dadraimondo.bsky.social
@dadraimondo.bsky.social
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This is getting nasty.
December 2, 2025 at 4:27 PM
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Losing loser loses again, this time on libraries.

Trump and Trumpists are a huge danger to the republic, but also they lose *all the time*. Especially when people fight back! Which is apt to only increase the more people recognize that he's unpopular and can be defeated.
This is really important. Both in the fact of IMLS reinstating grants. (Which have been *crucial* for libraries and civic life across the country. Notably in rural areas.)

And in the example that the overall stalwartness and rigor of federal district/circuit courts has made a huge difference.
IMLS announces "upon further review" that it is reinstating all federal grants to libraries. It leaves out that it's doing this because a federal court told them a few weeks ago that the Trump admin's decision to destroy libraries was not legal.

www.imls.gov/news/stateme...
December 3, 2025 at 10:47 PM
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So the funniest thing I can think of now is that Trump decides to fire Johnson as Speaker after the holidays and February is filled up with a government shutdown because the House can't pick a Speaker and the stupid precedent they created last time says they can't pass a CR without one.
🚨 My first SCOOP for @ms.now: Mike Johnson has secretly been working to tank a provision to mandate IVF coverage for active duty service members from the Defense Reauthorization Bill—even as Trump has pledged to expand access.

Here's what to know 👇
Mike Johnson works in secret to strip IVF health coverage from defense bill
The speaker is working behind closed-doors to remove a provision from the National Defense Authorization Act that would mandate health coverage for in vitro fertilization for all active duty military.
www.ms.now
December 3, 2025 at 10:58 PM
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I don’t want to be pollyannish about the past, but it was basically inconceivable twenty years ago that a president would say this publicly
Trump: "It’s a hellhole right now. And those Somalians should be out of here. They've destroyed our country. And all they do is complain, complain, complain. You have her. She’s always talking about the Constitution provides me with – go back to your own country and figure out your constitution."
December 3, 2025 at 11:01 PM
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i'd go even further and say there is a reason even nixon kept this kind of stuff to himself. you would have to go back quite a bit to find a point at which is acceptable for a president to say anything like this *in public*, to say nothing of in the oval office.
I don’t want to be pollyannish about the past, but it was basically inconceivable twenty years ago that a president would say this publicly
Trump: "It’s a hellhole right now. And those Somalians should be out of here. They've destroyed our country. And all they do is complain, complain, complain. You have her. She’s always talking about the Constitution provides me with – go back to your own country and figure out your constitution."
December 3, 2025 at 11:04 PM
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An anti-discrimination rule that forecloses magazines that write about James Baldwin and Prince but not magazines that write about William F Buckley and Taylor Swift. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/u...
U. of Alabama Suspends Black and Female Student Magazines, Citing D.E.I. Guidance
www.nytimes.com
December 3, 2025 at 2:39 PM
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NEW: Jim Jordan and House GOPers refused to let the American public hear directly from Jack Smith, per his attorney.
December 3, 2025 at 5:16 PM
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One thing I always want to ask these masculinity entrepreneurs is why men can’t look to women as role models, and can’t see in women models of human virtue and thriving that are worth emulating. After all, women look to men for these all the time.
December 3, 2025 at 5:28 PM
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huge W for heidegger and the existentialists, honestly
I think part of What's Going On with billionaires is that the daily friction of interacting with normal people is part of what anchors people to the real world, and once you have enough money to buy your way out of the friction you can knock down a load-bearing column propping up your sanity.
December 3, 2025 at 8:12 PM
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I’m just a foreign policy wonk, standing in front of the GOP, asking them to read at least one fucking book about the history of US interventions in Latin America. www.politico.com/news/2025/12...
December 3, 2025 at 10:15 PM
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The idea that authoritarians are more effective is incredibly corrosive and, in fact, not true! But everyone loves the idea of the man on the horse carrying forward History
December 3, 2025 at 4:35 PM
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Again (and realizing this should really be a blog) I'm sympathetic and consider myself part of Dunkleman's project of making democratic governments responsive and functional. But you can't hand wave the accountability stuff. The argument can't be a "unitary exec theory - but for good!"
December 3, 2025 at 2:20 PM
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One of the core debates in public administration theory was about Woodrow Wilson's claim that you can borrow the practices of non-democratic states (or private sector) to improve democratic govts. The claim holds for narrow tools, but fails when you talk about the fundamental structures of power.
December 3, 2025 at 2:13 PM
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The response to my objections from the Dunkelman worldview is that I'm stuck with the outdated idea that more rules & procedures equate accountability. Thats not the case. Its a more fundamental concern consistent with the founders aversion of centralized power, and watching democratic backsliding.
December 3, 2025 at 2:09 PM
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I'm sympathetic to the idea that progressives need to rethink procedural barriers to getting things done, and that this a crucial moment for American government. But we are witnessing a shift to authoritarianism right now. American needs not just a theory of power but also theory of accountability.
December 3, 2025 at 2:06 PM
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Lesson 6: If you have a theory of the Supreme Court that does not include political ideology, its going to be wrong. During the Biden administration it was all major questions because they did not like his policies, and during Trump it is mostly unitary executive, because they do.
December 3, 2025 at 2:02 PM
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Lesson 4: If you are peddling the "trust in govt" has dropped because of proceduralism, you either don't understand the study of trust or don't care. It has dropped in all countries and all institutions over the same time period. It is mostly driven by perception of politics not govt services.
December 3, 2025 at 1:59 PM
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There is such a thirst in some progressive centrist circles that they will look at the Trump administration as a model to get things done. I think its worth addressing the argument. This is from Mark Dunkelman, author of the widely praised "Why Nothing Works."
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/o...
Opinion | What the Left Could Learn From Trump’s Brutal Efficiency
www.nytimes.com
December 3, 2025 at 1:48 PM
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I shall simply free the stuck wheel of bureaucracy by firing everybody who knows how to do things
Lesson one: Yes, you can do a lot of things if you break the law.
Lesson two: Doing something is not the same as doing a good thing - it is harder to build than it is to destroy.
Trump has built nothing like the TVA. His lawbreaking is not "freeing the stuck wheels of bureaucracy."
December 3, 2025 at 4:32 PM
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I miss living in a republic.
Why is Donald Trump’s name now on the @usip.org building? Who put there? And when?
December 3, 2025 at 7:53 PM
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Why is Donald Trump’s name now on the @usip.org building? Who put there? And when?
December 3, 2025 at 7:04 PM
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Brett Kavanagh, his friends, and his family will be living with these images until their dying days. Unimaginable betrayal of the American creed.
Agents in Key Largo, Florida ripped this woman wearing medical scrubs out of her car as she screamed she is a US citizen. Agents cuffed her and put her in one of their cars.

She was eventually let go, per David Goodhue of the Miami Herald, who also took this footage:
December 3, 2025 at 5:48 PM
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I would say these are Adams two biggest accomplishments.
Zohran points to City of Yes as an initiative to build on 👏
December 3, 2025 at 8:07 PM
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Protecting politicians who commit crimes — be they Honduran, Israeli, Brazilian, or even Democrats — is the most consistent element of Trump's second term agenda
Trump announces a pardon of Henry Cuellar: "I am hereby announcing my full and unconditional PARDON of beloved Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar, and Imelda. Henry, I don’t know you, but you can sleep well tonight — Your nightmare is finally over!"
December 3, 2025 at 3:42 PM
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One more: this means that over a long period of time, reporters/editors at the Post were able to create mutual trust with sources in the Pentagon, during a time of maximum hostility to the press. The Post knows the sources are trustworthy. The sources know the Post will protect them.
December 2, 2025 at 3:41 PM