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Robert (Bob) Kubinec

@rmkubinec.bsky.social

9.9K followers 450 following 4.1K posts

Political scientist University of South Carolina. Interests: business politics/corruption, Middle East, measurement, Bayesian statistics The Bayesian Hitman: https://a.co/d/e4QmtKo Website: www.robertkubinec.com

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Robert (Bob) Kubinec @rmkubinec.bsky.social · Jan 20

🧵 👋 I'm a political scientist who wrote a book about the recent collapse of two democracies (Egypt & Tunisia).

Given the anxieties of today, let me present a 🧵 with thoughts & resources for:

WHAT TO DO IF YOUR DEMOCRACY COLLAPSES:

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Reposted by Robert (Bob) Kubinec

Matti Vuorre @matti.vuorre.com · 34m

The quarto-preprint @quarto.org extension (github.com/mvuorre/quar...) for PDF outputs with #typst now includes proper appendices for reproducible #quartopub #rstats manuscripts, improved two-column layouts (and themes, incl. full-width content), better reference formatting & improved documentation.

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Caitlin G. DeAngelis @caitlindeangelis.bsky.social · 17h

ICE kidnapped a 7th-grader with a pending asylum claim and spirited him out of state without notifying his parents, seemingly with the cooperation of the local police in Everett, MA.

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/12/m...

Everett 13-year-old arrested by ICE and sent to Virginia detention facility
By Marcela Rodrigues Globe Staff,Updated October 12, 2025, 44 minutes ago

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A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Everett after an interaction with members of the Everett Police Department and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia, according to his mother and immigration lawyer Andrew Lattarulo.

The boy’s mother, Josiele Berto, was called to pick her son up from the Everett Police Department on Thursday, the day he was arrested. After waiting for about an hour and a half, she was told her son was taken by ICE, Berto told the Globe in a phone interview.

“My world collapsed,” Berto said in Portuguese.

From the police department, the boy was taken to ICE’s holding facility in Burlington on Thursday evening, where he spent a night before being transferred by car to the Northwestern Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Winchester, Va., on Friday morning, his mother said. The juvenile facility is more than 500 miles away from Everett.

The boy is a 7th-grader at Albert N. Parlin School in Everett, his mother said. The teen and his family, who are Brazilian nationals, have a pending asylum case and are authorized to work legally in the United States, Lattarulo said.

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Tim Stephens @proftimstephens.bsky.social · 15h

“Planet’s first catastrophic climate tipping point reached, report says, with coral reefs facing ‘widespread dieback’”

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Planet’s first catastrophic climate tipping point reached, report says, with coral reefs facing ‘widespread dieback’

Unless global heating is reduced to 1.2C ‘as fast as possible’, warm water coral reefs will not remain ‘at any meaningful scale’, a report by 160 scientists from 23 countries warns

www.theguardian.com

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Quantitude the Podcast @quantitude.bsky.social · 3h

Coming tomorrow. It’s almost that time of year…

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Robert (Bob) Kubinec @rmkubinec.bsky.social · 3h

*we have published a lot of papers since then

Robert (Bob) Kubinec @rmkubinec.bsky.social · 3h

There is a little bit of the Noble Prize inside all of us

Robert (Bob) Kubinec @rmkubinec.bsky.social · 1d

Political science can never recover from this. It's over. We're done.

Ryan J. Reilly “paints a vivid and urgent portrait of… disarray” @ryanjreilly.com · 1d

PORTLAND, Ore. — A small group of federal agents in camouflage and face masks watched from atop the immigration processing center Thursday night as a unicorn, peacock, dinosaur and raccoon danced to Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time.” www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

Costumed protesters in Portland defy description of the city as a 'war zone'

Dancing frogs, peacocks and unicorns outside the federal immigration building present a joyful contrast to the Trump administration's portrait of the Oregon city, they say.

www.nbcnews.com

Robert (Bob) Kubinec @rmkubinec.bsky.social · 1d

I want to see a reboot of Battlestar Galactica except the Cylons are all LLMs.

I.e, they can generate realistic-sounding speeches on the future of the human race at the drop of a hat but struggle with basic math 😅

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Jae Yeon Kim @jaeyeonkim.bsky.social · 1d

My first Substack post:
jaeyeonkim.substack.com/p/how-to-not...
How to Not Give Up

How to Not Give Up

Having spent the past few years working closely with state and local governments to reduce burdens in safety net programs, this year has been particularly challenging.

jaeyeonkim.substack.com

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Andrew Gelman et al. @statmodeling.bsky.social · 2d

7 reasons to use Bayesian inference!
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/10/11/7...

