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Victor Caston

@vcaston.eurosky.social
1.6K followers 766 following 3K posts

Philosophy & Classical Studies, University of Michigan. In case anyone was in doubt, my opinions are my own.

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Victor Caston @vcaston.eurosky.social · 12h
I think the EU has been wise to take a patient, wait-and-see attitude towards Brexit. Re-entry would be subject to negotiation and involve some costs for Britain. But I expect that too will happen.
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Victor Caston @vcaston.eurosky.social · 12h
Not really, unless you think the path Trump is charting is how the US is likely to continue or risks returning to. I think the great majority, incl. the GOP, has not shifted in its orientation towards Europe or Russia. I personally believe this is MAGAs high water mark and it will recede.
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 17/10/2026
In 1993, Trump signed a mortgage for a Florida home, pledging it would be his principal residence. Seven weeks later, he attested a neighboring property would also be his principal residence. In reality, he does not seem to have lived in either home. (Published Dec. 2025)
propublica.org
Trump’s Own Mortgages Match His Description of Mortgage Fraud, Records Reveal
The Trump administration has argued that Fed board member Lisa Cook may have committed mortgage fraud by declaring more than one primary residence on her loans. We found Trump once did the very thing ...
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Victor Caston @vcaston.eurosky.social · 16/10/2026
Epoche!
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Victor Caston @vcaston.eurosky.social · 16/10/2026
Not even a demi-Scaramucci!
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Victor Caston @vcaston.eurosky.social · 16/10/2026
OK to watch this own goal. But why the hell is HEGSETH still at DOD? They're all terrible but it's pretty much just women who take the fall in this admin.
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Victor Caston @vcaston.eurosky.social · 16/10/2026
Good point
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Jen @cassiciacum.bsky.social · 16/10/2026
“Glitch”
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Victor Caston @vcaston.eurosky.social · 16/10/2026
It's his smile that strikes me as smug
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Victor Caston @vcaston.eurosky.social · 16/10/2026
Will have to find the book. The wikipedia article is pretty blurby.
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Victor Caston @vcaston.eurosky.social · 16/10/2026
Will take a look, thanks
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Victor Caston @vcaston.eurosky.social · 16/10/2026
Well-played
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Victor Caston @vcaston.eurosky.social · 16/10/2026
a milliscaramucci
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Victor Caston @vcaston.eurosky.social · 16/10/2026
Terrific line: Jacob says the NYT won't call balls and strikes, but just say that a pitch occur. The systematic character of DJT's lying deserves more emphasis: It is not one off or a difference in opinion, but a strategy, applied broadly and consistently. They should "total" it up, as Jacob says.
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Victor Caston @vcaston.eurosky.social · 16/10/2026
After decades, I canceled my subscription. Only nostalgia had help me back.
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Victor Caston @vcaston.eurosky.social · 16/10/2026
@markjacob.bsky.social was a breath of fresh air, telling it to him straight, a real Mensch. He ends by calling them cowards, which they are. And facilitators and frankly collaborators. Their hands are not clean. It is so important that they hear it from the inside, from veterans like Jacob.
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Victor Caston @vcaston.eurosky.social · 16/10/2026
Healy comes off as smug, self-satisfied, complacent. Keeping their head down, not getting in trouble, while the whole place burns down. Healy is in charge of overseeing Standards and Trust, for God's sake. Imagine how this crew would have covered the historical Nazis.
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Victor Caston @vcaston.eurosky.social · 16/10/2026
nytimes.com
Video: A Reader on What He Thinks We Get Wrong About Trump
In this first installment of “Sound Off,” Patrick Healy, assistant managing editor for The New York Times, speaks with Mark Jacob, former metro editor for The Chicago Tribune, who shares his criticism...
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Victor Caston @vcaston.eurosky.social · 16/10/2026
THIS is what is wrong with the NYT, straight from the lips of the assistant managing editor, Patrick Healy. Good short 🧵 from Eric Blair, but I'll link to the video below. This exchange is around 13:00.
