Tom Sgouros
@tsgouros.bsky.social
Policy nerd, data science, researcher, former Treasury official, Rhode Islander. https://sgouros.com
"Somehow" = "uncritical reporters willing to repeat vile slanders"
Anjali Dayal@anjalikdayal.bsky.social · 4d agoThis is somehow still going, and it’s not just a few random families now; it’s also a former mayor of NYC and governor of New York. There is, again, no way to reason to argue Mamdani shouldn’t attend this commemoration that isn’t fundamentally bigoted
It is absolutely nobody's business what someone receiving food stamps purchases with this benefit. In EVERY case, the more you try to "means test" and create "moral" justifications for denying things, the more you increase the cost of the program, and the more people you hurt for no good reason.
Think about this, true and highly disturbing isn’t it…🗳️
Amendment Now!@oldsassydem.bsky.social · 7d ago
Samuel Alito is corrupt, accepting gifts from people with business before the court, and holding stocks directly impacted by cases he rules on. Those financial conflicts of interest and refusal to accept basic judicial ethics, on their own, warrant impeachment and removal. If the US had standards.
Lawrence Hurley@lawrencehurley.bsky.social · 2w agoJustice Alito's delayed financial disclosure report for last year his been posted. Confirmation that, as of 2025, he's still holding on to oil & gas stocks ahead of the big climate change case being heard in October.
Mutual aid is great but requires more effort on everyone's end than, say, a church food pantry, which in turn requires more effort on everyone's end than a food stamp program. Gutting something like USAID is either sociopathic or economically disastrous but was presented as cutting waste/abuse.
As a general rule that applies not only to charitable giving but to many areas is that reducing transaction costs is by default good. A flaw of libertarianism is the assumption that government adds transaction costs when it's actually a powerful reducer of them when used correctly.
Faine Greenwood@faineg.bsky.social · 2w agoThe reason you want an actual humanitarian aid system and *don’t* want to force everybody to rely on online mutual aid is because online mutual aid *forces people experiencing horrific trauma* to perform on the Internet for survival.
The thing is you have to be a party hack right now if you care about good things because basically nothing matters more than republicans losing and democrats winning, but lots of people want to not be party hacks more than they want good things.
This would be a fabulous idea. Let's have a Democratic newspaper.
rev. howard arson@theophite.bsky.social · last yr.i think the Democratic Party should speak for the Democratic Party, and that we should stop fucking around and trying to find a rich guy to pay a third party to spout party propaganda. we should produce party propaganda directly.
Not sure why this gets lost in basically every conversation about energy affordability, but the bills we pay depend on both prices and usage. Energy efficiency, from appliance standards to building codes, is the most effective energy affordability policy in US history and there's not a close 2nd.
Mark Z. Jacobson@mzjacobson.bsky.social · 2w agoCalifornia pays the 13th-lowest grid electricity bills per capita in the US despite having the 2nd-highest electricity price. Texas pays the 38th-lowest bills per capital (21% higher than CA) despite half the electricity price as CA. Why, because TX consumes 2.5x the electricity per person as CA.
Y'all... the Band of the Coldstream Guards performed "9 to 5" in front of Buckingham Palace in honor of Dolly Parton.
Things you (and KBJ) can see a mile away: rulings like this give a Speaker or VP an excuse to refuse to seat an elected rep or senator who was elected in a state where mail voting is widely used, like OR, WA, CO. It's a meager excuse, but when has that stopped Johnson or Vance? What happens then?
Leah Litman@leahlitman.bsky.social · 3w agoKBJ has them cold:
Securing funding and making sure it was allocated to the Birthing Center was a top priority this year. Our access to healthcare shouldn't rely on Hospitals' good graces, it should be protected.
American: "Hey thanks for standing up to Trump" Canadian: "Sure. No problem. Maybe you should try it." #cdnpoli
This is against the law passed in Congress to fund the agency. Will never stop being infuriating, even though it seems just like any other day lately.
Matt Grossmann@mattgrossmann.bsky.social · 3w agoNSF is substantially reducing grants, zeroing out many SBE subdivisions, & withholding the funds to spend next year on central initiatives: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
The politicization & illegal cancellation of federal research funding is an existential crisis for every research university in the country, especially flagship R1 publics. Again, you would think university presidents would speak up, loudly & collectively, about this. Alas. bsky.app/profile/mcop...
Matt Grossmann@mattgrossmann.bsky.social · 3w agoNSF is substantially reducing grants, zeroing out many SBE subdivisions, & withholding the funds to spend next year on central initiatives: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
We have had this conversation so many times. You do not have to platform/debate obscene views that are also false. I wrote during a wave of pressure on progressives to compromise with far-right haters:
Patrick Sturgis@patricksturg.bsky.social · 3w agoHow about refuting them on theoretical and empirical grounds? That is kind of how science works. It doesn’t work by calling people names, refusing to engage with their claims and attempting to get them fired.
This is so true, but the problem is the regulations and laws often don't say in the text why they were enacted. Like the regulation of barbers and hairdressers was originally about lice control.
She blinded me with science!@capaltunnel.bsky.social · 3w agoI tell people regulations are written in blood. They don't just pop into existence from no where. There is a reason behind each of them.
Once you normalize drones in residential areas, how do you prevent surveillance/stalker drones and worse [see: Ukraine: warfare]?
David King@cityplanning.bsky.social · 3w agoOne of the most powerful legal tools cities have to regulate different vehicle related issues is noise laws (this includes cars). Cities can enforce noise much more strictly, and they should get ahead of drone delivery as a nuisance. This article notes noise is the biggest complaint. Gift link.
I think one reason the public has such a shallow understanding of the extent of the damage Trump is doing is that *US political & media elites* have such a shallow understanding. Douthat's pleasant upper-middle-class life hasn't been unduly disturbed, so really, what's the big deal?
Jake Grumbach@jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · last mo.Trump II has profound consequences that will last a century: -destruction of administrative state & civil service -extreme wealth concentration, tech oligarchy -climate rollbacks -end of rule of law w/o pushback incentivizes future backsliding -Iran Pundits hate this because it sounds shrill
El-Sayed: "Notice how they used my full name, in echoes to exactly what they did against President Obama. At the end of the day, it's not radical to believe people should be able to afford their groceries, they should have healthcare, that the president should not be able to deny elections ... "
