Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile
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exiledsocscientist.bsky.social
Social Scientist (Mostly) in Exile
@exiledsocscientist.bsky.social
370 followers 44 following 2.8K posts
Exiled Political Economist, Silicon Valley's Public Finance Attorney, Lecturer in Political Economy, Comic Book Character, Corporate and Private Equity Lawyer, Startup Attorney, Advisor, Dad, Husband, Teacher, Former Europeanist. Opponent of Fascism.
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A research note in the journal of original publication seems like the proper format for something like this. Peer reviewed, but with a presumption that it will be published as an addendum to the originally accepted article.
Man, I remember the sense of wonder I felt when Luke Bladerunner blew up the Death Star . . .

bsky.app/profile/matt...
Wow no wonder he knows the exact car Bladerunner, the hero of the popular movie Bladerunner, would drive.
Distribute the corporate assets as restitution for the damage done and fine the executives who were responsible to make up any shortfall.

Whatever's left goes through bankruptcy to be sold for the benefit of creditors and, if anything's left, equityholders.

Simple - just takes political will.
A corporation is a concession of public power to private actors, justifiable only if that corporation serves the public interest.

If a corporation does this, the state has the power and the obligation to criminally prosecute the executives and wind up the corporate entity.

bsky.app/profile/sobr...
Elon Musk’s Boring Company fined nearly $500K after it dumped drilling fluids into Las Vegas manholes—then ‘feigned compliance’ and was caught doing it again

Fortune Magazine©️

archive.ph/eQYCN#select...
Note to posterity: do NOT make a senile commercial real estate developer into a military dictator. It's just embarrassing.

bsky.app/profile/atru...
Call in the troops to solve the commercial real estate crisis in our swanky downtown cores

You can’t make this shit up, folks
Patrimonialist, criminal asshole.

He cannot lawfully do this on his own.

bsky.app/profile/atru...
TRUMP: The ones who stayed, I'm sending them a $10,000 bonus

INGRAHAM: Where's that money coming from?

TRUMP: I don't know. I'll get it from someplace.
Even the most stale first term one callbacks are less depressing than the current reality.
No, it's right after Infrastructure Week.

I've got the calendar here somewhere . . .
As someone who occasionally writes legislation, this is simultaneously pathetic and hilarious.

People who are calling Senators about this, maybe take a moment to express a small additional measure of anger over this corrupt little poison pill.

bsky.app/profile/benj...
For my next answer, Alex, I'll take "Things said to make a developmentally disabled 5-year old feel better at their birthday party."

This version of Jeopardy is distasteful, but pretty easy.

bsky.app/profile/atru...
Pirro: "Mr President, there is in this room a group of people who love you, who believe in you, and who are so proud to be in this Oval Office and to be part of this amazing day because you have changed the course of America."
I'll take "Things that a fairly dull-witted left-wing revolutionary might advocate in order to destroy private insurance markets and heighten the contradictions leading to a national public health service" for $500, Alex.

bsky.app/profile/atru...
Trump: "We want a healthcare system where we pay the money to the people instead of the insurance companies. We're gonna be working on that very hard over the next short period of time. Where the people get the money. We're talking about trillions and trillions of dollars."
Sure, that's technically true, but you should really give some credit to Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell for giving us a working understanding to build on.

bsky.app/profile/atru...
Trump: "Nobody knows what magnets are."
Because if nothing else, America knows that you can trust the dietary guidance of a man who eats roadkill and was appointed by a senile, obese man who eats primarily fast food.

bsky.app/profile/atru...
RFK Jr: "President Trump is revising the dietary guidelines which is gonna dramatically change the food culture in this country."
"A Brooklyn federal judge found that Braun had violated the rules of his release by sexually assaulting a nanny, swinging an IV pole at a nurse, and dodging tolls in his Lamborghini and Ferrari" is a parody headline discussed by Milo and Opus in a Blook County comic.

bsky.app/profile/carl...
“.. demonstrates how Mr. Trump’s handling of pardons and commutations has allowed some convicts to return to criminality.”

@nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/n...
Only in this case, Thune can scrupulously keep his word and the vote can proceed in the Senate. And every vulnerable Republican could vote in favor if they're worried, because the House will never take up the bill, so ACA extensions will die.

Durbin knows this, he just hopes that voter's don't
When Lucy pulls the football away from Charlie Brown the first time, we are shocked and we understand *what* Lucy is.

When it happens the 20th time & Charlie Brown stage-whispers that he has her word as a gentleman that this time she won't pull it away, he gets no credit.

bsky.app/profile/burg...
Whoa -- Sen. Durbin went to up Leader Thune during the vote last night to tell him that on the shutdown vote and ACA promise that "8 of us are sticking our neck out that you're going to keep your word. I hope you will. He said 'I assure you I will,'" Durbin says just now
I... actually don't think that a corrupt presidential pardon alters in any least way a single sentence of the New York or DC disbarment orders.

The documented lies remain, and the betrayal of his role as officer of the court is unchanged.

bsky.app/profile/moll...

www.nycourts.gov/courts/ad1/c...
You could frame this deal as a strategic sacrifice that prevents people from starving and sets up the real fight in January and it would be bitter, but understandable.

But "Donald Trump is too strong and there is no point fighting him" is just bullshit. Vichy bullshit.
Gotta' say, no matter what you think of the deal, this is the worst political messaging I have ever seen.

If there is one through line in American culture, one thing aspirationally true about us, it's that standing up to the bully makes you the hero. Even if you lose.

bsky.app/profile/atru...
Sen. Angus King: "Standing up to Donald Trump didn't work"
Well . . . because Trump broke the law to impound SNAP funds and potentially starve millions over Thanksgiving.

You may not like that answer, and maybe they should have forced the Court to rule first, but that's their answer. And there are worse ones.

bsky.app/profile/chri...
The was a Republican shutdown because the GOP wouldn't negotiate — and Dems made that about their unwillingness to negotiate on extending the ACA subsidies.

If Dems vote for this, the answer to the "why did you do it for the past 40 days?" question becomes very difficult to answer.
But no matter whether Schumer arranged the deal or was just powerless and dicked around for 40 days until his caucus split, it seems clear that Schumer is not the leader that Senate Democrats need.

Because after today, I suspect that the left will not consider him an acceptable compromise.
So, yeah.

Don't know what Schumer actually did, but arranging the deal then voting no is like voting to advance debate (overcome a filibuster) then voting no on the legislation itself knowing that it will pass. It launders your capitulation for low attention voters.

bsky.app/profile/rose...
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, just emerged from the closed-door meeting and said: “I’m voting no.”

Asked to explain his position, Schumer tersely said the American people “need healthcare.”

The NYT
Might be better from an optics perspective to dare the Supreme Court to support Trump's plan to starve Americans before caving in, I think, or to let them force him to pay SNAP payments and then continue the shutdown if they are unwilling to follow Trump off this bridge, but what do I know?
Trump's willing to shoot the hostages (millions on SNAP). In fact, he's going to the Supreme Court to shoot the hostages.

Enough Dems will give up ACA subsidies to stop SNAP cuts that would see people starving within the next month. There are worse reasons to surrender.

bsky.app/profile/atru...
Dems backed Trump into a corner where he’s advocating for starving Americans and hemorrhaging support. If they vote to let him off the hook in exchange for nothing it’s a cataclysmic failure. I know people are in pain but insulating Republicans from political consequences is not the answer.