Phil Rocco
@philiprocco.bsky.social
politologue // yinzer // co-editor of Publius: The Journal of Federalism // author of "Counting Like a State" https://kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700638758/counting-like-a-state/
Most posts are first drafts, comments welcome.
Most posts are first drafts, comments welcome.
Pinned
Phil Rocco
@philiprocco.bsky.social
· Mar 5
Counting Like a State
An inside look at the 2020 Census that shows the importance of state and local cooperation in the complex federal project of census taking.The census plays a...
kansaspress.ku.edu
Census 2030 will be the subject of a prolonged political assault. We can learn a lot from what state and local governments and NGOs did to save the 2020 Census. I document those strategies in my forthcoming @univpressofkansas.bsky.social book. kansaspress.ku.edu/978070063875...
Finally watched the restored version of “The American Friend” (1977) and the colors are unbelievable, as is everything else about this movie.
November 30, 2025 at 3:44 PM
Finally watched the restored version of “The American Friend” (1977) and the colors are unbelievable, as is everything else about this movie.
With the FDA attempting to choke off access to safe and effective vaccines, we are about to see how far horizontal collaboration among states can go at pushing back. I wrote about this for @washingtonmonthly.com with Jay Rickabaugh and @jen-nelles.bsky.social: washingtonmonthly.com/2025/11/27/t...
Trump’s Washington Is Ghosting States and Cities
States and cities are being abandoned by DC. Here’s how local leaders are building new alliances to survive Trump’s unpredictable federalism.
washingtonmonthly.com
November 29, 2025 at 1:48 PM
With the FDA attempting to choke off access to safe and effective vaccines, we are about to see how far horizontal collaboration among states can go at pushing back. I wrote about this for @washingtonmonthly.com with Jay Rickabaugh and @jen-nelles.bsky.social: washingtonmonthly.com/2025/11/27/t...
Reposted by Phil Rocco
Northwestern bent the knee, choosing to give in to extortion at the expense of academic freedom.
Among the provisions:
-Pay a big bribe
-Give the govt data on students
-Validate BS about "fighting antisemitism"
-Be cruel to trans students
What to do about Vichy universities (now, later, or both)?
Among the provisions:
-Pay a big bribe
-Give the govt data on students
-Validate BS about "fighting antisemitism"
-Be cruel to trans students
What to do about Vichy universities (now, later, or both)?
BREAKING: Northwestern University has agreed to pay the U.S. Treasury $75 million, over the course of three years as part of an agreement with the federal government to restore funding and end investigations into the university
Full statement from NU below:
Full statement from NU below:
November 29, 2025 at 2:25 AM
Northwestern bent the knee, choosing to give in to extortion at the expense of academic freedom.
Among the provisions:
-Pay a big bribe
-Give the govt data on students
-Validate BS about "fighting antisemitism"
-Be cruel to trans students
What to do about Vichy universities (now, later, or both)?
Among the provisions:
-Pay a big bribe
-Give the govt data on students
-Validate BS about "fighting antisemitism"
-Be cruel to trans students
What to do about Vichy universities (now, later, or both)?
Reposted by Phil Rocco
Federal loan use among US medical students increased from 2008 to 2020 as tuition rose 38%.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act now caps federal loans and eliminates Graduate PLUS Loans, with greatest impact on low-income and out-of-state students. #MedEd
ja.ma/4rmFOJB
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act now caps federal loans and eliminates Graduate PLUS Loans, with greatest impact on low-income and out-of-state students. #MedEd
ja.ma/4rmFOJB
November 28, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Federal loan use among US medical students increased from 2008 to 2020 as tuition rose 38%.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act now caps federal loans and eliminates Graduate PLUS Loans, with greatest impact on low-income and out-of-state students. #MedEd
ja.ma/4rmFOJB
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act now caps federal loans and eliminates Graduate PLUS Loans, with greatest impact on low-income and out-of-state students. #MedEd
ja.ma/4rmFOJB
Reposted by Phil Rocco
Op ed published today on shifting mindsets about what #states and #cities can do to mitigate their increasingly uncertain relationship with the US federal government. In @washingtonmonthly.com with @philiprocco.bsky.social and Jay Rickabaugh washingtonmonthly.com/2025/11/27/t...
Trump’s Washington Is Ghosting States and Cities
States and cities are being abandoned by DC. Here’s how local leaders are building new alliances to survive Trump’s unpredictable federalism.
washingtonmonthly.com
November 27, 2025 at 1:28 PM
Op ed published today on shifting mindsets about what #states and #cities can do to mitigate their increasingly uncertain relationship with the US federal government. In @washingtonmonthly.com with @philiprocco.bsky.social and Jay Rickabaugh washingtonmonthly.com/2025/11/27/t...
