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lajie.bsky.social

@lajie.bsky.social
1K followers 1.4K following 546 posts

International public finance and democracy mainly Incognito so I can be feisty

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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 23h
Endless corruption.
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Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Voter registration deadlines are SUNDAY in Alaska, Rhode Island, South Carolina. And MONDAY in: Arizona, Arkansas Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, and *Texas*. If you live in these states, verify your registration now, literally.
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Dennis Maxwell @dmax12345.bsky.social · 8h
Honestly, the brilliance of Mamdani is less about his improvements in city services (modest, but important) than it has been about highlighting the services that city government provides (and in some cases always has). He makes sure government is seen. That’s really, really important.
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Joe @twitskeptic.sirvin.com · 14h
Or this chart:
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wishda @wishda.bsky.social · 12h
When I checked this week, my registration was gone. Durham County, NC voter in good standing for many years, and I was no longer a registered voter.
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Chris Sprigman @cjsprigman.bsky.social · 12h
Cornell’s new era of transparency should begin with this guy admitting he hit Gaza protestors with his car on purpose and then lied about it. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/03/n...
nytimes.com
Cornell President Calls Rape Inquiry ‘Defining Moment’ for Campus
Michael I. Kotlikoff said in a video the university would be more transparent, hold Greek groups accountable and improve sexual assault prevention.
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s. e. smith @sesmith.lol · 03/10/2026
Talking about the trades? Read this instead of The Atlantic!
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Sarah Andersen @sarahseeandersen.bsky.social · 21h
The image is of a four panel comic. The title reads "Poltergeist".
In the first panel we see a woman with a worried expression on her face. She says, "stuff keeps moving around my house."
In the second panel the same woman says "I'm terrified. I can't sleep."
In the third panel we see a ghost holding a candle and a pillow that reads "live laugh love". The ghost is zooming through the house.
In the fourth panel we see the same ghost hanging up a frame and thinking, "home decor is my passion".
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Micah @rincewind.run · 21h
that this is over the daylight savings bill of all things is ten times funnier
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 21h
The GOP has put $2 million to this campaign, and the billionaires have put $23 million in. Their contribution is 92% of the money Tiffany raised.
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Angie Nixon @angieforfl.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Folks have insulted:  My Southern drawl.  My loc’d hair.  My clothes.  My shoes.  My intelligence.  I’ve been called a ghetto Black b!t€h. Now @JDVance says I don’t belong and should leave the very country my ancestors helped build. This is a lot y’all. It is. #AngieForFlorida
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Allison Gill @muellershewrote.com · 02/10/2026
BREAKING: A while back, I sued DOGE (FOIA) to get Musk's communications. DOJ argued that Musk wasn't a govt employee anymore, BUT Hegseth just hired him again to work on a Pentagon warfare initiative called Project Meridian. So we noticed Judge Boasberg. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
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Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I think the correct answer is just "taking money appropriated for X and spending it on Y because you like that better" is the same thing as spending money that was never appropriated for anything, but there's *just* enough paying tribute to virtue that it's not *quite* the ballgame
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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
BREAKING: A federal judge has ruled for the first time that a Flock search was unconstitutional and violated a woman's Fourth Amendment rights. Oklahoma cop pulled over a woman and searched her in Flock "because he saw her license plate was from California" www.404media.co/federal-judg...
404media.co
Federal Judge Rules a Flock Search Was ‘Indiscriminate Mass Surveillance’ and Unconstitutional
Flock’s nationwide network is quickly “approaching dragnet-type law enforcement practice” and the cop should have got a warrant, the judge wrote.
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William Gibson @greatdismal.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Ahem…
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Science Magazine @science.org · 02/10/2026
In a new #ScienceReview, researchers argue that menopause research needs a major rethink, shifting from a one-size-fits-all view of the transition to a precision medicine approach that accounts for differences in symptoms, timing, genetics and hormone treatments. scim.ag/4hAtykK
scim.ag
Reframing menopause and menopause hormone therapy as opportunities for healthy aging
Menopause is an important biological transition with up to 72 symptoms that shapes aging trajectories across organs and encompasses ~40% of the female lifespan. Although menopause awareness is increas...
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Patrick Wyman @patrickwyman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
At a really fundamental level Leo XIV is just a person with sound, well-reasoned, moral stances on the world and how life should be lived who isn't afraid to say those things in public. That kind of person simply does not make sense to business leaders and politicians for whom speech is convenience.
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Matthew Gertz @mattgertz.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
They're holding up a major escalation in Iran and a crackdown on abortion until after the midterms to limit political damage. To the extent that the last two years have been a right-wing smash-and-grab operation, the next two will be worse.
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Katie Phang @katiephang.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
BREAKING: NY Governor, Kathy Hochul, has named NY Attorney General, Letitia James, as the Special Prosecutor to investigate the Cornell rape case. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/01/n...
nytimes.com
Hochul Names Letitia James as Special Prosecutor in Cornell Case
Gov. Kathy Hochul appointed the New York State attorney general to investigate allegations by a former Cornell University student that several men sexually assaulted her.
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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
If there were any justice, this case would cost the DA his job.
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Coach Finstock @coachfinstock.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The reason they want more people to adopt chatbots is because that could theoretically create a new revenue stream by eliminating the need for marketing or advertising and just taking cash from brands/parties/etc to change what the chatbot tells the user.
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Dr Hannah M. Rowland @hannahmrowland.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Hope your day was better than Darwin’s, on this day 165 years ago
I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody &everything.

Charles Darwin
Letter to Charles Lyell
1st October 1861
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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
To round these critical perspectives on polarization out, you cannot do better than @pettertornberg.com's essential recent @poppublicsphere.bsky.social article, available here open access: doi.org/10.1017/S153...
It’s Not Polarization; It’s the Radicalization of the Political Right

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2026
Petter Törnberg 

Abstract

Polarization has become the master concept for diagnosing contemporary democratic crises. The notion denotes three features: symmetry between parties, politics as an opinion space where positions diverge, and mutual repulsion between opposing camps. Yet none of these capture current realities. Across democracies, the central dynamic is not two poles drifting apart but the transformation of the political right into authoritarianism, norm breaking, and openness to political violence. Social democratic and center-right parties tend to respond in the opposite way from what “polarization” implies: by accommodating rightward. Attempts to salvage the polarization frame with modifiers (“asymmetric,” “affective,” “sectarian,” “pernicious”) concede these realities but risk hollowing out the concept’s definitional core. These limitations reveal a deeper misdiagnosis: when one party turns antidemocratic and illiberal, incivility and conflict are inevitable—but they are symptoms, not the root problem. Misdiagnosing them as the central issue leads to viewing civility and compromise as remedies, thereby risking the legitimation of authoritarian actors. This article proposes an alternative lens: the radicalization of the political right. Developed in the study of extremism, the radicalization framework better captures asymmetric change, identity-driven politics, and the mainstreaming of illiberalism. It foregrounds identity fusion, threat narratives, elite entrepreneurship, and escalation. Concepts are never politically innocent and persisting with “polarization” risks both misdiagnosing and normalizing authoritarian threats.
Keywords
Political polarization
radicalization
democratic backsliding
radical right
authoritarianism
democracy
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Frogbat @dr-frogbat.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
You know a republican is certain they're about to get thrashed in the elections when they start talking about bipartisanship, "healing," reaching across the aisle, etc.
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mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Wild that he gets this coverage after he packed the Utah Supreme Court in order to try to prevent it from enforcing a referendum-passed gerrymandering ban to steal a congressional seat for the GOP (and disenfranchise his state's largest city)
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GOLIKEHELLMACHINE @golikehellmachine.com · 01/10/2026
if you are a republican vp and you’re pulling the fire alarm about fucking idaho before the first day of october, you are in very, very bad shape
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Semafor @semafor.com · 30/09/2026
Visitors to the US are on track to drop by almost two million year-on-year. “We’re the only major country in the world losing visitation,” the head of the US Travel Association said. “It’s mind-boggling.” www.semafor.com/article/09/2...
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LadyBusiness @ladybusiness.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
On my way to a job interview, smartly leaving the iced coffee at home
Tom Ford spring 2027 runway look
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ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 30/09/2026
oh man you know a small paper did good when the NYT reports on their reporting rather than ripping them off without credit www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/n...
nytimes.com
Students at Cornell Daily Sun Pursued Sexual Assault Case for Two Years (Gift Article)
The student newspaper, The Cornell Daily Sun, covered the allegations of rape at a fraternity party since they were first made in 2024 and led the reporting on the case.
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Coach Finstock @coachfinstock.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
This is the thing about AI that I love so much. Think of all the morons you know (many on this site!) using and swearing by this tech that can change the output depending on who is controlling the AI. And those dumbasses still believe it should be used for anything regarding data!
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Micah @rincewind.run · 30/09/2026
I wholeheartedly support this I think he should show up and campaign personally with every republican senate candidate, make it really clear that there’s no daylight between them he can start with susan collins
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Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
It’s pretty nuts. Tom Watson’s very first intervention in his new job at spytech firm Palantir is to write a letter to his former colleague @labourlewis.bsky.social detailing all the times the firm has monitored his anti-Palantir activities
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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
A small but essential improvement on federal impeachment is widely used in the states: if a lower house impeaches you, you are *suspended from office* until & unless the upper house acquits you. That's what happened w Paxton. It's the obvious way to handle credible allegations of official misconduct
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Sam @samd.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
should be instructive for democrats that Magyar is living up to his promise to prosecute Orban officials for corruption and is continuing to poll extremely highly
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Drew McKevitt @drewmckevitt.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
It's a bit of a bummer that the story today has been "look at this absolute doofus of a senator" and not "Jack Smith once again credibly accuses the president of many serious crimes"
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Jim Lokay @jimlokay.com · 29/09/2026
