Jack A. Goldstone

2/Buoyed by his Gaza delusion, Trump wants to impose "peace" on Ukraine. But his plan is a surrender, demanding Ukraine render itself defenseless in the future (reduce the military, no NATO membership, no NATO troops in Ukraine). Makes the USA Putin's partner in the defeat and surrender of Ukraine.

1/Trump thinks he "won" the Gaza Peace Plan because Qatar forced Hamas to "accept" the terms. But a key point was that Hamas disarm, and Gaza be managed by international forces. These are looking like pipe dreams. So the "cease fire" allows Hamas to regroup and retake control of much of Gaza.

Empathy, caring, supporting your neighbors. Listening patiently to those you disagree with.

This is rather worrisome: Trump just granted blanket, preemptive pardons to anyone who in any way helped him try to overturn the 2020 election, saying they were simply exercising their democratic right to challenge election results. Now anyone can help him overturn results in 2026/28 without fear.

A Two-Headed Coin That Always Comes Up ‘Trump’

Trump doesn't just want to be a dictator, he wants to be a Caesar, with a triumph arch in his capital and his image on coins. For the Founding Fathers, who admired the Roman Republic and feared tyrants above all, Trump would be a nightmare. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/09/u...

What if instead of making AI companions to REPLACE real interactions, making them as ingratiating and fawning as possible, AI was used to create relationship TRAINING, rewarding users for being unselfish, cooperative and empathetic? Goal should be to help people improve, not just capture attention.

Trump made his career & attracted new voters by being dfferent from other politicians--lying about opponents, saying the nation was in carnage, etc. Now he is sounding JUST LIKE other policitians, lying to people about prices not going up, the economy being great for them, etc. This may cripple him.

2/have to deal with populations that are more rural, have more evangeligicals, and more non-college educated voters. So it's crucial to build on these victories to expand the Democratic message and base, becoming as inclusive as possible. Make the GOP suffer for inflation, ICE excesses, corruption!

1/ Dems had a great victory last night. But it's important not to rest on these laurels. They should be an inducement to get working at the grass roots level to duplicate the youth turnout of Mamdani and the middle-of-the-road appeal to independents of Sherril and Spanberger. Elsewhere, Dems will

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In 2024, there were an estimated 80,391 drug overdose deaths in the US, a significant decrease of nearly 27% from the previous year. This decline is the largest one-year drop ever recorded in U.S. history regarding drug overdoses. Trump doesn't even know the popuilation of his own country.

The President of Texas A&M should resign, not for the fault of allowing gender identity issues to be discussed in a literature class, but for failing to defend academic freedom and integrity in the face of unscientific views being forced on his university as strict boundaries.

if they found the lecture conflicted with their values. Firing university officials under the obviously false pretext of course description issues, because the Governor and MAGA state officials objected to ANY mention of gender identity issues in a UNIVERSITY (!) classroom is appalling.

to expect any course on literature, even children's literature, to pay attention to how that literature addresses issues of gender.
So this is totally normal. The student who filmed and reported the incident was not "kicked out" of the class, but told (properly) that they were free to leave ...

so that schools can have the same course taught by different faculty in different times. Every faculty member usually puts their own expertise forward in shaping the course they are assigned, as long as the general content conforms to the course description. In 2025, it is not unreasonable...

The pretext for the firing, since what the instructor did was NOT illegal, is that the course content did not match the course description in the catalog (!). If that is grounds for firing, virtually all faculty in the USA are toast. Catalog course content is usually general ...

This opens the way for faculty to be fired for teaching that climate change is a threat, that immigration is important for economic growth, or (ironically) that America is facing creeping authoritarianism. Soon, if MAGA conservatives don't like it, it can no longer be taught.

Texas Professor Fired After Accusations of Teaching ‘Gender Ideology’

Pure political pressure to cancel speech about LGBTQ existence. While Texas banned teaching gender ideology in K-12 schools, there is no law against it in universities. Yet multiple firings after instructor said gender identity is not the same as biological sex. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/u...

WE HAVE OUR ANSWER: SCOTUS overturned the lower court judgement and gave Trump's ICE permission to grab people on the basis of race, accent, job, or location. Thanks to SCOTUS this is no longer a free country for people of Hispanic descent or working in construction or farming or low-wage jobs.

The lower courts are continuing to try to set limits to what POTUS can do: Troops in LA and arbitrary changes to Congressional appropriations have been deemed unlawful. Now we have to wait and see whether SCOTUS agrees or overturns on the basis that the President can do whatever he wants to do.

Yes, because the sun will not come up tomorrow and the winds will forever stop blowing. Insanity.

It's not either or: Changing material conditions can open people to new ideas and create new common sympathies or resentments. Material conditions + ideas + emotions + reactions by states and publics to changing conditions are all part of explaining why revolutions arise and how they unfold.

Have you seen the 100x larger than life banners of Trump on DoL and Ag buildings? Reminds me of nothing so much as Mao's portrait in Tiananmen Sq. Also today: "I have the right to do anything I want to do--I am the President of the United States." Murderers in DC will be executed. Good night USA.

Putin lies to Trump: "You won big in 2020." "If you were President in 2022 there wouldn't have been a war in Ukraine."
And Trump laps it up. Well, maybe the last is true. Putin would still have invaded but made sure Trump wouldn't arm Ukraine, so it all would have been over quickly.

Alaska=Helsinki 2.0. Trump LOVES humilating people, and HATES being humiliated, but with Putin he's ok with it. It's so bizarre that the President of the US has a mancrush on Putin.

Contrary to what Putin told Trump to flatter his vanity, MANY countries have mail-in voting, including such model democracies as Canada, Germany and South Korea. It's a common way to vote where there are many people who are in school or temporarily working outside of their state of residence.

4/ A very sad day for U.S. diplomacy, a very sad day for Ukraine and its European allies, and a jubilant victory for Russia.

3/ Putin came to the U.S., apparently said, “thank you, don’t bother me, I have a war to prosecute” and went home to do just that. The summit was pointless for the US. But for Russia it was gold – a demonstration that Putin could meet with Trump and still keep bombing Ukraine with absolute impunity.

2/ Even as his plane headed back to DC, a new round of drones and missiles was hitting multiple regions in Ukraine. For the US, I think this sadly demonstrates either a weak will or a “lack of cards." Trump badly wanted some kind of agreement & an end to the killing. He got nothing at all.

1/ Nothing new has emerged from the AK summit. No cease-fire, plan or agreement to end the war. This looks like a wretched failure: after touting a meeting for peace, or at least a cease-fire, and rolling out the red carpet for Putin in the United States, Trump comes away empty-handed.