Nicholas Toloudis
Professor of Political Science at The College of New Jersey. Europe, social movements, the history of American teachers' unions...I'm all over the place, really.
- Reposted by Nicholas ToloudisRep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) welcomes RFK Jr. to today's House Approps Committee hearing by ripping 1) his "disastrous" HHS budget request (it cuts $33B from HHS) and 2) his "misinformation and lies" about vaccines. "Mr. Secretary, you are gutting the life-saving work of the Dept of HHS."
- German foreign policy, transformed.
- "At least three dozen Republicans have asked their colleagues to keep at least some tax credits to protect jobs in their districts and reduce electricity prices. But a nearly equal number of conservative House members are pushing publicly to kill the climate law altogether."
- It's rather staggering. But there it is.
- Reposted by Nicholas ToloudisAnother industry Trump is in the process of destroying: political commentary. Everything that's happening is so obviously stupid and unnecessary that writing about it feels demoralizing and more than a little humiliating.
- A problem that predates Trump, of course, but this is a brilliant essay about the current dispensation of consumerist authoritarianism. I heard Sophia Rosenfeld talk about this project on Doug Henwood's radio show, and I look forward to reading her book.
- Louder, for the people in the back.
- Your headline of the day.
- Reposted by Nicholas Toloudis🧵Ok, I rag on Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the nation's top diplomat, for his impeachable conduct on deportations and abandonment of all his prior views. But today he's the one "constantly on the phone" and paying attention to the India-Pakistan crisis. Should we be reassured? Absolutely not. 1/
- "The European Commission is moving ahead with the new lists because it has realized there won’t be a return to the status quo in its relations with Washington."
- "in the long run, Mr. Trump’s trade measures could inadvertently do more to damage Russia’s ability to fund its war against Ukraine than the West’s systematic imposition of the most comprehensive package of sanctions in modern history"
- Zing!
- Public Enemy at the Newport Folk Festival this summer?!
- I just read through this document, with a sinking heart.
- Wait a second, Pennsylvania is instituting state standards demanding that kindergartners learn about entrepreneurship and "developing a personal brand"? www.pa.gov/content/dam/...
- Am I hallucinating?
- @jasonleopold.bsky.social says "staff these FOIA offices with additional staff and money so they can reduce the backlog." Yes yes yes yes yes.
- Preparing for a trip to College Park, MD to pick up some completed FOIA requests, so I listened to this...and now I wonder if any of my outstanding requests will ever be completed.
- It was great speaking with On The Media's @micahloewinger.bsky.social about the state of #FOIA under Trump. Listen here (my segment at 20:57). www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm
- This is well put.
- Reposted by Nicholas ToloudisIt would be interesting to run the numbers to see if the people pardoned for January 6 have committed crimes at a higher rate than undocumented people. Has anyone done that?
- This is an excellent piece, and you all should read it.
- "...for protests to succeed, they must be backed by movements with the ability to promise to withhold—labor, debt payments, rent payments, or consumer support—and to follow through if demands aren’t met." Glad to have gotten the opportunity to push this line in Time time.com/collections/...
- Reposted by Nicholas Toloudis
Governor Mills to Trump: "I'll see you in court" Trump: "Actually, no, lets settle." - Among other things, verifying one of @mcopelov.bsky.social's points: for the moment, TINA to the dollar. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/02/b...
- Because it would be stupid not to. Great.
- Dude wonders why people loathe him.
- Don't know about you but I immediately went for the headline about German finger wrestling.
- There's no way that was the strangest thing he did as a third grader.
- Reposted by Nicholas ToloudisTrump's syphilitic-emperor routine yanking tariffs up and down at random, and the obvious fact that he doesn't have the balls for a real fight, is about the worst imaginable situation trade-wise prospect.org/economy/2025...
- A decade ago, when I was writing about Greece's now-defunct Golden Dawn, I remember being surprised at how much occult stuff was in the GD's newsletters.
- I'm bad at promoting my own work, but I recently looked at my most recent publication and didn't wince, so here's a🧵 about it: an extended review of Clara Mattei’s book, The Capital Order. It's in the fall 2024 edition of Political Science Quarterly. #polisci 1/x academic.oup.com/psq/article-...
- It shouldn't need to be said. But it does need to be said.
- Reposted by Nicholas Toloudis"Some officials say U.S. citizens who criticize administration policies could be charged with crimes" I always wondered how mainstream journalism would cover an impending dictatorship here. Now we know.
- This should be the top story in Axios’s morning read. But it isn’t. It’s the FIFTH top story. @axios.com www.axios.com/2025/04/23/t...
- Reposted by Nicholas ToloudisI love this statement because you can read it two ways and both are 100% true.
- Retrenching the federal government: The view from Philadelphia.
- Excellent thread about the CIO-CPUSA connection. My book in progress deals with this history through one of the UPW locals of the 1940s: the Philadelphia Teachers Union.
- Sorry I couldn't be there today. Looks amazing!
- Reposted by Nicholas ToloudisI think it shows that institutions that folded either made a huge miscalculation about the strength of the administration (many journalists, law firms) or actively wanted to partner with the administration on common goals (Columbia)
- This is thoughtful thread. It's important to remember that parties do, indeed, play different functions in democracies, not all of which serve democratic ends. In this case, it looks like one of the functions that does serve democratic ends is broken.
- This.
- Oh great. Fantastic. "The April 11 letter from the White House’s task force on antisemitism, [a Trump official] told Harvard, should not have been sent and was “unauthorized,” two people familiar with the matter said."
- Well done.
