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Flying Pace

@flyingpace.bsky.social

3/ So any suggestion that the GOP is iron-willed and invincible is doing their propaganda for them.

This is not the face of a man who will go to the mat for a cause. It's the face of a bureaucrat who will turn on Trump the second it's in his interests to do so.

Protest accordingly.

A photo of Mike Johnson looking blandly anxious.

October 31, 2025 at 3:31 PM

Flying Pace

@flyingpace.bsky.social

We still falling for this or - ?

Never believe that anti‐ Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti‐Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

October 10, 2025 at 4:47 AM

Flying Pace

@flyingpace.bsky.social

Is it ever worth it to the trolls? Do they find meaning in it? I hope not.

The story of how I blocked a very silly troll named @dkbohdi.bsk.social

September 19, 2025 at 1:30 AM

Flying Pace

@flyingpace.bsky.social

"Can't hold fascists accountable at 6:30, but 8:30 Calvin will have already done the assignment!"

September 17, 2025 at 9:16 PM

Flying Pace

@flyingpace.bsky.social

1/ This interview was a mix of encouraging and disappointing. I don't get the logic of taking a powerful tool off the table just because it doesn't have "industrial power to hurt the economy." That's not enough of a reason when fascists are resegregating universities and trampling dissent.

But, nonetheless, we need to be able to militantly show how concerned we are—not only over our own institutions and our own jobs and our students, but also around higher education and the future of our democracy.

Q: Is what you’re saying is needed is a simultaneous general strike across higher education institutions across the country?

A: If we continue to have a federal government that takes over our cities and puts our cities under martial law and abuses the institutional autonomy of our higher education institutions and does all sorts of things that we all see are undemocratic and dangerous, we need to be prepared not only for a general strike in higher education, but a general strike over all.

I don’t think a higher education general strike is an action that will be effective, because I don’t think that higher education alone has this sort of industrial power to hurt the economy in a way that could force us to try to move through this moment.

September 11, 2025 at 1:42 AM

Flying Pace

@flyingpace.bsky.social

This isn't headline-worthy? Excuse me? It directly links the Trump-Epstein friendship to the "free pass" Epstein got from the legal system. Davies is basically saying flat-out that Epstein and Maxwell RELIED ON TRUMP'S POWER AND INFLUENCE to continue raping and trafficking children.

“The truth is: Epstein had a free pass. He bragged about his powerful friends, including our current President Donald Trump,” said Shauntae Davies, one of Epstein’s victims, at a dramatic press conference outside the U.S. Capitol. “It was his biggest brag, actually.”

“Jeffrey and Ghislaine (Maxwell) were very vocal about their friends, their famous and powerful friends,” Davies added. “Jeffrey Epstein’s biggest brag forever was that he was a very good friend with Donald Trump. He had an 8-by-10 framed picture of him on his desk with the two of them.”

September 3, 2025 at 7:25 PM

Flying Pace

@flyingpace.bsky.social

I'll take that as a "No, I wasn't aware, and I'm hastily bending my argument to accommodate vital facts I'm just learning about."

Trump's coup attempt involved not only force & fraud but breaching/sharing of voting system software. There was no proper investigation of the latter. There should be.

Similarly, state election officials confined their criticisms to the actual act of accessing the systems, heedlessly ignoring risks associated with the well-known and documented fact that the voting software was taken and shared by partisan actors.

In other words, this is the largest known breach of election system security in the U.S., ever, and it’s been effectively swept under the rug.

Trump’s interest in Peters’ status renews questions about his knowledge of breaches. Testimony from the House Jan. 6 committee revealed that at the infamous “unhinged” meeting in the White House on Dec. 18, 2020, Trump was told by Rudy Giuliani that there were plans to gain access to voting systems and software. But it wasn’t probed further by the committee or the DOJ.

August 2, 2025 at 4:29 AM

Flying Pace

@flyingpace.bsky.social

Uh oh, got a few dozen of this guy in my replies

William Empson in all his neckbearded sadness

July 25, 2025 at 6:57 PM

Flying Pace

@flyingpace.bsky.social

Also: Could I sue for the same because Columbia struck a deal with a prima facie antisemitic and racist administration (began with an unrepudiated Nazi salute!) under the pretext of "fighting campus antisemitism"? In other words, are civil rights and fraud claims possible?

But why was Columbia put first? It is in New York. More than twenty percent of its undergraduate students are Jewish. No matter the experiences or attitudes of these students, their university suddenly losing four hundred million dollars is unlikely to improve their education and life chances. Columbia students can speak for themselves. My guess is that Columbia was selected as the symbolic first target less because of the presence of antisemitism than because of the presence of Jews.

And I think that this is something that actual American antisemites will immediately have grasped. The city of New York is coded for antisemites as Jewish. The antisemites in America, seeing Columbia and New York punished, will see Jews being punished -- and they will be pleased by this. The same goes for universities as a whole. Universities are often understood by antisemites to be Jewish. The attempt to bring universities to heel will be met by antisemites with approval.

The Trump team recently engaged in an action of highly public Jew-baiting inside the Oval Office. Elon Musk performs the Hitler salute and claims that people whom he does not like are "Soros puppets"; in other words, Musk endorses the theory of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy. Musk has enabled antisemitism by the way he has chosen to run Twitter. He trivializes the Holocaust by making jokes about Himmler and Goebbels or by blaming public sector workers for the Holocaust. JD Vance visited Europe in February to endorse the German far right. The secretary of defense is a Christian reconstructionist who associates with a very well-known promoter of antisemitic ideas. Under the new leadership of the FBI, the American far right, the center of American violent terrorism, will receive much less attention. Antisemitic incidents increased during Trump's previous term, during which Trump characterized participants at a neo-Nazi gathering ("the Jews will not replace us," Charlottesville) as "very fine people." Trump says that Jews who do not vote for him are not loyal Americans. He refers to people and institutions with whom he disagrees as "globalist," which is a code for "Jewish" that every antisemite understands. His supporters antisemitically attack Jewish judges who rule in ways that Trump does not like, including in the case of Mahmoud Khalil.

July 24, 2025 at 1:24 PM

Flying Pace

@flyingpace.bsky.social

Sorry, but this risks making a cute game out of SA and pedophilia. Part of the point of #MeToo was to force predators OUT OF POWER. I don't see that demand at all here! This is like telling people to mail Jesus bobbleheads to protest an abusive priest, but not demanding the priest's expulsion.

If you’d like to send your Republican MoCs some mail (or drop it off in person at an unannounced district office visit), send them something to show just how empty you find their claims: 🗂️ AN EMPTY FOLDER.

Message: “Just like Pam Bondi’s Epstein file—totally empty.” Mail a manila folder labeled “Epstein Client List” with nothing inside. Include a note like: “The DOJ says this doesn’t exist. Do you believe them?” or “Here’s what [REP NAME] has done about the Epstein cover-up: absolutely nothing.”

You can also include other pictures or imagery, like a plane with the message: “Still waiting for the Epstein flight log passengers.” You could even send a cheap toy airplane or paper plane marked “Flight Logs” with a tag: “Who was on the plane, [REP NAME]? Why don’t you want us to know?”

July 21, 2025 at 11:37 PM

Flying Pace

@flyingpace.bsky.social

Osita Nwanevu, "End the GOP," 2020:

The question before us is not how much more the Republican Party might be willing to tolerate from the president but how much more we are willing to tolerate from the Republican Party. The GOP, founded by a generation of extraordinary men more committed to human freedom and the ideals expressed by our founding documents than the Founders themselves, has had a strange and improbable history. Built in opposition to the institution of slavery, the Republican Party is now a reliable opponent of equality and a malignant force in American life—a cancer within a patient in denial about the nature and severity of her condition. It should be not only defeated but destroyed—vanquished from the American political scene with a finality that can only be assured not by electoral politics or structural reforms alone, but by a moral crusade.

July 15, 2025 at 4:31 PM

Flying Pace

@flyingpace.bsky.social

This isn't the '40s, folks! You fall in line with fascists, your cowardice stays with you. It becomes part of your identity, your "brand," follows your name and face for good. Just ask UPenn president J. Larry Jameson here. I wouldn't work for any institution he leads, and I know I'm not alone.

UPenn interim president J. Larry Jameson

July 2, 2025 at 7:04 PM

Flying Pace

@flyingpace.bsky.social

While you're not asking how Trump swept 7 swing states with permanently negative approval ratings, DEFINITELY don't ask about these brink-of-Election-Day graphs showing that Harris spiked voter enthusiasm far more than Trump, and even more than Obama in '08

Voter Enthusiasm During the 2024 Presidential Election Campaign

Compared to previous elections, are you more enthusiastic than usual about voting, or less enthusiastic?

