Michael Weiss
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Michael Weiss
@mike-weiss.bsky.social
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Reposted by Michael Weiss
bernybelvedere.bsky.social
Trump is exercising more power for a fake emergency than Lincoln did for a real one.
Trump Is Destroying the U.S. Constitution and Amassing Unprecedented Powers by Sending Federal Troops to Invade American Cities
Lincoln faced a real insurrection and still did not go as far as this president
www.theunpopulist.net
October 6, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Reposted by Michael Weiss
adambonica.bsky.social
The DOGE firings have nothing to do with “efficiency” or “cutting waste.” They’re a direct push to weaken federal agencies perceived as liberal. This was evident from the start, and now the data confirms it: targeted agencies overwhelmingly those seen as more left-leaning. 🧵⬇️
Scatterplot titled “Empirical Evidence of Ideological Targeting in Federal Layoffs: Agencies seen as liberal are significantly more likely to face DOGE layoffs.” • The x-axis represents Perceived Ideological Leaning of federal agencies, ranging from -2 (Most Liberal) to +2 (Most Conservative), based on survey responses from over 1,500 federal executives. • The y-axis shows Agency Size (Number of Staff) on a logarithmic scale from 1,000 to 1,000,000. Each point represents a federal agency: • Red dots indicate agencies that experienced DOGE layoffs. • Gray dots indicate agencies with no layoffs. Key Observations: • Liberal-leaning agencies (left side of the plot) are disproportionately represented among red dots, indicating higher layoff rates. • Notable targeted agencies include: • HHS (Health & Human Services) • EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) • NIH (National Institutes of Health) • CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) • Dept. of Education • USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) • The National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE), despite its conservative leaning (+1 on the scale), is an exception among targeted agencies. • A notable outlier: the Department of Veterans Affairs (moderately conservative) also faced layoffs despite its size. Takeaway: The figure visually demonstrates that DOGE layoffs disproportionately targeted liberal-leaning agencies, supporting claims of ideological bias. The pattern reveals that layoffs were not driven by agency size or budget alone but were strongly associated with perceived ideology. Source: Richardson, Clinton, & Lewis (2018). Elite Perceptions of Agency Ideology and Workforce Skill. The Journal of Politics, 80(1).
February 20, 2025 at 2:18 AM
Reposted by Michael Weiss
nataliej.bsky.social
I wrote about the things I think are missing from the Dem discourse:
1) scope of the losses (you'd think this was 1984)
2) how media struggles to explain a second Trump win; easier to yell at Dems
3) there might not be a grand theory. it might be uninformed voters' vibes.

njour.nl/s/726851?unl...
Decisive margin probably came from whims of low-information voters
Many swing voters only pay attention to politics long enough to cast their ballots.
njour.nl
November 19, 2024 at 10:18 PM