mdslock
mdslock.bsky.social
mdslock
@mdslock.bsky.social
Reposted by mdslock
Trump is *unilaterally* giving massive tax cuts to private equity, crypto, and foreign real estate investors.

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/08/b...
How the Trump Administration Is Giving Even More Tax Breaks to the Wealthy
www.nytimes.com
November 11, 2025 at 4:11 AM
Reposted by mdslock
Read Benjamin H. Bradlow's review of "The Price Is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won’t Save the Planet" by Brett Christophers.

#EarlyView in #BJS ➡️ onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
November 10, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Reposted by mdslock
The problem from their point of view is that rapid decarbonization requires public, collective decisions about the organization of production, in a way that threaten capital-owners' authority over both the production process and the political system.
November 10, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Reposted by mdslock
We were told they couldn’t fight or even talk about anything else because health care was the winning hand.
November 11, 2025 at 12:17 AM
Reposted by mdslock
NYT: The tax cuts come amid “steep cuts to health care for the elderly and food stamps for the poorest Americans.”

@nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/08/b...
November 8, 2025 at 5:36 PM
Reposted by mdslock
On the subject of a reckoning for the Democratic Party...
NEW: Inside the Biden administration debates in late 2024 that could have changed the course of the Gaza war

-top intel official sought to cut support for Israel but Brett McGurk pushed back
-talk of "very likely" US liability
-Blinken spoke of "ethnic cleansing"

www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-...
Biden Discussed Potential Israeli War Crimes In Gaza. He Kicked The Can To Trump.
New intelligence shocked officials in late 2024, spurring heightened fear of U.S. liability, HuffPost has learned. The period saw Secretary of State Antony Blinken ask if Israel’s actions constituted ...
www.huffpost.com
November 10, 2025 at 1:26 AM
Reposted by mdslock
I’ve recommended it before, but Amy Kaplan tells exactly this story in Our American Israel. www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...
Our American Israel — Harvard University Press
“Our American Israel is masterful and deserves a larger audience.” —Ta-Nehisi CoatesAn essential account of America’s most controversial alliance, and how that strong and divisive partnership plays ou...
www.hup.harvard.edu
November 10, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Reposted by mdslock
At some point in the last 20, 25 years people everyone on the left and center-left became too embarrassed to admit that they each have individual priorities and desires and that these should be sufficiently negotiated over.
Another meta-discursive tendency I dislike: there are many people on here, Twitter, elsewhere who claim to be against litmus testing in general when it comes to Democratic politicians but in reality just oppose a particular kind of litmus test (Palestine, LGBTQ, labor etc). Why the motte and bailey?
November 10, 2025 at 10:13 PM
November 10, 2025 at 8:30 PM
Reposted by mdslock
The court already ruled that Rubio and Noem are violating the First Amendment. Now we’re asking for remedies. knightcolumbia.org/content/knig...
Knight Institute Asks Court to Block Trump Administration From Deporting Foreign Citizens for Pro-Palestinian Advocacy
knightcolumbia.org
November 10, 2025 at 8:04 PM
Reposted by mdslock
Most alarmingly, only Senators trapped in this bubble could believe, against all evidence, that preserving the filibuster is a pro-democracy, save-the-Republic move, as opposed to the very thing that is rotting away the Republic, which is the deep disconnect between elections and policy outcomes.
I imagine what actually scared them into caving was the threat of Trump getting Republicans to actually eliminate the filibuster
November 10, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Reposted by mdslock
The 100%-wrong mainstream-media-DC-consensus is that it’s always the twentieth century and what voters mostly want—from Democrats anyway—is “working across the aisle,” so taking performative votes to show where you stand while ultimately cutting a deal on whatever terms are offered is good politics.
Shaheen: "When I talk to my constituents in New Hampshire, you know what they say to me? They say, 'Why can't you all just work together to address the problems that are facing this country?'"
November 10, 2025 at 4:26 PM
Reposted by mdslock
I’m seeing convergence on 2 explanations for Dems caving: 1) Trump more willing to inflict pain on public than Dems (Ezra Klein), 2) protect the filibuster

But these are still puzzles (derogatory) because strategic actors should anticipate them. They don’t explain why now
November 10, 2025 at 4:37 PM
Reposted by mdslock
"In fact, they were acting with the express approval of Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and were reporting to him daily." prospect.org/2025/11/08/w...
Why Does Schumer Keep Trying to Cave? - The American Prospect
The Senate Democratic leader and his Gang of Eight keep trying to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. On Thursday, they told their caucus colleagues they had ten votes to reopen the government—i...
prospect.org
November 10, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Reposted by mdslock
This is really good--one of the most powerful and insightful pieces I've read about what @qjurecic.bsky.social appropriately calls "The Third Red Scare." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...
November 10, 2025 at 4:10 PM
Reposted by mdslock
it's ableist to expect the leader of the opposition to be good at his job
November 10, 2025 at 3:31 AM
Reposted by mdslock
It's a pity that there was no way predict that Thanksgiving was coming. But sometimes it's these kind of unforeseeable contingencies that matter for politics.
My read of it (with very incomplete information) is scoring more political points would have required destroying Thanksgiving travel and at least 10 Dem Senators don’t have the stomach for that.
November 10, 2025 at 1:53 AM
Reposted by mdslock
We are being led by absolute cowards
November 10, 2025 at 3:16 AM
meanwhile, Brian Beutler was pretending to believe that “Biden hasn’t expressed support for the bombing.”
NEW: Inside the Biden administration debates in late 2024 that could have changed the course of the Gaza war

-top intel official sought to cut support for Israel but Brett McGurk pushed back
-talk of "very likely" US liability
-Blinken spoke of "ethnic cleansing"

www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-...
Biden Discussed Potential Israeli War Crimes In Gaza. He Kicked The Can To Trump.
New intelligence shocked officials in late 2024, spurring heightened fear of U.S. liability, HuffPost has learned. The period saw Secretary of State Antony Blinken ask if Israel’s actions constituted ...
www.huffpost.com
November 10, 2025 at 1:29 PM
Reposted by mdslock
Tonight was a very bad night.
November 10, 2025 at 3:09 AM
Reposted by mdslock
This is the most annoying thing that people are obsessed with saying on this website like it’s wisdom. If the center never fights then it is in fact left v center. And it is that way because the left has ideological principles and the center doesn’t.
It’s not left v. center or progressive v. liberal or anything like that. It’s fight v. don’t fight.
November 10, 2025 at 4:39 AM
Reposted by mdslock
Sanders: That is a totally meaningless gesture. You can get 100 votes here and it won't mean anything because the House is not going to take it up.
November 10, 2025 at 1:23 AM
difficult to imagine worse leadership
People are saying there's no upside to this deal. Wait a second. Isn't the end of Chuck Schumer's political career an upside?
November 10, 2025 at 3:37 AM