Jennifer N. Victor

The Mothership Vortex: An Investigation Into the Firm at the Heart of the Democratic Spam Machine How a single consulting firm extracted $282 million from a network of spam PACs while delivering just $11 million to actual campaigns.

The Democratic Party allows a grift machine to operate in its name, eroding trust and abusing the goodwill of the very voters it seeks to cultivate. The smoking gun analysis from @adambonica.bsky.social confirms what I’ve long suspected. open.substack.com/pub/data4dem...

It's crazy how much AI is like the your worst coworker.

Doesn't do their job right, steals your shit, isn't funny, and in the end you still have to redo all their work and for some god knows what reason your boss loves them and never fires them.

Firing the BLS Commissioner — the wonk in charge of the statisticians who track economic reality — is an authoritarian four alarm fire.

It will also backfire: You can't bend economic reality, but you can break the trust of markets. And biased data yields worse policy.

For the other universities watching, the lesson is PLAY OFFENSE. Do not accept the terms of conflict you've been presented. Relentlessly communicate your intention and vision. Engage and challenge those who misrepresent your intentions.

I think the president just plainly stating that he's firing the person who produces economic data because he doesn't like the numbers officially pushes us into a new era where you just can't believe government data anymore.

GMU update:

In a delightful twist, the GMU board just approved a 1.5% raise for President Washington. There had been widespread speculation that the board might fire him today. There was considerable attendance and media at today's meeting. The closed session was nearly 4 hrs!

What's next?

Authoritarians are attacking universities. Here's how it's going at one public school. I'm publicly documenting an event timeline to help bring order to the chaotic nature of events and help other schools plan the responses they are likely going to need.

Read @jenvictor.bsky.social on the events at at GMU. misofact.substack.com/p/authoritar...

The one silver lining of all this is that the Trump administration is doing more to correct the false reputation Mason has for being "a right wing school" than any PR firm ever could.

It’s even more outrageous bc the line in the fac senate resolution that appeared to trigger the DOJ was literally copied from a university website—the university’s own strategic plan, adopted by the board, ofc.

(But all I can see now in your screenshot is all my typos, holy hell 😱.)

1. That was Heritage Fndn
2. GMU has some prominent ideologically conservative faculty, mostly concentrated in a couple units.
3. It’s a huge university—99% of faculty and students are good faith academics, not ideologues.
4. Yes I’m defending my employer, my students, and academic freedom.

would love to see political scientists creating similar timelines at their institutions

Authoritarians are attacking universities. Here's how it's going at one public school. I'm publicly documenting an event timeline to help bring order to the chaotic nature of events and help other schools plan the responses they are likely going to need.

To document and make sense of the executive overreach at her university, @jenvictor.bsky.social provides a timeline of key events. Transparency is the best disinfectant.
misofact.substack.com/p/authoritar...

Authoritarians are attacking universities. Here's how it's going at one public school. I'm publicly documenting an event timeline to help bring order to the chaotic nature of events and help other schools plan the responses they are likely going to need.

I made an event timeline to try to make sense of all the federal overreach at @georgemasonu.bsky.social and whoo boy. When you lay it out like this, the executive over reach comes into focus. open.substack.com/pub/misofact...

Wow. A group of top scholars at Harvard just sent a letter to its president, Alan Garber, warning against surrendering to Trump.

Signatories include Steven Levitsky, Dani Rodrik, Ryan Enos, Theda Skocpol, and Steven Walt.

Someone forwarded it to me. Read it here:

Trump Administration Live Updates: Mexico Gets 90-Day Extension as Tariff Deadline Looms

It’s taco Thursday! 🌮🥳

“Trump Administration Live Updates: Mexico Gets 90-Day Extension as Tariff Deadline Looms” www.nytimes.com/live/2025/07...

As someone who tracked the Russia probe closely and then tracked the effort to discredit the Russia probe closely, its brain-breaking (though not surprising) to see the administration trot out the same old debunked, cherry-picked shit in an effort to retcon Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Yep. Your occasional reminder that sex is biologically determined (and can be ambiguous), while gender is socially determined.

Bringing world leaders to Trump’s Doral course for the G20 would require them all to (literally) pay him tribute. It doesn’t get more corrupt than that.

And even if Trump decided to host it for free or at cost, it would generate priceless free publicity.

Analysis | The Fact Checker rose in an era of false claims. Falsehoods are now winning. Longtime Fact Checker Glenn Kessler takes stock as he departs The Washington Post.

“In an era where false claims are the norm, it’s much easier to ignore the fact-checkers.”
— a poignant final line from a retiring critical journalist. Gift link. Worth your time. Thank you for your service @glennkessler.bsky.social

wapo.st/41kFq2G

If you work in higher ed, you need to get your folks together and end the use of course evals or at least bar their consideration in evaluation, promotion, and hiring. This needed to happen yesterday because they don't measure learning, they measure instructor gender, but now it's a snitch pool.

Amen!

Brown is acceding to government oversight of course evaluations, where they can investigate anyone they want for "antisemitism" based on student complaints.

Congratulations!!

The GMU attack hits different than prev. attacks on universities bc

1. GMU does not have an endowment--it cannot withstand a $$$ deal to get feds off its back the way the ivies, and even UVA, can.

2. GMU is in a state with a Republican Governor--the ivies are in states with Democratic Governors.

lol. I like this last take best.

Like when or where did people get the idea that parties are made up of people who all agree with one another??

two boys are jumping in the air with the words lets gooooo !!! ALT: two boys are jumping in the air with the words lets gooooo !!!

PR! Let's gooooo!

Yes! My "platform" would be:
1. Multi-member districts with fusion voting
2. Double the size of the House
3. Full voting rights for all (DC, PR included)
4. Judicial term limits
5. Tax the rich

I just realized that my post and the photo that goes with the piece are confusing. I don't work for Cal State Long Beach (but my mom used to!). I work at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. It's the largest public research university in Virginia with a very diverse student population.

Murdering higher education, 1-2-3 The Trump administration is pursuing this goal from several directions

I never imagined the scrappy, vigorous, massive public university I work for would be a target of this bullshit. But here we are. @smotus.bsky.social summarizes it well in this piece.

The goal is a show of force that threatens higher ed into ideological compliance.
open.substack.com/pub/smotus/p...