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Clayton Littlejohn

@cmlittlejohn.bsky.social

2.6K followers 1.4K following 820 posts

Melbourne based philosopher. Dianoia RIP. Senior Research Associate, African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, University of Johannesburg. Epistemology and ethics. #philsky #melbourne #democrats It ain't easy being blue .. more

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Reposted by Clayton Littlejohn

David Hunter @dhunterto.bsky.social · 1d

I buy the lottery ticket in order to lose. So while I may lack theoretical knowledge that I lost, I have secure practical knowledge that I’m a loser.

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Clayton Littlejohn @cmlittlejohn.bsky.social · 1d

It was a joke. Probably an unfunny one.

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Clayton Littlejohn @cmlittlejohn.bsky.social · 1d

The best bit of philosophy swag I've ever seen is the "Go Grue!" shirt they used to give to visiting speakers.

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Clayton Littlejohn @cmlittlejohn.bsky.social · 1d

An interesting paradox. On the one hand, this is patently false:
"There’s also plenty of productive cross-fertilization. Zizek is interested in Saul Kripke"

But it follows from two seemingly true claims:
"There’s also plenty of productive cross-fertilization"
"Žižek is interested in Saul Kripke"

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Clayton Littlejohn @cmlittlejohn.bsky.social · 1d

Haha-yes, fair. Flu brain. Couldn't count.

Reposted by Will Jennings, Daniel W. Drezner, David R. Miller , and 3 more Will Jennings, Daniel W. Drezner, David R. Miller, Aaron Sojourner, Claire L. Adida, Clayton Littlejohn

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 2d

Wow, wow, wow. This has always been legally possible but the law has virtually never been enforced — and now this is the SECOND case I've heard of in the last month (first involving a person with a green card) of a noncitizen being charged for failure to carry their papers.

Gregory Pratt @royalpratt.bsky.social · 2d

NEWS: ICE gave a Rogers Park man a $130 ticket for not having his papers on him. They rounded him up last week and eventually let him go, but not without a fine that some critics say is un-American. Trump admin enforcing little-used law
www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/13/i...

ICE tickets Chicago man with legal residency $130 for not having his papers on him: ‘It’s not fair…I’m a resident’

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement fined Rueben Antonio Cruz $130 for not having his papers with him.

www.chicagotribune.com

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Reposted by Brendan Nyhan, Robert Black, Daniel W. Drezner , and 6 more Brendan Nyhan, Robert Black, Daniel W. Drezner, Alan Richardson, David R. Miller, Aaron Sojourner, Claire L. Adida, Clayton Littlejohn, Andrew Novak

Gregory Pratt @royalpratt.bsky.social · 2d

ICE tickets Chicago man with legal residency $130 for not having his papers on him: ‘It’s not fair…I’m a resident’

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement fined Rueben Antonio Cruz $130 for not having his papers with him.

www.chicagotribune.com

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Clayton Littlejohn @cmlittlejohn.bsky.social · 2d

I love Ben, but I couldn't let this sentence slide:

"There’s also plenty of productive cross-fertilization. Slavoj Žižek is interested in Saul Kripke"

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Clayton Littlejohn @cmlittlejohn.bsky.social · 2d

One day, you'll wake up really sick and you know you won't leave the bed for days. And a few days later, you'll wonder why you didn't come up with a list of things to watch when you are suffering through a flu, cold, etc. Just a reminder that it's best to have that list before, not after.

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Reposted by Stacy D. VanDeveer, Clayton Littlejohn

Raider @iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social · 2d

ICE GOONS, laughing and pepper spraying Pastor after shooting him in the face with pepper balls, proceeded to gas the crowd who were trying to protect him.

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Reposted by Peter Thorne, Jonathan Wolff, Jonathan M. Gilligan , and 6 more Peter Thorne, Jonathan Wolff, Jonathan M. Gilligan, Rebecca Tushnet, Stacy D. VanDeveer, Scott A. Imberman, Michael D. McDonald, Clayton Littlejohn, Timothy D. McBride

derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 3d

About a month ago, the Trump administration got rid of the de minimis exemption, whereby packages valued under $800 could slide in without import duties. Now there's a backlog as the government can't process all of this paperwork, leading to UPS just destroying packages

Business Insider headline reads: UPS is telling customers that their packages coming to the US are marked for destruction.

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Reposted by Clayton Littlejohn

Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 3d

This heartfelt and meaningful statement by Portland resident and author Cristina Breshears on another social media platform bears reposting here. I don't think the intent is to idealize Portland but to remind all of us what is important and why. (Posted here with permission.)

