Tom Sgouros's Avatar

Tom Sgouros

@tsgouros

Policy nerd, data science, researcher, former Treasury official, Rhode Islander. https://sgouros.com

440
Followers
406
Following
965
Posts
08.07.2023
Joined
Posts Following

Latest posts by Tom Sgouros @tsgouros

Bombing bombing in the burning gulf
The Francis can barely hear the Fukuyama
History falls apart the end cannot hold
Mere tragedy then farce is unleashed upon the world
The tide of darkness rises
world war warcraft two takes shape
the best lack all agency while the worst are all mememaxing

07.03.2026 03:00 πŸ‘ 35 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0

MAGA is the most toxic, hollow, phony, grifty, obnoxious, fraudulent, culty, soulless political movement in US history built on lies, hate, paranoia and greed. And as it unravels, so many rats will claim they were never really on the ship.

06.03.2026 11:49 πŸ‘ 3272 πŸ” 763 πŸ’¬ 152 πŸ“Œ 43

People used to like to say we are a nation of laws, but if we don’t enforce them then everything is a political question, today’s status quo. Perhaps the nation of laws thing was only aspirational, but I think we are seeing some excellent reasons to aspire to it.

06.03.2026 12:17 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
Post image Post image Post image

Citizens showed up tonight for a No-Kings Pop-Up gallery to benefit the #NKfoodpantry Such creativity! Gearing up for March 28. Please show up in force, history is counting on you! @indivisiblemetrori.bsky.social #RhodeIslandComputerMuseum #ProtestSigns #NKSignapalooza #March28 #NoAutocrats #NoKings

06.03.2026 01:13 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Impeachment is a congressional duty, not a potential strategy. Impeachment is to stop crimes by the president. There isn't any other way. It shouldn't matter how popular it is.

06.03.2026 01:54 πŸ‘ 14 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Not punishment enough.

05.03.2026 18:36 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

A lot of people say AI isn't very good for the world and its outputs are routinely unreliable, but these haters fail to see how it's revolutionizing how we incinerate schoolchildren.

05.03.2026 04:43 πŸ‘ 7334 πŸ” 2309 πŸ’¬ 182 πŸ“Œ 50
Preview
Trump has launched an unprecedented assault on the environment. Where’s the pushback? Climate deniers expected more resistance to the fossil fuel blitz. But Democrats, billionaires and activists have gone silent

Hello? Anybody home?

Climate "hushing" and avoidance has allowed Trump and the fossil industry to destroy decades of effort.

Where is the climate movement? Where are the Democratic politicians?

Vast majorities are concerned about climate change.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

04.03.2026 22:09 πŸ‘ 74 πŸ” 45 πŸ’¬ 6 πŸ“Œ 5
Preview
What MAGA Can Teach Democrats About Organizingβ€”and Infighting Republicans have become adept at creating broad coalitions in which supporting Trump is the only requirement. Democrats get tied up with litmus tests.

1. Over the last six months, I’ve been studying MAGA, and trying to understand why it has been so successful – and what the Democrats ought to learn from that success. The results were published in the New Yorker magazine this week. Here’s what I learned: (a 🧡)
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

29.01.2026 14:45 πŸ‘ 66 πŸ” 27 πŸ’¬ 5 πŸ“Œ 15
Post image
04.03.2026 17:47 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

For these things to work at all this has to be true. Don’t use them.

04.03.2026 13:17 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

they start wars to use the weapons they bought for billions from billionaires and then say we need to spend more billions to buy more weapons.

03.03.2026 20:36 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

The glibness. The indifference. The carelessness. The utter lack of planning for a war against a country of 90M. The sickness of a man who acts on whim that will kill thousands not hundreds. The horror of a regime that enables this sickness. The broken body politic that votes in such malignancy.

03.03.2026 01:39 πŸ‘ 9135 πŸ” 2423 πŸ’¬ 284 πŸ“Œ 106
Preview
By Tesla's own math, it reveals that its robotaxis are 4x worse at driving than humans, with redactions hiding even more details | Fortune By NHTSA standards, the Tesla Robotaxis are 8x worse than human drivers.

About every 57k miles driven by Musk’s robotaxis one gets into a wreck. That’s four times the rate of humans.

02.03.2026 03:16 πŸ‘ 1963 πŸ” 708 πŸ’¬ 27 πŸ“Œ 42

Insults like that only land on more perceptive people than me, I guess. Maybe I'll use "USAian" from now on. And "UMSian" for people from Mexico? Or "Dominionists" for people from Canada? This could be fun.

01.03.2026 22:35 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0

This is appalling, and the rest of the thread. The human cost and the cost to our society of gutting our national commitment to scientific research will be brutal. And it is so unnecessary.

01.03.2026 22:28 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

I thought it was just a clever way to save a few characters when you're hitting the limit.

01.03.2026 22:23 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Not the point of the conversation, but we in RI voted to dump the "Plantations" thing in 2020. Still there on some buildings, where it's carved in stone, but gone from most other places.

01.03.2026 22:22 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

impeach him. try to do it once a month, if necessary. build the case over and over to not just the American people but to the world that this isn’t the way things should be here, that this isn’t the way we should use our power abroad.

03.01.2026 07:36 πŸ‘ 1220 πŸ” 281 πŸ’¬ 19 πŸ“Œ 26

The birthright citizenship IS an easy case. That’s the point. That’s the flex. β€œNo matter what rights you think you have, no matter how universally acknowledged you think they are, no matter how central to American values those rights are, WE decide whether or not you have those rights”……
/1

27.02.2026 15:28 πŸ‘ 2911 πŸ” 722 πŸ’¬ 50 πŸ“Œ 52

I think far too little attention is paid to exactly this aspect of policy advocacy. There is a moral dimension to advocacy itself, since the things you are advocating could become policy. You can't justify the morality of making an argument for a bad policy by simply hoping it is never enacted.

27.02.2026 15:51 πŸ‘ 9 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

it took an expensive, coordinated effort & a lot of people saying β€œthis doesn’t matter” to get from a bathroom ban costing one state $400 million & a gubernatorial race to β€œtrans people must turn in their documents which become invalid in a few hours or face fines & potential jail time” in 10 years.

26.02.2026 04:58 πŸ‘ 4001 πŸ” 1589 πŸ’¬ 4 πŸ“Œ 16

Part of the problem here is a long-standing issue of mine: The public gets a huge benefit from beat journalismβ€”but the journalism industry does not, by and large, recognize beat journalism for its value or when it comes to awards and prizes. Those go to investigations and "one big thing" features.

25.02.2026 17:49 πŸ‘ 1535 πŸ” 209 πŸ’¬ 16 πŸ“Œ 22

Beat journalists are also the journalists with the expertise to make judgments about what is news, unlike the political press, who mostly just go wherever they are pointed.

25.02.2026 19:45 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Who sits there and just listens to insults rain down on them? What value does that demonstrate?

25.02.2026 03:24 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Yes! "Just asking questions" is silly if you can't tell a good answer from a bad one.

24.02.2026 22:24 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

This one was more dramatic, but that one was weirder.

24.02.2026 17:23 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

That's me.

24.02.2026 17:17 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
We need accountability from Venezuela to Minnesota - CIP The impunity of security forces brought us crises at home and abroad. Only accountability can lead us out.

The crisis of democracy is a crisis of accountability and impunity internationalpolicy.org/publications...

24.02.2026 16:47 πŸ‘ 83 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Government is at its best when it disappears from our attention and just works.

24.02.2026 02:47 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0