iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Fully get the cynicism here but authoritarians and democracy-eroders of both left and right get a lot of traction in Latin America. (Chavez, Ortega, Correa, etc on left, Fujimori, Bolsonaro, Bukeke, etc on the right). Personalistic populists are often welcomed in environments of low trust.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I told my law school-interested daughter that she might want to consider AI liability as a field. She didn’t seem all that inspired by the prospect and it was a little like telling The Graduate to go into plastics. But regs and tort issues around AI will likely be a very big part of our future.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

This is ‘back to the future’ as the original funding plan imagined 1/3 of the cost being covered by private investors. After 18 years it never materialized. This project needs to try to finish the Merced to Bakersfield segment, run it, and let that service be the argument for the rest.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

I once had a professor who said oil was so predictably volatile that you could make good money buying dips and selling peaks. I never tried it. Over the last five years if you’d consistently bought at $75 and sold at $90 you’d still come out worse than an S&P index fund. It’s no easy path to riches

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Regarding that King Charles retort to Trump, “if it wasn’t for us, you’d be speaking French”…the real reason why the British Colonies beat the French in North American was the massive population advantage - 1.5M vs 60,000 by 1756. Why the advantage? A much more liberal immigration policy!

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

People care about their local things. Try closing an elementary school / hospital / bus route / park (especially to allow for a for-profit project) and telling people that there’s another one two miles down the road and that they’re not going to live in a desert. Guaranteed pushback. Not surprising.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

This shows an important distinction between cults and grifters. When cults are riding high, grifters shamelessly support the cult as part of their grift. When cults start losing steam, grifters sense a market opportunity and break away - while cult members stay for the ride, however unpopular.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

We were told by Trump that the United States was a sucker for being part of military alliances and for involving itself so heavily in foreign affairs. Now…diving head first into being the permanent Straight of Hormuz policeman willing to pick up most of the tab.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

In case people tell you the solution is more drilling: Drilling more in the U.S. cannot stop a price shock like this. Oil prices are set globally, and U.S. producers cannot make up this lost supply. They also have no incentive to develop or maintain spare capacity when prices are low.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

Maybe there would be less of a tariff mess to clean up if SCOTUS had bothered to rule on this in a timely fashion instead of taking a year. That was a choice. The aversion to ruling quickly against Trump will now - paradoxically - create a litigation nightmare for the administration.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

The BLS showed a jobs report of +130K for January 2026 but….. ….revised all of 2025 downward by 403K.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

Historian will marvel at how United States traded global political and economic leadership to be a petty, regional bully in the northern half of the Western Hemisphere.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

Biting and hilarious. Get your daily dose of healing schadenfreude. 👇

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

Good piece about the limitations of data on autonomous vehicle safety and the challenges of comparing apples to apples with human drivers.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 04/01/2026

ChatGPT keeps insisting to my wife that a U.S. intervention in Venezuela is not happening. She has provided multiple news accounts but it won’t budge. 👇

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

Folks - the main takeaway from this piece is that the MAGA coalition is fraying. You are not obligated to choose a hero or villain in the Trump vs MTG drama. There can be multiple villains. Be glad that those villains are less united than before and that this story will widen the fracture.

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Reposted by John Nemeth

Aaron Strauss @aaronstrauss.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

Even accounting for the new congressional maps, a swing like Aftyn Behn's (Trump+22 to D-8.6) would net Dems 259 seats in the midterms. Even if the swing is *half* of tonight's, Dems win the House with 229 seats Data: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

And we’re just about wrapped up in the Tennessee 7 with an 8.8% win for Van Epps. The latter batches from Davidson County weren’t as good as earlier returns. So, about a 13 point swing from Trump 24’. I’m curious as to exactly how many GOP-held House Districts are Trump +13 or less. Anyone know?

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

Still close in the Tennessee 7. At this point it’s looking unlikely that Aftyn Behn will win but it’s going to be close given how much is still outstanding in Davidson County. I’d guess a 3-4 point win for Van Epps in a Trump +21 district.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

Trump just hit 39.9% approval in the G. Elliot Morris poll aggregator. First time under 40% in his second term.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

If you’re in the leverage business (like Senate Dems), you’re in the pain business. Imagine being, say, a labor leader and calling off a strike because you think it might be causing pain somewhere in the world. Pain is the point! Pain was the only way a gov’t shutdown could ever pay off.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

Trump’s idea to kill the filibuster to reopen the government and gut the ACA seems like strategic insanity. Yes, the GOP would get the marginal benefit of ending the shutdown but then they own the bigger political problem of health care premium spikes heading into midterms.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

If a democratic official had accepted a bribe I guarantee you that most voters would have heard about it. The fact that only 36% heard about Tom Homan shows you how tilted the info environment is today. This asymmetry is the main thing shaping political outcomes. Issue tweaks can’t fix this.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

Will the dominant military power of the future be the one can master autonomous warfare? Or the one with the generals who can bench press the most and run the fastest 100 meter dash? Which is more relevant to the battlefield of tomorrow?

