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Thomas Scherer

@tlscherer.bsky.social
582 followers 2.1K following 110 posts

IR lit reviewer @abroadreview.bsky.social. Evidence and integrity in foreign policy www.fp21.org. Loves (hates) conflict data. Firetrucks, tubas, USWNT soccer, D&D.

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Thomas Scherer @tlscherer.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Finally, something for the next time my fire department chief gives an exasperated sigh and tells me we don't need 'skydiving training'.
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Thomas Scherer @tlscherer.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Polymarket has predictions on 'US-Iran ceasefire continues through...' The fine print is fascinating. 'Ground incursions' don't count.
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@NewsJennifer (Jennifer Schulze) @newsjennifer.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I think it’s fair to say that the student journalists at Cornell are braver than the news networks who just gave up on their WH pool ban even though CNN is still being denied access. www.cornellsun.com/article/2026...
cornellsun.com
EDITORIAL | Cornell Won’t, We Will
The Editorial Board demands that Cornell stops protecting the alleged Chi Phi rapists through the University's opaque sexual assault policies.
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Thomas Scherer @tlscherer.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
We need something similar in foreign policy
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Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
W/o getting drawn into the "seriously or literally" / "it'll never happen" trap, we need to stomp *hard* on the continuing effort to undermine Article 1 power of the purse by saying that this or that revenue stream makes something outside the normal budget process. 1/ www.nbcnews.com/business/eco...
nbcnews.com
Lutnick says Trump’s $5,000 checks for Americans wouldn’t rely on taxpayer funds
A top White House official suggested Congress would use a budget process to fund them. Vice President JD Vance had said tariff revenues.
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Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
It’s out of season. Intra coalition conflict season goes from Jan 21, odd years to September 1 in even years. But September 1 even years to Jan 20 odd years is strictly conflict with reactionaries season. This may require not fighting anyone in Bsky for some time
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Thomas Scherer @tlscherer.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Still relevant
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Thomas Scherer @tlscherer.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Check out AbroadReview, a new site offering monthly living lit reviews on foreign policy topics in the news. bsky.app/profile/abro...
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Dan Silverman @dmsilverman.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
I‘m far from an AI doomer, but it is amazing how many serious voices — on LinkedIn, no less! — are sharing stories about how AI slop is quickly becoming one of the top problems they see in academic writing and research “AI will 10x our research!” doesn’t seem to be surviving encounters with reality
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
How it started / how it’s going
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Once again, as I’ve noted multiple times before, Trump’s foreign policy isn’t really realist, or imperialist, or neoroyalist, or about spheres of influence, etc. Its sexual predation/abuse elevated the level of the state
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Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Towards a research agenda on political corruption in the US. It strikes me that most of the political science on corruption -- and correct me if I'm missing something, I'm an avid consumer of political science but not a scholar of it these days -- focuses outside of the US context.
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Thomas Scherer @tlscherer.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
Surely this will open the strait
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Thomas Scherer @tlscherer.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
My most basic metric for news is whether the US is moving towards or away from The Hunger Games
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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Woohoo, here's my essay with my fav co-author on 30,000 fellowship wins across the Guggenheim, Stanford CASBS, NAEd, National Humanities Center, RSF visiting scholar, and Harvard Radcliffe. Spoiler: it's the people working at prestigious universities www.publicbooks.org/who-gets-gug...
publicbooks.org
Who Gets Guggenheims? - Public Books
Unfortunately, 100 years of data show that those whom such fellowships might represent the greatest departure from their everyday experience—that is, those not at elite institutions—are least likely t...
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Garrett M. Graff @vermontgmg.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
It is hard to capture what a sweeping strategic defeat the war in Iran has been for the United States. I’m going to thread here some of the posts today that try to capture those effects. Here’s the first:
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James Longhurst @jameslonghurst.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
DID YOU KNOW that Wisconsin has election-day registration? You can go to your polling place, register, and cast a ballot TODAY. It’s a great way to participate in the democratic process, even if you’re really busy or have forgotten to register.
A sticker with the red white and blue United States flag and the words “I voted” underneath rests on a table.
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Anjali Dayal @anjalikdayal.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
I think often of a New York Times photo of a little Iraqi girl tending to her parakeets in a bombed house, probably from 20 years ago now. I will think of this man and his sweet dog often now too. People just want to love what they love, care for their little beings, and instead we do this to them
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
Only about 1 in 5 employees say they think they could engage in calling out wrongdoing without retribution. A scared workforce is bad for accountability. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/federal-em...
An IRS employee said:

