Jennifer Richeson

we simply do not have a union anymore if the president is using troops from one state to invade others entirely on the basis of political disagreements

This is heavy.

Imagine if Obama had said this in front of military personnel about Republicans.

The media trots out the "deplorable" comment from a decade ago to castigate the left. Once a week now Trump implies that the military should destroy democrats, and it is just how things are.

I visited the apartment building ICE raided on Tuesday today. Story to come, but you can walk right in. Half of the apartments have no doors on them. Children's stuff abandoned in some flats. *Citizen* residents told me they were arrested and held for hours in zipties. This is America

Good

UW investigating after intruder disrupts a class with slurs, apparent Nazi salute University of Washington police are investigating an incident where a man interrupted a human sexuality lecture. A viral video of the incident shows the intruder shouting gay and ableist slurs and app...

this story is all over TikTok and IG — a young man storms into this human sexuality lecture (the largest, most popular class at UW) and starts yelling ableist and gay slurs and throws a Nazi salute… and then the prof and students chase him down and pepper spray him.

www.kuow.org/stories/uw-i...

Civil rights agency drops a key tool used to investigate workplace discrimination The U.S. civil rights agency responsible for enforcing worker rights will stop investigating complaints about company policies that don’t explicitly discriminate but may disproportionately harm certai...

This was expected, but is also going to be a disaster when it comes to dealing with bias in algorithmic tools for employment.

Source: AP News
search.app/kuYRD

The Hatch Act of 1939: an Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities, is a federal law that prohibits civil service employees of the federal government, except the president and vice president, from engaging in some forms of political activity. It became law on August 2, 1939.

Bonus 180: "Domestic Terrorism" and NSPM-7 The Trump administration is hoping no one notices that, although federal law *defines* "domestic terrorism," it provides no special authorities against anyone whose behavior *meets* that definition.

Federal law doesn't recognize the concept of a "domestic terrorist organization." That hasn't stopped President Trump from trying to use the concept to authorize investigations of (and necessarily suppress) lots of constitutionally protected speech, protest, and advocacy.

Me in today's "One First":

We are losing something by having newsrooms where everyone who has more than a few years’ experience has gotten fired. I don’t fault a young writer for not knowing about things that happened before she was born. But now there are no editors to help give context to these stories, either.

Now that’s bleak.

Secret police busting down doors in the middle of the night. It isn't a question of "could it happen here?" It is happening here and we must resist. chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

Absolutely wonderful, Linda!! Many congratulations!! Such a testament to your transformative research!!

Let’s open our eyes. This isn’t a functioning democracy any longer when - in the middle of a high stakes funding fight - the President illegally suspends federal projects in states run by Democrats as a way to punish the political opposition.

"The documents explicitly show that ICE is choosing this product over others offered by the contractor’s competitors because it gives ICE essentially an 'all-in-one' tool for searching both masses of location data and information taken from social media."

🚨 New Bright Line Watch report on state of US democracy
brightlinewatch.org/violence-red...

-Expert ratings ~= since April but ↓ substantially since January
-US now most closely resembles an illiberal democracy
-Partisan gap in democracy ratings highest since 2017

Full thread of results below

Feeling grateful the address I delivered upon receiving the Lewin Memorial Award has just been published in the September 2025 issue of Journal of Social Issues!

It appears as an open access article, for any and all who may be interested:

spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Systematically undermining mechanisms of transparency and accountability throughout the government

In any other country, if federal agents fired upon journalists when unprovoked — what would we call it?

If federal agents marched down streets demanding papers — what would we say?

Authoritarianism — let’s not pretend it’s something else when it happens in our American cities.

archive.ph/202509290514...

Fear and Hope in Venezuela as U.S. Warships Lurk

Article:

Kristi Noem: How DARE you accuse our glorious ICE agents of racial profiling.

Head of the Chicago raids: We are stopping people based on “how they look, how do they look compared to, say,” a tall, middle aged white guy.

I will never get over the fact that we had a national debate over a President's mental capacity and it wasn't about Trump.

BBC World Service - The Documentary Podcast, Social media influencers and politics Food, fashion and politics - how social media influencers are shaping global politics

Politicians/governments are now PAYING your social media influencers to bend messages their way

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p...

This means: people DRAWN to social media to avoid official or state "bias"....end up with it in a more subtle, indirect form.

Did you think Power would sit on sidelines?

Wp EXCLUSIVE White House considers funding advantage for colleges that align with Trump policies The proposal could potentially transform the government's vast research funding operation, which has long awarded university grants based on scientific merit. Today at 6:00 a.m. EDT

Awarding scientific grants based on scientific merit? That pales in comparison to my strategy, giving grants based on political loyalty

www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

Up is down

People who have studied the downfall of democracy in other countries recognize exactly what is happening in the U.S. The parallels are unmistakeable; the only difference is the speed - we are going *faster*. apnews.com/article/trum...

Trump to attend gathering of top generals, upending last-minute plans President Trump will attend the unusual gathering of hundreds of generals summoned to Virginia on short notice by Pete Hegseth, adding new security concerns.

As I expected Trump will attend the unprecedented gathering of top generals this week

www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...