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nicklabinski.bsky.social

@nicklabinski.bsky.social
425 followers 960 following 0 posts

Former rhetoric/communication studies professor (presidential foreign policy rhetoric), now energy policy analyst.

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Reposted by @nicklabinski.bsky.social
Kevin Gannon (now a Moo Deng fan account) @thetattooedprof.bsky.social · 10h
I think we have enough data to show if you're arresting elderly human rights lawyers you are not the good guys in this story.
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Drew McKevitt @drewmckevitt.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
There are lots of ways to answer this and one of them is that studying history makes you a better citizen and our public universities have an obligation to produce good citizens. History education is essential to a republican model of government. Engineering is not.
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Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Trump is raging at news orgs for refusing to cover his reception of Xi after he banned three from the White House. The real lesson here: When institutions join together to resist his abuses of power it actually works, sending him into a helpless fury. New from me: newrepublic.com/article/2158...
newrepublic.com
Trump’s Angry Tirade Over Failing Press Ban Reveals His Achilles’ Heel
Trump is furious that news organizations are fighting back against his vile efforts to punish their colleagues—because collective resistance to his authoritarianism actually works.
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Daniel Drezner @dandrezner.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
*taps the sign* danieldrezner.substack.com/p/a-reminder...
danieldrezner.substack.com
A Reminder that Launching a Trade War With Canada is Galactically Stupid
This makes no economic sense, no political sense, and no strategic sense.
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Elizabeth N. Saunders @profsaunders.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Somehow we are in a shooting war with Iran and a trade war with Canada and we are losing both and international security and international political economy scholars are all at a loss because this is NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Requisite Tony Judt quote about the single greatest institutional achievement in 250 years of the Republic:
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King Algamemnon @adamrothman.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Wisconsin's Democratic primary to be decided by a game of euchre in Oshkosh.
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Elizabeth N. Saunders @profsaunders.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Can't get numb to this: The United States is stuck in a war it started, cannot end, and may further escalate to no avail, having dismantled its diplomatic apparatus, depleted its military stockpile, and destroyed its credibility. A historic strategic mistake harming millions in many different ways.
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BUM CHILLUPS AKA SPENCER HALL AKA PRESIDENT FOOTBALL @edsbs.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
When my Civ VI game gets really interesting
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Angry Staff Officer @pptsapper.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Happy “liberal arts professor helps save the Union” day to all who celebrate
Charge of the 20th Maine at Little Round Top
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Greg Pak @gregpak.net · 01/07/2026
It's Trump's fucking fault, in case you had any doubt.
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Secretary of Defense Rock @sodrock.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
I always come back to Lincoln on Memorial Day
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Julian Sanchez @normative.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
Maybe the most depressing conclusion I’ve come around to in the past decade (and there are many) is that trying to teach & promote widespread “critical thinking” has been a complete and catastrophic failure. Most of the population is not capable of it, and it is socially disastrous when they try.
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Thor Benson @thorbenson.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
I just noticed there's a giant fusion reactor in the sky. We could probably get some energy from that if oil is a problem
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Anjali Dayal @anjalikdayal.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
you know, this is why you should not elect people who have never once learned anything about anything
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Ryan J Hollister @phaneritic.bsky.social · 01/03/2026
Most reservoirs are running at or above historical averages thanks to that science. A decade ago they wouldn't have been able to retain so much water this late in the season. But since forecast error went from 33% to 3% with lidar, we can hold onto more drops now! cdec.water.ca.gov/resapp/Resco...
Map showing bar graphs of all major CA reservoirs. Most of them are above or at historical averages for the date.
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Secretary of Defense Rock @sodrock.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
I actually don’t think you have to give them political cover for something patently illegal
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 22/02/2026
The administrators might have been conned by the AI hucksters, but the students, my friends, are all right. (The author is a history and economics major, I'll note.) www.columbiaspectator.com/opinion/2026...