For nine nights now, the steady thrum of Black Hawk helicopters has circled over Portland. The sound is constant, invasive; a low mechanical beating above our homes. It’s expensive. It’s intimidating. And it’s unnecessary.

Our protests have been largely peaceful. There is no insurrection here. Yet this federalized military presence makes us feel like we are living in a war zone (the very kind of chaos this administration claims to be protecting us from).

The irony is painful: it is only this occupation that makes Portland feel unsafe.

Each hour of helicopter flight costs taxpayers between $2,000 and $4,000, depending on crew, fuel, and maintenance. Multiply that by multiple aircraft over multiple nights, and you’re looking at hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars burned into the sky.

Meanwhile, the Woodstock Food Pantry at All Saints Episcopal Church — which feeds working families, elders, and people with disabilities — has seen its federal funding slashed by 75%. How can we justify pouring public money into intimidation while cutting aid to those who simply need to eat?

This is waste, fraud, and abuse in plain sight:
* Waste of public resources on military theatrics.
* Fraud in the name of “public safety.”
* Abuse of the communities that federal agencies claim to protect.

Portland is a Sanctuary City. A sanctuary city is not a fortress. It’s a promise — a living vow that a community will protect the dignity and safety of everyone who calls it home. It means that local governments and ordinary people alike will refuse to criminalize survival. That schools, clinics, churches, and shelters will remain safe spaces no matter who you are or where you were born. But the term reaches far beyond policy. It’s an ethic of belonging; a refusal to criminalize need, difference, or desperation.

Sanctuary isn’t weakness. It’s courage. It takes moral strength to meet suffering with care instead of punishment, to believe that our neighbors’ safety is bound up in our own, to insist that safety is not achieved through force but through community, inclusion, and trust. It is living Matthew 25:40 out loud and in deed. It is an act of moral imagination and moral defiance. To hold sanctuary is to say: you belong here.

When we hold space for the most vulnerable — refugees, the unhoused, the undocumented, the disabled, the working poor, the displaced — we become something larger than a collection of individuals. We become a moral body. We do more than offer charity. We offer witness. We declare that the measure of a nation is found not in its towers or tanks, but in its tenderness.

Sanctuary cities are not lawless; they are soulful. They represent the conscience of the nation, a place where the laws of empathy still apply. To make sanctuary is to affirm that the United States is not merely a geographic territory, but a moral experiment: a republic that must constantly choose between fear and compassion, between domination and democracy.

A nation’s soul is measured not by the might of its military, but by the mercy of its people. When helicopters circle our skies in the name of order, while food pantries struggle to feed the hungry, we are forced to ask: What are we defending, and from whom? The soul of a nation survives only when we make sanctuary for one another. Not through walls or weapons, but through compassion and collective will. If we allow intimidation to replace compassion, we will have traded our conscience for control.

Please know that despite the hum of war machines overhead, the conscience of our city — whimsical, creative, stubbornly kind — can still be heard.

Portland is not the problem. Portland is the reminder. A reminder that a city can still choose to be sanctuary. That a people can still choose to be human.

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Clayton Littlejohn @cmlittlejohn.bsky.social · 5d

Guessing that Trump has lost all interest in Venezuela now

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Clayton Littlejohn @cmlittlejohn.bsky.social · 6d

I didn't even know about the Homeless Industrial Complex

Clayton Littlejohn @cmlittlejohn.bsky.social · 6d

They had nothing to do with MAGA, they were definitely antifa, and I had to pardon them because they were patriots.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 7d

Q: There's compelling proof that antifa did infiltrate on January 6 dressed up like Trump supporters and incited violence. Is that something you'd like the new J6 committee to look at?

TRUMP: Well I've heard that. Yeah. We will be acting on some of that.

Reposted by Clayton Littlejohn

Jenny Judge @jennyjudge.bsky.social · 6d

Tidal is cheaper than Apple Music & they pay artists more. And the sound quality is SO MUCH BETTER. I actually laughed out loud when I played a track on Tidal and then on Spotify: the difference is that noticeable.

Also v easy to import playlists from Spotify.

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Reposted by Fabián Muniesa, Clayton Littlejohn, Dan Immergluck

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 7d

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Clayton Littlejohn @cmlittlejohn.bsky.social · 7d

We probably haven't figured out what Heidegger said yet.

