Profile avatar
davidkarol.bsky.social
Govt & Politics prof, UMD. Billy Wilder fan. Has "Someone is wrong on the internet!" tendencies. Author: Red, Green and Blue & Party Position Change in American Politics. Co-author: The Party Decides. No replies to anons. https://gvpt.umd.edu/faculty
2,386 posts 3,623 followers 979 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
Posts 16 Comments 34

"Some GOP members flipped their votes from “no” to “yes” toward the end after realizing it wouldn’t pass otherwise." A reminder that votes cast by legislators are not always their true position. The "flippers" had wanted to seem moderate as long as their party won the vote/they could avoid blame.1)

submitted 2 hours ago • 1 comment

The architect of the "Anaconda Plan" and early Union commander, Winfield Scott, was a Virginian from much further south than Robert E. Lee, but he stayed with the Union.

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

Discussing issue areas with no concern for the specific policy is unhelpful. "Immigration" may be a relative strength for Trump, but he overreaches. Health care is a "good" issue for Dems, but doesn't mean that anything they do on it will be popular. ACA was unpopular & a liability in 2010.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

How does a doomed impeachment resolution "make clear he's not gonna get away with it"? Trump WAS impeached twice, and got away with it. So much magical thinking here. You could argue making Republicans defend RFK Jr. is good politics, but that's different & doesn't mean he won't get away with it.

submitted 2 days ago • 18 comments

Data point re "is Bluesky in decline?" Brian Schatz, one of the first Democratic Members of Congress on this site, hasn't posted here for two months, but he is active on X. More study required, as they say, but interesting.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Not a justification, but predictable as Johnson owes his continued Speakership to Trump in a way that previous Speakers did not vis-a-vis Trump or prior Presidents. Separation of powers just doesn't work if the Speaker is the President's subordinate.

submitted 3 days ago • 2 comments

A Representative -a committee chair, no less!- resigning in the middle of his term to take some private sector job once would have been surprising. It seems to be happening more and reflects the decline of Congress as an institution. 1)

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

How was there a runaway zebra for a week and I only found out when it was captured? What is social media for if not for following runaway exotic animals? I’m so disappointed in us as a society.

submitted 4 days ago • 12 comments

In this fight, I'm rooting for Gamera the Flying Turtle.

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

Here's our Stars and Stripes front page from June 6, 1944. Today is the 81st anniversary of the D-Day landings.

submitted 6 days ago • 8 comments

An old finding of John Zaller's was that competition in journalism decreased news quality. The apparent paradox results from the fact that journalists value news quality, but the public doesn't. Some owners supported journalists in this because they were insulated from competition & sought prestige

submitted 8 days ago • 2 comments

New from the Congressional Budget Office: The One Big Beautiful Bill Act would increase the number of people without health insurance by 10.9 million people through changes to Medicaid and the ACA. www.cbo.gov/publication/...

submitted 8 days ago • 2 comments

24-year-old Dem Keishan Scott just won tonight's special election in SC by 41 points. Two key notes: • It's a 36-point overperformance vs. 2024—the second-biggest of the year • The district has a 51% Black voting-age pop, making it the first majority-POC district to hold a special this year

submitted 8 days ago • 6 comments

Would have assumed it was an episode of the Celebrity Apprentice.

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

The geographic scale of these attacks are extraordinary. Irkutsk is 3,000 miles (4,900 km) from Kyiv, at the same longitude as central Mongolia. Put it another way, that's like Anchorage successfully launching an attack on Indianapolis.

submitted 11 days ago • 9 comments

The fact that Trump really doesn't read is not new, although maybe it's worse now. Early in the first term reportedly Pompeo (then CIA Director) gave him oral briefings because he wasn't reading. It worked out for Pompeo because he got "face time", that led to a promotion, but anyway, it's not new.

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments