Amy Ruffo

Not for the first time, I’ll point out that the president doesn’t understand how the global economy works

Hi, former Foreign Service Officer here

The Secretary of State might be interested to learn that visa requirements and terms are generally reciprocal. We do it to them, they do it to us.

Deals are generally reached between two parties who each want something. When one of the parties' desire is "to not be arbitrarily punished by the power of the state" that is not a deal, that is extortion.

Trump’s Deal-Making With Other Elite Schools Scrambles Harvard Negotiations

It is not “deal-making.” It is extortion built on Christopher Rufo’s idea of “taking down” one or more elite university.
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/u...

Donald fucking Trump described it as a plan to give them 5 more seats! The MSM will never, ever learn, will they?

Applebaum on Autocracy Anne Applebaum warns that Sudan’s descent into chaos shows what happens when institutions fail—and why a free press is essential to prevent America from following the same path.

Anne Applebaum: "If American media can’t convey how dangerous this behavior is—for our prosperity, for our health, for our democracy—then American media will eventually cease to exist."

More from our convo in @status.news: www.status.news/p/anne-apple...

Add IL and NY to the D gerrymander list.

"When good people in any country cease their vigilance and struggle, then evil men prevail."
~ Pearl S. Buck
#Texas #gerrymander

Are they fleeing? I’m pretty certain was a word-nerd you could come up with a better descriptor.

Rigged Redistricting | Take Action Now Join us to oppose Greg Abbott's redistricting scheme and prioritize flood relief. Help protect Texas families and democracy today.

support texas dems here:
riggedredistricting.com

People running the U.S. seem unable to understand that education is also your country's largest economic export.

A fun reminder that a loss of 60,000 jobs in and around academia is ~50% more than all coal mining jobs in the entire country.

Does anyone else remember a couple of months ago when a Republican terrorist shot four people killing two of them in an effort to give control of the Minnesota legislature to Republicans?

Smithsonian removes explicit references to Trump’s impeachments from exhibit, under pressure from the White House

Earlier this year, Trump signed an executive order calling for “improper, divisive or anti-American ideology” to be removed from the Smithsonian

MAGA champions free speech, y’all

Same

Here’s a 🔥🔥exchange between me and Mick Mulvaney during @mehdirhasan.bsky.social's brilliant interview of Mulvaney on Al Jazeera's Head to Head. The whole episode is worth a watch, and you can find it on @aljazeera.com's YouTube channel.

"Each of these moves further dismantled the structure of democratic governance: intimidating prosecutors, gutting oversight, rewarding cronies, ignoring facts, and weaponizing law enforcement."

While they are focuses on extorting universities, the DOJ staff have stopped investigating profound civil rights violations of vulnerable groups.

This was the mid-90s. The cultural at large was subtle and obvious misogyny. I fear we are quickly headed back to those days.

“in every location there was this microcosm of acceptance, of yes people, who acted like this was normal," De Georgiou said.

Of the first eight faculty members appointed to live and teach in the Academical Village, three were professors in the humanities, and the humanities have played a central role at the University over the past two hundred years. But there are no humanities professors on the 28-member search committee for UVA's tenth president.

"There are no humanities professors on the 28-member search committee for UVA's tenth president."

www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...

The US could see a 30-40% decline in new international student enrollment, resulting in nearly $7 billion in lost revenue and more than 60,000 fewer American jobs. https://www.nafsa.org/fall-2025-international-student-enrollment-outlook-and-economic-impact

“The memo is alarming, because it speaks to the intent to use the military within the United States at a level not seen since Japanese internment,” Carrie Lee, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund…”We don’t want the military doing law enforcement. It absolutely undermines the rule of law.”

Revisions happen every month.

White House has no plan to mandate IVF care, despite campaign pledge President Donald Trump has said he wants a “baby boom,” but critics say his administration has yet to make significant family policy changes — and that Medicaid cuts will hurt.

All those Trump surrogates who touted this, and news orgs that reported it credulously, owe Americans a big fat apology www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Opinion | Forget Trump’s IVF promises. The GOP’s record shows contempt for fertility care. As always, pay more attention to what politicians do than to what they say.

He was lying about this from the get-go, which was obvious if you looked at literally anything he had done in his first term related to fertility care.
Pay more attention to what politicians do than to what they say. css.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

AmeriStarRail Unveils Plan for Cross-Country Train Ahead of America’s 250th Birthday | WITF Aired; July 29th, 2025.Listen to the podcast to hear the full conversation. In time for America’s 250th birthday celebration in 2026, AmeriStar […]

If the Federal Gov invested in train infrastructure the idea that Amtrak is “losing money” might be mute. Evidently the cars on cross country routes are 50 yrs old.

www.witf.org/2025/07/29/a...

The fact that Republicans are unfazed that Donald Trump is giving special treatment to a woman who ran this country’s most notorious pedophile ring on behalf of its most notorious serial pedophile is the latest sign of the GOP’s complete moral rot.

“.. We have no interest in running a lower-margin business, particularly due to tariffs,” said the CFO. “And if this is something that’s going to be a permanent increase to our cost structure, we have to find a way to cover it.”

@nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/02/b...