Shoq
@shoq.bsky.social
11K followers 1.6K following 10K posts
I see and say things that need seeing and saying. twitter.com/shoq mastodon.social/@shoq sidetalk.net/@shoq (matrix) threads.net/@shoqv4
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shoq.bsky.social
So, have we had enough of Russell Vought and his #Project2025 yet? Have we had enough of the American military in our streets on these ginned up Reichstag fire excuses?

Are you asking yourself WHY only a pitiful 53% of the public disapproves of all this, when we are clearly on the verge of …
“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.” — Henry David Thoreau

“The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive.” — Thomas Jefferson

“The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” — Frederick Douglass
Reposted by Shoq
narosenblum.bsky.social
This is an infuriating and shameful scandal. The Roberts Court is condoning Trump’s law breaking, again, pure and simple. There is no serious path forward for democratic government without Supreme Court reform.
kelseyreichmann.bsky.social
BREAKING: Supreme Court lets Trump unilaterally freeze billions in congressionally appropriated foreign aid money

apparent 6-3 vote with liberals in dissent @courthousenews.bsky.social
Reposted by Shoq
greene.haus
Y'know, when six justices moved on from adjudication to refashion themselves as a super-legislature — rewriting laws and the Constitution itself — they may have doomed themselves to public popularity and trust as abysmal as our legislature typically enjoys.
shoq.bsky.social
This whole government and everything it does is just a series of cascading clown shows. It’s a shame that none of this is funny.

Central witness undermines case against James Comey, prosecutors concluded

Central witness undermines case against James Comey, prosecutors concluded: Sources
Ex-FBI Director James Comey faces federal charges, but prosecutors investigating him determined that a central witness in the case would prove "problematic," sources say.
abcnews.go.com
Reposted by Shoq
bluegal.bsky.social
"On Newsmax, Benny Johnson claims Portland “has been conquered by antifa”.

Antifa:
courtneyvaughn.bsky.social
Streets are still closed off in front of the Portland ICE facility at 8:30pm. Protesters have gathered on a side street. Dance party in progress.
shoq.bsky.social
isn’t collapse; it’s even deeper concentration of control. A classic problem in our embodiment of capitalism.

mastodon.social/@lakelady@mst...
shoq.bsky.social
Great question. When the AI ventures go bust, the data centers won’t disappear, they become distressed assets. Someone still owns the land, power lines, and GPUs. The next buyers, not taxpayers, usually keep them running. That’s how the dot-com crash wired the modern Internet. The bigger risk …
shoq.bsky.social
Air traffic controllers staying home? Meh. What could go wrong?

mastodon.social/@Tengrain/115...
shoq.bsky.social
numerous spoilers waiting to kill it.

It’s bolder than the usual diplomatic wallpaper — but built on the same cracked foundation of politics and mistrust.
shoq.bsky.social
all over the deal).

- A “neutral” Gaza authority is a lovely fantasy, but looks like foreign, even neo-colonial control to most Palis.

- Israel keeps partial control “until stable,” which could mean, like, forever, and almost everyone knows this.

- Nobody trusts anyone, an each side has …
shoq.bsky.social
alignment give it some muscle.

- The cost of this endless war makes even a flawed deal seem pretty tempting to many.

But now why it probably won’t:

- Hamas just isn’t going to disarm. No faction like it ever has (by choice). The more militant Hamas leaders are reported to be already crapping …
shoq.bsky.social
So okay, some think Witkoff’s “peace plan” could actually work. But most think it can’t.

Here are some reasons why it might:

- It hits everything at once: hostages, ceasefire, disarmament, governance, rebuilding. It’s not just another short pause gambit.

- U.S., Arab actors, and Israeli …
“The ink of peace treaties is rarely dry before the drums of war begin to beat again.”
shoq.bsky.social
generation of people and ideas capable of rekindling the antitrust and public-interest spirit that once kept capitalism in check, before its unregulated form consumes the future along with the present.
shoq.bsky.social
addicted to them. We’re too comfortable to discuss, conceive, or act on the steps needed to mitigate them. We got the governments we deserved because we enjoyed the fruits of past reformers’ work, then sat quietly while the rich and powerful dismantled those protections.

What we need now is a new …
shoq.bsky.social
begins to devour everything around it. Whatever you think of his politics, his basic observation about wealth accumulating faster than society can restrain it has proved hard to refute.

Our entire culture, especially here in the U.S., is so spoiled by the excesses of capitalism that we’ve become …
shoq.bsky.social
Completely agree, which is why I wish we spent less time grousing about the abusive instruments the rich and powerful invent to rob us blind, and more time figuring out how to remove them from power altogether.

Karl Marx and others saw this cycle long ago: capital always concentrates until it …
shoq.bsky.social
Sorry, this was in response to this:
shoq.bsky.social
planning to step back as more and more warnings of a bubble consume investor attention. It’s all a risk, not a certainty.
shoq.bsky.social
margin calls. But when I look, the data on that is thin. Much AI capital comes from private equity. If one or two mega-funds are overexposed and undercapitalized, the dominoes could start to fall there, and that can impact banks, only if they too are overexposed, and they are probably already …
shoq.bsky.social
Yes, true, your bank and super fund are investors. But here’s the guardrail: unless their exposure to AI is huge and leveraged, a crash in AI equities alone probably won’t sink the financial system.

The real danger is contagion. If AI collapse drags down credit, real estate, or causes cascading …
shoq.bsky.social
power and not society at large .
shoq.bsky.social
before the AIA, but what replaced them solved bureaucracy at the cost of access and fairness.

In other words, you’re describing why the patent system is broken. I’m describing why the 2011 reform made that imbalance much worse, once again, as is so often the case, mostly to benefit wealth and …