Constantine
@ajaxsinger.bsky.social
Teacher, writer, story-coach.
TradPub refugee & failed iconoclast
A story: https://tinyurl.com/k3e23k8a
Another: https://l1nq.com/singerinterrupt
Letter Prize Winning Unpublished Manuscript: https://tinyurl.com/Albertthelast
TradPub refugee & failed iconoclast
A story: https://tinyurl.com/k3e23k8a
Another: https://l1nq.com/singerinterrupt
Letter Prize Winning Unpublished Manuscript: https://tinyurl.com/Albertthelast
Pinned
Constantine
@ajaxsinger.bsky.social
· Nov 25
Hi new folks. I follow accounts who a) are experts in their fields, b) journalists with beats I care about, c) amusing, kind, insightful, or any combo thereof, and d) that interact with me in nice ways.
If you want a follow back, be one of those things.
If you want a follow back, be one of those things.
This is a fantastic thread
Some thoughts on the CR/minibus.
1 The Dems negotiating with Rs were not freelancing. They coordinated with Sen Schumer. A few were ready to give in on day one, others worked to maximize appropriations wins.
Those voting for the 'deal' are the ones furthest away from electoral consequences.
1 The Dems negotiating with Rs were not freelancing. They coordinated with Sen Schumer. A few were ready to give in on day one, others worked to maximize appropriations wins.
Those voting for the 'deal' are the ones furthest away from electoral consequences.
November 11, 2025 at 4:50 AM
This is a fantastic thread
Reposted by Constantine
And I wish more people understood that ten "good enough Dems" are DRAMATICALLY more useful than five "perfect Dems you agree with on everything." Having majorities is orders of magnitude more important than the specifics of the members making it up.
November 10, 2025 at 11:56 PM
And I wish more people understood that ten "good enough Dems" are DRAMATICALLY more useful than five "perfect Dems you agree with on everything." Having majorities is orders of magnitude more important than the specifics of the members making it up.
Everybody's dunking on this but it's important to note that even with the absolute misery of ACA premium cliffs happening now, no R was moved to shift their vote. They were never going to and if they'd killed the filibuster we'd have a national abortion ban by March. This sucks, but so did all ends.
An important vote in this series: Tammy Baldwin’s proposal to extend ACA expiring funds for 1 year. It’s structured as a motion to table (i.e. scrap it from the amendment tree). But it’ll show the appetite (or lack thereof) in the Senate to address this issue.
November 11, 2025 at 2:40 AM
Everybody's dunking on this but it's important to note that even with the absolute misery of ACA premium cliffs happening now, no R was moved to shift their vote. They were never going to and if they'd killed the filibuster we'd have a national abortion ban by March. This sucks, but so did all ends.
Fagles or fuck off, buddy.
Wilson or whatever.
Fitzgerald or it's shit, harold.
Wilson or whatever.
Fitzgerald or it's shit, harold.
LOT going on here obviously so i will add my own specialist knowledge, which is the penguin classics versions of the odyssey and iliad are terrible prose translations that do not benefit from being read aloud
*maximum alpha at 1.25x speed* continuously lives on in my head, unfortunately.
November 11, 2025 at 2:26 AM
Fagles or fuck off, buddy.
Wilson or whatever.
Fitzgerald or it's shit, harold.
Wilson or whatever.
Fitzgerald or it's shit, harold.
I was told I wasn't supposed to point my gun at anything I wasn't going to kill, but okay.
a new genre of photo in the last year is federal agents working for ICE pointing guns directly at photographers
November 11, 2025 at 1:41 AM
I was told I wasn't supposed to point my gun at anything I wasn't going to kill, but okay.
Last year LA fired DA Gascon because of "rampant crime and violence." Looks like the new guy's tough-on-crime deal isn't bearing fruit.
(LA homicide rate is now and was last year, ridiculously low for a city of 4.1M people)
(LA homicide rate is now and was last year, ridiculously low for a city of 4.1M people)
November 11, 2025 at 1:40 AM
Last year LA fired DA Gascon because of "rampant crime and violence." Looks like the new guy's tough-on-crime deal isn't bearing fruit.
(LA homicide rate is now and was last year, ridiculously low for a city of 4.1M people)
(LA homicide rate is now and was last year, ridiculously low for a city of 4.1M people)
Reposted by Constantine
so about last night…
Democrats were never going to win the shutdown fight
Yes, polls showed more people blaming Trump. But on their substantive demands, the party was drawing dead.
www.vox.com
November 10, 2025 at 11:19 PM
so about last night…
This sums up my thinking almost to the letter.
