Reconstructionist
@unavaleable.bsky.social
23K followers 510 following 37K posts
alt history, legislative politics, american studies, and reconstruction | lots of typos | he/him | views my own, normal disclaimers | Double Victory (DVTL) is my book / worldbuilding project | opinions my own, etc normal disclaimers
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unavaleable.bsky.social
So what is (DVTL) Double Victory?

It is my world-building and alternative history project, intended to culminate in a series of full-length novels!

TLDR: The Final Countdown with zoomers, crank to 11, and mix in heaping doses of Matterhorn, Red Storm Rising, and the Death of Stalin.
What is Double Victory
Welcome to an Alternative Future and a Changed Past
www.victoryvignettes.com
unavaleable.bsky.social
ig its cool we get to see what the ceiling is for democrats in Virginia is
atrupar.com
BREAM: Federal workers in Virginia lost jobs bc of DOGE. Your opponent points out unemployment is up under Youngkin/Sears

EARLE-SEARS: Actually unemployment is down

B: She points to numbers from BLS showing unemployment is up. Do you quibble w/data?

S: I don't know where she's getting stats from
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beijingpalmer.bsky.social
whole thing is even worse than the headline when you think about what 'play' means here

“I’m just as concerned for you! Don’t worry about me! It would seem we are in this together and will have to rise above it. Otherwise keep in close touch and we’ll play some more soon!!!!”"
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grahamformaine.bsky.social
We have armed secret police kidnapping people off the street based on the color of their skin.

When we win: we will haul them before a Senate committee. The masks will come off. There will be consequences.
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greene.haus
I wrote fancy words about how SCOTUS, by writing no opinions, had left no precedents to bind it when a Dem retakes the White House — and then Justice Barrett just blurted it out.
atrupar.com
Amy Coney Barrett defends heavy use of the shadow docket: "If we wrote a long opinion, it might give the impression that we have finally resolved the issue, and in none of these cases have we finally resolved the issue."
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aubreygilleran.bsky.social
Well golly it sounds like you should let long-standing precedents stand until you rule on the merits, then. That is not what you’re doing!
atrupar.com
Amy Coney Barrett defends heavy use of the shadow docket: "If we wrote a long opinion, it might give the impression that we have finally resolved the issue, and in none of these cases have we finally resolved the issue."
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sahilkapur.bsky.social
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., says he won’t accept a promise of a future vote on ACA subsidies to reopen the government: “Not right now, no. We need a real negotiation and we need a fix. We need this corrected for the American people.”

On @meetthepress.com:
unavaleable.bsky.social
BF6 trying to have a US v NATO conflict but actually NATO is a spooky evil PMC is such a copout
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ratelimitexceeder.bsky.social
Pretty sure “by mistake” here means “we were screamed at by various Republican Senators and other officials and we take it back.”
sherylnyt.bsky.social
OOOPS! UPDATE: Two HHS officials tell me that disease detectives, measles response officers, global health officials and the MMWR staff were laid off by mistake and will be reinstated. But Washington office is still RIFed
sherylnyt.bsky.social
BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:
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gilmored85.bsky.social
Arent we all tired of this guy endlessly relitigating all of the grievances over years old events that consume him?
pbump.com
I’m not sure there ever been an investigation more robustly proven valid than the first Trump impeachment. Did he use presidential power for his personal gain? Uh, yeah! I think he probably did!
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requiemarm.bsky.social
this is by far the worst reading of Alan Moore’s Watchmen I’ve ever seen and if you spend an appreciable amount of time online you will know what a crowning achievement that is
sharonk.bsky.social
thiel, man, what the fuck are you talking about

He describes the plot of Watchmen, a 1986 graphic novel involving superheroes grappling with moral questions about humanity against the backdrop of impending nuclear war:

The antihero Ozymandias, the antichrist-type figure, is sort of an early-modern person. He believes this will be a timeless and eternal solution – eternal world peace. Moore is sort of a late-modern. In early modernity, you have ideal solutions, ‘perfect’ solutions to calculus. In late modernity, things are sort of probabilistic. And at some point, he asks Dr Manhattan whether the world government is going to last. And he says that ‘nothing lasts forever.’ So you embrace the antichrist and it still doesn’t work.

Thiel later finds biblical meaning in the manga One Piece, discussing how he believes it represents a future where an antichrist-like one-world government has repressed science. He believes that the hero, Monkey D Luffy, represents a Christlike figure.

In One Piece, you are set in a fantasy world, again sort of an alternate earth, but it’s 800 years into the reign of this one-world state. Which, as the story unfolds, gradually gets darker and darker. You sort of realize, in my interpretation, who runs the world and it’s something like the antichrist. There’s Luffy, a pirate who wears a red straw hat, sort of like Christ’s crown of thorns. And then towards the end of the story, transforms into a figure who resembles Christ in Revelation.

Thiel, along with a researcher and writer at Thiel Capital, explored these ideas at greater length in an essay for the religious journal First Things earlier this month.
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atrupar.com
Pritzker: "You just heard a tidal wave of lies from the VP. It's a bit shocking. And you heard over & over him just making things up. There's a reason why the judge here in federal court said that they admin lacks credibility and why even the Nobel committee chair said the admin lacks integrity."
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dabenner.bsky.social
The subtext in this piece is how Facebook made boomers insane. The villain here has at earlier times in his life been thoughtful and competent, even as I don't agree with any of his views, and he's thoroughly incentivized to act like a maniac.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/12/u...
She Despised Charlie Kirk. He Resolved to Make People Like Her Pay.
www.nytimes.com
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atrupar.com
BRENNAN: CBS confirmed the Trump administration rescinded the layoffs of CDC scientists. Some were involved with the federal measles response. How does a mistake like this happen?

VANCE: The govt shutdown inevitably leads to some chaos. It happened because of Schumer

B: But this was a WH decision
unavaleable.bsky.social
Honestly the German Bundesrat is kinda a pain in the ass about what they actually get a substantive veto, the Austrian one (or the French senate) is closer to the vibe
unavaleable.bsky.social
Actually pretty much the Austrian bundesrat
unavaleable.bsky.social
One part lords, one part Bundesrat
unavaleable.bsky.social
And in that case it would make more sense for the senate to be the grand jury and the house to be the petit jury for impeachments
unavaleable.bsky.social
A purely suspensive veto bundesrat is basically my ideal upper chamber (for a federal polity), give or take treaty ratification and additional executive oversight powers
unavaleable.bsky.social
I'd be happy to trade senate appointment by state legislatures for a suspensive veto and house override. Let the senate be a retirement house for old hands to do executive oversight
beijingpalmer.bsky.social
We need a Senator Emeritus role where they still get to go to events and feel important but that gives them a graceful retirement route
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battleorder.org
www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0Bw... New video on almost everything to know about the Alliance's Marines in Mass Effect. This includes an overview of their missions, vehicles, and known units, and uses it as an opportunity to apply some real-world doctrinal terms.
Mass Effect’s Marines: Mission, Vehicles & Doctrine
YouTube video by Battle Order
www.youtube.com