Sam Ulmschneider
@samulmschneider.bsky.social
Teaching Constitutional studies, poli sci, political theory, US history topics in Virginia. Own views & comments, these don't reflect my institutional affiliations. Husband / cat person / Madisonian / Lincolnite / Trekkie / strategy gamer / metalhead.
One of the things that makes the narrative of this episode of Burns's American Revolution most interesting to me is that the arc really nails the problem of how a local conflagration in Boston becomes, somehow, the cause of so many colonial Britons from Philadelphia to Williamsburg and beyond.
November 17, 2025 at 3:14 AM
One of the things that makes the narrative of this episode of Burns's American Revolution most interesting to me is that the arc really nails the problem of how a local conflagration in Boston becomes, somehow, the cause of so many colonial Britons from Philadelphia to Williamsburg and beyond.
American Revolution PBS so far is good to fine. You have to make choices in something so expansive, and the choices you make will inevitably disserve some historiographic angles and perspectives. There are several which are under-served or over-served in this presentation, but...that was inevitable?
November 17, 2025 at 2:51 AM
American Revolution PBS so far is good to fine. You have to make choices in something so expansive, and the choices you make will inevitably disserve some historiographic angles and perspectives. There are several which are under-served or over-served in this presentation, but...that was inevitable?
I don't know that I'd ever seen Bernard Bailyn's image in video until today. It makes no direct difference, but it brought me up short to realize I had little or no immediate visual and phyiscial image of one of the people whose writing and ideas were most important to my views and interests.
November 17, 2025 at 2:16 AM
I don't know that I'd ever seen Bernard Bailyn's image in video until today. It makes no direct difference, but it brought me up short to realize I had little or no immediate visual and phyiscial image of one of the people whose writing and ideas were most important to my views and interests.
There’s a case for having these expensive assets (not a great case but it’s real), however a lot of it revolves around their flexibility+value as deterrents against regional actors and near-peers acting to disrupt conflict zones, which means deployment flexibility. This is the opposite of all that!
It was deployed to support Operation Southern Spear. The ship is the first of a new class of aircraft carriers being built for the U.S. military. n.pr/4807YRU
The USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier is in the Caribbean. Here's its backstory
It was deployed to support Operation Southern Spear. The ship is the first of a new class of aircraft carriers being built for the U.S. military.
n.pr
November 16, 2025 at 11:13 PM
There’s a case for having these expensive assets (not a great case but it’s real), however a lot of it revolves around their flexibility+value as deterrents against regional actors and near-peers acting to disrupt conflict zones, which means deployment flexibility. This is the opposite of all that!
Reposted by Sam Ulmschneider
What are some of the works you think anyone entering college or a second-year course claiming to have taken a good intro to political philosophy/political theory course ought to have encountered (though not read in full)? What works that might NORMALLY make the list would you be willing to bin? Why?
November 14, 2025 at 11:42 PM
What are some of the works you think anyone entering college or a second-year course claiming to have taken a good intro to political philosophy/political theory course ought to have encountered (though not read in full)? What works that might NORMALLY make the list would you be willing to bin? Why?
Teaching Rousseau next week and I’ll admit he makes me more anxious than most other thinkers - I took whole undergrad or grad classes on Locke, Hobbes, Plato, Aristotle, even Marx and Nietzsche but I never got a solid education in Rousseau and need to go back and fill in a lot more.
November 15, 2025 at 10:29 PM
Teaching Rousseau next week and I’ll admit he makes me more anxious than most other thinkers - I took whole undergrad or grad classes on Locke, Hobbes, Plato, Aristotle, even Marx and Nietzsche but I never got a solid education in Rousseau and need to go back and fill in a lot more.
one of the things most interesting about Spanberger's victory is that it represents real departure from longstanding general rule that women's 'firsts' in elected offices often go to conservative female candidates. Makes me hopeful that the US won't need a Margaret Thatcher as a first woman prez.
November 15, 2025 at 1:55 AM
one of the things most interesting about Spanberger's victory is that it represents real departure from longstanding general rule that women's 'firsts' in elected offices often go to conservative female candidates. Makes me hopeful that the US won't need a Margaret Thatcher as a first woman prez.