November 10, 2025 at 11:30 PM
This sums up my thinking almost to the letter.
Reposted by Constantine
... There was no good way out of this, but there were a lot of bad ones. I don't think this will matter much in the end, though, except in that it sets the stage to do it again in January without risking SNAP or federal workers jobs.
November 10, 2025 at 6:49 PM
... There was no good way out of this, but there were a lot of bad ones. I don't think this will matter much in the end, though, except in that it sets the stage to do it again in January without risking SNAP or federal workers jobs.
Reposted by Constantine
... The only upside to going longer would maybe have been getting Rs to kill the filibuster but that, tbh, was less likely than them agreeing to an ACA extension which would never have passed the house or been signed by the president. ...
November 10, 2025 at 6:49 PM
... The only upside to going longer would maybe have been getting Rs to kill the filibuster but that, tbh, was less likely than them agreeing to an ACA extension which would never have passed the house or been signed by the president. ...
Reposted by Constantine
... Would happen to people's views of government writ large if we fucked up their holiday plans and let govt workers and soldiers them starve in the streets. The blowback on that wouldn't have made people prefer Democrats, just hate everybody. ...
November 10, 2025 at 6:49 PM
... Would happen to people's views of government writ large if we fucked up their holiday plans and let govt workers and soldiers them starve in the streets. The blowback on that wouldn't have made people prefer Democrats, just hate everybody. ...
Reposted by Constantine
They can't go on forever, though. That's a failed state and that's not what any of us should want. Shutdowns are, historically, a tantrum that doesn't result in meaningful change and this one was no different. I didn't want it to end like this, but I was also really nervous about what...
November 10, 2025 at 6:49 PM
They can't go on forever, though. That's a failed state and that's not what any of us should want. Shutdowns are, historically, a tantrum that doesn't result in meaningful change and this one was no different. I didn't want it to end like this, but I was also really nervous about what...
I honestly didn't have Kelly on my radicalized Senator bingo card.
Mark Kelly notably declines to endorse Chuck Schumer as the leader of Senate Dems going forward
November 10, 2025 at 6:27 PM
I honestly didn't have Kelly on my radicalized Senator bingo card.
Whether or not the 8 were principled squishes squishing as part of their moral arc or designated sin-eaters for the Senate matters less than the fact that the clear power position in the Dem party rn is standing firm even if it's painful.
November 10, 2025 at 6:18 PM
Whether or not the 8 were principled squishes squishing as part of their moral arc or designated sin-eaters for the Senate matters less than the fact that the clear power position in the Dem party rn is standing firm even if it's painful.
The shift in Democrats over the last year is honestly astonishing. Y'all who've wanted to create a party of angry radicals who're willing to burn things to get their way and by the time you've turned Mayor Pete you've pretty much got one.
November 10, 2025 at 6:16 PM
The shift in Democrats over the last year is honestly astonishing. Y'all who've wanted to create a party of angry radicals who're willing to burn things to get their way and by the time you've turned Mayor Pete you've pretty much got one.
Reposted by Constantine
Right, the answer isn't to abandon the party to these weasels.
The answer is to flood the party with people who will take it over and transform it.
The answer is to flood the party with people who will take it over and transform it.
Hey, a lot of people are talking about changing affiliation from Democratic to Independent.
Let me tell you why you shouldn’t do that in Colorado.
One of the main ways to get a primary challenge candidate on a ballot is to caucus for your party. You need to be registered as a Dem to caucus.
Let me tell you why you shouldn’t do that in Colorado.
One of the main ways to get a primary challenge candidate on a ballot is to caucus for your party. You need to be registered as a Dem to caucus.
November 10, 2025 at 4:49 PM
Right, the answer isn't to abandon the party to these weasels.
The answer is to flood the party with people who will take it over and transform it.
The answer is to flood the party with people who will take it over and transform it.
This is one possible set of outcomes, but another is that we fuck up people's Thanksgiving and Christmas and try decide "a pox on both your houses" and walk away from hope for govt entirely which is pretty much the anarcho-capitalist end game.
It would be deeply unwise to keep the government shut down through Jan 2027. And real people were suffering. But if Dems withheld their votes for at least several more weeks you had a decent chance that:
1) Repubs popularity falls further
and/or
2) Repubs decide to end the filibuster
1) Repubs popularity falls further
and/or
2) Repubs decide to end the filibuster
November 10, 2025 at 5:57 PM
This is one possible set of outcomes, but another is that we fuck up people's Thanksgiving and Christmas and try decide "a pox on both your houses" and walk away from hope for govt entirely which is pretty much the anarcho-capitalist end game.
