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Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 5h

Amazing how the internet has gone from "Don't trust Wikipedia, anyone can edit that" to "Only trust Wikipedia, because anyone (not just billionaires) can edit that"

Khashoggi's Ghost @urocklive1.bsky.social · 18h

Just a reminder that Wikipedia is the only remaining reliable source of information that right wing billionaires can't control. (Although they'll never stop trying.)

Please donate to them whenever you can. Even a little bit helps.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

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Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 5h

As that example suggests, 'one of us' authenticity is both a function of policy positioning (dairy industry) but also public presentation. I'm not saying Baldwin's accent is a put on, but these are performative choices, which is sort of the opposite of what "authentic" connotes

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Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 5h

The other thing people seem to mean when they say "authentic" is 'one of us'. My personal go-to example of this is "would noted progressive and out lesbian Tammy Baldwin do as well as she does in Wisconsin if not for her noticeable Wisconsin accent and obsession with the dairy industry"?

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Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 5h

Think about Trump's first announcement speech calling all Mexican immigrants rapists, as one example. Or politicians like Sanders and Mamdani publicly identifying as socialists, a label that Democratic candidates have in the past run away from

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Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 5h

But on the other hand, one way that politicians credibly signal sincerity is taking more extreme, unpopular, or norm-violating positions, since they wouldn't do this unless they meant it.

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Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 5h

There are two distinct traits people seem to mean when they talk about "authenticity". First is sincerity, or whether politicians really believe what they say. On one hand, that's useful if you want to judge how likely are to follow through on their campaign promises.

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Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 5h

My critique of "authentic" is it's not clear what noun "authentic" modifies. "Authentic person?" Do you think they are literally robots or something

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 5h

This is an obsession of mine - a huge pathology of the press is coverage suggesting that politicians who are less skilled performers are somehow less "authentic"

Me on Romney coverage in CJR: www.cjr.org/united_state...

Me on Hillary Clinton coverage in The Upshot:
www.nytimes.com/2015/10/02/u...

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Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 5h

Omg

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Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 8h

Don’t cherry pick poll results

G Elliott Morris @gelliottmorris.com · 21h

posting tomorrow morning at strength in numbers: is trump "dong what he promised"? and what does that even mean? www.gelliottmorris.com/p/is-trump-d...

Is Trump "doing what he promised"? | Weekly roundup for October 12, 2025

And what does that even mean? Also this week: Shutdown polls; Left-wing populism; Low favorability ratings for all U.S. leaders; Judges' concerns about Trump; + more!

www.gelliottmorris.com

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Reposted by Kevin Collins

Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 8h

“Who was president in 2020?” remains one of the most pertinent questions in American politics—absurd, yes, but here we are—and that extends to “who was president January 1 - 19, 2021?”

Joyce White Vance @joycewhitevance.bsky.social · 8h

That’s a nice trick, since Biden wasn’t the president on Jan 6.

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Reposted by Kevin Collins

Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 1d

“We can give $20 billion to Argentina but we can’t afford the CDC’s measles experts” is a hell of an argument

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Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 1d

Corruption Watch

David Waldman @kagrox.bsky.social · 1d

Meritocracy 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

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Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 1d

Looks pretty good to me. This is for French Onion soup or something else?

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Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 1d

My only slight critique -- and this is less relevant to Goldman in the House than it is for Senate Dems -- is that passing bills with 60 that can get (legally) changed with rescission with 50 is just insane. So both impoundment *and* rescission needs to be reformed. Or blow up filibuster on approps

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Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 1d

It's as if some ICE officer said "Oh, they're calling us kidnappers, well we will REALLY show them some kidnapping then"

LongTime🤓FirstTime👨‍💻 @longtimehistory.bsky.social · 1d

ICE secretly kidnap autistic boy during bathroom break—never notify parents.

Mother reported him missing a week ago—turns out ICE had him detained the whole time.

He was helping sell fruit and asked to go to the restroom—by the time she was done helping a customer he was gone.

Houston, Texas

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Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 1d

This gets the impoundment issue exactly right.

Rep. Dan Goldman @repdangoldman.bsky.social · 1d

No “clean CR” exists when Trump defies Congress and unilaterally guts programs—from law enforcement to pediatric cancer research to clean energy projects.

Republicans want Democratic cover to keep breaking the law. Democrats won’t play along.

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Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 1d

If true, that’s also more than the entire Jewish population of *Israel*, though I suspect “members” might mean email list members or something similarly loosely defined

Rebecca Bodenheimer @rmbodenheimer.bsky.social · 1d

“Christians United for Israel, the evangelical Zionist group founded by Texas pastor John Hagee, claims 10 million members, more than the entire population of 7.5 million Jews in the United States.”

I wish more people knew this.

www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

God's "blank check": Christian Zionists are pouring billions of dollars into Israeli extremism

Evangelicals have become Israel's most important American allies.

www.motherjones.com

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Reposted by Kevin Collins

Brian Beutler @brianbeutler.bsky.social · 2d

Something I hope the Dems who’d satisfy themselves with a health-care subsidy concession alone will consider. www.offmessage.net/p/how-to-rev...

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Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 1d

A second “yearly” checkup within six months with an ECG seem like something he might get if they were worried he had a transient ischemic attack, and notably there is nothing in the report about his cognitive functioning

Raw Story @rawstory.com · 1d

President Donald Trump's newly released physical results from the White House sing the praises of his health and physical fitness, and claim that he, in fact, has the heart of a man in his mid-60s, rather than late 70s.

White House says Trump's heart tested 14 years younger than his 'chronological age'

President Donald Trump's newly released physical results from the White House sing the praises of his health and physical fitness, and claim that he, in fact, has the heart of a man in his mid-60s, rather than late 70s."President Donald J. Trump successfully completed a scheduled follow-up evaluatio...

bit.ly

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Reposted by Kevin Collins

Ian Carrillo @iansociologo.bsky.social · 1d

Beware of AI videos like the one below.

And, AI sucks for many reasons, but among the worst is that it destabilizes our shared reality.

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Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 1d

Lol

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Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 1d

If AAPOR doesn’t take up this excellent idea you could run a “poll of the year” feature in Strength in Numbers

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Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 1d

“Question of the year” and “graph of the year”, with nominees selected by committee but winner selected by vote of conference attendees, would certainly add some drama to the awards banquet

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Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 1d

That's some Boundary Water Canoe Area / Quetico Provincial Park tourism erasure there

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