People make a big deal out of there being weirdos in the House, but thus it has always been. Even in the 1790 House, elite people like the van Rensselaers had to share space with wacky-seeming frontier guys like John Sevier and blacksmith's kid's and weaver's apprentices and so on.
November 15, 2025 at 1:51 AM
People make a big deal out of there being weirdos in the House, but thus it has always been. Even in the 1790 House, elite people like the van Rensselaers had to share space with wacky-seeming frontier guys like John Sevier and blacksmith's kid's and weaver's apprentices and so on.
What are some of the works you think anyone entering college or a second-year course claiming to have taken a good intro to political philosophy/political theory course ought to have encountered (though not read in full)? What works that might NORMALLY make the list would you be willing to bin? Why?
November 14, 2025 at 11:42 PM
What are some of the works you think anyone entering college or a second-year course claiming to have taken a good intro to political philosophy/political theory course ought to have encountered (though not read in full)? What works that might NORMALLY make the list would you be willing to bin? Why?
Is a law criminally banning or creating mechanisms for seeking legal damages wrt the use of AI generated videos of specific individuals in advertising a 1st Amendment violation? Does it matter whether those individuals are living or dead - or how long they've been dead? Coming soon to our courts!
November 14, 2025 at 7:53 PM
Is a law criminally banning or creating mechanisms for seeking legal damages wrt the use of AI generated videos of specific individuals in advertising a 1st Amendment violation? Does it matter whether those individuals are living or dead - or how long they've been dead? Coming soon to our courts!
Reposted by Sam Ulmschneider
I’m slowly radicalizing into thinking we need to ban all non in person sports betting
An op-ed from Chris Christie (!!) that says "Regulated betting, when done right, strengthens the integrity of sports."
No discussion of gambling's deleterious effects on people!
No discussion of gambling's deleterious effects on people!
November 14, 2025 at 3:29 PM
I’m slowly radicalizing into thinking we need to ban all non in person sports betting
there's got to be a systematic analysis out there of how modern war just doesn't leave an undisturbed civilian center, and the way that impacts security policy. From cyber to mass drone to human bombs to opinion operations, there is more than ever a confused, complex homefront/frontline distinction.
November 14, 2025 at 3:46 AM
there's got to be a systematic analysis out there of how modern war just doesn't leave an undisturbed civilian center, and the way that impacts security policy. From cyber to mass drone to human bombs to opinion operations, there is more than ever a confused, complex homefront/frontline distinction.
I'd really like to take a good class - an advanced undergrad or grad course - on Rousseau. He's a thinker I rarely had the chance to study in a concentrated way in my academic career and I often feel a bit like I was robbed in that respect.
November 14, 2025 at 3:20 AM
I'd really like to take a good class - an advanced undergrad or grad course - on Rousseau. He's a thinker I rarely had the chance to study in a concentrated way in my academic career and I often feel a bit like I was robbed in that respect.
Reposted by Sam Ulmschneider
Democrats tried "prices aren't higher" in 2024 and it didn't work. People have been laser focused on costs for *years.*
November 13, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Democrats tried "prices aren't higher" in 2024 and it didn't work. People have been laser focused on costs for *years.*
Gosh, I like train travel so much more than air travel. Truly more comfortable and civilized feeling and integrated into urban landscapes so much better.
November 13, 2025 at 9:18 PM
Gosh, I like train travel so much more than air travel. Truly more comfortable and civilized feeling and integrated into urban landscapes so much better.
This information environment is as great or greater a threat to our political system as any other major social problem right now. Other changes in the information world - the rise of penny presses, radio, TV - also destabilized democracy for a time, and I hope this can similarly be stabilized.
It's now stating affirmatively the opposite of reality.
November 12, 2025 at 1:12 PM
This information environment is as great or greater a threat to our political system as any other major social problem right now. Other changes in the information world - the rise of penny presses, radio, TV - also destabilized democracy for a time, and I hope this can similarly be stabilized.
Reposted by Sam Ulmschneider
Kind of wild that while food assistance was withheld from millions of families, one Trump-supporting billionaire (Ellison) saw his net worth grow more this year than the entire SNAP budget. And the YTD gains of the other four richest men would’ve fully covered salaries for all 2M federal employees.
