Isaiah James
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iowalibdem.bsky.social
Isaiah James
@iowalibdem.bsky.social
71 followers 230 following 170 posts
The best lack all conviction,
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
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iowalibdem.bsky.social
Isaiah James @iowalibdem.bsky.social · 15d
I think the dominant take will be that the crazy excess of the neo fascists will be seen as mirroring the crazy excess of the woke left, with both being caused by the reality warping of algorithmically driven social media which increases the salience & power of fear driven identity narratives.
Reposted by Isaiah James
jamellebouie.net
there is really no difference between the current administration and having the country run by david duke
reichlinmelnick.bsky.social Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 2d
On that last post: I genuinely cannot think of any good-faith reason to bar international adoptions from those 39 countries. Under this new ban, consulates will refuse adoption visas for any baby from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, Nigeria, or any of the 39 other countries.
December 17, 2025 at 3:17 AM
Reposted by Isaiah James
brendannyhan.bsky.social
As we welcome white Afrikaners from South Africa and deny entry to any other refugees. There is nothing subtle about what is happening here.
mclem.org Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 1d
The US Administration has banned Americans from *adopting babies* from much of the African continent.

Adopting.

Babies.

What trait do those babies have that, when they grow up as fully American adults, would make them a threat to our country in any form?
reichlinmelnick.bsky.social Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 2d
On that last post: I genuinely cannot think of any good-faith reason to bar international adoptions from those 39 countries. Under this new ban, consulates will refuse adoption visas for any baby from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, Nigeria, or any of the 39 other countries.
December 17, 2025 at 3:19 AM
Reposted by Isaiah James
billkristolbulwark.bsky.social
“If we get lucky enough save democracy, then the people who excused, and covered, and enabled Trump’s autocratic attempt—will take it as proof that Trump was never a real danger to begin with. The people who did this to America will never pay a price.”

open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...
Trump's Consigliere Just Stepped in It
No one will ever pay for this.
open.substack.com
December 16, 2025 at 6:33 PM
Reposted by Isaiah James
nytimes.com
Joe Ely has died at 78. A singer-songwriter at the forefront of alt-country, he earned the nickname Lord of the Highway thanks to tireless touring.
Joe Ely, Texas-Born Troubadour of the Open Road, Dies at 78
Thanks to his eclectic style and tireless touring, he was among the most influential artists in the early days of Americana and alt-country music.
nyti.ms
December 16, 2025 at 3:40 AM
Reposted by Isaiah James
sarahweinman.com
“He doesn’t regret what he did. He said he’d do it again. But the pain has started to take a toll on him."
Hero who wrestled gun from terrorist says he’d do it again despite being ‘riddled with bullets’
Despite Ahmed al Ahmed being in a lot of pain, according to his migration lawyer, he felt as if disarming the gunman at Bondi was an act for the community.
www.smh.com.au
December 15, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Reposted by Isaiah James
emilynussbaum.bsky.social
Virginia Heffernan wrote this shortly after the 2016 election and it still holds true
THIS is what makes my head spin: The president is not a moral figure in any idiom, any land, any culture, any subculture. I'm not talking about the liberal enlightenment that would make him want the country to take care of the poor and sick. I mean he has no Republican values either. He has no honor among thieves, no cosa nostra loyalty, no Southern code against cheating or lying, none of the openness of New York, rectitude of Boston, expressiveness and kindness of California, no evangelical family values, no Protestant work ethic. No Catholic moral seriousness, no sense of contrition or gratitude. No Jewish moral and intellectual precision, sense of history. He doesn't care about the life of the mind OR the life of the senses. He is not mandarin, not committed to inquiry or justice, not hospitable. He is not proper. He is not a bon vivant who loves to eat, drink, laugh. There's nothing he would die for - not American values, obviously, but not the land of Russia or his wife or young son. He has some hollow success creeds from Norman Vincent Peale, but Peale was obsessed with fair-dealing and a Presbyterian pastor; Trump has no fairness or piety. He's not sentimental; no affection for dogs or babies. No love for mothers, "the common man"" veterans. He has no sense of military valor, and is openly a coward about war. He would have sorely lacked the pagan beauty and capacity to fight required in ancient Greece. He doesn't care about his wife or wives; he is a philanderer but he's not a romantic hero with great love for women and sex. He commands loyalty and labor from his children not because he loves them, even; he seems almost to hate them — and if one of them slipped it would be terrifying. He does no philanthropy. He doesn't - in a more secular key - even seem to have a sense of his enlightened self-interest enough to shake Angela Merkel's hand. Doesn't even affect a love for the arts, like most rich New Yorkers. He doesn't live and die by aesthetics and health practices like some fascists; he's very ugly and barely mammalian. Am I missing an obscure moral system to which he so much as nods? Also are there other people, living or dead, like him?
December 16, 2025 at 4:21 AM
Reposted by Isaiah James
normative.bsky.social
This is what I mean when I say the Trump era has made me “more conservative”: He is taking a wrecking ball to norms and institutions he does not understand, on the premise that American power, prosperity, and stability are some ineluctable law of nature rather than hard won & fragile achievements.
robertscotthorton.bsky.social Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 2d
Kori Schake: “The men who built this international order weren’t leftist college professors sitting around the faculty lounge. They were the people who had fought World War I and World War II and saw the damage of an unstable order.” www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/fea...
The Fear and Weakness at the Heart of Trump’s Strategy
A Conversation With Kori Schake
www.foreignaffairs.com
December 16, 2025 at 5:04 AM
Reposted by Isaiah James
tcmtv.bsky.social
We say goodbye to actor, filmmaker and activist Rob Reiner.