Fantastic new piece by @ericblanc.bsky.social on the sewer socialists. Fellow Milwaukeeans take note: substack.com/home/post/p-...
Socialists in City Hall? A New Look at Sewer Socialism in Wisconsin
It’s been done before—we can do it again in New York and beyond
substack.com
November 26, 2025 at 10:29 PM
Fantastic new piece by @ericblanc.bsky.social on the sewer socialists. Fellow Milwaukeeans take note: substack.com/home/post/p-...
Reposted by Phil Rocco
If you want a nice, one-stop analysis of the ways in which the emerging Trump health care proposal is a bad deal, @gooznews.bsky.social has you covered (though lots of you won’t be if this crap sandwich of a plan materializes and passes!).
open.substack.com/pub/gooznews...
open.substack.com/pub/gooznews...
The GOP plan to gut Obamacare
Press leaks suggest Trump's offer to extend subsidies for two years will come with a half dozen poison pills.
open.substack.com
November 26, 2025 at 12:18 PM
If you want a nice, one-stop analysis of the ways in which the emerging Trump health care proposal is a bad deal, @gooznews.bsky.social has you covered (though lots of you won’t be if this crap sandwich of a plan materializes and passes!).
open.substack.com/pub/gooznews...
open.substack.com/pub/gooznews...
Reposted by Phil Rocco
Oregon's Attorney General and Portland area DAs just told the feds they'll prosecute excessive force by federal agents in the state—citing evidence from the trial that shut down Trump's National Guard plan for Portland.
Oregon to Feds: Rein in Your Officers or We'll Prosecute
Prosecutors in Oregon are warning the US justice department to rein in federal agents who’ve repeatedly used excessive force on protesters, immigrants and even local police. A joint letter from Oregon...
www.portlandmercury.com
November 26, 2025 at 3:00 AM
Oregon's Attorney General and Portland area DAs just told the feds they'll prosecute excessive force by federal agents in the state—citing evidence from the trial that shut down Trump's National Guard plan for Portland.
Reposted by Phil Rocco
Check out this 🧵 on our own @robertmanduca.bsky.social's work with @bhighsmith.bsky.social and Jacob Waggoner. 👇 #AcademicSky #WealthInequality
🚨We analyzed 138 million geocoded property tax records to quantify how municipal boundaries spatially overlap onto economic segregation in every US metro area—creating disparities in localities’ ability to fund public goods. And we made an interactive map of our results! [1/16]
November 25, 2025 at 1:21 PM
Check out this 🧵 on our own @robertmanduca.bsky.social's work with @bhighsmith.bsky.social and Jacob Waggoner. 👇 #AcademicSky #WealthInequality
Reposted by Phil Rocco
As we all wait for Callais to come down, our piece showing that Shelby County increased the racial turnout gap in most of the covered parts of the country has cleared the replication check and is incoming at JOP.
Gutting the VRA was bad, actually.
Gutting the VRA was bad, actually.
November 24, 2025 at 12:47 AM
As we all wait for Callais to come down, our piece showing that Shelby County increased the racial turnout gap in most of the covered parts of the country has cleared the replication check and is incoming at JOP.
Gutting the VRA was bad, actually.
Gutting the VRA was bad, actually.
Reposted by Phil Rocco
This is a story about how America’s world-leading cancer and dementia research system was destroyed by frauds and naifs who broke the law.
There must be consequences.
There must be consequences.
Some incredible details in this piece
*one DOGE faction was planning the future of the US government at a venture capital firm
*illegally communicating on Signal to avoid transparency laws was deeply embedded into organizational culture to be taken for granted
*one DOGE faction was planning the future of the US government at a venture capital firm
*illegally communicating on Signal to avoid transparency laws was deeply embedded into organizational culture to be taken for granted
November 22, 2025 at 10:12 PM
This is a story about how America’s world-leading cancer and dementia research system was destroyed by frauds and naifs who broke the law.
There must be consequences.
There must be consequences.
Reposted by Phil Rocco
All of healthtech, hundreds of billions of dollars, bundled up in making AI chatbots to misinterpret charts, or clunky apps for wearables that'll end up in a landfill in three years — wasted. A hundredth as effective as a Ford Transit with two PAs and a blood pressure cuff.
November 22, 2025 at 11:46 PM
All of healthtech, hundreds of billions of dollars, bundled up in making AI chatbots to misinterpret charts, or clunky apps for wearables that'll end up in a landfill in three years — wasted. A hundredth as effective as a Ford Transit with two PAs and a blood pressure cuff.
