Matthew Specter

the USA built a system of higher education so good that smart/rich people from across the world came here, spending billions to learn here, subsidizing education for Americans while spending money to live in our cities and towns. our government arbitrarily decided we should stop doing that

Then maybe they shouldn’t have voted to make ICE the highest funded law enforcement agency in our history?

Cookie Monster and I are extremely pissed off.

ABC News: The U.S. Office of Special Counsel has opened an investigation into Jack Smith for possible Hatch Act violations… for investigating Trump.

it is pretty obvious that the future of fascism is just like its past: a pretty fair skinned woman smiling with scary text about what might happen to her

How to Hide a Famine - Boston Review Israel’s deliberate campaign to obfuscate the hunger crisis in Gaza.

Last year State Department officials concluded that Israel had obstructed the flow of food into Gaza. When Antony Blinken rejected the findings, a senior adviser resigned. “To deny this is absurd and shameful. That report and its flagrant untruths will haunt us,” she said.

New from Alex de Waal:

Yes, we at #NIH are barely holding it together.

That said, we are resolute. We chose this career to help others.

We didn't go into science for the money.
We did it to help humans: to advance human knowledge, to improve human health, and to make a fairer world built on ideas. 1/

His Name Is Jesus. He’s a Carpenter. ICE Arrested Him. Seriously.

NEW from me: His Name Is Jesus. He’s a Carpenter. ICE Arrested Him.

www.thebulwark.com/p/his-name-i...

US to allow federal workers to promote religion in workplaces Federal employees may discuss and promote their religious beliefs in the workplace, the Trump administration said on Monday, citing religious freedoms protected by the U.S. Constitution.

“Agency employees may seek to ‘persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views’ in the office, wrote Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management” - 7/28/25 (Kupor is a former partner of tech billionaire Marc Andreessen) 1/

The former Attorney General of Israel, Michael Benyair is now calling Israel's actions in Gaza genocide.

"To eternal shame. Jews, who suffered a genocide 80 years ago, are committing genocide in Gaza. Shame, rage, and sorrow"

#TheAtlanticRealists now 50%off from @stanfordpress.bsky.social —for my money, one of the best university presses to publish with today

"Hira: They didn’t read you any rights?

Badar: Nothing, nothing, nothing. No arrest warrant. To this day they haven’t been able to provide an arrest warrant in court, because it doesn’t exist.

They were playing from a playbook which has no rights."

Powerful

🦋 Please listen to victims, not predators bsky.app/profile/did:...

Holy shit...

For the uninitiated, so to speak, hers a primer on the white supremacist/neo-Nazi symbolism referred to:

Journalists Are Starving in Gaza “I used to chase the truth. Now I chase calories.”

"No matter what else they do while in power, governments and presidents that supported these horrors, and tolerated the killing of journalists who reported on them, will be remembered first and foremost for their complicity," @seth-stern.bsky.social told @columjournreview.bsky.social.

LA Archbishop announces aid program for families impacted by immigration enforcement raids The Family Assistance Program will administer aid directly to individual parishes as they work to provide assistance to those affected.

LA Archbishop announces aid for families affected by immigration enforcement raids

Program will support local parishes in offering meals, groceries & prescriptions to those who are living in fear of enforcement operations throughout Southern California

www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/l...

Fascism in America Cambridge Core - American Studies - Fascism in America

Robert —perhaps you’d be interested in reading/reviewing a recent (2023) edited volume from Cambridge UP on this subject: www.cambridge.org/core/books/f...

I remember very vividly my English class at my German high school where we analyzed this painting specifically to unpack the racist symbolism in it.

An attempted hunger strike in April made conditions worse, González said. Guards fired rubber bullets and plastic pellets at some detainees. When they asked for a lawyer, he said, guards told them: “That word doesn’t exist here.” At one point, the detainees used sharp iron pipes to cut themselves and write messages in their blood on white sheets as an act of protest, Suárez said. “We are not terrorists,” the messages read. “We are migrants.” Advertisement They were served meals of tortillas and beans three times a day, González said. Blanco said the food was the only relief in his day; detainees would occasionally be given pancakes for breakfast or hamburgers for lunch, he said. There is no outdoor space for recreation in CECOT and only certain corner cells have access to the sun, Suárez said. “With time we all lost our fear because we were practically dead people living,” Blanco said. “We felt dead.”

Those imprisoned by the Trump admin in El Salvador without due process "felt dead." A hunger strike was put down with rubber bullets and pellet guns. They were never allowed outside in four months.

When they asked for lawyers, guards would say "that word doesn't exist here."

They are the flag bearers — with tearful eyes but clenched fists — for the creation of an egalitarian, just, fair, shared Arab-Jewish society and for Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation.

✊ 🎗️ Cinematheque Plaza tonight in Tel Aviv.
The final point of a march called the “Flour March” that set out from Habima Square. Hundreds of people are marching with images of Muselmänner and starving infants, carrying on their backs symbolically —

⚠️ 'We refuse to see them die': AFP journalists' union says its Gaza reporters are starving www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...
Article in 🧵👇

So.. officially, I'm the last Black staff columnist left in the Washington Post's opinion section.

Yes—biography of Lawrence Dennis, other works on 1940s

Practically a zoot suit!

Thrilled to be joining @newrepublic.com. Very excited to work with @monicapotts.bsky.social, @alexshephard.bsky.social, @mjtoma.bsky.social and so many writers and editors I have long admired.

The fact that congressional seat losses will be overwhelmingly concentrated in Democratic strongholds makes sense when you realize that these are overwhelmingly in the major metropolitan areas with the worst housing shortages.

😢😭