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Brian Beutler @brianbeutler.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Relatedly, as I wrote when Republicans mounted their first Talarico smear campaign, Dems should reorient their messaging: less winning arguments about policy, more winning arguments about what people should think about the GOP per se. www.offmessage.net/p/black-mold...
offmessage.net
The Black Mold Of Republican Lies
Even when their smears aren't helpful to them in the short run, they harm Democrats in the long run. Here's a prescription for deterrence.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
It's possible we may see the second set of local criminal charges leveled against an ICE officer for actions taken during an enforcement operation. In this case, it's for this incident (video posted by @houstonchronicle.com) of an ICE officer appearing to deliberately run down a fleeing suspect.
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Victor Caston @vcaston.eurosky.social · 14/10/2026
Brutal
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 14/10/2026
Ossoff on adding SCOTUS justices: "I don't rule out any judicial reform" (He then pivots back to savaging Collins lol)
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 14/10/2026
Ossoff: "In my view, based upon the evidence I've seen thus far, the president's misconduct, abuse of power, and corruption, already exceed any prior standard for impeachment."
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Jason Karsh @jkarsh.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
I’m sorry, did a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate just ‘Won’t somebody think of the neo-Nazis?’ during a live TV debate?
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American Bridge 21st Century @ab21.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
WATCH: Andy Harris has a crash out after his constituents laugh at him for trying to blame higher gas prices on... Democrats. "You are rude!" #MD01
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Victor Caston @vcaston.eurosky.social · 14/10/2026
Oh man
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Jesse Hawken @jessehawken.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
someone needs to tell Bari Weiss, this could be a great story for 60 Minutes
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Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
A U.S. Air Force member jailed since August for publicly calling for President Donald Trump's impeachment is being held in solitary confinement 24 hours a day, according to his attorney. www.military.com/air-force-ma...
military.com
Air Force Maj. Jason Watson is in Solitary 24 Hours Daily After Publicly Calling For Trump’s Impeachment
Maj. Jason Watson has been jailed since August after publicly opining on the president and his administration, drawing a big legal battle.
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Victor Caston @vcaston.eurosky.social · 14/10/2026
Sweet He'll delay, but he can't win
theguardian.com
BBC asks judge to force Trump to sit for deposition as part of his $10bn lawsuit
BBC asks US federal judge to compel Trump’s lawyers to schedule deposition after his team canceled initial session
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Indivisible ❌👑 @indivisible.org · 13/10/2026
Susan Collins wants voters to believe she is a moderate Republican who stands up to Trump. But the truth is Collins only takes sides against the regime when she knows her vote won’t stop Trump.
nytimes.com
In the Senate, Collins Often Defies Trump but Rarely Stops Him (Gift Article)
A New York Times analysis of Senator Susan Collins’s voting record shows that she frequently breaks with Republicans but more seldom changes an outcome.
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Professa Murray @kalimurray.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
One very easy fix here: if you worked for DOGE, you are immediately barred from working on any federal contracts, www.acquisition.gov/far/subpart-....
acquisition.gov
Subpart 9.4 - Debarment, Suspension, and Ineligibility | Acquisition.GOV
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Robert Downen @robertdownen.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
NEW: Texans spent decades steadily tearing down the church-state wall, claiming it is a myth meant to obscure America's true Christian roots. Now, Trump is helping them export their playbook nationally. The result: A federal bureaucracy remade in their Christian nationalist image. (Gift link)
texasmonthly.com
Texans Spent Decades Tearing Down the Church-State Wall. Now They Have Trump’s Ear.
Dan Patrick calls the separation of church and state a lie and has worked to infuse Christianity into Texas institutions. Trump is helping him take that strategy nationwide.
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Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards.
inquirer.com
The SS United States is set to be sunk in mid-November
Okaloose County expects to sink the SS United States the second week in November, depending on weather.
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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Legalized Bribery. (H/T @msrachelforlittles.bsky.social ) (Core Civic is based in Brentwood, TN)
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 13/10/2026
While suspended from office and awaiting his impeachment trial, Texas AG Ken Paxton took at least 17 trips. State police joined him each time, costing taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars for trips unrelated to his job. with @texastribune.org
propublica.org
Ken Paxton’s Security for Travel Cost Taxpayers Millions. Just 1 in 6 of His Trips Had a Stated Business Purpose.
Records show the Texas attorney general has taken nearly 1,000 trips during his tenure, costing $3.3 million in security. We could only connect 138 of those trips and $553,000 in security costs to sta...