Reposted by Constantine
breath for a second. do you sincerely believe you live in a world where there is a sinister conspiracy between both political parties to sell out democracy that is obvious to anyone who looks at it, but that no one ever does anything to address, and that your internet friends figured out
November 10, 2025 at 5:31 PM
breath for a second. do you sincerely believe you live in a world where there is a sinister conspiracy between both political parties to sell out democracy that is obvious to anyone who looks at it, but that no one ever does anything to address, and that your internet friends figured out
Reposted by Constantine
i advise everyone to consider that it is possible to be wrong about things
i increasingly get the impression that a substantial amount of posters here sincerely do not ever expect to possibly be wrong
i increasingly get the impression that a substantial amount of posters here sincerely do not ever expect to possibly be wrong
November 10, 2025 at 5:28 PM
i advise everyone to consider that it is possible to be wrong about things
i increasingly get the impression that a substantial amount of posters here sincerely do not ever expect to possibly be wrong
i increasingly get the impression that a substantial amount of posters here sincerely do not ever expect to possibly be wrong
Reposted by Constantine
I have thoughts, and they aren’t going to fit neatly into Bluesky posts. Briefly:
1. The deal sucks.
2. Probably not as much as you think it does.
3. It’s good to be mad.
4. FFS, be madder at the GOP.
5. Strategy is hard.
5b. Timing matters.
6. The fight isn’t over.
7. Go pet a cat. (Or a dog.)
1. The deal sucks.
2. Probably not as much as you think it does.
3. It’s good to be mad.
4. FFS, be madder at the GOP.
5. Strategy is hard.
5b. Timing matters.
6. The fight isn’t over.
7. Go pet a cat. (Or a dog.)
November 10, 2025 at 12:55 PM
I have thoughts, and they aren’t going to fit neatly into Bluesky posts. Briefly:
1. The deal sucks.
2. Probably not as much as you think it does.
3. It’s good to be mad.
4. FFS, be madder at the GOP.
5. Strategy is hard.
5b. Timing matters.
6. The fight isn’t over.
7. Go pet a cat. (Or a dog.)
1. The deal sucks.
2. Probably not as much as you think it does.
3. It’s good to be mad.
4. FFS, be madder at the GOP.
5. Strategy is hard.
5b. Timing matters.
6. The fight isn’t over.
7. Go pet a cat. (Or a dog.)
Reposted by Constantine
You guys, we never had any material leverage. All we had was an opportunity to make them eat shit, which they gladly did. So, mission accomplished. There were never going to be any policy extractions because we never had any means of actually making them do it.
November 10, 2025 at 5:40 PM
You guys, we never had any material leverage. All we had was an opportunity to make them eat shit, which they gladly did. So, mission accomplished. There were never going to be any policy extractions because we never had any means of actually making them do it.
Reposted by Constantine
I mean no disrespect to the people who keep making this argument, but the more I hear the "leverage" argument, the more that I'm convinced that it's patently ridiculous because if the shutdown was actually a real leverage capable of moving votes, Thune & Johnson would've caved by week 2.
No one is really going to pay attention to the ACA subsidy vote because what matters is Democrats had leverage, people saw them use it, and people saw them give it away
November 10, 2025 at 5:38 PM
I mean no disrespect to the people who keep making this argument, but the more I hear the "leverage" argument, the more that I'm convinced that it's patently ridiculous because if the shutdown was actually a real leverage capable of moving votes, Thune & Johnson would've caved by week 2.
Reposted by Constantine
folks. this is not going to blunt the blue wave. i am going to need you to ease all the way back on the dooming. trump is going to do eighteen more horrible things that eat news cycles by next *week*. no one is going to still be fuming about this in a year
November 10, 2025 at 2:13 AM
folks. this is not going to blunt the blue wave. i am going to need you to ease all the way back on the dooming. trump is going to do eighteen more horrible things that eat news cycles by next *week*. no one is going to still be fuming about this in a year
Reposted by Constantine
people thought the March one would end the 2026 midterm and well Tuesday
folks. this is not going to blunt the blue wave. i am going to need you to ease all the way back on the dooming. trump is going to do eighteen more horrible things that eat news cycles by next *week*. no one is going to still be fuming about this in a year
November 10, 2025 at 2:18 AM
people thought the March one would end the 2026 midterm and well Tuesday
Reposted by Constantine
Allowing this to pass is a mistake.
November 10, 2025 at 1:54 AM
Allowing this to pass is a mistake.