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sbwriter.bsky.social
Former economics teacher and tax lawyer, now retired in a relatively sane area of the USA.
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Please repeat over and over: “Bending to the whims of a bully will not end his cruelty. It will only embolden him. The response to authoritarianism isn’t acquiescence. Bullies respond to one thing, and one thing only: a punch in the face.” —Gov. JB Pritzker

submitted 9 hours ago • 456 comments

The American President pardons guilty insurrectionists but allows innocent men to rot in foreign prisons.

submitted 2 days ago • 37 comments

The DOJ lawyer who made the mistake of answering the court's questions about Abrego-Garcia candidly (eg yes he was mistakenly deported, a fact the Administration already has acknowledged), which got him put on administrative leave, has now been fired, ending his 15-year DOJ career..

submitted 1 day ago • 1178 comments

This is happening in spite of the fact that the president is not in charge of the Smithsonian. It's not an executive branch government agency, rather it's chartered by Congress and under a board of regents created by statute, none of whom are even appointed by the president.

submitted 4 days ago • 87 comments

Economics might seem -- from the outside -- like it's about competition. But really it's about creating the miracle of cooperation, where folks from all around the world enrich your day in a million tiny ways. It's that beauty that I'm worried about losing.

submitted 5 days ago • 20 comments

Whether you love or hate tariffs, you can't help but be impressed at the detailed policy planning, the transparency of the policy process, the credibility of Administration announcements, relentless attention to detail, flawless execution, and the thoughtful predictability that business demands.

submitted 4 days ago • 74 comments

The authoritarian National Greatness plan.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

"the state can just summarily imprison someone without filing charges or holding a trial" doesn't just overturn democracy it overturns 1000 years of common law, like throwing out the entire legal system entirely and saying all people in America are the state's property.

submitted 3 days ago • 109 comments

republicans are disappearing people under the guise of fighting antisemitism and can’t even pretend to give a fuck when a jewish governor’s house gets firebombed on passover

submitted 3 days ago • 164 comments

Sorry, America. We can pay cancer research teams or we can pay to fly Trump and his entourage to a UFC fight in Miami. We can’t afford both.

submitted 3 days ago • 20 comments

Egg prices have never been higher, the Russians continue their war against Ukraine, the war in Gaza still rages, the markets are in free fall, a recession looms, the rule of law withers, the Constitution is trampled. That’s what’s happened since Trump’s Day One.

submitted 3 days ago • 17 comments

Revealing just how selectively this administration respects national sovereignty. With Canada and Greenland, Trump threatens invasion enthusiastically. With El Salvador, Trump sees sovereignty as sacrosanct.

submitted 4 days ago • 32 comments

How Trump tariffs work

submitted 6 days ago • 11 comments

Pretty bleak when our most hopeful scenario is things will get so bad Congress will actually do their job.

submitted 7 days ago • 39 comments

One man just wiped out $10 trillion in wealth, is destroying centuries-old legal protections, and seems determined to unravel humanity’s greatest public health achievement. In 3 months. I don’t know how we get out of this. But if we do, one person can never have that kind of power again.

submitted 10 days ago • 1705 comments

"What the U.S. is doing now is not reform. It is rejecting the very system it created." - Singapore's Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (April 8, 2025)

submitted 8 days ago • 524 comments

When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king, the palace becomes a circus. -Turkish proverb

submitted 8 days ago • 221 comments

Good morning. A reminder that historically when the US has wanted to punish other countries, it imposed sanctions on them, cutting their people off from global trade, hoping to create enough economic havoc that they rein in their leaders. Trump has imposed economic sanctions on the American people.

submitted 7 days ago • 45 comments

So from my uniquely weird perspective after living in the UK through Brexit, being in India during Modi's demonetization, and living in Brazil when the real tanked during the Bolsonaro administration, I can confidentally say that Americans do not and can not understand how bad this is going to be.

submitted 7 days ago • 142 comments

You set the house on fire, watched it burn, and then lost your nerve and put it out. You now have a partially burned house. Great job.

submitted 7 days ago • 3200 comments

Hey, Trump can like woke and DEI! "Northwestern 'issued a 'progress report' last week that highlighted its efforts to protect Jewish students, including mandatory antisemitism training for all students, faculty and staff." www.nytimes.com/2025/04/08/u...

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Clear evidence of the existence of God.

submitted 8 days ago • 34 comments

985K migrants entered USA through the legal means during the previous administration. They followed the rules. They did everything right. Trump just unilaterally revoked their legal status. It was never about "legal" immigration. It was always about upholding white supremacy. This man is a fascist

submitted 8 days ago • 25 comments

Kidnapping. Capturing a person against their will without due process is called kidnapping. Transporting them to another country without due process is called human trafficking. A squalid extrajudicial prison for people found guilty of no crime is called a concentration camp.

submitted 8 days ago • 117 comments

submitted 8 days ago • 30 comments

You’d think when you’re claiming the richest country in the world can’t afford childhood cancer research you might wait a year before throwing yourself a 100 million dollar birthday parade. But carpe diem, suckers.

submitted 8 days ago • 283 comments

We have never been more likely to be scammed by people under the protection of the government.

submitted 8 days ago • 4 comments