[graph showing Democrats/Democratic leaners are more enthusiastic than Republicans/Republican leaners by 10 points, 77 to 67]

[courtesy of Gallup]

Voter Enthusiasm in Recent Presidential Election Years

Compared to previous elections, are you more enthusiastic than usual about voting, or less enthusiastic?
% More enthusiastic
Line graph. Voter enthusiasm in the recent presidential election years. Voter enthusiasm is on the high end of what Gallup measured in presidential elections since 2000, among all registered voters and among supporters of both political parties.

[graph showing highest enthusiasm levels among Democrats/Democrat leaners since 2000, in contrast to Republicans/Republican leaners, who were less enthusiastic than in 2004 or 2012]

[courtesy of Gallup]

June 28, 2025 at 5:45 PM

Flying Pace

@flyingpace.bsky.social

The gap is real.

Zachary Donnini
@ZacharyDonnini

Big generational divide in the NYC Mayor race, per @YalePolling:

18-29: Mamdani +14
30-44: Mamdani +36
45-54: Cuomo +38
55-64: Cuomo +38
65+: Cuomo +40

Mamdani is hoping for a very young electorate on Tuesday.

["X" post, 6/23/25]

June 28, 2025 at 4:04 PM

Flying Pace

@flyingpace.bsky.social

However true this may have been of Harris, it was much more true of Trump, who kept telling his base he "didn't need their votes," so I'd still like some auditing on those results

Post by @savealfira.bsky.social‬:

"Kamala Harris was a deeply unpopular candidate who clung to wildly unpopular policies, kissed up to Republicans and treated her base like garbage"

I just need to hear some else saying this to keep my sanity

June 26, 2025 at 2:07 AM

Flying Pace

@flyingpace.bsky.social

What this graph says is, "Here's a man who could easily sweep seven swing states after spending his campaign telling mid-sized crowds that he didn't need their votes. No need to ask further questions about that."

Gallup graph of "Donald Trump's Second-Term Job Approval Ratings Trend." The line drops from 47% at inauguration to 43% in June.

June 23, 2025 at 2:00 PM

Flying Pace

@flyingpace.bsky.social

June 16, 2025 at 11:41 PM

Flying Pace

@flyingpace.bsky.social

This is a good argument because the first rule of activism is that you can only seek justice twice: if the powerful refuse both times, you're out of luck.

CitizenBane
‪@citizenbane.bsky.social‬

You realize this isn't going to solve anything, right? We already went through 2 rounds of impeachment. It's completely useless when the ones in power of Congress won't do anything about it....

June 15, 2025 at 11:26 AM

June 15, 2025 at 7:43 PM

Flying Pace

@flyingpace.bsky.social

I know some of us can't even take a much-needed sick day. But many of us can.

Even those who have to clock in might be able to take things slower. Because of sickness.

So many of us are so sick of this.

Gene Sharp:

Other methods of nonviolent struggle instead require people
to continue approximately their normal lives, though in somewhat
different ways. For example, people may report for work, instead
of striking, but then deliberately work more slowly or inefficiently
than usual. “Mistakes” may be consciously made more frequently.
One may become “sick” and “unable” to work at certain times. Or,
one may simply refuse to work. One might go to religious services
when the act expresses not only religious but also political convic-
tions.

June 14, 2025 at 5:13 PM

Flying Pace

@flyingpace.bsky.social

Damn, it would be a shame if whatever mysterious illness is keeping them home struck the rest of us, too, and kept us from going to work next week. Hope it doesn't strike any political commentators with large followings, and if it does, I hope they don't pass it on to their followers

[From Gene Sharp's "From Dictatorship to Democracy"]

Other methods of nonviolent struggle instead require people to continue approximately their normal lives, though in somewhat different ways. For example, people may report for work, instead of striking, but then deliberately work more slowly or inefficiently than usual. "Mistakes" may be consciously made more frequently. One may become "sick" and "unable" to work at certain times. Or, one may simply refuse to work. One might go to religious services when the act expresses not only religious but also political convictions.

June 13, 2025 at 4:45 AM

Flying Pace

@flyingpace.bsky.social

Appreciate your organizing, but I'm sorry to say that, with Trump warning people away from DC, it does look a bit like you're telling us to cower. And comply. Urging everyone to go where the fascist rally ISN'T sounds like ceding the streets to fascists so as not to upset them. Any plans to revise?