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John Goldin

@johngoldin.com
647 followers 867 following 901 posts

R enthusiast. History reader. Walker. www.johngoldin.com

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Reposted by John Goldin
Jake Broe @realjakebroe.bsky.social · 13h
Cartoon by Mike Luckovich
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Dr. Tom Frieden @drtomfrieden.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
CDC just closed offices in Angola and South Sudan. Zimbabwe is next; a dozen more may follow. CDC staff overseas support countries to find outbreaks early and stop them before they reach us. Decisions have consequences. Lives will be lost, including American lives. bit.ly/4B5n6uG
beckershospitalreview.com
CDC closes 2 offices in Africa as Trump ties health aid to deals: Politico
CDC closes offices Africa as State Department ties foreign health aid to country-specific agreements under the Trump administration.
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
I left x despite having a large following bc I don’t want to make free content for the world’s wealthiest racist. It’s not worth it to me.
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Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Y’all, I hate to rain on the dead bot parade, but the Yandex data center destruction doesn’t seem to have significantly impacted social media bots. I made temporal graphs of X posts about AfD around the time of the attack and there’s no sign of a sudden dip or residual impact on that conversation.
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digby @digby56.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
He truly believes that because Putin and Xi put on a show for him that they are his allies. He's childlike and gullible even as he is unspeakably brutal and corrupt. What a horrifying combination. And such a mark for powerful leaders who are smarter than him. Which would be all of them.
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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 12/10/2026
50 years later, media companies - our bosses - are larger and more profitable than they've ever been, and we're poorer than we've ever been. The share of the money generated by our labor has declined, even as our rights over the product of that labor have expanded.
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Eric Columbus @ericcolumbus.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
The thing to know about Tom Emmer is he wants to lead the House GOP and probably would be Speaker now had Trump not “killed him” in 2023. www.politico.com/news/2023/10... And he’ll sell out everyone he used to support — Ukraine, Somali-Americans, whoever — to get there.
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John Goldin @johngoldin.com · 11/10/2026
henryfudgeofficial.substack.com/p/freehold-o... “Then the arithmetic of composition took over….Nobody designed the cage. It emerged as if designed, from the sum of reasonable choices, which is exactly why it is so hard to see and so hard to blame anyone for.
henryfudgeofficial.substack.com
Freehold on the Wrist
How distorted economies turn luxury into necessity, status into debt, and consumption into control.
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Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 11/10/2026
Remember when he screamed "No puppet! YOU'RE the Puppet!" in that really panicked way that had a bunch of us like "…uhh… kinda seems a weird way to deny that"? Anyway, we all know Russia doesn't have that much diesel to sell, making this sanctions-avoiding money laundering on a global scale, right?
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Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
This is petty and least important aspect of this but: I reported on this years ago and the trump campaign falsely denied the reporting, and now via Hegseth they’re just doing it. Monstrous
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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Piece came out at USAToday Why? Because USAToday owners (Gannett) only own media companies, so they have an incentive to attract an audience & advertisers Tech elites like Bezos, Ellisons, Musk, & Benioff use their media firm to cozy to Trump, not to make profit www.usatoday.com/story/opinio...
usatoday.com
DEI initiatives didn't cost companies. Just the opposite. | Opinion
Firms that kept DEI, whether due to executive decisions or shareholder pressure, performed as well in the stock market as those that rolled it back.
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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
These different incentives from standalone media owners vs. "common owners" like Benioff is the subject of one of my working papers www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/07aux...
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Jennifer Shin - WTAF @jennifershin.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
This should be made into an ad and run non-stop on every channel until the election is over.
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Rachel Maddow @maddow.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
“…most commonly carried out in a handful of countries including Iran, North Korea and the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan. “releasing video of executions is most often associated with extremist militant groups like the Islamic State...” www.nytimes.com/2026/10/08/u...
nytimes.com
Fort Hood Shooter’s Execution Will Be Public and Streamed Live, Pentagon Says
If carried out, the public execution of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan by firing squad set for Dec. 3 would be the first in modern U.S. history.