If you want to really know how the outrage machine gets fired up: 1. Schmitt plans to drop “bombshell” on Smith 2. Someone plants story that Schmitt is a Vance VP contender to run same day 3. Right-wing Twittersphere gets talking points 4. Schmitt steps in it 5. Scheduled tweets go out anyway
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Incredible. The 11th Circuit, in a 3-0 opinion (two Obama appointees and one Trump 1.0 appointee), agrees that Trump and his lawyers have failed to rebut the judge's finding that the entire IRS settlement was collusive, highlighting that no other explanation for their conduct was even offered.
IV
The appellants mount two main attacks on the district
court’s speech-related sanction. First, they argue that the court
lacked a sufficient basis to find that the lawsuit and the settlement
were collusive and that Messrs. Brito and Epstein acted in bad faith.
Second, they contend that the sanction is a broad and impermissible gag order which constitutes a prior restraint and violates the
First Amendment. We conclude that the appellants have not made
a strong showing that they will succeed on either of these grounds.The appellants did not submit or offer any evidence to explain their litigation conduct or demonstrate that the lawsuit and the settlement were not collusive. Given the record before us, the
appellants have not made a strong showing that the district court
committed clear error in its collusion and bad faith findings
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southpaw @nycsouthpaw.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Making fundamental due process rights a nullity with the emergency docket (again)
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I have zero sympathy for the Mueller people who were gigantic babies at the end of the day, but we should let this Jack Smith guy get a second crack at it.
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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The funniest thing about the Schmitt rake stomp is that if it'd been a Dem we'd have a week of think pieces about how Dems lack of hoops literacy was alienating them from real America.
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
You either have to be the greatest warrior who ever lived, or a shitty copper merchant
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Gobsmacked by the elite levels of not knowing ball in the Senate today, thinking an NBA team is called the Hawkeyes then, refusing to Google it, then accusing a guy of treason because you didn’t know the Iowa Lady Hawkeyes aren’t in the NBA. Somehow I don’t trust these people to Save Girls Sports.
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ghost malone ergo propter bones @proptermalone.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
help me out, are Iowa and Georgia important states for a guy who thinks he’s a future President
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Anna Kramer @annackramer.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
On Sept. 19th, OMB gave Customs and Border Protection $20 million. The next day, CBP awarded an ad company a contract for $20 million for a “national media campaign.” On Sept. 23rd, Trump ads start running on national tv as "paid for by U.S. government."
washingtonsun.com
CBP Got $20 Million for a ‘Media Campaign.’ Lawmakers Say It Was a Misuse of Funds.
The administration started running Trump-focused national ads that have come under ethical scrutiny for using taxpayer funds.
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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
For every story like the Cornell gang rape, there are thousands more that couldn’t make it into the light. I wrote about a few dozen of them at one university in On the Wrong Side. The university’s treatment of survivors is eerily similar to what Jane Doe at Cornell experienced.
bookshop.org
On the Wrong Side: How Universities Protect Perpetrators and Betray Survivors of Sexual Violence
"Bedera dispels deeply ingrained campus rape myths and puts the innate violence of the campus sexual assault reporting process into focus."--Jezebel"The book's grim conclusions are tempered with a hop...
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Senator Ed Markey @markey.senate.gov · 28/09/2026
Trump is selling nuclear tech to Saudi Arabia despite reported US intelligence that the Saudis still want a bomb—while the Trumps have taken billions in bribes from the Saudis. This is Trump corruption at the expense of US national security. Stop the deal.
Saudi Arabia Open to Possibly Developing Nuclear Weapons
An intelligence assessment examined Saudi Arabia’s military ambitions as Congress reviews a new civilian nuclear deal between the U.S. and the kingdom
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darkwebmallcop.bsky.social @darkwebmallcop.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I remember how in the early 90s after the dissolution of the USSR we were going to teach the Russians about capitalism and instead they taught us about corrupt oligarchy
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 29/09/2026
Marco Rubio: "Anything that had a chance of making money in Cuba was controlled by the Cuban military and the Cuban communist party to line the pockets of a handful of individuals at the expense of the entire country"
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Mikhail Gorbaechev @mikhailgorbaechev.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The Trump era has really fucked everyone up in profound ways. Turns out electing the physical embodiment of the most demonic things about American society to the Presidency was a mistake
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Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The Trump White House official app is fraught with trackers. The White House app covertly collects excessive user data and shares it with third-party trackers while sidestepping federal security rules. For example, the app includes scripts to monitor a user's location several times per minute.
washingtonsun.com
White House Drove Users to Official App Fraught With Trackers
The White House app became the App Store’s most downloaded news app after the president barred three news outlets.
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