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Brad | Toward a Better Union

@towardabetterunion.bsky.social
60 followers 56 following 301 posts

Civic resilience, democratic norms, and constitutional balance. Healing through good-faith dialogue. Toward a better union.

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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 31/12/2025
Yes, these are wild times, and the post uses inflammatory language. But it’s not just about tone. He publicly vowed retaliation against Colorado. Now, his first veto this term concerns a major water project (H.R. 131) for the state. Pure vindictiveness and abuse of power.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 31/12/2025
There’s real value in condemning racism within your own coalition; that’s how norms can be formed and strengthened. However, when repudiation appears only at moments of political convenience, it is less principle and more self-serving opportunism. Consistency is key.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 25/12/2025
Kavanaugh declares “No Go” on “Kavanaugh Stops.”
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
History shows authoritarians can survive deep unpopularity. What they can’t survive is institutional resistance (courts, press, civil service, legislatures). We must find ways to protect and reinforce these institutions now before polling becomes irrelevant.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
Randomizing infants to delayed or withheld standard care when the benefit is already well proven offers little new knowledge and is ethically indefensible.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
Manufacturing, transportation, and construction are highly sensitive to trade policy. This BLS data shows those sectors now pulling blue-collar employment into decline. Tariffs don’t explain everything but they do raise costs, delay investment, and disproportionately affect the blue collar workers.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 15/12/2025
Yes, this post is ghoulish. It's also deranged and narcissistic. But it is also a distraction. Performative cruelty is deployed precisely to keep attention off unlawful uses of force, Epstein-related facts, and systemic corruption.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 15/12/2025
A relatively quiet cost of this administration’s boat attack policy is moral injury. Asking service members to carry out ethically conflicted orders risks violations of law, of course. But it also harms them by forcing actions that violate their own moral judgment and what they know is right.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 13/12/2025
youtube.com/shorts/IbcLL... Rogan is, of course, wrong about Biden having “open borders." He is parroting an oft repeated fiction. Under Biden, millions were apprehended, hundreds of thousands deported, asylum screenings continued, detention remained in use, and expedited removals were expanded.
youtube.com
Russell Crowe SLAMS Trump admin #russellcrowe #trump #democrats #joerogan
YouTube video by Celebs AgainstTrump
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Reposted by Brad | Toward a Better Union
George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸 @gtconway.bsky.social · 13/12/2025
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
Misdiagnosing voter anger might be emotionally satisfying. But, on a positive note, it’s also a recipe for continued losing at the polls.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
If truth is optional, power decides everything.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
Drones near Zelensky’s flight path should have dominated headlines. Russia–North Korea cooperation deepens. Iran pushes its nuclear program. China Increasing Pressure on Taiwan. Big environmental and public health reg rollbacks. Real crises (⬆️ & more) vanish when the WH floods the zone with chaos
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
Liam Neeson has a particular set of skills. Immunology is not one of them.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
An effective way to confront deception: direct evidence, in real time, from the person harmed. But in an administration built on overwhelming the system, even clear wrongdoing can disappear into the noise. Accountability now depends on persistence from the press, institutions, and *esp. all of us*.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
Silencing journalists is about teaching the rest of the press to stop asking the inconvenient questions. Solidarity is the antidote.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
www.war.gov/News/News-St... Enjoy this jaunty post on the Pentagon's website! The soft, corporate-style language used here gives the veneer of normalcy to what is, in substance, a major blow to media access and Pentagon transparency. It replaces experienced professionals with partisan influencers.
war.gov
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 09/12/2025
Authoritarians don’t fear criticism. They fear persistence: the question that won’t go away, the fact that refuses to be buried, the reporter who won’t be intimidated.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
Hmm, let's see: “We caught terrorists, and put away child predators” A serious inflation of accomplishments “Judges in my state…became weapons for the politicized left." She actually politicizes the judiciary by casting *any* judicial independence as partisan sabotage
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
Recent additions to the Presidential Trophy Case:
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Reposted by Brad | Toward a Better Union
Politico @politico.com · 08/12/2025
Congress to withhold Pentagon travel funds until it sees boat strike videos
dlvr.it
Congress to withhold Pentagon travel funds until it sees boat strike videos
Lawmakers quietly stuck the requirement into their must-pass annual defense policy bill.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 07/12/2025
Another strong piece from Anne Applebaum. The U.S. belongs on the side of democracies — always. We should not treat this war as an opportunity for profit, whether at the national level or, as seems to be the case here, for the gain of a favored group of insiders.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 07/12/2025
Safeguarding Democracy: The Pillars of Resilience Democratic erosion seldom announces itself. It spreads quietly through weakened institutions, rising inequality, declining social trust, and the normalization of political behavior that once would have drawn bipartisan concern or condemnation.
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Reposted by Brad | Toward a Better Union
Jonathan Lemire @jonlemire.bsky.social · 06/12/2025
NEW: www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 06/12/2025
Steven's article argues Trump’s NSS abandons the U.S. role as a defender of democratic norms abroad, recasting foreign policy as a business venture. I agree. It’s a historic pivot and one that could weaken the democratic alliance system built over 75 years. We must resist this wrong turn!
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 06/12/2025
3 things: 1. Their worry isn’t inflation, it’s that it may cost them an election 2. Trying to counter-message what people see with their own eyes didn’t work for the last admin, and it won’t work now 3. Real solutions are hard & require governing, and I doubt that they’re willing to do the work
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
I posted this thread about weasel words in a discussion about journalism, but it was orphaned there. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_... Weasel words point to vagueness and they are claims that lean on an unnamed expert, institution, or consensus to smuggle in credibility without actual evidence. 1/