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
I think people should listen to what the administration trying to bring back spectacle lynchings, race riots, and middle passage-esque deportation voyages are trying to tell you about themselves. bsky.app/profile/bren...
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
This thing has made me go do a lot of reading tonight, and the Wikipedia page about the last public execution in the United States is well-written. It was Rainey Bethea, a Black man hanged in front of a crowd of 20,000 in 1936, a spectacle which embarrassed Kentucky enough that they ended hangings.
Hanna placed the noose around Bethea's neck, adjusted it, and then signaled to Hash to pull the trigger. Instead, Hash, who was drunk, did nothing. Hanna shouted at Hash, "Do it!" A deputy then leaned onto the trigger, which sprang the trap door. citation needed! Bethea fell 8 feet (2.4 m), and his neck was instantly broken.
Afterward, two doctors confirmed he was dead.
His body was taken to Andrew & Wheatley
Funeral Home. Icitation needed! He wanted his body to be sent to his sister in South Carolina so that she could arrange for him to be interred next to his father, but against these wishes, he was buried in a pauper's grave at Owensboro Cemetery (also known as City Cemetery and
"Potter's Field") in Owensboro. 14]It was estimated that a crowd of about 20,000 people gathered to watch the execution.!9! One man, 36-year-old Leonard A. Peters, was killed in a car accident while driving to Owensboro to witness the hanging. Three others, including his wife, were injured. 15. Afterwards, Hanna complained that Hash should not have been allowed to perform the execution in his drunken
condition. Hanna further said it was the worst display he experienced in the 70 hangings he had supervised. citation needed]
The spot where the scaffold stood
(approximately 37.775248° -87.116462°) is now part of a drop-off/pick-up lane in front of the Owensboro Convention Center. citation needed]へ
End of public executions in
Kentucky
As the Kentucky General Assembly had been meeting in its biennial sessions at the time, the media circus surrounding the Bethea execution embarrassed members of the Kentucky
legislature. In spite of the humiliation, they could not amend laws regarding executions until the next session in 1938. However, the trial judges in two separate Kentucky rape cases ordered that the hangings of John "Pete" Montjoy and Harold Van Venison be conducted privately. Montjoy, age 23, was privately hanged in Covington on December 17, 1937.On January 17, 1938, William R. Attkisson of the Kentucky State Senate's 38th District (representing Louisville), introduced Senate Bill 69, repealing the requirement in Section 1137 that executions for convicted rapists be conducted by hanging in the county seat where they raped their victims. The bill was promoted in the Kentucky House of Representatives by Representative Charles W. Anderson Jr., one of the attorneys who assisted Bethea in his post-conviction relief motions.
After both houses approved the bill, Governor Chandler signed it into law on March 12, 1938; it became effective on May 30 of that year.
Chandler later expressed regret at having approved the repeal, claiming, "Our streets are no longer safe." The last person ever legally hanged in Kentucky was Harold Van Venison, a
33-year-old African-American singer, who was privately executed in Covington on June 3, 1938.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
This is a good account of the problems of managing a personalist regime: the honest and competent resign out of disgust or are fired for telling that truth; incompetent loyalists take their place and cannot deliver even on the President’s top goals. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/09/u...
nytimes.com
How Trump’s Revenge Campaign Descended Into Turmoil
The president’s allies have sought to prove a “grand conspiracy” through a sprawling Justice Department inquiry. It has buckled under staffing shake-ups, internal disputes and trouble finding evidence...
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John Goldin @johngoldin.com · 08/10/2026
"The recipients are being selected according to sloppy, arbitrary means; It still only cancels out a small fraction of the economic damage caused by Trump/Republicans to begin with; and... It's likely illegal in the first place"
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Chris Murphy @chrismurphyct.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
How do I know Hegseth’s order to deny access to bases to members of Congress is about a cover up, not about safety? Because I asked for a military briefing at the embassy as a substitute and was told the policy prohibited military leaders in the region from even talking to me.
