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Richard Skinner

@richardmskinner.bsky.social
350 followers 666 following 1.4K posts

Opinions my own.

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Reposted by Richard Skinner
Jonathan Bernstein @jonathanbernstein.bsky.social · 2h
I know folks hate this, but candidates should all say whatever they think helps them now. When impeachment (likely) comes, Brown and others will have no trouble saying that they didn't want impeachment, but give [whatever] now there's no choice. (And of course Senators don't impeach, anyway).
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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 3h
And the thing about the Talarico smear: Do these trolls not get that highlighting the fact that Paxton's polling SANK during a period when Talarico was not campaigning makes him stench of loser vibes?
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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 8h
"For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law"
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Taegan Goddard @politicalwire.com · 11h
Peggy Flanagan Holds Narrow Lead in Minnesota politicalwire.com/2026/10/12/peggy-…
politicalwire.com
Peggy Flanagan Holds Narrow Lead in Minnesota
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Jonathan Bernstein @jonathanbernstein.bsky.social · 23h
The thing about this is that as a Paxton campaign gambit it's incredibly stupid and more likely to backfire than help...but as a play within GOP-aligned media it's surely a big success. The GOP has many problems, but a key one is that way too many party actors aren't driven by electoral incentives.
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Richard Skinner @richardmskinner.bsky.social · 11h
Democrat in key House race going all-in on anti-corruption message.
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Jennifer N. Victor @jenvictor.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
Science is doing essential reporting on the decimation of NSF social science funding. We need public accounting. If you’ve benefited from an NSF grant from SBE, add to this 🧵. Tell the world what was funded that will not be funded from NSF anymore. I’ll start… www.science.org/content/arti...
Graph showing the number of NSF grants over 7 years—moving to zero in 2026.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 11/10/2026
question for brooks: what if they are, literally, nazis?
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VoteHub @votehub.com · 11/10/2026
Iowa U.S. Senate 🌽 As of Oct. 11, 2026 Total votes cast: 864 (+864) 0.1% of projected final turnout. Modeled 2026 Vote: 🔵 Josh Turek: 66.5% - 75.7% 🔴 Ashley Hinson: 22.3% - 31.5% Remaining votes in Iowa will be much more Republican. We rate this race as Tilt R.
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Richard Skinner @richardmskinner.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
Shouldn't they also apologize to Tennessee for doing that to Little Debbie?
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Richard Skinner @richardmskinner.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
St. Sabina once one of Chicago's most Irish parishes. Now center of black activism under white priest Michael Pfleger.
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Richard Skinner @richardmskinner.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
David Brooks in awkward position of having career as "conservative pundit" who either doesn't believe what conservatives believe or has to pretend conservatives believe things they don't believe. Bothsidesism and anti-anti-Trumpism is all he has.
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Eric Rauchway @rauchway.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
just think of all the successes nurtured by David Brooks’s advice to date
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Joe Stieb @joestieb.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
This is quite simply ZOG level paranoid madness.
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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
We're already at war with Russia, exhibit 2342:
ft.com
Russia steps up bid to kill European defence chiefs, spy agencies warn
Companies increase personal security for top executives as Kremlin orders expansion of sabotage and ‘hybrid’ operations
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Richard Skinner @richardmskinner.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
But if the goal is consumption rather than investment -- to make Trump feel good by lashing out at his perceived enemies or by protecting his sensitive ego by insulating him from any criticism -- then it's a success.
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Richard Skinner @richardmskinner.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
The interesting thing is that it's so ineffective! Trump is incredibly unpopular and his party is heading for a big defeat.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
I think there were multiple threads, the biggest: Pre-Trump: People like Milo & Ben Shapiro going to college campuses and getting interrupted Rufo-inspired demand for actions: inspect curriculum and ban speech (mostly state level) Trump: set DOJ on campuses, threaten funding bsky.app/profile/thor...
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
After years of championing "free speech," Texas lawmakers have enabled a dramatic rise of censorship in Texas universities, banning concepts, canceling courses and closing departments seen as "woke," and even using AI bots as censors. All in the name of freedom. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/1...
In other professors’ syllabi, the bot flagged the Pulitzer Prize–winning play Angels in America by Tony Kushner, essays by the Mexican American MacArthur genius grant recipient Sandra Cisneros, and materials related to a class about the Holocaust (that professor was told to drop material regarding Nazi persecution of LGBTQ people).

