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Nathan Becker

@netbacker.bsky.social

1.3K followers 1.3K following 1.7K posts

Unpacking economic myths! "Taxpayer dollars" rhetoric has racist roots & blocks public good. The real crisis? Private household debt—not national debt—crushing families. 💡💙🗳💰 https://thedeficitdelusion.substack.com/

thedeficitdelusion.substack.com

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Nathan Becker @netbacker.bsky.social · Apr 3

1/ How did we arrive at a point where the richest man on earth can unilaterally slash social security benefits that people have earned through decades of work?

A thread on the strategic dismantling of our social safety net 🧵
#Entitlement #SocialSecurity
#Medicare
#DOGEcuts

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Acyn @acyn.bsky.social · 6h

AOC: And they are able to radicalize a generation of young boys in particular, away from healthy masculinity and into an insecure masculinity that requires the domination of others who are poorer, browner, darker, or a different gender than them.

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Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 16h

It really is bizarre to me that every single member of GOP House leadership & the admin has decided their coordinated talking point this week is that the No Kings demonstrations this Sat are essentially acts of domestic terrorism. Are they that afraid of free & peaceful assembly?

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Acyn @acyn.bsky.social · 5h

Sanders: Saturday, millions of people are going to come out on a No Kings day. Speaker Johnson said this is a hate America rally because people are coming out expressing their concerns.. It’s not a hate America rally, it's a love America rally.

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Freedom of the Press Foundation @freedom.press · 16h

Soliciting information from officials is a journalist's job.

The Pentagon's new press policy would make reporters "stenographers parroting press releases, not watchdogs holding government officials accountable," explains @npr.org's Tom Bowman.

Opinion: Why I'm handing in my Pentagon press pass

Tom Bowman has held his Pentagon press pass for 28 years. He says the Pentagon's new media policy makes it impossible to be a journalist, which means finding out what's really going on behind the scen...

www.npr.org

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Catherine Zoltan @catherinezoltan.bsky.social · 3h

The bad news is, the Republican Political Party controls all three branches of the U.S. Government, and they couldn't keep the Postal Museum in D.C. open. It's been open since 1914 ~ but it could not survive the Republican Political Party.

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TheValuesVoter @thevaluesvoter.bsky.social · 3h

The Roberts six basically decide the outcome up front and then work backwards to contort a collection of legal theories and contradictions which allow them to decide the justification for it.

The Constitution is not a central player in their decisions.

ElieNYC @elienyc.bsky.social · 18h

Roberts is saying that the court's own precedent from a couple of years ago, where it ruled that Alabama had to draw racial fair maps, doesn't apply to this (identical) case, essentially because the Alabama case was poorly argued.
It's a terrible argument, but the hill Roberts is gonna die on.

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Catherine Zoltan @catherinezoltan.bsky.social · 2h

When the Republican Political Party wants to justify racism ~ they label their people "kids". When they want to justify adults raping children they try to change the laws so 14 year old kids are labeled "adults".

The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 4h

“Kids”

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Andrew Lawrence @ndrew.bsky.social · 10h

the president using the office to punish americans that didnt vote for him should really be one of the biggest scandals in americas history

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 18h

Trump is upfront in saying he will use the shutdown to punish Democrats, and here are the receipts. About $27.2 billion cut from Dem districts compared to about $0.7 billion in GOP districts.
We all complain about the media, but need this type of in-depth journalism.
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Trump Halts Billions in Grants for Democratic Districts During Shutdown (Gift Article)

The Trump administration has frozen or canceled nearly $28 billion primarily located in Democratic-led districts, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

www.nytimes.com

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Eric Michael Garcia @ericmgarcia.bsky.social · 9h

👀 Shutdown watch: Murkowski joins a letter full of Democrats demanding answers about backpay for federal workers
www.kaine.senate.gov/imo/media/do...

www.kaine.senate.gov

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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 10h

The Supreme Court’s majority right wing indicated in oral arguments that they think racism is over on the same day that the vice president defended the “I love Hitler” guy, and that the NYT reported that the current administration plans to accept only white, English-speaking refugees.

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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 10h

I'm reminded of this great book, which it occurs to me might convey the new regnant form of (white) supremacism:

Cover of Racism Without Racists by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva

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MadGreek 🧿 @madgreek2024.bsky.social · 10h

‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat.