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Clayton Littlejohn @cmlittlejohn.bsky.social · 7d

We've definitely figured out what Locke said by now.

Clayton Littlejohn @cmlittlejohn.bsky.social · 8d

Have we figured out what Kant said yet?

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Clayton Littlejohn @cmlittlejohn.bsky.social · 8d

My hypothesis is that all the people who say that the 2nd amendment is there to protect freedom and guard against tyranny are in an epistemic bubble and just don't know about Portland and Chicago.

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Reposted by Sanford F. Schram, Clayton Littlejohn

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities @centeronbudget.bsky.social · 9d

Reports raise red flags: Georgia spent $54M on admin costs for its #Medicaid waiver, nearly twice the $26M spent on care, while enrolling under 3,500 people. CMS still extended the costly program that ties coverage to work requirements. www.cbpp.org/research/fed...

CMS Extends Georgia’s Medicaid Waiver Program, Despite GAO Report Raising Concerns with Costs | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

September 23, 2025: A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) raising concerns about the cost of Georgia’s Pathways to Coverage Medicaid waiver program is a forewarning about how ex...

www.cbpp.org

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Clayton Littlejohn @cmlittlejohn.bsky.social · 9d

Type II nimby

Reposted by Michael D. McDonald, Erin O’Donnell, Clayton Littlejohn

Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 10d

Trey Reed, a student at Delta State University in Mississippi, was found hanging from a noose. Mississippi police ruled the death a suicide. Now an autopsy reportedly concludes that he suffered extensive blunt force trauma across his body before he died, meaning he was beaten before he was lynched.

Kaepernick-Funded Autopsy Reportedly Finds Trey Reed Didn’t Die by Suicide — Family Attorney Ben Crump Hasn’t Confirmed

According to a source who isn't authorized to comment publicly, the autopsy of Trey Reed reveals that his death was not caused by a suicide.

www.blackenterprise.com

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Clayton Littlejohn @cmlittlejohn.bsky.social · 11d

Bought tickets to see a musical about the life of this man.

"This is democracy manifest!"

"What is the charge? Eating a meal? A succulent Chinese meal?"

www.google.com/search?q=suc...

Google Search

www.google.com

Clayton Littlejohn @cmlittlejohn.bsky.social · 12d

Visit Ballarat 😅

Reposted by Gavin A. Schmidt, Steve Peers, Rosemary A. Joyce , and 12 more Gavin A. Schmidt, Steve Peers, Rosemary A. Joyce, Bonnie Honig, Janet Murray, Silvia Secchi, Stacy D. VanDeveer, Michael D. McDonald, Aoife O’Donoghue, Kent Johnson, Ann Bartow, Clayton Littlejohn, Daxton R. Stewart, Nathan P. Kalmoe, Virginia Sapiro

ACLU @aclu.org · 12d

BREAKING: Our client Mario Guevara, an Emmy-winning journalist detained by ICE in retaliation for livestreaming law enforcement activity, will be deported tomorrow to El Salvador.

Mario and his family are being punished for his reporting. This cruelty is meant to stifle our free press.

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Clayton Littlejohn @cmlittlejohn.bsky.social · 14d

"An ice cream lid, for example, might be a good Frisbee, without being a Frisbee."

Claude wasn't buying it. I'm sceptical. I could see going contextualist (ala Travis), but then I'd expect it to be true that it's a Frisbee.

Also:

This lid isn't a Frisbee, but it's a good Frisbee. (Bad!)

Reposted by Reece Jones, Marc Lynch, Dorothy Bishop , and 10 more Reece Jones, Marc Lynch, Dorothy Bishop, Tom Clark, Michelle Everson, Alan Richardson, Jacob T. Levy, Samantha Brennan, Jason Lyall, Clayton Littlejohn, Nathan Richardson, Nathan P. Kalmoe, Virginia Sapiro

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 15d

I fully understand how difficult it is to remain focused on any one particular atrocity but this really ought to be a serious scandal and people need to pay heavy prices for this

Michael Paarlberg @mpaarlberg.bsky.social · 16d

I think the Trump admin assumed no one would try to find out who the people on the boats they blew up really were

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Clayton Littlejohn @cmlittlejohn.bsky.social · 15d

This is a great thing to pay attention to instead of orders of extra-judicial killings. Distraction as #disinformation

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 15d

Khanna: "We have to understand how abnormal this is. You don't mock someone and put a video out about how they look. You don't ever mock people's ethnicity. How do you negotiate with that? And how have we made this normal?"

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