A dedicated storyteller with sincerity that imbued his prolific work and the causes he believed in, Reiner’s heartfelt portrayal of the human condition reminds us of the power of film and its abilities to stay with us.
December 16, 2025 at 12:07 AM
Reposted by Isaiah James
michaeldemoor.bsky.social
How to get the unwilling able to rule instead of the unfit but eager is basically the oldest problem in political theory.

Anyone who is fit to rule wouldn't want to and anyone who wants to rule is, by that token, unfit.

Good to see that at least on voter read his Plato.
paulisci.bsky.social Paul Fairie @paulisci.bsky.social · 2d
I'm thinking of becoming a single issue voter and my single issue will be asking politicians "On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you really want to be (insert name of office)?" and if they answer more than a 6, I will not vote for them.
December 15, 2025 at 10:25 PM
Reposted by Isaiah James
davidryanmiller.com
If courts' only recourse for government officials flagrantly disregarding their orders is to refer the contemptuous acts to those same officials to investigate prosecute, what real power do courts have to check the executive?

And why should the executive ever obey a court ruling against it?
December 15, 2025 at 7:59 PM
Reposted by Isaiah James
davidshor.bsky.social
The electorate's intuitions around fairness and economic redistribution in a post-AGI world are quite left-wing - if democracy is preserved the electorate will not defer to Nvidia stock holders and tolerate being part of the "permanent underclass"
December 12, 2025 at 6:55 PM
Reposted by Isaiah James
tvmojoe.bsky.social
AP on Trump now, and Biden in June 2022.

For Trump, declining to 36 percent approval is “good news.”

For Biden, holding steady at 41% is “a source of concern.”
The good news for Trump is that his overall approval hasn't fallen as steeply. The new poll found that 36% of Americans approve of the way he's handling his job as president, which is down slightly from 42% in March. That signals that even if some people aren't happy with elements of his approach, they might not be ready to say he's doing a bad job as president. And while discontent is increasing among Republicans on certain issues, they're largely still behind him. That 34% figure is even lower than his overall approval rating of 41%, according to the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Biden's approval figures have barely moved for the past year and a half, a source of concern for a president pursuing a second term on his ability to govern and focus on workers. He wants voters to connect local roads and bridge projects, factory construction and the rise of electric vehicles and renewable energy to the millions of dollars in initiatives he signed into law during the first two years of his administration.
December 12, 2025 at 7:39 AM
Reposted by Isaiah James
petebuttigieg.bsky.social
The clear takeaway from today is that Donald Trump is not unstoppable and you are not powerless.
December 12, 2025 at 1:58 AM
Reposted by Isaiah James
longtimehistory.bsky.social
ICE detain U.S. citizen for looking Somali—use illegal chokehold to tackle him to ground.

Man repeatedly begs agents to look at his digital passport ID—they refuse.