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The Editorial Board @editorialboard.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Censorship is the point. “Republican lawmakers say faculty can only call it the Gulf of Mexico for ‘historical purposes’ in academic courses. Journalists are constrained by the restriction, too.” www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...
insidehighered.com
Alabama’s New “Gulf of America” Mandate Impacts Colleges
Republican lawmakers say faculty can only call it the Gulf of Mexico for “historical purposes” in academic courses. Journalists are constrained by the restriction, too.
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Dave @daveamp.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Netanyahu has been re-elected multiple times. Brexit was a national referendum. AfD’s recent gains came in a free and fair vote. National Front/Rally gets its support freely too. Putin rigged the system, but independent measures have consistently shown him popular. Many want this stuff.
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Justin Wolfers @justinwolfers.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
In 1989 CEOs made 60x the average worker. Today it's 325x. I guess the corporate ladder is getting taller. With @svaneksmith.bsky.social newsletter.platypuseconomics.com/p/…
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Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
“For Rufo integration of nonwhite immigrants isn’t the desired outcome at all. Successful integration is a problem. So while he dresses up his objections in the language of “cultural cohesion” and “high trust” societies, those are protective camouflage…” www.liberalcurrents.com/editors-note...
liberalcurrents.com
Editor's Notes: "The Indian Question" Shows That No One Is Safe From White Nationalism
That is the entire point.
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Ulrike Franke @rikefranke.eu · 04/10/2026
The answer to this problem, of course, is that AI needs to be trained on Iain M Banks Scifi 🤷‍♀️
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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 02/10/2026
I’ve written this up here. In addition to there not being a Covid-scale drop in tourism recently, you might also be wondering why visits from Mexico seem to double around 2004-05. The answer is not a sudden shift in Mexican preferences but rather our old friend, There Was A Change In The Measure.
kieranhealy.org
Trump Tourism Effects
In the past day or two on social media I kept seeing this graph from a Semafor story on the declining volume of international visitors to the United States. Semafor Graph. It seems to show, and was be...
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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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John Goldin @johngoldin.com · 01/10/2026
@timmiller.bsky.social I just gave $200 each thru ActBlue for your list of Democrats who can win. www.thebulwark.com/p/more-democ...
thebulwark.com
More Democrats Who Can Win Red America
Tim Miller has more candidates to watch and support.
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
They don’t understand western civ as a concept but as a signifier. This is a man who thought a joke from pulp fiction was in the bible
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 01/10/2026
The fact is Trump not only lost his war but it's the biggest L the US has taken at least since Vietnam. Our bases are destroyed & abandoned, Iran is emboldened, China is toying w/ us. Hegseth & co want to move on to culture war slop, but they got routed & we'll be dealing w/repercussions for decades
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Brandon Friedman @brandonfriedman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Pete is lost in terms of modern war. I use the example of this outgunned Ukrainian army officer who successfully terrorized a Russian unit for weeks because she "did the math." At the time, someone commented, "yeah, in combat, 'I did the math' beats 'I can do 100 pushups' every time."
Ukrainian female soldier: Okay, I said the idea is this: There is enough time to empty one full can of 32 grenades and be gone by the time the return mortar fire reaches us. I did the math.
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Steve Rattner @steverattner.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Under President Trump, the wealth of the top 1% has grown more than twice as fast as the bottom half of Americans.
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Jacob Öberg @profjacob.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
🚨🚨 @coe.int of Europe said yesterday that the #US formally notified it that it would leave the Group of States against Corruption, or #GRECO. Only two other countries have left GRECO before — #Russia and #Belarus. The fall of the #US on the world scene is striking. apnews.com/article/trum...
apnews.com
US withdraws from European anti-corruption panel in latest shift away from global groups
The Trump administration has withdrawn the United States from a top European anti-corruption watchdog.