November 11, 2025 at 9:03 PM
Kind of wild that while food assistance was withheld from millions of families, one Trump-supporting billionaire (Ellison) saw his net worth grow more this year than the entire SNAP budget. And the YTD gains of the other four richest men would’ve fully covered salaries for all 2M federal employees.
There are only a limited number of nonfiction authors I enjoy reading as much as I enjoy reading Jack Balkin (most of the time). That first sentence highlighted is just such a good touch.
November 12, 2025 at 3:22 AM
There are only a limited number of nonfiction authors I enjoy reading as much as I enjoy reading Jack Balkin (most of the time). That first sentence highlighted is just such a good touch.
man, American political systems are so utterly unsuited for the internet information age. Even the party structures, grafted onto the system in the early 19thc, assume autonomy of state level political and info environments that's downright ludicrous to attempt to manage today.
November 11, 2025 at 3:05 AM
man, American political systems are so utterly unsuited for the internet information age. Even the party structures, grafted onto the system in the early 19thc, assume autonomy of state level political and info environments that's downright ludicrous to attempt to manage today.
The ACA is really a great example of the horrors of policy development in the US system. From contemplation to cornhusker kickback to the Medicaid expansion being ruled an unconstitutional coercion, the policy process embodies every perversion of our process and is tailor made to mystify citizens.
November 11, 2025 at 2:08 AM
The ACA is really a great example of the horrors of policy development in the US system. From contemplation to cornhusker kickback to the Medicaid expansion being ruled an unconstitutional coercion, the policy process embodies every perversion of our process and is tailor made to mystify citizens.
I'm not sure that I agree with it (probably don't?) but the most compelling case for voting to limit the shutdown, even on these terms, is that starving children with suspended and damaged SNAP and WIC systems and putting lives in danger with a hamstrung set of travel safety systems is too cruel.
November 10, 2025 at 11:38 PM
I'm not sure that I agree with it (probably don't?) but the most compelling case for voting to limit the shutdown, even on these terms, is that starving children with suspended and damaged SNAP and WIC systems and putting lives in danger with a hamstrung set of travel safety systems is too cruel.
It's bad but impressive in a certain way how dogged the GOP has been in its quest to destroy the main legislative accomplishment of the Obama admin. For nearly a decade and a half the party's political and policymaking energy has consistently found new ways to limit, undermine, deconstruct the ACA.
November 10, 2025 at 3:57 PM
It's bad but impressive in a certain way how dogged the GOP has been in its quest to destroy the main legislative accomplishment of the Obama admin. For nearly a decade and a half the party's political and policymaking energy has consistently found new ways to limit, undermine, deconstruct the ACA.
One of the more important long term impacts of these 10 months - layoffs, furloughs, shutdown threats and shutdowns, insane EOs, internal management upheavals - is going to be a brain drain of outstanding employees from fed service and a much harder time hiring future good employees in fed service.
November 10, 2025 at 12:12 PM
One of the more important long term impacts of these 10 months - layoffs, furloughs, shutdown threats and shutdowns, insane EOs, internal management upheavals - is going to be a brain drain of outstanding employees from fed service and a much harder time hiring future good employees in fed service.
Worth noting while we're all in the midst of this that voters - even primary voters - have a very very limited grasp of the ins and outs of complex legislative procedure or who votes for measures and how, even ones you or I consider less complex like breaking filibusters.
November 10, 2025 at 1:05 AM
Worth noting while we're all in the midst of this that voters - even primary voters - have a very very limited grasp of the ins and outs of complex legislative procedure or who votes for measures and how, even ones you or I consider less complex like breaking filibusters.
on a really fundamental level, having a minority in both houses means that there are no good deals and negotiating which are the less-bad deals in both the short and medium term is an exceptionally complicated and fraught matter. Being mad is fine, but being sure you understand all the variables....
November 10, 2025 at 12:37 AM
on a really fundamental level, having a minority in both houses means that there are no good deals and negotiating which are the less-bad deals in both the short and medium term is an exceptionally complicated and fraught matter. Being mad is fine, but being sure you understand all the variables....