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

So Trump is protecting us from: 1. Tylenol 2. Vaccines 3. Bike Paths 4. Late Night Comedy 5. Employed Immigrants 6. International trade 7. Windmills Do I have that about right?

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Reposted by John Nemeth

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

andrew is right, but mainstream U.S. media is fundamentally incapable of any introspection that isn't 'we didn't pay enough attention to the right-wing's needs'

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

Wow. The Baltimore Ravens tried to salt that game way too early. There’s a lesson there about risk-aversion. If you’re on the cusp of winning something, don’t coast too soon. Run through the tape!

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

The huge downward revisions (-258,000 jobs) are the big surprise. Trump’s tariff insanity is discouraging hiring. And yet, just three days ago our nation’s newspaper of record said that Trump was “winning” his trade war. Is this what “winning” look like to the Times?

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

🧵 FWIW, I don’t think Trump was running his own “Lolita Island” out of Mar-a-Lago. For starters, Virginia Giuffre said that her spa job was legitimate. Secondly, I don’t think Trump is competent enough to run a trafficking enterprise. And lastly, I think we would have heard more stories by now.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Not sure why Maxwell needs to “address questions” in private. My guess is that Maxwell has dirt on Trump and is using it as leverage to get a pardon. Trump’s DOJ is willing to bargain. Maybe Trump will ask that Maxwell go beyond staying quiet and make accusations against Trump’s political opponents.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 13/07/2025

Cult vs. conspiracy theory. Which is stronger ?

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

What’s staggering to me is that a party can run on something like ethnic cleansing and - at the same time - get a very respectable share of the vote from the people being targeted.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

Can’t believe how many American news outlets wrote something like “Trump brokers ceasefire” last night before going to bed. They’re only gradually realizing that missile exchanges are ongoing and there’s no functional ceasefire. Still many outdated headlines up.

bbc.com

Iran denies violating ceasefire as Israel orders powerful strikes on Tehran - live updates

Israel says it shot down an incoming Iranian missile, hours after agreeing to the deal brokered by Donald Trump and Qatar.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

I’d love to see: An Iran with a democracy, no nuclear program, and no support for Russia’s imperial war or for Hizballah. An Israel without a far-right government, that stays out of US politics, that doesn’t take billions in US aid, and that allows for a Palestinian state. A boy can dream.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

In pre-modern times, immigration rules were few. The corollary was that rulers could eject populations arbitrarily. As immigration became more rule-based, the process of kicking people out also became subject to rules. This Admin wants rules/bureaucracy for entry but arbitrary power for ejection

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Trump has undermined public trust in the law through: his own crimes, pardons for criminal friends, and violations of federal law in immigration enforcement. Immigration officers are therefore operating in an environment of intense public distrust. That’s the base ingredient spawning protest.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

Musk framing himself as part of the “80% in the center”, doesn’t make it so. He’s reportedly mad at the bill because - It doesn’t call for the FAA to use Starlink. - They nixed his friend for NASA head. - They aren’t willing to break personnel rules to keep him He wants gravy they won’t give

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 01/06/2025

Something everyone needs to understand about this Admin - they believe that national success is driven entirely by whiteness and that freedom, rights, markets, and political liberalism in general are irrelevant. Demography matters; good policy doesn’t. It like replacing John Locke with the KKK.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

Pending home sales came in at -6.3% in April vs the expected -0.3%. This contrasts with the strong figures from last week for new home sales. Pending sales are a leading indicator. So much with the economy (recession risk, inflation, interest rates) depends on whether Trump revives the tariffs.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

I think about this a lot as it relates to Trump’s antics here in the U.S.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Tariffs of 145% on Chinese imports were embargo-level and threatened to cause massive disruption. But, tariffs of 30% across the board (there were already tariffs on some goods) are still going to be inflationary. Plus, this “deal” (capitulation?) is technically a “pause”, so uncertainty remains.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

Many want to believe that Trump is using tariffs as a cudgel to lower duties on American exports. Alternatively, he’s a true believer, has no intention of removing his tariffs, and the “deals” are theatre - a way to keep Wall Street optimistic until they accept his tariffs as a permanent reality.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

News used to be a fairly clean stream. There were few media outlets, and, to be successful, they needed a solid reputation. So they filtered out junk. The many-to-many info landscape has no filter. There are nuggets of gold in that steam now, but also lots of crap. The stream has become a sewer.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

Following the George Floyd episode, there were three competing ideas about policing: 1. Defund it. 2. Reform it to minimize racism, abuse, and failure. 3. Let police do whatever they want. #1 was mostly conceptual but dominated news, produced a backlash, and now we’re diving into dark #3.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

International tourism is about 3% of U.S. GDP. Its disappearance is enough to make the difference between a slowing economy and a recession.

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