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Paul Heideman

@pmheideman.bsky.social

Indeed I live in the dark ages! Author of ROGUE ELEPHANT (Verso 2025)

9 Posts100 Follower149 Folgt
Against the Grain@radioagainst.bsky.social · 3mo ago

The Republican Party has traditionally been the party of business. @pmheideman.bsky.social discusses the GOP's descent into internal strife and ideological chaos — and how in the last presidential election, the business class overwhelmingly supported Harris over Trump. kpfa.org/episode/agai...

How the GOP Lurched Further to the Right | KPFA

The Republican Party has traditionally been the party of the business class. But since the era of Newt Gingrich in the 1990s, the GOP has been marked by internal strife and ideological chaos — and in ...

kpfa.org

jamelle@jamellebouie.net · last yr.

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.

Adam Bonica@adambonica.bsky.social · 2y ago

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.

Adam Bonica@adambonica.bsky.social · 2y ago

How many federal workers would DOGE need to fire to make up for Musk not paying his fair share of taxes? Answer: 677,000. That's 44% of the entire non-DoD federal workforce. Again, this power grab is not about the budget. It’s about politics.

Title: What Costs More: Billionaire Tax Avoidance or Federal Workers? Subtitle: Musk’s tax avoidance could fund 677K federal jobs • Current Tax Rate: 3.27% • Top Federal Tax Rate: 37% Cost Comparison (Bar Chart): • Cost of Musk’s Tax Avoidance (smallest bar, purple) • Cost of Top 100 Billionaires’ Tax Avoidance (largest bar, red) • Total Federal Workforce Salaries (mid-sized bar, green) X-axis ranges from $0B to $380B, showing that billionaire tax avoidance covers a significant portion of federal workforce salaries. Impact on Federal Workforce: • Average Federal Salary: $106,000 • Jobs Musk’s Avoidance Could Fund: 677,782 (29.5% of all federal employees) Federal Workforce Breakdown (Pie Chart): • A segment representing 29.5% of the workforce highlights the share Musk’s avoided taxes could fund, labeled “Share Equal to Musk’s Avoided Taxes: 29.5%”. Sources: • Musk’s Tax Rate: ProPublica • Billionaire Gains: Bloomberg Billionaires Index (Dec. 31, 2024) • Federal Employee Data: USAFacts
Adam Bonica@adambonica.bsky.social · 2y ago

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. 🧵⬇️

Scatterplot titled “Empirical Evidence of Ideological Targeting in Federal Layoffs: Agencies seen as liberal are significantly more likely to face DOGE layoffs.” • The x-axis represents Perceived Ideological Leaning of federal agencies, ranging from -2 (Most Liberal) to +2 (Most Conservative), based on survey responses from over 1,500 federal executives. • The y-axis shows Agency Size (Number of Staff) on a logarithmic scale from 1,000 to 1,000,000. Each point represents a federal agency: • Red dots indicate agencies that experienced DOGE layoffs. • Gray dots indicate agencies with no layoffs. Key Observations: • Liberal-leaning agencies (left side of the plot) are disproportionately represented among red dots, indicating higher layoff rates. • Notable targeted agencies include: • HHS (Health & Human Services) • EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) • NIH (National Institutes of Health) • CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) • Dept. of Education • USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) • The National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE), despite its conservative leaning (+1 on the scale), is an exception among targeted agencies. • A notable outlier: the Department of Veterans Affairs (moderately conservative) also faced layoffs despite its size. Takeaway: The figure visually demonstrates that DOGE layoffs disproportionately targeted liberal-leaning agencies, supporting claims of ideological bias. The pattern reveals that layoffs were not driven by agency size or budget alone but were strongly associated with perceived ideology. Source: Richardson, Clinton, & Lewis (2018). Elite Perceptions of Agency Ideology and Workforce Skill. The Journal of Politics, 80(1).
Evelyn Waughluigi@mattressisland.bsky.social · 2y ago

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

Adam Bonica@adambonica.bsky.social · 2y ago

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. 🧵

A stacked area chart titled “Campaign Funding Increasingly Dominated by Elite Donors,” showing the growing share of total campaign contributions coming from top donors from 1980 to 2024. The x-axis represents election cycles, and the y-axis represents the share of total campaign contributions in percentage terms. The chart distinguishes between the Top 100 donors (dark blue), Top 1K donors (light blue), Top 10K donors (orange), and Top 100K donors (light orange). Over time, the influence of elite donors has grown, with the top 100 donors now contributing 20% of all campaign funds. The data source is the Database on Ideology, Money in Politics, and Elections (DIME).
Ariel Ron@arielron.bsky.social · 2y ago

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...

Tariffs won’t bring back American manufacturing

If we want to revive American manufacturing, we need to move beyond simple solutions and commit to the complex work of rebuilding the manufacturing capacity of our industrial base.

thehill.com

Paul Heideman@pmheideman.bsky.social · 2y ago

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.

Timothy Burke@bubbaprog.xyz · 2y ago

This is not a U.S. Marshal, Federal Protective Service, or any other federal law enforcement officer. This is a private security guard from Triple Canopy. He has no authority to block members of Congress who have oversight of the EPA from entering the building.

Beth Popp Berman@epopppp.bsky.social · 2y ago

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.

Phil Rocco@philiprocco.bsky.social · 2y ago

It’s hard to overstate the extent to which the “many hands of the state” hobbled Trump’s agenda in the first term. In my (forthcoming) book, I show how successful states, local governments, and nonprofits were in stopping the sabotage of the 2020 Census. kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700639687/

lauren@lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · 2y ago

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

Betty Theft 🏴‍☠️@bettytheft.bsky.social · 2y ago

can’t wait for all those class-action lawsuits in 5-10 years when we see what the actual long-term effects of ozempic are