Reposted by Phil Rocco
This spring, Missouri adopted a law that ends St. Louis’ ability to run its own police, transferring control to the GOP-run state government. The law also requires St. Louis to commit 25% of its budget to policing.
Missouri Officials Seize Control of St. Louis Police, in Latest Bid to Shutter Local Reforms
The takeover returns St. Louis to a Civil War-era arrangement of state control. A local official calls the move "a clear gesture of white men wanting to control urban areas."
boltsmag.org
November 22, 2025 at 9:30 PM
This spring, Missouri adopted a law that ends St. Louis’ ability to run its own police, transferring control to the GOP-run state government. The law also requires St. Louis to commit 25% of its budget to policing.
Reposted by Phil Rocco
NEW from me: the proposed executive order to block states from regulating AI is indicative of the purchase of our government by tech overlords, & likely to spread to shield any business able to persuade Trump that because they use an algorithm or a computer, they're part of the AI revolution too.
Big Tech Poised to Win Immunity Shield From State AI Regulation - The American Prospect
The Trump administration is readying an executive order preempting constraints on AI. It could become a much more wide-ranging deregulatory tool.
prospect.org
November 20, 2025 at 6:21 PM
NEW from me: the proposed executive order to block states from regulating AI is indicative of the purchase of our government by tech overlords, & likely to spread to shield any business able to persuade Trump that because they use an algorithm or a computer, they're part of the AI revolution too.
Reposted by Phil Rocco
It's always hard to pick a worst day politically, but today the president called for the death of members of the opposition party, and the administration decided that people were being too hard on the swastika
November 21, 2025 at 4:15 AM
It's always hard to pick a worst day politically, but today the president called for the death of members of the opposition party, and the administration decided that people were being too hard on the swastika
Thread here on my new report for @cmmonwealth.bsky.social on what is to be done in the aftermath of Trump’s Medicaid cuts.
Our new brief on Medicaid and fight for Universal Health Care in the Trump Aftermath explains the program, Trump’s cuts and why we have unprecedented opportunities to organize a coalition of beneficiaries, healthcare workers and unions to expand Medicaid to universal healthcare.
November 21, 2025 at 12:13 AM
Thread here on my new report for @cmmonwealth.bsky.social on what is to be done in the aftermath of Trump’s Medicaid cuts.
Reposted by Phil Rocco
It is unfair to say that RFK Jr is massively ignorant and prone to spouting conspiracy theories about vaccines: he can do the same for safety net programs too. He has layers.
Secretary Kennedy, speaking to a bipartisan group of governors, has mixed up Medicare and Medicaid, and implied the people who will lose the latter are either unauthorized immigrants, dual eligible, or people who “don’t want to get a job.”
November 21, 2025 at 12:10 AM
It is unfair to say that RFK Jr is massively ignorant and prone to spouting conspiracy theories about vaccines: he can do the same for safety net programs too. He has layers.
Reposted by Phil Rocco
THREAD: Judge Ellis is the first federal judge to review extensive body cam video of DHS's actions in Chicago. She finds that DHS *repeatedly* misled the public and made claims that were disproven by agents' own videos.
I'll go through some of the most egregious ones here.
I'll go through some of the most egregious ones here.
![II. Credibility
The Court next addresses the credibility of the parties’ evidence and witnesses. After reviewing all the evidence submitted to the Court and listening to the testimony elicited at the preliminary injunction hearing, during depositions, and in other court proceedings, the Court finds Defendants’ evidence simply not credible. [FN 6]
Plaintiffs submitted a mountain of evidence, providing the Court with over eighty declarations, numerous videos and articles, and other evidence. Defendants did not rebut anything that Plaintiffs set forth in their declarations or testimony, even with BWC footage.
[FN 6] In another case considering some of the same evidence presented to this Court, another court in this district also found that the perceptions of certain of Defendants’ declarants, such as Hott and Parra, were not reliable. See Illinois v. Trump, No. 25-cv-12174, 2025 WL 2886645, at *5 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 10, 2025) (noting a “troubling trend of Defendants’ declarants equating protests with riots and a lack of appreciation for the wide spectrum that exists between citizens who are observing, questioning, and criticizing their government, and those who are obstructing, assaulting, or doing violence”), motion to stay denied in part, 155 F.4th 929 (7th Cir. 2025).](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2vtbmhmrwzbqcfv4we4uxzzt/bafkreifpyry2il5toxbr3iejgrsxs6kmnwve75qwnhebfp44ieyjrfpsdu@jpeg)
November 20, 2025 at 11:04 PM
THREAD: Judge Ellis is the first federal judge to review extensive body cam video of DHS's actions in Chicago. She finds that DHS *repeatedly* misled the public and made claims that were disproven by agents' own videos.