It seems to me that when mom and dad are Nazis chances are, so will their kids. Folks. Teach your children well. Don't raise Nazis!

www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

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Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 10h

Just a deep, dark cesspool of corruption like we’ve never seen before in US history at every single agency and level of government. Republicans in Congress continue to ignore all of it and if people still care about having a Republic they will vote them out as soon as they can.

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Texas Paul @realtexaspaul.com · 10h

How many Republicans have to out themselves as nazis before you believe them?

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Marc Elias @marcelias.bsky.social · 10h

🚨BREAKING: Missouri state officials filed a lawsuit Wednesday aimed at blocking voters’ efforts to invoke their constitutional right to veto the state legislature’s new gerrymandered congressional map. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

Missouri Republicans Sue to Block ‘People’s Veto’ of GOP Gerrymander

Read more here.

www.democracydocket.com

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Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 10h

Another $20 billion. That is the face you make when you heist the US taxpayers for $40 billion two weeks before your midterm elections from the most corrupt America Last regime in history.

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southpaw @nycsouthpaw.bsky.social · 10h

Land of the free, home of the brave

Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 11h

UPDATE: Following the firing of the director of the student newspaper, Indiana University has now cut the print edition of the newspaper entirely.

www.idsnews.com/article/2025...

Indiana University cuts IDS print entirely, hours after firing student media director
By IDS staff
Oct 15, 2025 1:23 pm · Updated Oct 15, 2025 1:23 pm

IU previously directed the Indiana Daily Student to stop printing news coverage in our newspaper. Upon pushback, the university fully cut print, including our special editions. The IDS was not involved in the decision.

Media School Dean David Tolchinsky sent the order to IDS leadership in an email responding to its appeal that the school not censor the newspaper. And the dean attributed the decision to “the campus.” He has not yet responded to a message for clarification.

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News Eye @newseye.bsky.social · 10h

NEW: A huge ice sculpture of the word “DEMOCRACY” is currently melting away in front of the US Capitol.

Organized by artists and activists, it was commissioned by the Up In Arms campaign, an effort led by Ben Cohen, the cofounder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.

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Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 10h

You may not subordinate the affirmative power conferred under the Fifteenth Amendment to the Equal Protection Clause. Either you must read the Equal Protection Clause so as not to be inconsistent with the 15A grant of power, or you must treat the 15A as (to whatever necessary degree) amending 14.

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Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 10h

Here's a basic rule of legal interpretation, as applicable to the US Constitution as to ordinary statutes: later additions have priority over earlier provisions in the event of conflict.

The Fifteenth Amendment, including Section 2, is later in time than the Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1.

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Hernandez888 @hernandez888.bsky.social · 14h

My fellow Americans, we are going to have to harden up & be free men.
We can't kumbaya our way out.
We can't hope our way out.
We can't pray our way out.
We can't protest our way out.
We can't vote our way out.
We're gonna have to unite & fight our way out. Do or die.
Revolution is the solution.

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Nathan Becker @netbacker.bsky.social · 10h

3.) - Legitimizes austerity, turning democracy from a shared project into a brutal competition for scraps.

Fixing the house starts by rejecting the lie that we can't afford to build a better one.

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Nathan Becker @netbacker.bsky.social · 10h

2.) - Forces schools to fight over crumbs, gutting philosophy for 'job training.'
- Justifies media deregulation and defunding public broadcasting.
- Empowers plutocrats who pose as 'job creators' while dodging taxes.

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Nathan Becker @netbacker.bsky.social · 10h

1.) This is a perfect list of the symptoms. And you've named the exact 'sand' the house was built on: the 'taxpayer money' myth.

It's the foundational lie that makes all these other problems inevitable. It creates the artificial scarcity that:

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Nathan Becker @netbacker.bsky.social · 10h

Absolutely! Our institutions are failing. But the root cause we must acknowledge is the 'taxpayer money' myth. We've been trying to fund a 21st century society with a fantasy of scarcity, pretending the federal budget is a household checkbook. The status quo didn't just fail-it was built on a lie.

Pete Buttigieg @petebuttigieg.bsky.social · 16h

Emerging from the darkness of this era will require us to acknowledge that the previous status quo, including many institutions that may have served us well in another era, have been failing for my entire lifetime.