en.wikipedia.org
Weasel word - Wikipedia
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
It takes a special kind of scientific illiteracy to think infants only get Hep B from "behavior." Note: biology exists even if one chooses not to believe in it. #PublicHealthMatters
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
Diplomatic amateurism with nefarious business objectives, chaos, eroding trust among allies, rewarding aggression, weakening Ukraine, sanctions rollbacks for no gain (losing leverage). This is so transparently bad that the real objective seems to be to advance the authoritarian project world-wide.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
Reporting shows this arrest happened now because the evidence finally matured, not for political timing. And I’m not sure what motive the Biden FBI would’ve had to delay it. Not everything fits this admin's reflexive cycle of blame, deflection, and whataboutism. It seems so...insecure.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
Improved Headline: Corrupt Pardons: Bad Drafting, Worse Motives The article focuses on 2020 election-related pardons but it should have pointed out that this president is using the pardon power with a volume and a level of corrupt intent unlike anything in modern history. #AbuseOfPower
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
Presidents don’t get to declare “war” on their own suppositions. Under our laws, guilt is proven with evidence, not presidential impulse. This answer is a stark break from the American rule-of-law tradition and is how authoritarian regimes operate. Our courts, the law, and Congress(!) must stand. 💪
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
Absolutely agree. Defiance can’t be episodic or tactical. It has to be sustained, coordinated, and rooted in constitutional accountability.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
This matters. It isn’t just bureaucratic negligence or an innocuous mistake. Sharing operational strike data over an unsecured, civilian channel demonstrates reckless disregard for operational security, esp. given how easily such signals can be intercepted/leaked. #NationalSecurity #Accountability
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
Pardon Watch Presidents traditionally followed a reasoned process & used pardons sparingly and with at least some connection to justice, mercy, or correcting inequities. This November list shows a very different approach. It’s not mercy, it's about consolidation of power. #PardonWatch #RuleOfLaw
Table showing all Pardons and Clemencies by President Trump in the month of November, 2025.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 29/11/2025
The discharge-petition is the main legislative tool for circumventing a recalcitrant Speaker or committee leadership in the House. Historically, it’s rarely successful because it requires members of the majority to break ranks. When it does though, it signals real cracks in one-party control.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
Most people only see the headline, not the article. When coverage is softened or sanitized, it shapes public perception *more than the reporting itself*. And when major outlets pull their punches out of fear for broader business interests, they become accomplices. #MediaIntegrity
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 26/11/2025
Hard to hold leaders accountable when they describe policy in mutually exclusive terms within the same hour. This is not how serious governance works.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 26/11/2025
War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength. Renaming Defense to the Department of War qualifies you for the Peace Prize now. Provided, of course, that the committee is willing to suspend logic and accept that contradiction is a virtue.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
Remarkable, and a good sign. More people seem to be recognizing the direction this administration is pushing the country. Awareness is growing and now we need sustained civic pressure. #DefendDemocracy
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
Basic civics shouldn’t be controversial: Congress writes the rules for the armed forces, and members of Congress explaining those rules is not punishable conduct. Constitutional limits exist for exactly this reason, and Congress needs to exercise the authority the Framers entrusted to it.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
The sorting chart in this article is striking. Congress didn’t suddenly polarize, it settled into two non-overlapping worlds. (If you haven't already seen it, check out the attraction-repulsion model in Fig. 2!) Sub-parties - as the authors propose - are an intriguing idea. #Democracy
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 23/11/2025
Professor Snyder lays out why the “Peace Plan” isn’t peace at all: 1. Encourages nuclear proliferation 2. Breaks the basic rule of int'l order—respecting borders 3. Rewards the aggressor, risking wider regional conflict 4. Ignores reconstruction 5. Process excluded Ukraine and its allies entirely
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 23/11/2025
A Change That Hits Nursing, Public Health, and Education The Dept. of Education quietly narrowed the definition of “professional degree” programs for federal student aid. Now only a small list qualifies. Many essential health fields—nursing, PAs, PTs, audiology, public health—were excluded.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 23/11/2025
In just days, we’ve seen major reversals: • Release of the Epstein files • Coast Guard reversing course on removing the swastika + noose as hate symbols • The 28-point Ukraine plan quietly walked back These U-turns aren’t random—they’re reactions to outside pressure. Vigilance works.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
Across the spectrum, we expect fairness. So when lawful, good-faith immigrants are punished instead of supported, that’s not a policy wrinkle—it’s a moral and institutional failure. We must demand better. #RuleOfLaw #ImmigrationPolicy #HumanDignity
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
go.bsky.app/LaMhkcr
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
I went to a screening of Fish War last night, and it made me think. www.siff.net/festival/arc... It tells the story behind the Boldt Decision and the decades-long fight for tribal fishing rights in the Pacific Northwest. My takeaways: tenacity, rule of law, and cooperation. #RuleOfLaw #salmon
siff.net
Fish War
In 1974, a conservative federal judge upheld Indigenous fishing rights in Washington, ending violent clashes with law enforcement and laying the foundation for environmental stewardship in this locall...
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
www.npr.org/sections/sho... Authoritarian movements often benefit when public trust in science collapses. Undermining evidence isn’t just misinformation — it’s a strategy for eroding the guardrails that keep democracy healthy.
npr.org
The CDC revives debunked 'link' between childhood vaccines and autism
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention webpage that previously stated "Vaccines do not cause autism" has been changed to cast doubt on the scientific research that supports the finding.
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Brad | Toward a Better Union @towardabetterunion.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
Authoritarianism almost always begin by discrediting independent media and spreading disinformation. Democracies with strong journalism, transparency, and media literacy are much more resistant to these tactics. Concentrated media reduces independence and is subject to manipulation. #democracy
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