MIT?

I have the highest of IQs. I have the highest. I'm fine, and I understand that stuff. You know, my uncle was at MIT for 41 years, and you know, I'm a—I believe in genetics, frankly, and I understand. I understand it much more than I think any president would, because I do have an ability on this. I have an ability on those things that were the new frontiers.

What I've done is I've created, for instance, these massive plants have no—We have no electricity in our grid. These massive plants now are allowed to make their own electric—

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Correct. His interviews from 1980s and 1990s, when first coming into the public eye, were similar in outlook but *entirely* different in speed, fluency, vocabulary, variety. His expressive range continues to shrivel, like a leaking balloon.

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

OxBridge-trained Brits pride themselves on debating flourishes, especially when in former provinces. (Eg: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a... Steve Hilton is not doing a lot to hold up that image, vs plain old Xavier Becerra on CNN. Maybe softened by life in bubble of right-wing talk radio.

theatlantic.com

"The Economics of the Colonial Cringe," about The Economist magazine; Washington Post, 1991

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Ivy League-ology: -Princeton has long preened on being #1 in US News rankings -DAMHIK about those rankings, as former USN editor -Most prominent Tigers on current scene are this guy, Alito, Cruz -(Yeah, Harvard has J Roberts—but also Buttigieg, KBJackson etc) -History lectures from this clown???

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Remember when Tim Walz got in trouble with the chattering-class for saying that these people are just WEIRD? They are!! (McNamara, Schlesinger, Rumsfeldx2, Cheney, Aspen, and some others had quirks as SecDef. But all *smart.* And not remotely as insecure as Pete.)

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Would love to watch Bill Clinton's spit-take when he hears Newt intro'd as "one of our nation's best minds." (History lesson: Clinton wrapped Speaker Newt around his little finger in the 1990s, much as Xi et al are doing to Trump now.)

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Mykael Wyvern — 🔮🧙🏻‍♂️🐉 @wyvern.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I legitimately thought this was a joke post

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Who has a bigger heart than me? I find myself with zero sympathy for people in recent stories saying, "Yeah, I was fine with all the mass roundups, until they arrested my brother[uncle/neighbor/wife]." Who has a case for a more charitable outlook?

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I was tempted to say something I'd regret committing to "print." So, the high road: What would leaders of any of our great religions say about this? ("Who cares what they are doing to these other folks. But how dare they hurt my friends or me?")

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

3/3 In the end, Ralph got 2.74% of national vote. No federal funding. GWB had half a million fewer votes overall than Gore—but, after the long 'Florida Recount,' Bush and Cheney took that state and came to power. And thus Iraq, John Roberts and Alito, and so much else. /fin

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

2/3 That way, Ralph might reach the "5% of national vote" threshold for getting federal funding, without skewing the outcome. We particularly called out that threat in WI and ... FL. He disagreed. Argued at the time Gore and GWB were peas-in-a-pod on corporate power issues. Que sera...

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

A number of us who had been loyal Nader staffers and colleagues (I wrote two books for him, in the 1970s) had a big public statement a month before the election. Its plea: Keep running, Ralph—in Calif, NY, TX, etc, where outcome not in doubt. But stop running in places like FL, WI, OR etc.

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