I’ll be honest, [at the] political level, I have minimal confidence that if we reported anything, any misbehavior, that it would be taken care of. In fact, quite honestly, I would fear retribution if we reported an ethical violation of a political level person in the IRS. I would do it anonymously. I’d probably do it through the union. I would not do it through the normal channels.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
New, from me: The federal government is required to track job satisfaction among its employees. The Trump admin stopped collecting the data, so a nonprofit stepped in. The results show that a collapse in morale and zero trust in Trump agency leaders. 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/federal-em...
donmoynihan.substack.com
Federal employees are not ok
A new survey shows collapsing federal employee morale
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Thomas Scherer @tlscherer.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
The officer declined treatment in the ambulance!
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Thomas Scherer @tlscherer.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
With the war justifications flying around, I often think about the 2010 Time Magazine cover with the article title "What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan" and the image of an Afghan woman whose nose had been cut off by the Taliban.
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Omar Wasow @owasow.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
“For every dollar donated by billionaires and their immediate families to a candidate or committee associated with Democrats, five dollars went to Republicans.” Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/u...
nytimes.com
Billionaires Are Swaying Elections in All Corners of America
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Omar Wasow @owasow.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
“The Times analysis found 300 billionaires and their families donated more than $3 billion—19% of all contributions—in federal elections in 2024. The billionaire families gave an average total of $10 million each in 2024, roughly equal to what 100,000 typical political donors gave, combined.“ Gift:
nytimes.com
Billionaires Are Swaying Elections in All Corners of America
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 07/03/2026
The killing of Iranian children during an illegal war is an impeachable offense (not to mention a grave crime) and Congress should really act like it. 15 Republicans in the Senate could end this nightmare before it somehow gets even worse.
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Thomas Scherer @tlscherer.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
C.I.A. Study of Covert Aid Fueled Skepticism About Helping Syrian Rebels www.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/u...
nytimes.com
C.I.A. Study of Covert Aid Fueled Skepticism About Helping Syrian Rebels (Published 2014)
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Thomas Scherer @tlscherer.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
so the goal is regime chiang?
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Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.blacksky.app · 27/02/2026
that's a dinosaur! it scares me! @posters-madness.bsky.social
screenshot of the dinosaur related slide from my bird taxonomy presentation for poster's madness on Tuesday night

it reads LEGIT BIRDS: SUBCATEGORIES, CONT.

and defines "dinosaurs" as "birds that go out of their way to remind you that avian dinosaurs survived the mass extinction event"

it then includes photos of a cassowary, a shoebill stork, and a california condor all looking scary af

beneath those photos, there's text reading "TIP: Beware of dinosaurs!!"