7 reasons to use Bayesian inference! | Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu

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Clint Peinhardt @clintpeinhardt.bsky.social · 2d

UT Dallas is hiring in international politics, emphasis on conflict. jobs.utdallas.edu/postings/30535

Assistant Professor in International Relations or Comparative Politics

Position Description The Political Science program at The University of Texas at Dallas invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position in international relations or comparative p...

jobs.utdallas.edu

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Robert (Bob) Kubinec @rmkubinec.bsky.social · 1d

Wow I did not expect we would get to Middle East-style crony capitalism so quickly

Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 2d

Trump said he deserved a cut for brokering the TikTok deal, and at once there was agreement that his son Baron would have a top executive slot... though he hasn't asked for it, and has no apparent qualifications to hold it. This is how Trump 2.0 works. www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025...

Barron Trump tipped for top TikTok job

US president’s 19-year-old son could be appointed to the app’s board

www.telegraph.co.uk

Robert (Bob) Kubinec @rmkubinec.bsky.social · 1d

What these wealthy universities should be doing is taking a small fraction of the sum Trump is asking for and instead run a big social media campaign accusing the White House of attacking schools.

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Kristina Šekrst @epiphenomenal.bsky.social · 2d

Accurate.

#academia #academy #philsky #philosophysky #philosophy #science

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Robert (Bob) Kubinec @rmkubinec.bsky.social · 2d

you can do whatever you want to the fossil fuel industry...

Robert (Bob) Kubinec @rmkubinec.bsky.social · 2d

Retribution should never be necessary. We have legal procedures for a reason. We need to follow them and let the chips fall where they may. Be as transparent as possible and go after the important people (i.e. the people making the decisions).

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Robert (Bob) Kubinec @rmkubinec.bsky.social · 2d

I dunno, Ross, if by foreign policy you mean Trump supporting Netanyahu's occupation of Gaza, it seems his domestic policy is right in sync with foreign policy...

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/o...

Opinion | Why Can’t Trump’s Domestic Policy Be More Like His Foreign Policy?

www.nytimes.com

Robert (Bob) Kubinec @rmkubinec.bsky.social · 2d

Yep, lots of bad pathways too, it'll be a while before we get out of this one.

So far, though, the opposition has shown a lot of restraint. Perhaps even too much.

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Robert (Bob) Kubinec @rmkubinec.bsky.social · 2d

yes, though potentially a lot of electoral benefits to moderation, so once again democratic institutions can help quite a bit.

a huge number of Americans are turned off by the current political wreck.

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Federica Genovese @fgenovese.bsky.social · 2d

I do not know how you get out of this mess with party politics, even if the next election goes to the Ds. The tribal party lines are so deep and hurtful, the Ds will need a ton of self-discipline for not lashing back hard.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d

Q: How many layoffs have you authorized?

TRUMP: It'll be a lot. And it'll be Democrat-oriented.

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Robert (Bob) Kubinec @rmkubinec.bsky.social · 2d

Blessed are you when they sub-tweet you or reply with strange fascist emojis, for great is the viewership of these posts.

Reverend Jesus "H" Christ @reverendjesus.com · 3d

Blessed are the frogs, for they keep making authoritarians look incredibly stupid

Three persons in inflatable frog costumes. One of them is holding a nicely painted sign with two little cartoon frogs holding hands, below the text "FROGS TOGETHER STRONG"

Robert (Bob) Kubinec @rmkubinec.bsky.social · 2d

No Jake, he received a nudge via text message and had to take the vaccine due to a +0.7pp persuasion effect

Reposted by Robert (Bob) Kubinec

Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 2d

The preferences, they have been revealed

Meg Tirrell @megtirrell.bsky.social · 2d

President Trump got an updated Covid vaccine & flu shot at Walter Reed today www.cnn.com/2025/10/10/p...

Trump received Covid vaccine and flu shot during second physical of the year | CNN Politics

President Donald Trump received a Covid vaccine and flu shot during his visit to Walter Reed Medical Center on Friday, his physician said in a memo released by the White House.

www.cnn.com

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The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 2d

George was just trying to get to work.

ICE pepper-sprayed him, dragged him from his car, locked him in a detention center, and placed him on suicide watch. He even missed his young daughter’s birthday in the process.

This man is a veteran and American citizen. Don't look away.

The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 2d

"They put me on suicide watch and they put me in the cell, I'm naked, in like a hospital dress and just a concrete bed with like a mattress, like a thin mattress and, they leave the light on 24/7."

@timmiller.bsky.social talked to a veteran who ICE wrongly detained and brutalized

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Robert (Bob) Kubinec @rmkubinec.bsky.social · 2d

The thing I find bizarre about this discourse is that 1) Dubai has incredibly unaffordable housing and 2) basically everything affordable (ie childcare) is almost entirely due to their liberal visa regime.

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