Jordan Weissmann

Trump’s college compact is a trap The administration is hoping to divide and conquer America’s universities. Schools need to unite and keep saying no

Trump’s college compact is an Orwellian intrusion into American higher education, in which “academic freedom” means gutting departments unfriendly to conservatives. So far, no university has said yes, but they need to stay united against it. www.theargumentmag.com/p/trumps-col...

After the horrific killing of Charlie Kirk, I watched as one right wing influencer after another said it was time to wage war on all left-wing institutions. Then, Trump echoed them in his oval office address. It's frightening he would even hint at it. www.theargumentmag.com/p/charlie-ki...

How I learned to start worrying and hate the deficit It's time for liberals to wake up about the national debt

Ok we've made fun of deficit hawks forever but @jhweissmann.bsky.social has a convincing case that if you care about social welfare programs you actually do need to start worrying about the debt! www.theargumentmag.com/p/how-i-lear...

Part of that will require a grassroots effort to win the culture war over taxes, which Democrats have all but ceded

How I learned to start worrying and hate the deficit It's time for liberals to wake up about the national debt

My argument for being a liberal deficit hawk.

Between slashing taxes and crushing immigration, Trump policies are a disaster for our fiscal future.

Libs need a longterm plan to fight back that doesn’t compromise our goal to protect and improve the welfare state.

open.substack.com/pub/theargum...

One dead after bomb explodes outside reproductive center in Downtown Palm Springs ⋆ The Palm Springs Post Police confirm one person is dead after a bomb explodes outside a reproductive facility

One dead after bomb explodes outside reproductive center in Downtown Palm Springs thepalmspringspost.com/one-dead-aft...

This is completely false. Even the largest university endowment cannot sustain large-scale scientific research.

In my 25 years at my school, the most monumental research fund drive raised $325M in *total*. Federal research here costs $200M per *every year*.

This is an extinction-level event.

The fun part of this video is where he explains that Oxford and Webster both define a body slam as the wrestling move.

Exclusive: NSF stops awarding new grants and funding existing ones US science funder also plans to screen grant applications for compliance with ‘agency priorities’.

Nature reports that the National Science Foundation has stopped awarding new grants and allotting funds to existing ones. All of them. @colincarlson.bsky.social says that unless the freeze is lifted, it “is going to destroy people's labs.” 2/10
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

A tweet by "rohit" discusses the application of AI in geopolitics, specifically focusing on tariffs, and includes a table comparing tariff rates between China and the US.

Guess where they got their weird trade deficit math from?

Trump tariffs drive imports into US foreign trade zones Policy uncertainty fuels surge in use of approved facilities that temporarily exempt businesses from paying levies

Stockpiling in Free Trade Zones in every US state surging amidst tariff fears.
www.ft.com/content/bafa...

Exclusive | Top Vaccine Official Out at FDA In his resignation letter, Dr. Peter Marks cited ‘misinformation and lies’ from Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr.

Looking forward to hearing Bill Cassidy’s take on this www.wsj.com/politics/top...

You know, I still would not rate the chances of a Canada invasion highly (like, less than 5% chance). But watching this Greenland presser, I’d understand it if Ottawa was doing a little war gaming right now.

Florida debates lifting some child labor laws to fill jobs vacated by undocumented immigrants - WSVN 7News | Miami News, Weather, Sports | Fort Lauderdale New York (CNN) — Florida has been working for years to crack down on employers that hire undocumented immigrants. But that presented a problem for<a class="excerpt-read-more" href="https://wsvn.com/ne...

Florida debates lifting some child labor laws to fill jobs vacated by undocumented immigrants.
Bill would allow 14-yr-olds to work overnight shifts, end guaranteed meal breaks for 16/17-yr-olds.
(Legislature *already* passed law allowing home-schooled 16/17-yr-olds to work any hour of the day)

Student loan news: The Dept. of Education is apparently planning to turn back on the applications for income-driven repayment plans tomorrow, according to two sources familiar with the administration's plans.

SAVE and REPAYE will no longer be options.

IBR and PAYE will be.

Hm. Carpetbagging isn’t a great strategy.

She’s targeting Jan Schakowsky, who is a popular progressive, but also an 80-year-old incumbent who represents a college town. (Evanston, home of Northwestern). Absolutely can imagine this being a serious challenge given the frustrations with the party.

The New York Times "A current policy approach is like if you signed up for a Crunchyroll anime subscription that you knew you couldn't afford, but now that it's time to re-up the subscription, you pretend it's free because you've already been paying it." Bobby Kogan Senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, a progressive research group; former adviser to the director of the Office of Management and Budget; former Senate Budget Committee staffer

lmao I can’t believe they printed this

BYD Unveils Battery System That Charges EVs in Five Minutes BYD Co. unveiled a new system for electric cars that the Chinese automaker says will allow them to charge almost as fast as it takes a regular car to refuel.

BYD says it has a battery system that can charge in 5 minutes, slightly more time than it takes to fill a tank of gas.

The big US automakers are just hopelessly behind, and it feels like their foreign sales could easily be wiped out in a few years as a result.
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Scientists have just cured pancreatic cancer in some patients with personalized mRNA vaccines. Pancreatic cancer. And this Trump administration wants to throw it all away.

They’re throwing away a cure for cancer.

“Doing What an Angry 3-Year-Old Would Do” Is the Only Remaining Republican Principle You'd think this would be an unsustainable way to govern or win elections. But temper tantrums can last a long time.

One of the more useful pieces I once edited by @benmathislilley.bsky.social slate.com/news-and-pol...

Do you have any sense of what's left at IES? Anyone?

Hi Betsy — I'm a reporter with Yahoo Finance. Do you mind sharing how this list was compiled? (DMs open).

Yes, I was around talking about how the Germans were assholes then.

And from a macro and trade balance perspective, which is what Greece etc. should care about here, miltary keynsianism is fine.

Department of education announces it’s cutting its workforce by 50% (including buyouts/retirements)

This fuckin’ doof made his name trying and failing to stand up to German austerity. And now…

a man with a horse drawn carriage says tradition ALT: a man with a horse drawn carriage says tradition

New Yorkers when deciding on a mayor and picking the worst possible candidate

Also note: That "pattern and practice of discrimination" section could almost certainly be turned against organizations it finds engaged in "illegal" DEI practices — though we have yet to see how aggressively Trump's DOJ will actually pursue that.

We're potentially talking about a very big club.

The administration has not explained exactly how it plans to implement the PSLF order, and putting it into practice in theory would take a lengthy rulemaking that could then be litigated. But it's not hard to put 2+2 together here and see where all this could be headed.

On Monday, the Education Department said it was sending letters to 60 universities about similar issues. The schools included the ivies, state universities like Rutgers and some surprises like George Mason.