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Tom Joscelyn @tomjoscelyn.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Let’s remember that Sen. Eric Schmitt is a white nationalist who employs other white nationalists while spreading white nationalist/racist conspiracy theories. missouriindependent.com/2025/09/15/m... White supremacists never fail to demonstrate how they’re inferior:
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Danielle Kurtzleben @titonka.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The masculinity politics beat continues to be very necessary. goodauthority.substack.com/p/republican...
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Xela Hart @xelahart.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
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Chris Conaton @conatonc.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
A familiar story for anyone who follows @volts.wtf. “The Chronicle spoke to more than half a dozen grid experts…to try to understand why Texas’s notoriously unreliable grid had a remarkably reliable summer. The answer was unanimous: solar panels and batteries.”
houstonchronicle.com
Texas shattered energy demand records this summer. Here's why the grid held up.
Texas repeatedly broke electricity demand records this summer, but ERCOT avoided emergencies as booming solar and battery capacity helped keep the grid stable.
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Susan Collins is always horrified by the predictable results of her own vote, which means Mainers who genuinely care about Susan Collins should elect Troy Jackson as he won’t vote for things that wind up upsetting Susan Collins, unlike Susan Collins
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Chris Murphy @chrismurphyct.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Every taxpayer, no matter your party, should be outraged by this. Your money is being used to fund campaign ads for Trump. It’s totally completely illegally. He’s stealing your money for his campaign. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/24/u...
nytimes.com
‘Love Me’ Ad Promotes Trump With Public Money Ahead of the Midterms
A disclaimer says the ad was paid for by the U.S. government, which could violate federal law.
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Mallory McMorrow @mallorymcmorrow.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Mike Rogers put out an ad last week saying the war in Iran needs to end. Pretty passive language there. Who started it, Mike??
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Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
"Just as providers are using sophisticated A.I. tools to say their patients are sicker, insurance companies have been accused of using the tools to delay or deny care." AI, unlocking opportunities for bad-faith corporate actors to try to extract more money www.nytimes.com/2026/09/24/b...
nytimes.com
Battle of Hospital A.I. vs. Insurer A.I. Is Pushing Medical Costs Higher
The use of artificial intelligence by hospitals and health insurers is escalating their longstanding feud over paying for medical care.
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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I thought this *had* to be fake. But you can see the [insert polite word for "moron"] Tuberville ACTUALLY SAYING this, in Congressional Record: www.govinfo.gov/link/crec/la... This guy is running against Doug Jones for governor. God save Alabama. fallows.substack.com/p/running-as...
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MayhemMel! @melindameyer.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
x.com/HunterBiden/... I hate GOP it's no secret. But sometimes they do the stupidest shit that I love. 🤪😂😂😂😂
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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Certain kinda tv writer has a habit of being like "imagine if the cops/army weren't held back by politics and bureaucracy wouldn't that be great!" And I just think they are so fundamentally confused about what kind of world that would be for arts majors like themselves.
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John Goldin @johngoldin.com · 23/09/2026
Yes, there’s a cost benefit in having AM radio as an emergency backup especially because the cost side is so low.
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John Goldin @johngoldin.com · 23/09/2026
open.substack.com/pub/programm...
open.substack.com
Machine god metaphors eat your brain
There are other ways of thinking about AI
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frank_bough @frankbough.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
If you are right wing in anyway, this is what you are doing whether you know it or not.
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Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Trump: “The World’s Diesel price rise is mostly caused by the Russia/Ukraine War, not Iran.” International Energy Agency: The diesel blocked in the Persian Gulf is 3X as large as supplies missing from Russia compared with before the Iran war. www.wsj.com/business/ene...
wsj.com
Refineries Are Now the Main Chokepoint for Global Energy Supplies
The Iran and Ukraine wars have exposed the world’s reliance on the Middle East and Russia for diesel.
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Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
theunpopulist.net
From Res Publica to the United States of Trump
This president's vulgar self-glorification is revolting to a self-governing people and must not stand
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