off to the side there's also the words "Nightmare Fuel!" inside of a lil kablammy explosion-type jagged border, for dramatic effect
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Thomas Scherer @tlscherer.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
Classify this bird? @audrelawdamercy.blacksky.app
A screenshot from Paul F. Tompkins' bluesky post, which has a video of a bird that looks like a wide-beaked pelican-duck on flamingo legs. Mr. Tompkins suggests the bird is unintelligent and asks whether such a bird is even necessary.
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Thomas Scherer @tlscherer.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
Has a poli sci journal ever taken such a stance? Is it even possible? #polisci #IRsky 🗺
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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
Cover of The Lancet: @thelancet.com www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
🧵 of 🧵s. My views on this are clear, longstanding, & tiresome to many I'm sure. But I'll never stop being deeply angry that Larry Summers dominated the entire National Conversation™️ on the economy during Joe Biden's presidency & was lauded for being so epically wrong & repeatedly ignoring the data.
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
Interesting post about the coordinated anti-AOC smear campaign. It's 2016 again! Fake local news outlets on Facebook getting picked up until eventually it winds up in the Washington Post.
spinclass.substack.com
I Caught POLITICO and the New York Times Laundering Pink Slime "News"
How the sexist backlash to AOC and Gretchen Whitmer at the Munich Security Conference led me to a scammy "local news" outlet pushing a coordinated right-wing narrative
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Neil Lewis, Jr. @neillewisjr.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
"We know that this can be done, because it has been done. In his famous Madison Garden speech..FDR declared war on 'Government by organized money,' and he won that war...To say that a comparable project is impossible today is to say that democracy can’t be saved. And I’m not willing to accept that."
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MdDoogie3 @mddoogie3.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
I don’t really know what I expect in posting this, but maybe some people see it and can learn from it. I’ll call it “lessons from an unwilling immigration attorney.” 1/
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Oliver Kaplan @oliverkaplan.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
My article is currently open-access... Click away... We map out the creative ways people nonviolently use phones to protect themselves in war zones... Americans have now adopted some of these approaches too academic.oup.com/ia/article/101/3/1043/8106131
academic.oup.com
Technology for civilian self-protection
The capacity of citizens to self-protect against armed conflict has been transformed by the development of information and communications technologies. Cas
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 03/02/2026
happening this morning in Minneapolis -- ICE agents drawing guns on observers. I reiterate again that it is only a matter of time before DHS kills more innocent people in Minnesota. Congress needs to shut this shit down right now.
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Jon Seidel @jonseidel.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
Marimar Martinez, shot 5 times by Border Patrol in Chicago, speaks out after Renee Good, Alex Pretti deaths 'I am their voice' NEW w/ @adrianacardmag.bsky.social: chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...
chicago.suntimes.com
Marimar Martinez, shot by Border Patrol in Chicago, speaks out after Good, Pretti deaths: 'I am their voice'
In a wide-ranging interview with the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ, Martinez discusses her shooting, the federal government’s failed attempt to prosecute her and the role she now sees for herself in a fi...
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Philip Bump @pbump.com · 28/01/2026
Trump’s fundraisers are now using the threat of dispatching ICE against citizens as an email engagement tactic.
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Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 22/01/2026
Kash Patel going to a big meeting of the intelligence chiefs in England and asking if they can go jet skiing instead of having a normal meeting is really doing a number on my ability to focus
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Jon Cooper @joncooper-us.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
Terribly uncanny how relevant this is to today.
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Bree (half of Kit Rocha) @mostlybree.kitrocha.com · 14/01/2026
I'm gonna say this with all the kindness in my heart: you aren't going to survive if you don't let your life have room for other things. This is not a short term fight where we can just go 24/7 and then it will be over. We've got YEARS ahead of us. Take a break. Hydrate. Go bake something. Breathe.
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Thomas Scherer @tlscherer.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
Private health insurance continues to radicalize me.
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Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.blacksky.app · 12/01/2026
semi-regular reminder that ICE was only created in 2003 when you are asked to imagine a world without ICE, you're basically being asked to remember where you were when Lilo & Stitch came out
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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 12/01/2026
Breaking News: The EPA will stop considering lives saved when setting pollution limits and instead calculate only the cost to businesses.
nyti.ms
E.P.A. to Stop Considering Lives Saved by Limiting Air Pollution
In a reversal, the agency plans to calculate only the cost to industry when setting pollution limits, and not the monetary value of saving human lives, documents show.
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Thomas Scherer @tlscherer.bsky.social · 10/01/2026
I wonder if we could get USAID back if Clooney offered up his People's Sexiest Man Alive 2006.
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Elizabeth N. Saunders @profsaunders.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
Yup. Welcome to the New Trumpian Anarchy. @dandrezner.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/danieldr...
open.substack.com
Anarchy Is What Donald Trump Makes Of It
There's anarchy and then there's ANARCHY.
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Anjali Dayal @anjalikdayal.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
We’re going to need DDR and a future government that knows it will need expert help from transitional justice specialists
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Yoel Roth @yoyoel.com · 24/12/2025
A small (personal) example of this book’s intellectual dishonesty: My father-in-law is reading In Covid’s Wake, and excitedly told me he found a passage where I’m quoted. The quote in question is me saying the FBI worked to censor speech on social media. Huh? When did I say that?!
A passage from the book In Covid’s Wake, with a highlighted sentence reading: “Yoel Roth, the former head of trust and safety at Twitter, states that "the FBI went beyond strategic information sharing and made direct moderation demands," including demands involving domestic speech.”
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Thomas Scherer @tlscherer.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
2025 best games by @npr.org staff. An amazing combination of validating my existing wishlist while flagging amazing things for me that I've never seen! www.npr.org/2025/12/03/n...
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