Nicholas Toloudis
@toloudis.bsky.social
Professor of Political Science at The College of New Jersey. Europe, social movements, the history of American teachers' unions...I'm all over the place, really.
""The organizations that bring young staffers to Washington, D.C. have spent the last decade prioritizing blind ideological loyalty instead of competence or intelligence,” said a senior GOP congressional staffer....“We have a generation of rabid, incompetent idiots.”"
GOP Staffers Say the Party Has a Groyper Problem
Party veterans are concerned that the pipeline of young Republican talent is veering off course — and into terminally online extremism.
politico.com
The Special Collections at @temple-libraries.bsky.social features a ton of great material, without which I never could have written my book.
there are a lot of philosophical concepts that get egregiously misused out of the seminar room (and in the seminar room, to be fair). but in terms of sheer pernicious misuse "social construct" has gotta be top 5 somewhere and it's not number 5
Scott Bryan@scottygb.bsky.social · last wk.Channel 4 has announced documentary “The Great ADHD Myth?” It “seeks to determine whether ADHD is a genuine neurodevelopmental disorder, or a social construct.”
To be read with @reecejones.bsky.social's book Violent Borders, @pollypw.bsky.social's work, and so forth. An encapsulation of post-colonial and xenophobic anxieties in the European Union.
Spain Mobilizes Military as Thousands of Migrants Cross Into Ceuta
The arrivals in Ceuta, a six-mile-long peninsula on Morocco’s northern coast that Spain has governed for centuries, have fueled political tensions.
nytimes.com
Obviously, this is a good thing. But it's also up to the Democrats to makes something of it. Given past performances, that means it's up to the rest of us to push them into it.
We’ve Officially Entered the Twilight of Late-Stage Trumpism
It’s all there in a new CNN poll, and it’s heartening to see: Large majorities are sick of Donald Trump’s vanity, venality, and megalomania.
newrepublic.com
More often than not, it's not that clever anyway.
Ted McCormick@tedmccormick.bsky.social · last wk.clever but not smart will be the death of us
Unmentioned in this otherwise useful article: the Merz government recently approved a 2026 budget for Germany that features record-level public spending and borrowing.
Germany’s Merz says EU budget needs cut of ‘several hundred billion’ euros
Chancellor also argues it is “unacceptable” for European institutions to add 2,500 new jobs.
politico.eu
Denmark privatized its postal service at the end of 2025 and proceeded to demonstrate, once again, that the private sector doesn't always do things as well as the public sector.
Denmark killed its public postal service. Is the EU next? | Euractiv
Danish postal workers warn Brussels against putting profit before public service
euractiv.com
"The most common response from those against or still skeptical about creating an elected school board is: well, we don’t want to let politics into the process." That's been the objection for the past 100+ years. Philadelphia is the only big city in the US that has never had an elected school board.
Philadelphia Needs An Elected School Board – Philadelphia Hall Monitor
Community members urge Board of Education to vote No on facilities plan at April 30 meeting. (Photo: Lisa Haver) This year, Philadelphia hosts the nation’s 250th birthday party. We celebrate our right...
hallmonitor.org
My new book is about a Communist-led teachers union in Philadelphia. I wanted it to be about all things Philadelphia, all things teachers, all things Communist.
Kim Kelly@kimkelly.bsky.social · 2w agoI have truly done such a comical amount of research for my new book and could still keep going forever
My wife agrees vigorously with this take.
Tal Lavin@swordsjew.bsky.social · 2w agothe World Cup Final or as I call it, the Feast of the Total Dishes
The magnitude of this level of derangement is something to behold.
Hegseth announces new policy to test troops for low testosterone
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says he's rolling out a new screening program for “testosterone deficiency” among troops.
apnews.com
Unreal. Now that Trump dropped IRS lawsuit, DOJ just announced a new slush fund for alleged victims of "weaponization." Two Qs: *Will there be *any* congressional oversight? Most reporting suggests not. *Would payments to J6ers violate 14A? Raskin explains here: newrepublic.com/article/2105...
The line "I am a great admirer of America's, but right now my admiration is not increasing" would've made me laugh too. In fact, it did.
Germany's Merz says wouldn't advise young people to move to US
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Friday he would not advise young people in his country to move to the United States for study or work, in the latest sign of cooling ties between Berlin and Washi...
france24.com
As I review my chapter on the Second Red Scare in Philadelphia, I start to integrate more thoughts along this line.
Tobias Wilson-Bates@phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 3mo agoSurveillance is the opposite of trust. Each new layer of surveillance that gets added to any culture or practice functionally evacuates trust from that domain.
“Unfortunately for the vice president, there’s video” will be an increasingly common sentence.
JD Vance Insists Trump Never Said He Doesn’t Care About Americans
Unfortunately for the vice president, there’s video.
newrepublic.com
People trained to do X are asking machines to do X for them and, in turn, forget how to do X. Film at 11.
Jason Koebler@jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 3mo agosoftware developers say being forced to vibe code at their jobs is making them forget how to actually code www.404media.co/software-dev...
I missed this piece when it first came out, and I'm sorry I did. It's quite good. Fwiw, my soon-to-be-published book will touch on some of these issues in Red Scare-era Philadelphia.
Dominique Baker@bakerdphd.bsky.social · 7mo agoIt would appear I am now a columnist at Inside Higher Ed. My first piece focuses on McCarthyism, censorship, and our current moment in higher education. This is an essay I started nearly 6 months ago so I'm glad to finally share it with y'all. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...
"With credit increasingly serving as the glue holding daily life together, the consequences can be dire if that safety net disappears." It's telling that the NYTimes thinks of credit as a safety net. I mean, the gist of the rest of this story is that it isn't a safety net at all.
Consumers Lean on a ‘Hamster Wheel’ of Credit to Manage Rising Costs
nytimes.com
Trump gathered all of the very worst people in the country in one place and got them to break a million laws and then pardoned all of them, and now local law enforcement has to go get them one by one as they commit new crimes.
I often say that the fight for democracy is the fight of our generation. But let me be clear, if you aren’t fighting for Black voting rights right now then you aren’t really fighting for democracy.