David Stewart
davestew.bsky.social
David Stewart
@davestew.bsky.social

RE investor active in: Cobb county, GA; election integrity; socially responsible investment; non-profit mgmt; environmental justice. Husband, father, feminist, UU, he/him/his, jackal.

Political science 27%
Sociology 25%

So, to finish this off: How do we make this change? Article V of the Constitution.

Is it a high hurdle? Yes.

Is there hope that more than 75% of society would agree to this? Yes, since many states already have similar provisions. The moment has clearly shown that action by the people is needed.
Article Five of the United States Constitution - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org

but with a multi-executive model, he couldn't have been so reckless in office. He wouldn't have been able to break the law while in office without consequences from an independent AG, or re-invigorated Congressional oversight, or the potential for grass-roots recall.
Senator Markey's RFK Jr. Attacks Tracker | U.S. Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts
The Official U.S. Senate website of Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts
www.markey.senate.gov

Additionally, each nation-wide official could run on a separate set of issues, much closer to direct democracy and decreasing voter apathy. For instance, RFK,Jr could have been elected on separately for SecHealth, ...
What Robert Kennedy Jr.’s shocking poll numbers say about 2024
His exceptional popularity probably won't last. But it still says something important about the race.
www.ms.now

2) While amending the Constitution, make recalls possible with specific conditions required, again using the 39 states that have recall laws as a model. Give impeachment a competitor so that citizens again hold the power.
Laws governing recall
ballotpedia.org

1) The AG would have incentives to actually enforce the law, as they would be directly elected and accountable to the people, not the president. Many presidents have bent the independence of the AG significantly. The current president has shattered the independence norm, and there is no going back.
Too Close for Comfort: An Insider’s View of Presidents and Their Attorneys General | Yale Law & Policy Review
yalelawandpolicy.org

Bury the Unitary Executive theory by separating the executive into pieces. Bring direct accountability to all of the various pieces of the executive branch. Add to that, it could immediately clean up the executive branch:

With one nation-wide elected official, we have accepted a system where the level of accountability is low, convoluted, and vulnerable to presidential corruption. This creates a lot of conspiracy theories that center around unaccountable powerful members of government. This is fixable.

Even the current unprincipled Supreme Court has pretzeled itself to support the Unitary Executive, and cannot understand why its standing among the public has plummeted. Structural executive branch fixes are beyond the capability of the SC and the Legislative branch. Only we can save ourselves.
Morrison v. Olson and the triumph of the unitary executive theory
Courtly Observations is a recurring series by Erwin Chemerinsky that focuses on what the Supreme Court’s decisions will mean for the law, for lawyers and lower courts, and for people’s lives. […]
www.scotusblog.com

Congress might reinvigorate their impeachment power, since impeaching one official in a multi-elected arrangement is no longer an all-or-nothing zero sum game for political dominance. The impeachment of the UE has become politically toxic after what happened to Nixon, and the US is worse off for it.

The Congress has been busy handing its power away for a century. Breaking the UE would help Congress right the power balance between the legislative and executive branches, giving the oversight authority more ability to keep the executive under control.
What Ever Happened to Congress?
Long the most critical branch of the federal government, Congress has ceded much of its own institutional power. Here's how it happened.
time.com

The Unitary Executive has now been brought fully to life; no one except monarchists and christianists are happy w/the current results. Even they may not like the next presdnt. Citizens have to wait years to hope for any action or redress; no agenda for one nation-wide elected official is manageable.

We need to create more elected federal positions, starting with the Attorney General. It is time to break the executive branch into manageable pieces, along the lines of what is done in 43 states. Six states have one state-wide position, the rest range from 2 to 10+ state-wide positions.
List of U.S. statewide elected officials - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org

which further widens the liberal/conservative divide & creates an opportunity for a leader to stoke grievance. By not honoring the grief of conservatives, we opened the opportunity for T to drag us backward with a past-facing story instead of a future-facing one. Grief to grievance interruption. 2/2

This is a fascinating read. My take is that lefty leaders needed to grasp the reins of conservative griefs (closing of coal mines, refineries, rural depopulation & urban flight of their children, opioid crisis, etc.) & honor those griefs via ceremony instead of zero sum game triumphal language, 1/2
How do we interrupt the ‘grief to grievance pipeline’ that fuels leaders like Trump, Putin and Xi?

open.substack.com/pub/goodapoc...

It's the coverup that gets you - at least, when criminals aren't running the government.
BREAKING: At least 16 files from the Epstein release disappeared from DOJ's webpage, including a photo of Trump, with no explanation.
At least 16 files have disappeared from the DOJ webpage for documents related to Jeffrey Epstein
The Justice Department’s webpage for documents related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is missing at least 16 of its files a day after they were released.
bit.ly

Pundits need to stick to areas they know. Shaping public opinion & publicly making one's case is the point of incisive commentary, not leading from the rear. There are risks to one's career, but if you aren't trying to make things better, should you be in politics (or commenting on politics)?
This Yglesias piece in the NYT is horrifically bad. Almost every "fact" it cites is provably false. At best it is cocktail party banter from a pundit who knows nothing of energy. At worst, it was cut/paste from oil industry talking points. So, a rebuttal: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/18/o...
Opinion | Obama Supported It. The Left in Canada and Norway Does. Why Don’t Democrats?
www.nytimes.com

This is like "diet donuts". Not great to be in favor of a certain kind of FF, they are all climate-destroying at this point.

Knowing I have enslaver ancestors and abolitionist ancestors is worth knowing because I can choose who I align with now. I can be humble in the knowledge that my ancestors benefitted directly from white supremacy, while using it as motivation to repair the lasting damage that it caused.

This is exactly why I left genealogy aside a long time ago, as it was the obsession of my relatives that were deeply steeped in white supremacy culture. I don't care how closely I am related to folks that were on the Mayflower.
They’re trying to establish a hereditary nobility. The founders themselves made issuing titles of nobility illegal.

We should mock these fools, who think a tiny drop of founders’ blood makes them better than other people.
If immigrating from England makes you a "heritage American" then I guess I'm one too.

Reposted by David G. Stewart

They’re trying to establish a hereditary nobility. The founders themselves made issuing titles of nobility illegal.

We should mock these fools, who think a tiny drop of founders’ blood makes them better than other people.
If immigrating from England makes you a "heritage American" then I guess I'm one too.
This Yglesias piece in the NYT is horrifically bad. Almost every "fact" it cites is provably false. At best it is cocktail party banter from a pundit who knows nothing of energy. At worst, it was cut/paste from oil industry talking points. So, a rebuttal: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/18/o...
Opinion | Obama Supported It. The Left in Canada and Norway Does. Why Don’t Democrats?
www.nytimes.com
“Tell your children who the cowards were.”

They know not what they do... Maybe an anti-tech crusade would convince them that maybe they should not break everything. There is a lot of pent up anti-tech reactionary anger on the right that I would be very concerned about if I were a tech bro.
Tech bros don’t actually understand the sci-fi they claim to love. Thank you Al Jazeera English for having me on.
Tech bros don’t actually understand the sci-fi they claim to love. Thank you Al Jazeera English for having me on.

It is important to understand that in this moment of overbearing tech bros, normal people are just saying no to always remaking and changing everything with no thought about where all the pieces might come back together. How about think first and break (and reassemble) things slowly with a plan?
Monday at work I had this great insight: the reason that publics are so opposed to AI is mostly because they are opposed to unregulated and arrogant financial capitalism. It's about the power relationships, and the imposition of that rubric and that arrogance into every part of our lives.

Reposted by David G. Stewart

Monday at work I had this great insight: the reason that publics are so opposed to AI is mostly because they are opposed to unregulated and arrogant financial capitalism. It's about the power relationships, and the imposition of that rubric and that arrogance into every part of our lives.

Now do childbirth mortality for women.

Reposted by David G. Stewart

“.. Law enforcement can’t cope with the overwhelming amount of illicit activity in the space,” said Julia Hardy. “It can’t go on like this.”

@nytimes.com #crypto
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/t...

That was kind of you to educate and be gentle with them. I wonder if they heard you.