John Nugent
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johnnugent.bsky.social
John Nugent
@johnnugent.bsky.social
Husband & dad; data analyst/institutional researcher at a New England liberal arts college; political scientist by training (American politics, public policy, public law); music lover; pretty good home cook
Or jumping up to touch the top of a doorframe.
September 6, 2025 at 3:44 PM
Reposted by John Nugent
“Uncooperative federalism,” Heather Gerken’s phrase, is quite good.

cmarmitage.substack.com/p/its-time-f...
It’s Time for Americans to Start Talking About “Soft Secession”
Blue states are finally learning what red states have known all along: you don’t need federal permission to govern.
cmarmitage.substack.com
August 24, 2025 at 2:34 PM
As someone whose college kid just declared a concentration in archival studies, may this ever be so!
Nor can it substitute for the quiet, tireless, magnificent work of librarians and archivists who build those finding aids, field those queries, scan those sources, reply to those emails, and help researchers' projects along.
A thing (among many) AI can't do is do searches for 130-yr-old correspondence, turn up 50yo articles about it, send ILL requests for copies of those articles, follow leads to city-based archives, look through their finding aids, and email archivists to find out if it's possible to request e-copies.
July 20, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Reposted by John Nugent
July 20, 2025 at 2:18 AM
Yoakam’s Razor: the simplest song is probably the correct song youtu.be/q6F7xMRWB10?...
Dwight Yoakam - Guitars, Cadillacs (Official Music Video)
YouTube video by Dwight Yoakam
youtu.be
June 20, 2025 at 10:23 PM
"As Trump Admin floods the zone with one radical shift after another, tariffs have gotten the most attention. But the policy that could end up costing the US even more in the long run is the White House’s assault on universities and on research more broadly." www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
Opinion | Trump is destroying 100 years of competitive advantage in 100 days
Cuts to research and attacks on universities are handing global leadership to China.
www.washingtonpost.com
April 25, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Reposted by John Nugent
The trope that universities are "dependent" on the federal government fundamentally misunderstands how vital this partnership has been for the US. The private sector can't replace it. If we kill it, we're all worse off. From @donmoyn.bsky.social and me: donmoynihan.substack.com/p/are-univer...
April 23, 2025 at 1:53 PM
Trump's tariffs cover goods but not services, and one of the country's biggest services (where we run a trade surplus) is higher education. "In dollar terms, last year, the United States sold more educational services to the rest of the world than it sold in natural gas and coal combined."
Opinion | Trump is killing one of our strongest exports
The president wants to balance U.S. trade deficits? He can’t do it without this industry he hates.
www.washingtonpost.com
April 15, 2025 at 6:35 PM
Reposted by John Nugent
A tricky thing about modern society is that no one has any idea when they don’t die.

Like, the number of lives saved by controlling air pollution in America is probably over 200,000 per year, but the number of people who think their life was saved by controlling air pollution is zero.
April 7, 2025 at 4:13 AM
Reposted by John Nugent
"I didn't vote for" you did. Sorry. You did. Should have listened to the woke libtards instead of your roided out imaginary friends who told you kids were pooping in kitty litter at school
April 7, 2025 at 2:51 PM
New London, CT Hands Off rally. Even the dogs are pissed off. #HandsOff
April 5, 2025 at 9:22 PM
No one could have seen any of this coming except literally every speaker during the 4 nights of the Democratic National Convention last August.
April 5, 2025 at 2:10 AM
Reposted by John Nugent
Per @johnleguizamo.bsky.social:

“Medicaid is called by different names in different states! Stay awake America you lose everything you rely on!”
March 13, 2025 at 12:07 AM
Reposted by John Nugent
The DOGE children are cutting research grants to reduce expenses, but without any consideration of the benefits that might come from that work. Benefits that can be multiples of the cost. It's the private equity playbook applied to our govt.
March 12, 2025 at 1:54 AM
Missing from the haphazard attacks on government spending and programs is any sense of cost-benefit analysis -- that govt's spend money now to save later. Preventative health care and vaccinations pay for themselves later by keeping people out of hospitals. Etc. Etc. Etc.
February 21, 2025 at 2:08 PM
The Dept. of Ed. Office of Civil Rights Dear Colleague letter completely ignores this part of the Students For Fair Admissions decision:
February 18, 2025 at 3:20 PM
The U.S. Dept. of Education's Office of Civil Rights says social justice and equity are "nebulous goals." Think about that. Also, a long history of individual and institutional racism and white supremacy is quickly dismissed as "crude racial stereotypes."
February 18, 2025 at 3:12 PM
There’s a joke here somewhere…dog something something cold turkey something
February 15, 2025 at 3:10 AM
I think a lot about whether the album most people think of as an artist’s best is *really* their best. I could argue Rhythm of the Saints > Graceland; Achtung Baby > Joshua Tree; Relaxin’ with Miles > Kind of Blue; etc. Are there others?
February 11, 2025 at 12:25 AM
Whaddya mean ‘hatful’ isn’t a word, NYT?? It’s right there in the title of a Smiths album
February 4, 2025 at 12:53 PM
They are apparently doing Project 2025, 2026, and 2027 all in one shot
January 29, 2025 at 12:59 AM