Rather than telling ourselves that we have to “catch up” to some imagined goal of normalized AI use in higher education, Columbia should take advantage of its prominence as a university to propose something better, like classrooms free of screens, oral examinations, and an end to slippery, relativistic standards on AI use from university administrators. Our response to AI is an opportunity to distinguish Columbia as a reservation where minds are developed without the crutch of a chatbot. As incoming University President Mnookin begins to navigate Columbia’s many financial and political threats, she should reassert the true value of a liberal arts education: learning for learning’s sake
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
The National Science Foundation’s entire budget is $10 billion.
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 09/12/2025
This is actually a good example of why the customer model is wrong. I wouldn't have chosen poetry writing, but UNC made me take a class. And it absolutely made me become a much better writer, with an eye to concision and an ear now trained to the rhythm of words. I'm a better historian as a result.
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Rob✅✅ @robdickinson.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
If anyone cares at all, EV battery recycling is now hitting 99% recovery for important metals Please remind me again what the recycle rate for fossil fuels is interestingengineering.com/energy/recyc...
interestingengineering.com
New recycling tech recovers nearly pure nickel and cobalt from old EV batteries
Researchers have developed an eco-friendly recycling tech that extracts 99 percent pure nickel and cobalt from waste batteries.
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G. Willow Wilson @gwillow.me · 29/11/2025
The death of browsing is part of the reason art is the way it is now. Our opinions are largely fed to us by algorithms. Spending a spare 15 minutes wandering around a bookstore or comic shop or video rental place was how you found stuff you wouldn't ordinarily pick up and thereby expanded your taste
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Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 23/11/2025
Twitter accounts are based in Russia. BlueSky accounts are based in homes with, frankly, too many books, plants, obsolete cables, and pieces of rustic pottery, that could do with a bit of a tidying up, to be honest.
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Jan Rosenow @janrosenow.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
Heat pumps are the most efficiency heating technology ever invented. That's because they harvest, compress and transport pre-existing heat from the air, the ground or the water. Compared to a gas boiler heat pumps deliver ~4x more heat for each unit of energy inout.
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 05/11/2025
AOC: "This is about, do you understand the assignment of fighting fascism right now? And they assignment is to come together across difference no matter what."
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Grant Brisbee @grantbrisbee.bsky.social · 02/11/2025
A wild-eyed Christopher Lloyd explaining that the only way to close the inter-dimensional wormhole from the Cubs winning the World Series is to play another World Series in the "null hour" when clocks are turned back.
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Robinson Meyer @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
Dig 10 feet underground, anywhere on Earth, and the ground temperature will be a balmy 50 to 60° Fahrenheit (10-15° C). When you tap that ambient heat and hook it up to a heat pump, it becomes the world’s most efficient form of heating and cooling.
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Colin Smith @colinsmith.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
After all these years, & a politics degree, & decades trying to teach it, & about 3 million mistily-grasped texts, I’ve finally accepted that it’s a 10 word phrase from a superhero movie that most precisely expresses my political beliefs: “I don’t like bullies. I don’t care where they’re from.”
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 18/10/2025
“You can win elections by tacking to the middle; lots of people have. But you can also win elections by staking a moral position and convincing people to agree with you. You can earn support by demonstrating what is important to you instead of just being determined to nod along with what you hear.”
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Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
A stable, functioning democracy is often unassuming, boring even. Easy to take for granted. But this - millions coming together in a shared public space to insist on their rights as democratic citizens - is a mighty reminder that a proper democracy is something quite incredible and inspiring.
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Erica Chenoweth @chenoweth.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
1. We earlier reported that the volume of protests in 2025 has been far greater than during 2017, that the movement remains overwhelmingly (and even historically) nonviolent, and that protests have been geographically far-reaching. But just how far-reaching have they been?
wagingnonviolence.org
American Spring? How nonviolent protest in the US is accelerating
Contrary to conventional wisdom, anti-Trump protests this year have dwarfed 2017 in size, and they have been extraordinarily peaceful.
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
Take note of all these people turning out for protests in small towns in red states. Remember them the next time you’re inclined to write an area off because “they voted for this.”
