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Utamu @utamu.bsky.social · 1h

"Are you happy with how present or not Obama is national conversation & debate? No.
We could use more of his leadership & voice now. I wish he were more out there. He believes that if he does he will choke oxygen for the next generation of Dem leaders to rise. I'd like to see Obama on “Joe Rogan.”

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Utamu @utamu.bsky.social · 1h

"Politics is about power. Politics is not about self-expression. There’s room for that. But politics is about building coalitions capable of winning power & making decisions you need to to be able to do that. In some ways I think I am saying we should rediscover the politics of Barack Obama."

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Utamu @utamu.bsky.social · 1h

"Obama was very good at having a sense that, if you’re going to push the country, you also need to create space in yourself for the disagreement, for the concern/pushback. He was this generationally capable political balancer. After him" it broke down.. Hillary Clinton “deplorables” speech..."

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Utamu @utamu.bsky.social · 1h

Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote a piece setting out statements from Kirk, that was representative. Did you think that was unfair? No. The sense that we are in any way in community together—the sense that we are still in a place where we are all practicing and doing politics—has already eroded."

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Utamu @utamu.bsky.social · 1h

"As a speaker and an interviewer, Klein is exceedingly intelligent, fluid, and, if not conflict-averse, exactly, then polite. He does not go for the throat, preferring a style of argument that invites in a wide circle of views. This is not universally appreciated."

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Utamu @utamu.bsky.social · 1h

"In the era of DJT, an unmistakably authoritarian threat, @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social has emerged as a leading voice making the case for practical liberal politics. He recalls an Obamian voice, if he'd been a journalist w/ a beard, tattoos, & predilection for BM." www.newyorker.com/news/the-new...

Ezra Klein Argues for Big-Tent Politics

The writer and podcast host on the Charlie Kirk discourse, Barack Obama’s distance from politics, Bari Weiss’s Gaza coverage, and the Democratic Party’s future.

www.newyorker.com

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Utamu @utamu.bsky.social · 11h

"Our Founders never intended for 1 person to decide how our nation’s money is spent. It’s time for Congress to reclaim its rightful authority over the purse – not only to restore accountability, but to preserve the balance of power enshrined in our Constitution."

Utamu @utamu.bsky.social · 11h

Dick Gephardt: "Money is power. That power was intended to rest w/ Congress. In recent years, POTUS of both parties sidestep Congress’ “power of the purse, steadily chipping away at Article I powers & turning appropriations into suggestions rather than binding law." www.marinij.com/2025/10/09/a...

Another View: The power of the purse belongs to Congress, not the president

Money is power. In our system of government, that power was intended to rest squarely with Congress. Yet in recent years, we’ve seen presidents of both parties find ways to sidestep Congress’ “powe…

www.marinij.com

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Utamu @utamu.bsky.social · 12h

Got a nice lil game of tennis down there, it would be great to have some local DJs provide some soundtrack...just sayin'

Reposted by Utamu

The Daily Show @thedailyshow.com · 1d

The following is REAL footage from Portland, 2025. Viewer discretion is advised.

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Reposted by Utamu

Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 2d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

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Reposted by Utamu

David Sirota @davidsirota.com · 1d

If you're complaining about independent media asking you to pitch in as a paying subscriber, I can only assume you are happy with "free" billionaire-owned corporate media monetizing your attention, selling you to advertisers, and immersing you in oligarchs' self-serving content.

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Reposted by Utamu

Kai Ryssdal @kairyssdal.bsky.social · 2d

This is the lesson of 2025

Quinta Jurecic @qjurecic.bsky.social · 2d

he's going to come after you either way, so you might as well act with integrity

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Utamu @utamu.bsky.social · 2d

I love Brian Diploma. When did he graduate?

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Jawn Gonzalez @johngonzalez.bsky.social · 2d

Two plans for tonight. Outcome dependent:

1.) Aaron Nola and the Philadelphia Phillies win a baseball game. Huzzah.

2.) They do not win a baseball game and we wade out into the Pacific and let the tide take us out. Ah sweet relief.

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Reposted by Utamu

David Sirota @davidsirota.com · 3d

The Lever's subscriptions are up 22 PERCENT in the last 90 days.

My sense is a media breaking point is upon us, people feel like they're drowning in bad hot takes & they're now seeking out accountability journalism - which is good.

Subscribe here - and please share👇

Subscribe to The Lever, Support Investigative Journalism

Supporting subscriptions grant you complete access to our entire website and all content for just $10 per month, or $100 per year.

LeverNews.com

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Utamu @utamu.bsky.social · 4d

"I was in my hotel room, retracing Berners-Lee’s past across the network he'd built. Some links were broken, but Internet Archive filled the gaps. Next month, in SF, the org will honor Berners-Lee with its Hero Award, to mark the trillionth page its crawlers have downloaded from his World Wide Web."

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Utamu @utamu.bsky.social · 4d

“If creators who are actually producing aren’t going to reap the rewards, what’s going to be the initial economic incentive?”

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Utamu @utamu.bsky.social · 4d

Lina Khan: “These companies are basically free-riding off of the content and production of others. A millennial like the web itself, she is concerned not only with the platform economy’s unfairness but also its threat to online creativity."

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Utamu @utamu.bsky.social · 4d

"They grew at breakneck speed, squeezed sellers, served ads & extracted value from users while making exit ever costlier. They bought out rivals and turned into monopolies: between 2007 and 2018, Wu notes, Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon collectively acquired more than a thousand firms."

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Utamu @utamu.bsky.social · 4d

"Berners-Lee’s escape hatch is Solid Protocol, whose mission is to revolutionize the web by giving users control over their data. He launched a company, Inrupt, in 2017. “We can build a new world in which we get the functionality of things like FB & IG. And we don’t need to ask for permission.”

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Utamu @utamu.bsky.social · 4d

"Sir Tim has written “This Is for Everyone,” with Stephen Witt. It might have been a victory lap, but for the web’s dire situation—viral misinfo, addictive algorithms, escalating disruptions of A.I. In such times, Berners-Lee can no longer be Cincinnatus. He has taken up the role of Paul Revere."

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Utamu @utamu.bsky.social · 4d

"He’s the necessary condition behind everything from Amazon to Wikipedia & if A.I. brings about what Sam Altman recently called “the gentle singularity”—or else buries us in slop—that, too, will be an outgrowth of his global collective consciousness."

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Utamu @utamu.bsky.social · 4d

@julianlucas.bsky.social:
"Tim Berners-Lee Invented the World Wide Web. Now He Wants to Save It. He wrote the (HTML) your browser is interpreting." www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Tim Berners-Lee Invented the World Wide Web. Now He Wants to Save It

In 1989, Sir Tim revolutionized the online world. Today, in the era of misinformation, addictive algorithms, and extractive monopolies, he thinks he can do it again.

www.newyorker.com

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Utamu @utamu.bsky.social · 4d

"The way thru is to craft new modes of renewal adequate to the landscape of the world in which we find ourselves. A century ago, just barely out of living memory, we found pathways to a better place. The answer turns on experiments we've only barely begun to launch."