Putting aside the ideological slant of the new rules, the bot, like many large language models, seems to “hallucinate,” or make mistakes. The AAUP lawsuit lists texts banned for their “sex-based ecofeminist framework” and “gendered ecofeminist frameworks.” These phrases might sound persuasively like academese, but the academics behind the lawsuit had never heard of them; these concepts “do not exist,” the complaint says. Matthew Pehl, a history professor at Tech, told me that he knew several people who’d received reports from the system that were “plainly written by an AI that had hallucinated content or confused content from one class to another.”
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
Over the last decade, there were two hypotheses: H1: the political right genuinely cared about threats to speech from the left. H2: they were using campus speech wars to impose their values and silence dissent. Today, the answer is clear, but I can't find any of the H1 people admitting their error.
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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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Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
Fellow DC residents, I strongly encourage you to return the ballots you've received using the secure drop boxes located all around the city. A map of locations is here opendata.dc.gov/datasets/DCG...
opendata.dc.gov
Mail Ballot Drop Boxes
The DC Board of Elections has set mail ballot drop boxes for residents who wish to vote by mail. These locations are placed in all eight Wards to support the 2026 General Election.
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Richard Skinner @richardmskinner.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
That's not usually a good sign for an incumbent.
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Bill Scher @billscher.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
For LA-MAYOR, over the past month, save for one internal, neither Bass nor Raman can crack 40%. Undecideds range 17-33%. Highly unusual this late in the game.
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Richard Skinner @richardmskinner.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
After #GAGov, Obama makes endorsement video in #WIGov, another key Gov race.
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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
WALTER: “.. With just under a month until Election Day, the political environment is as brutal for Republicans as any I’ve seen in at least 20 years.” @cookpolitical.com www.cookpolitical.com/analysis/nat...
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David Crowley @davidcrowley4wi.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
I’m honored to have your support in this race, @barackobama.bsky.social. Vote on November 3rd.
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Richard Skinner @richardmskinner.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
The impeachments of Trump didn't have much political impact one way or the other. If Dems gain control, they might want to impeach Hegseth. Many Americans still know little about him. He is associated w/ wildly unpopular war. And a lot of elite R's loathe him.
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kennethgray.bsky.social @kennethgray.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
NEW! From the Intercept, MAGA Mad Libs … “One more thing about the _____ before going offline. As disgusted as we should be by Trump's _____, we should NOT lose sight of the CENTRAL role of Democrats in upholding, expanding, and enabling _____ that seems to horrify so many people right now.”
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Eric Michael Garcia @ericmgarcia.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
The Texas Senate's decision to acquit Ken Paxton will be remembered as the inverse of Republicans in the U.S. Senate acquitting Trump: It gave Paxton permission to become the top of the ticket. That gamble paid off for national Republicans because Trump won, but it might cost the RPT everything.
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Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
One thing that it says is that the wealthiest correctly understand that Trump is far more transactional and personalistic than Democrats. There are genuine limits to Democrats' willingness to either punish non-donors or reward donors, whereas Trump does both freely.
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Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
I really hope someone can, at some point in the future, pool and geolocate by media market generic ballot polling from this month so we can quantify the effect of Trump rallies on midterm vote choice
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Richard Skinner @richardmskinner.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
These are seats that Dems would win if they were gaining 25-40, well above most predictions.
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Kevin @reginageorgebush.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
this target list says the DCCC is convinced the majority is theirs and they're looking to utterly break the GOP's spirit
Ally Mutnick @allymutnick
X.com
NEWS: DCCC begs donors in memo for $17M
before 10/22 to avoid "leaving winnable seats on table" amid wave of GOP $
Top races on line: #FL27 #NVO2 #SC01 #NY21
#MNO1 #ARO2
Others needing funding, per DCCC ED Julie Merz:
#C003 #FLO7 #IN05 #0H10 #NC09 #VA05
punchbowl.news/for-donors_-a-...
2:00 PM • 10/9/26 • 45K Views
L7 45 135 月 35
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MeidasTouch @meidastouch.com · 09/10/2026
Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA): "At this point in time in 2022, a little over 200,000 Virginians had voted. At this point in time in 2026, approximately 450,000 Virginians have voted early."
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Josh Chafetz @joshchafetz.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Is … this supposed to be a diss? Because “which candidate would you like to share a beer with?” is often used as a proxy for likability …
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
My man ended USAID, condemning millions to death
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Richard Skinner @richardmskinner.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Talarico alive, recovered from the flu, at Austin City Limits Festival. #TXSen
nytimes.com
Update from Sasha von Oldershausen
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Richard Skinner @richardmskinner.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Gen X still loves Reagan.
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Jonathan Bernstein @jonathanbernstein.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Obviously isn't going to happen before unified Dem government, but the time to push for it is now and soon - Dems should be making DC statehood (and PR if they want it) a key plank in the democracy agenda and a litmus test for presidential candidates.
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The Volatile Mermaid @ohnoshetwitnt.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
“I’ve heard she’s a real human being who does normal stuff so I’m curious about her strange ways.”
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
This is the big announcement I was curious if we would ever see. Good reason to think that Obama is the strongest possible endorsement El-Sayed could get rn. In the primaries, Stevens ran ads as if she had an Obama endorsement, which helped her win Detroit. www.chicagotribune.com/2026/10/05/b...
chicagotribune.com
Barack Obama is to appear with Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Detroit
Former President Barack Obama will campaign alongside Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Detroit later this month.
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David A. Hopkins @davehopkins.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Will There Be a “Canada Effect” Along the Northern Border in the 2026 Midterms? honestgraft.substack.com/p/will-there...
honestgraft.substack.com
Will There Be a “Canada Effect” Along the Northern Border in the 2026 Midterms?
National elections are mostly fought and viewed through a national lens, and 2026 is no different.
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Tom Bonier @tbonier.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
That’s not a misprint - more Latino voters have cast a ballot already than did at the same point in the 2024 presidential election.
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Richard Skinner @richardmskinner.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
I did my part: www.keishaforgovernor.com
keishaforgovernor.com
Keisha Lance Bottoms for Georgia Governor
Join Keisha Lance Bottoms in building a stronger, more united Georgia. Proven leadership, bold action, and a vision for opportunity, equity, and progress for every Georgian.
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[Christopher M. Federico] @chrispps.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
the problem American 'conservatives' have with communists isn't that the latter oppressed, starved, and immiserated millions and generally ran fucked-up societies; American 'conservatives' are most offended by communists' *symbolic* commitment to the notion of social justice
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Richard Skinner @richardmskinner.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Westchester County erasure!
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Richard Skinner @richardmskinner.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
People are looking for something they can do....
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Richard Skinner @richardmskinner.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
A lot of postcard writers are 65+ and don't know anything about making videos viral.
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