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Sam Bagenstos @sbagen.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
This story makes it sound like the major problem is that the Trump Admin did this w/in 60 days of an election. Yes, that's a real abuse. But the major problem is they're basically threatening to denaturalize an opposition legislator, based on racist insinuations. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/12/u...
nytimes.com
Federal Agents Search Home of Rep. Ilhan Omar (Gift Article)
The search takes place within the 60-day window of the midterm elections, when the Justice Department has historically avoided such investigative steps related to political candidates.
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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Huh. Apparently Katie Miller deleted this tweet that I had the foresight to screencap. Turns out I can TOO make things go viral on Xitter, even.
My RT of a Katie Miller tweet which RTed the NYPost coverage of the Ilhan Omar raid. 

She said: Promise made, promise kept.
I said: Katie Miller is not going to do very well in a deposition.
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Richard Morris @ahistoryinart.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
'The Music Room.' (c1980) This is the art of Peter Kelly who specialised in minimal and highly atmospheric interiors. You may well not have heard of him, but when you come across his work, you'll wonder why you haven't.
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Matthew Shadle @matthewshadle.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Catholic Archbishop for the Military Services with pastoral responsibility for US soldiers issues statement saying Catholic military personnel are morally obligated to refuse to participate in a potential livestreamed execution of Nidal Hasan. www.milarch.org/archbishop-b...
milarch.org
Archbishop Broglio Issues Statement on Proposed Execution Livestream - Archdiocese for the Military, USA
Archbishop Broglio has issued a statement on the proposal to livestream the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan by firing squad.
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The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · 12/10/2026
In planning to publicly execute Nidal Hasan, the Trump administration “continues to undermine our national values,” and gives credence to those who say the U.S. has lost its way, William H. McRaven argues:
bit.ly
Admiral McRaven: Public Execution Is Shameless and Ignoble
A government livestream of Nidal Hasan’s killing would put America in extremely poor company.
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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Zelensky on bombing the Russian data centers: “It’s pretty clear where the bots were coming from.”
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Marc Elias @marcelias.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
Can someone ask CBS News why Ted Koppel said that "Bannon's technically correct; they didn't have standing" in the 60+ cases Trump and his allies lost in 2020. This is verifiably false and is a GOP talking point. Many/most of the cases Trump lost were on the merits. Do they not fact check at CBS?
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James Ball @jamesrball.com · 12/10/2026
"Such a ban on entire fields of study, inquiry, and discourse, Creighton said—preposterously—would foster “diversity of viewpoint.”"
theatlantic.com
All the Things You’re Not Allowed to Say In Texas
The state now controls what professors can teach.
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Jules⚖️📨 @northjules.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026... 😑Federal agents searched Representative Ilhan Omar’s home Monday morning as part of a criminal fraud investigation, according to reports in the Associated Press and Fox News that cited a statement from the department of justice. #Pinks
theguardian.com
Federal agents search Ilhan Omar’s home as part of fraud investigation – reports
Video posted by Fox showed what appears to be law enforcement in HSI jackets at Omar’s DC residence
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Jan-Werner Mueller @jwmueller-pu.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
👇
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
The campaign of educational censorship sweeping Texas and other GOP-governed states in the name of “free speech” and “diversity of viewpoint” in many ways exceeds the worst of the McCarthy Era (gift link obvs) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/1...
You have to go back to the loyalty oath cases of the Cold War period to see relatively analogous situations where the government was trying to silence academics with viewpoints that they didn’t like,” Emerson Sykes, an attorney with the ACLU, told me. “But even in those cases, we did not see the sort of brazen attempt to ban particular ideas or ideologies and scrub them from the public record or from public education.”
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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
We've been boiled frogs for so long this never gets mentioned. But this violates DOJ policies that have been in place for decades, ones that Defense Attorney Todd Blanche said should have extended for the entirety of the time his client had declared his candidacy. (Tho I think this was DHS.)
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Victor Caston @vcaston.eurosky.social · 12/10/2026
Terrific album — Newby is new to me. Vivid performance, if a touch theatrical. I thought his strengths shone in more delicate numbers (There's none to soothe, Abenstern, Auf den Hügel, Nimm sie hin denn; didn't care for his Urlicht). Happy for any recommendations, but esp. for Middleton.
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