Drove him 7 miles away before releasing him alone into Minnesota snow storm—told him to "walk home" in freezing weather advisory.
December 10, 2025 at 7:36 PM
Reposted by Isaiah James
pbump.com
An insane political move. One of the recurring complaints about immigration in the U.S. is that those seeking asylum jump the line. This is line-jumping — but for rich people, not those in need.
December 10, 2025 at 8:17 PM
Reposted by Isaiah James
adamserwer.bsky.social
Trump’s foreign policy isn’t “noninterventionism,” it is a kind of neo neo conservatism devoted to imposing authoritarian ethnonationalism abroad instead of democracy (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
Although the pretense of adhering to democratic values has been abandoned by an administration that disdains democracy, free speech, and the rule of law, the theory is nonetheless the same: Unless America defends ethno-nationalism against the forces of multiracial democracy elsewhere, ethno-nationalism will not be safe here. The Trump administration’s rabid hostility toward the “Rainbow Nation” of South Africa, with its history all Americans can recognize, makes more sense in this context.
December 10, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Reposted by Isaiah James
paulwaldman.bsky.social
If the Democrats ran on this platform...

1. Corruption is bad and we should stop it
2. Billionaires are bad and they shouldn't have so much power
3. The tech industry should stop abusing us

... they'd win in a landslide
kwcollins.bsky.social Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 8d
Some people have asked what I mean when I talk about the need for anti-corruption reforms. Here are some ideas.
December 10, 2025 at 2:51 PM
Reposted by Isaiah James
dominicervolina.com
Couple of things here:

