Kim Lane Scheppele

📽️ WATCH: “The U.S. sent us to El Salvador so that El Salvador could do the dirty work that the U.S. couldn’t.”

Hear from Juan José Ramos Ramos, Andry Omar Blanco Bonilla and Wilmer José Vega Sandia — three of 230+ Venezuelan men the Trump administration sent to CECOT — in their own words:

JUST IN: Abbott says he may treat fleeing lawmakers as having “forfeited” their offices and move to replace them. He also suggests they could be subject to felony charges if they accept payments to cover impending fines gov.texas.gov/uploads/file...

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.

I saw many atrocities as a senior aid official in Gaza. Now Israeli authorities are trying to silence us Devastated hospitals, mass graves, bodies eaten by dogs in the street. After speaking out, I discovered my visa will not be renewed, says Jonathan Whittall of UN OCHA

Don't look away.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Israel closes 88% of cases of alleged war crimes or abuse without charges – report Conflict monitoring group Action on Armed Violence says Israel is seeking to create a ‘pattern of impunity’

This is your friendly reminder that the ICC would not have jurisdiction over alleged Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity if the national authorities were willing and able to conduct serious investigations into the alleged crimes themselves. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

Stephen Miller just posted this. $50,000 of taxpayers money for a signing bonus.

Vast supplies of U.S. aid remain stranded, despite State Department promises More than 60,000 metric tons of food have languished in warehouses in the United States and around the world — with expiration dates nearing on some items.

It's hard to fathom the extent of the waste, and the suffering that goes with it.

We’re defying basic number theory at this point—riding roughshod over the intrinsic properties of integers.

White House Press Release: BLS Has Lengthy History of Inaccuracies, Incompetence

We know Trump lies all the time, but it feels important that reporters covering his politicization of employment data make sure to point out that even his stated reasons are bullshit!

the link at the bottom of that posts links to a respected news outlet in Israel - but it's in Hebrew.

Harvard President Garber Tells Faculty He Is Not Considering a $500 Million Deal With Trump

Harvard Is Said to Be Open to Spending Up to $500 Million to Resolve Trump Dispute The sum sought by the government is more than twice as much as the $200 million fine that Columbia University said it would pay when it settled its clash with the White House last week.

Reporting by college journalists sure makes it look like the @nytimes.com went with a Trump admin lie on Harvard. Yikes.

Garber said "the suggestion that Harvard was open to paying $500 million is “false” and claimed that the figure was apparently leaked to the press by White House officials" 1/

Perhaps the tide is finally turning inside Israel?

Harvard “is seriously considering resolving its dispute with the White House through the courts rather than a negotiated settlement.”

The university president said “the suggestion that Harvard was open to paying $500 million is ‘false’”

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Supreme Court poised to permanently entrench Republican rule The latest move by SCOTUS is a "five alarm fire"

"If SCOTUS guts the Voting Rights Act, the prospect of Republicans stealing only 5 seats in Texas will feel quaint. While California must counteract what the GOP is doing in Texas, we don’t have enough seats to counteract what they could do if the VRA if gutted. It cement permanent GOP rule."

Trump destroys our source of information about jobs. This is beyond irresponsible. He hates facts. He rejects truth. He doesn't want the public to know what's really happening.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is the crown jewel of knowledge about jobs and the economy.

Trump has destroyed the credibility of this extraordinarily important source of information.

This should alarm everyone. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/trump-destroys-our-source-of-information

A good read on the developing situation. I was pretty disappointed to see some of the statements from one of the affected researchers who seems to basically agree with the actions in principle but is mad that they affected him:

If you aren’t familiar, Terence Tao is a Fields Medalist and arguably the most prominent and accomplished mathematician of his generation.

No one is safe, basically. The current administration will use any excuse to burn it all to the ground.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which has distributed federal funds to both PBS and NPR for decades, announced Friday that it's shutting down.

The news comes after President Donald Trump recently clawed back more than a billion dollars of funding for public broadcasting.

"Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is overseeing a criminal case against an ally of President Donald Trump, told a court session on Friday that he will continue to do his job and "ignore the sanctions" imposed by the United States"
www.reuters.com/world/americ...

a thing I think about, from reading about Chile, is that getting rid of an authoritarian who imposes draconian libertarian austerity is one thing, but building back the things that said authoritarian destroyed, after the fact, is a second and distinct thing and doesn't naturally flow from the first

Heads up!

The Nation’s Data at Risk: Ongoing Monitoring The American Statistical Association is the world’s largest community of statisticians, the “Big Tent for Statistics.

Now that threats to federal statistics have gotten your attention, check out the damage that’s already been done:

www.amstat.org/the-nations-...

Brazil's Justice Moraes ignores US sanctions, says he will continue doing his job Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is overseeing a criminal case against an ally of President Donald Trump, told a court session on Friday that he will continue to do his job and "ignore the sanctions" imposed by the United States that effectively block him from the country's wide-reaching financial system.

The Brazilian Supreme Court is fearless in the face of sanctions -and will ensure that the trial of Bolsonaro stays on track. Trump is once again attempting to obstruct justice when it comes to holding former presidents accountable. www.reuters.com/world/americ...

There are just so many different ways that the USG can attack universities' bottom lines in ways that no university can recover from. I think that this is why universities are settling in the hopes of putting an end to it all. Of course, bullies, once appeased, return for more.

I agree - this is precisely the argument in the Harvard case, along with a 1st A viewpoint discrimination argument. The legal arguments are strong; the question is whether winning these cases stops the bullying through endowment taxes, removal of tax-exempt status, freezing student visas etc.

well, there is. it's just that when the president is the extortionist and he has packed the DOJ with loyalists, there is no one around who can enforce the law.

Great piece especially in showing how the Trump administration is able to weaponize the budget against universities.

One should ask if similar methods could be used in one's own jurisdiction. Spoiler for the Germans: probably yes.

Bullying Universities

"Regulation by deal, precisely because it bypasses general lawmaking procedures, leaves open the possibility that any deal can be supplemented with even more demands in the future. It can provide no legal guarantees of security."

ALWAYS read @kimlanelaw.bsky.social 👈

Another must-read post by @kimlanelaw.bsky.social
at a time where Harvard University appears ready to give in to Trump regime’s extortion & as always you can count on the NYT to engage in sanewashing in the face of manifest lawlessness by an out-of-control executive… www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/u...