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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 10/10/2025
Picture how big the Hoover Dam is. An absolute unit. The Hoover Dam has a power capacity of 2 gigawatts (GW). The solar farm that the Admin just cancelled could have produces 6.2 GW of power. That's more than 3 Hoover Dams.
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Emily Cassidy @enviroem.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
Simply reducing beef and lamb consumption to one serving a week -- as recommended by EAT-Lancet -- could reduce emissions by almost 3 billion tons CO2-eq. The equivalent of all of Russia's annual emissions. Thanks to @melinawalling.bsky.social for including my thoughts in this article.
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Zeke Hausfather @zekehausfather.com · 04/09/2025
I'm not sure many folks realize just how persistent the warming from CO2 is. Here is a set of 1000-year climate model runs (using FaIR) simulating one year of CO2 emissions (40 gigatons in 2020); a millennia later the world has not cooled back down!
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Jan Rosenow @janrosenow.bsky.social · 30/08/2025
There’s a persistent myth that new solar farms don’t really help tackle climate change because panels are “made with coal” and “never pay back” their carbon debt. This is simply false. - UN: solar ~8x cleaner than gas, ~19x than coal per kWh - panels repay CO2 in 4 months; save 57x over life
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
say it again: 4 million people work in higher ed, the largest employer in 10 states, second largest employer in 10 more, and in 60 of the 100 biggest cities demolishing higher education is economic sabotage
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
Motherfucking wind farms…
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
Everything we've made will break, buildings and streets will crumble, and cities will be abandoned. But the CO₂ we emit into the atmosphere will persist for centuries, and the climatic impacts will last longer than human civilization has existed. This is our legacy for the future.
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 19/07/2025
A lot of snitty responses that boil down to “billionaires make money so they must be right” and dear lord in heaven has anyone been keeping track of how that’s going or am I on drugs to think that’s exactly the wrong takeaway.
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the babahuck @tylerhuckabee.bsky.social · 18/07/2025
I've spent a lot of time thinking about this fascinating exchange Colbert had with Dua Lipa, when she asked him about the role his faith plays in his comedy.
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Stephen Nuñez @socio-steve.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
People really don't understand the difference between the state and federal budgets. The federal government has a 7 trillion dollar budget and can deficit spend. A *big* state like NY spends 250 billion and can't. States can't pick up the slack.
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
🌳
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Zeke Hausfather @zekehausfather.com · 30/06/2025
This comparsion in the NYTimes today is pretty stark. China is racing ahead to be a high-tech exporter of 21st century technologies, while the US is doubling down on being a petro-state exporting the technologies of the 19th century: www.nytimes.com/inte...
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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 22/06/2025
The security reason to electrify transport is not about oil imports, it’s economic resilience. Oil powers 90% of US vehicles, so when the price of oil spikes because of a war, people & companies pay more for energy, which hurts the economy. The more transport is electrified, econ security goes up.
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Jesse D. Jenkins @jessedjenkins.com · 19/06/2025
‘Throwing us off a cliff': Megabill could derail hundreds of planned clean energy projects www.politico.com/news/2025/06... POLITICO analysis: 794 planned clean electricity generation facilities — 3/4 in GOP districts — that could lose subsidies under the House bill. The Senate is debating changes.
3 in 4 clean electricity generation projects that could benefit from tax credits repealed by the House budget bill would be built in GOP House districts.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 18/06/2025
i just find this so bizarre. searching through texts and doing the reading for myself is how i actually think through ideas! trying to put together a sentence is how i figure out what i actually want to say!
nytimes.com
Everyone Is Using A.I. for Everything. Is That Bad?
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
Writing is thinking.
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🎃Darin S Pumpkins🎃 @darinself.com · 16/06/2025
But we were told by very smart people not to attack Trump on immigration because it was his superpower
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
The Tea Party protests in April 2009 had about a third of a million people involved, and the political media treated it like a game changer for the Obama presidency. The No Kings rallies were AT LEAST ten times bigger than the Tea Party protests. Will the press keep pretending Trump is popular?
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