I'll go through some of the most egregious ones here.
I'll go through some of the most egregious ones here.
Misconstrued by Riley/Brenner -- career achievement unlocked
November 19, 2025 at 1:05 AM
Misconstrued by Riley/Brenner -- career achievement unlocked
Reposted by Phil Rocco
Way back in 1947, Alan Turing had thoughts on how AI would influence the demand for skilled labor.
(via Matteo Pasquinelli 2023 _The Eye of the Master_)
(via Matteo Pasquinelli 2023 _The Eye of the Master_)
![Roughly speaking those who work in connection with the [automatic computing engine] will be divided into its masters and its servants. Its masters will plan out instruction tables for it, thinking up deeper and deeper ways of using it...The masters are liable to get replaced because as soon as any technique becomes at all stereotyped it becomes possible to devise a system of instruction tables which will enable the electronic computer to do it for itself. It may happen however that the masters will refuse to do this. They may be unwilling to let their jobs be stolen from them in this way. In that case they would surround the whole of their work with mystery and make excuses, couched in well chosen gibberish, whenever any dangerous suggestions were made.
— Alan Turing (1947) Lecture on the Automatic Computing Engine](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:tbqqvyv6pjjww44glrmycaxl/bafkreiajgzfaixqslnz2oftyxfcz2htgwbfisxfeyoospb5o6f3arqwfgu@jpeg)
November 18, 2025 at 4:01 AM
Way back in 1947, Alan Turing had thoughts on how AI would influence the demand for skilled labor.
(via Matteo Pasquinelli 2023 _The Eye of the Master_)
(via Matteo Pasquinelli 2023 _The Eye of the Master_)
Sorry how is Lizza writing something called Telos News? There’s only one Telos and it was edited by Paul Piccone darling.
November 18, 2025 at 2:42 AM
Sorry how is Lizza writing something called Telos News? There’s only one Telos and it was edited by Paul Piccone darling.
New @cmmonwealth.bsky.social paper from me on Medicaid’s political economy and the battle ahead.
Millions are to be kicked off of Medicaid.
Millions will see healthcare costs skyrocket as ACA subsidies expire.
In 2028, we must fight for universal healthcare.
Where should we concentrate efforts to build up working class power to advance this cause?
shorturl.at/1kQG4
Millions will see healthcare costs skyrocket as ACA subsidies expire.
In 2028, we must fight for universal healthcare.
Where should we concentrate efforts to build up working class power to advance this cause?
shorturl.at/1kQG4
Medicaid and the Struggle for Universal Health Care in the Trump Aftermath
How can organizers leverage the contradictions of Medicaid to build a movement for Universal Healthcare?
shorturl.at
November 18, 2025 at 12:32 AM
New @cmmonwealth.bsky.social paper from me on Medicaid’s political economy and the battle ahead.
Reposted by Phil Rocco
It's universal public provision of healthcare in 2028 or bust...but where to start politically? We're really proud to publish @philiprocco.bsky.social 's answer to this question today!
Millions are to be kicked off of Medicaid.
Millions will see healthcare costs skyrocket as ACA subsidies expire.
In 2028, we must fight for universal healthcare.
Where should we concentrate efforts to build up working class power to advance this cause?
shorturl.at/1kQG4
Millions will see healthcare costs skyrocket as ACA subsidies expire.
In 2028, we must fight for universal healthcare.
Where should we concentrate efforts to build up working class power to advance this cause?
shorturl.at/1kQG4
Medicaid and the Struggle for Universal Health Care in the Trump Aftermath
How can organizers leverage the contradictions of Medicaid to build a movement for Universal Healthcare?
shorturl.at
November 17, 2025 at 1:10 PM
It's universal public provision of healthcare in 2028 or bust...but where to start politically? We're really proud to publish @philiprocco.bsky.social 's answer to this question today!
Once again, if you aren’t already an @aaup.org member and you work at a university, please join. Our orgs are leading the way at safeguarding higher education from assault.
I should have started even earlier with the caption of the case: not UC, but AAUP, v Trump et al.
The @aaup.org and UC faculty associations, unions etc representing huge numbers of UC employees brought this suit.
The UC itself maintains its mysterious strategy of standing very, very still & quiet.
The @aaup.org and UC faculty associations, unions etc representing huge numbers of UC employees brought this suit.
The UC itself maintains its mysterious strategy of standing very, very still & quiet.
November 15, 2025 at 3:42 AM
Once again, if you aren’t already an @aaup.org member and you work at a university, please join. Our orgs are leading the way at safeguarding higher education from assault.