fresh audio product: • Paul Heideman @pmheideman.bsky.social, author of Rogue Elephant, on how the Republican party went from a staid vehicle of American business to the frothy lunacy of today www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html#S...

My review of Fourcade and Healy's The Ordinal Society Their central question (in my read): “What does it mean for computers to intervene in the business of seeing and organizing society?” (p. 108). The stakes of this question are now higher than ever. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

My article in the new issue of Catalyst on Trump and the GOP. catalyst-journal.com/2025/04/trum...

Just an incredibly ugly ISM Manufacturing report. The only categories that are rising relate to prices and inventories. Everything else going down. And virtually all of the comments are from manufacturers complaining about the tariffs. Full newsletter here: www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...

The thing about watching a JD Vance speech is that everyone knows he’s a little pig man. Everyone knows he exists to squeal for Trump‘s amusement. No one respects him and he clearly doesn’t respect himself.

My discussion of Trump and the GOP on Confronting Capitalism. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

Essential @daschloz.bsky.social and @samrosenfeld.bsky.social piece on Schumerism, the groups, the DNC, and Democratic dealignment in politics and policy.

600+ volunteers. 8 neighborhoods. ≈7,000 ballot signatures collected. In a single day. Our momentum is powered by people.

I’ll keep pushing this line of analysis because I’m increasingly convinced the clearest path out of this mess is for Dems to adopt a relentless anti-corruption, anti-inequality, anti-oligarchy, pro-democracy platform. The Dem leadership hasn’t realized it yet, but they’re now a reform party.

The DOGE firings have nothing to do with “efficiency” or “cutting waste.” They’re a direct push to weaken federal agencies perceived as liberal. This was evident from the start, and now the data confirms it: targeted agencies overwhelmingly those seen as more left-leaning. 🧵⬇️

Most real life villains, from serial killers to Donald Trump and his cocaine Boer, are dullards. Mediocrities with nothing more complex driving them than "fuck you, I want this" And that's a pretty flat, boring character if you're trying to keep someone interested in a story

Support Comrade Trump's heroic struggle against the kulaks.

Excellent piece here by @pmheideman.bsky.social: jacobin.com/2025/02/trum...

No one lets go of anyone’s hand.

Campaign finance has profoundly changed since Citizens United. The overall story is one of growing inequality. But the patterns differ by party—and do so in ways that help explain the GOP's oligarchical tendencies. These charts break down the evolving landscape and provide some context. 🧵

Good piece from @macabekeliher.bsky.social “Today we are not only a declining fifth behind Italy and China in machine tool production and sales, but also rapidly losing a workforce knowledgeable in machine tool development.” thehill.com/opinion/fina...

It's interesting seeing where the borders of unacceptable racism currently are for the right. www.wsj.com/tech/doge-st...

It's clear that we are currently in a constitutional crisis. Previous crises have included Watergate and the Civil War. The question is whether we enter a period of constitutional collapse, where the constitutional order simply ceases to function for part or all of the country.

Excited for the book and great thread, which highlights importance of states in first-term resistance to Trump. This is one reason it really matters if Elon has the power to cut off state funding.

very important to keep in mind that we're not dealing with geniuses here. they're improvising.

GLP-1 hormone research goes back to the 1970's, its testing to treat diabetes goes back to 1993, phase II clinical trials for Ozempic go back to 2008. Your desire to see others punished for losing weight 'the wrong way' is ignorant, mean spirited, and most importantly a tired & lousy joke

Krugman hits the basic point, which so many savvy commentators get tripped up on: The fact that *somebody* is always deciding how to ration care, does not mean that private health insurance companies as they actually exist are performing any useful function. paulkrugman.substack.com/p/health-ins...

This is genuinely great from Gessen if only because it takes something pretty basic about anti-trans politics (it's part of a broader reproductive regime akin to the eugenics of fascist cults) and explains it to an audience still convinced this has anything to do with fairness in women's sports

This is a long read, but it's worth every word. If you want to know how Jack-Welchism has fundamentally made being a professional absolutely horrible, this is outstanding.

For me, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that the proliferation of spook frames like “misinformation” and “disinformation” and the militarization of speech and moderation are important drivers of the phenomenon they seek to describe. Everything becomes a plot.