1. Trump says he took another cognitive test recently

2. In front of "large numbers of doctors and experts"

3. He called the examinations "long...and very boring"

4. If you're given 3 cognitive exams in one year by panels of doctors, something is VERY wrong with you
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump There has never been a President that has worked as hard as me! My hours are the longest, and my results are among the best. I've stopped Eight Wars, saving many millions of lives in the process, created the Greatest Economy in the History of our Country, brought Business back into the United States at levels never seen before, rebuilt our Military, created the Largest Tax Cuts and Regulation Cuts, EVER, closed our open and very dangerous Southern Border, when previous Administrations were unable to do so, and created an "aura" around the United States of America that has led every Country in the World to respect us more than ever before. In addition to all of that, I go out of my way to do long, thorough, and very boring Medical Examinations at the Great Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, seen and supervised by top doctors, all of whom have given me PERFECT Marks - Some have even said they have never seen such Strong Results. I do these Tests because I owe it to our Country. In addition to the Medical, I have done something that no other President has done, on three separate occasions, the last one being recently, by taking what is known as a Cognitive Examination, something which few people would be able to do very well, including those working at The New York Times, and I ACED all three of them in front of large numbers of doctors and experts, most of whom I do not know. I have been told that few people have been able to "ace" this Examination and, in fact, most do very poorly, which is why many other Presidents have decided not to take it at all. Despite all of this, the time and work involved, The New York Times, and some others, like to pretend that I am "slowing up," am maybe not as sharp as I once was, or am in poor physical health, knowing that it is not true, and knowing that I work very hard, probably harder than I have ever worked before. I will know when I am "slowing up," but it's not now! After all of the work I have done with Medical Exams, Cognitive Exams, and everything else, I actually believe it's seditious, perhaps even treasonous, for The New York Times, and others, to consistently do FAKE reports in order to libel and demean "THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES." They are true Enemies of the People, and we should do something about it. They have inaccurately reported on all of my Election Results and, in fact, were forced to apologize on much of what they wrote. The best thing that could happen to this Country would be if The New York Times would cease publication because they are a horrible, biased, and untruthful "source" of information. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! 908 ReTruths 3.07k Likes Dec 09, 2025, 9:11 PM
December 10, 2025 at 4:42 AM
Reposted by Isaiah James
iowalibdem.bsky.social
I think the dominant take will be that the crazy excess of the neo fascists will be seen as mirroring the crazy excess of the woke left, with both being caused by the reality warping of algorithmically driven social media which increases the salience & power of fear driven identity narratives.
December 3, 2025 at 11:24 AM
Reposted by Isaiah James
sethcotlar.bsky.social
This post by the world’s richest and most divorced man on the site he bought to promote his far right extremism is ripped straight from the Klan messaging of the 1870s or the 1915 film Birth of a Nation that inspired the Klan’s rebirth as a PR stunt/Ponzi scheme/terrorist organization in the 1920s.
Elon Musk Yes @elonmusk • 6h Declaration of Memes @Liber... •21h We need to save America then the entire West. • 2.7K We are witnessing the greatest act of cuckoldry in human history An entire civilisation willingly giving away its land, women, & children because the alternative is to being called a racist 17 12K 92K Ill 3.7M
December 10, 2025 at 1:11 PM
Reposted by Isaiah James
davelevitan.bsky.social
Yes, it’s totally settled forever, well done sir
I mean, I settled one ... one that was going on for 36 years. Uh, I settled Pakistan and India. I settled so many wars. I'm very proud of it. And I do it pretty routinely, pretty easily. It's not hard for me
December 10, 2025 at 3:02 AM
Reposted by Isaiah James
pbump.com
Every part of this is bonkers. The intro is bonkers. The transition to his health is bonkers. The mention that other presidents didn't need cognitive exams is bonkers. The claim that this screening test is somehow hard is bonkers. The idea that criticism of him is treason is bonkers. All of it.
There has never been a President that has worked as hard as me! My hours are the longest, and my results are among the best. I’ve stopped Eight Wars, saving many millions of lives in the process, created the Greatest Economy in the History of our Country, brought Business back into the United States at levels never seen before, rebuilt our Military, created the Largest Tax Cuts and Regulation Cuts, EVER, closed our open and very dangerous Southern Border, when previous Administrations were unable to do so, and created an “aura” around the United States of America that has led every Country in the World to respect us more than ever before. In addition to all of that, I go out of my way to do long, thorough, and very boring Medical Examinations at the Great Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, seen and supervised by top doctors, all of whom have given me PERFECT Marks — Some have even said they have never seen such Strong Results. I do these Tests because I owe it to our Country. In addition to the Medical, I have done something that no other President has done, on three separate occasions, the last one being recently, by taking what is known as a Cognitive Examination, something which few people would be able to do very well, including those working at The New York Times, and I ACED all three of them in front of large numbers of doctors and experts, most of whom I do not know. I have been told that few people have been able to “ace” this Examination and, in fact, most do very poorly, which is why many other Presidents have decided not to take it at all. Despite all of this, the time and work involved, The New York Times, and some others, like to pretend that I am “slowing up,” am maybe not as sharp as I once was, or am in poor physical health, knowing that it is not true, and knowing that I work very hard, probably harder than I have ever worked before. I will know when I am “slowing up,” but it’s not now! After all of the work I have done with Medical Exams, Cognitive Exams, and everything else, I actually believe it’s seditious, perhaps even treasonous, for The New York Times, and others, to consistently do FAKE reports in order to libel and demean “THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.” They are true Enemies of the People, and we should do something about it. They have inaccurately reported on all of my Election Results and, in fact, were forced to apologize on much of what they wrote. The best thing that could happen to this Country would be if The New York Times would cease publication because they are a horrible, biased, and untruthful “source” of information. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
December 10, 2025 at 2:40 AM
Reposted by Isaiah James
joshchafetz.bsky.social
1/ A few thoughts about @williambaude.bsky.social’s comment in yesterday’s NYT chat that, “It’s amazing how many of our problems today could be solved by a Congress that was willing and able to legislate in response to national problems.” www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/o...
Opinion | At the Supreme Court, Scenes From a Judicial Backlash
www.nytimes.com
December 10, 2025 at 9:44 AM
Reposted by Isaiah James
ibogost.com
Not my most important story of the year, but one of my favorites, I think.

I remember, if vaguely, when we used music to amplify emotions, probably to the extreme of wallowing in them.

Now—and well before AI—music became anesthetizing, a canvas for the void.
Nobody Cares If Music Is Real Anymore
“​​Rubber burns, the map fades away / Chasing the ghosts of yesterday.” Sure, fine.
www.theatlantic.com
December 10, 2025 at 2:34 AM
Reposted by Isaiah James
jonathanbchait.bsky.social
When a post wildly mischaracterizes the content like this, they are calculating their audience will never click through
December 9, 2025 at 12:48 PM