If you know you know

a number of institutions are doing this because nyt "leaked" that Harvard was going to cave while they were actually preparing to fight

nyt is literally playing offense for trump and maga to undermine our remaining liberal institutions, and it's working

Jesus, they are shoving this down your throat?!

It’s wild how open sex trafficking really is.

The AI bubble is so big it's propping up the US economy (for now) Plus how American professors are fighting back against the AI onslaught, a backlash over AI models in Vogue, and more.

Analysts show that capital expenditures on AI were so big over the last 6 months they added more to the GDP than *all consumer spending*. That growth is offsetting pain from the tariffs and slow job growth.

So the AI bubble may be propping up the whole US economy. What happens if and when it pops?

Justin’s list of jobs with highest AI applicability:

1. Listicle Creator
2. Corporate Think Piece Writer
3. Entrepreneur LinkedIn Post Writer
5. AI Conference Presentation Slide Creator
6. AI Conference Panelist
7. Life Coach®
8. Fad Diet Generator
9. CNN Staff Pundit
10. Rage Bait Content Creator

Brazil's key MAGA ally linked to massive fraud scheme involving jailed Chinese billionaire Paulo Figueiredo is building a bridge between the Brazilian far right and Trump. Court records reveal his alleged connection to a high-profile bankruptcy case.

Surpresa: o nepobaby do golpe (TM @npto.bsky.social ) faz trambique

Folks, George W Bush was an absolutely TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE President. PLEASE understand this.

What the… also who is making you learn these things? And now I will obsessively go down this rabbit hole. Who is funding this?!

📌

Wanna see a crazy chart? Of course you do.

Spending on constructing datacenters and manufacturing facilities for computers & electronic products in the US now exceeds the entire retail and wholesale industry and almost as much as the rest of the office and manufacturing sectors combined.

Inside Trump’s New Tactic to Separate Immigrant Families

“Officials have begun separating children from their families in small numbers across the country, in what appears to be a more targeted version of one of the most explosive policies of President Trump’s first term.”

The Deportation Business: How Mass Deportation Became a $45 Billion Industry Trump’s Project 2025 has turned mass deportation into a $45 billion industry built on human suffering. Private corporations run overcrowded, neglect-filled detention centers, reaping billions in feder...

Migrants are being jailed in freezing, overcrowded cells, denied medical care, and forced to eat off chairs like animals—all while private companies collect billions. Under Trump’s Project 2025, mass deportation isn’t just policy. It’s profit. And cruelty is part of the business plan.

In 1st half of 2025 (2025H1), economic growth decelerated to about half its 2024H2 speed

The magnitude of BLS revisions to monthly estimates of change in jobs tends to rise in recessions (shaded, other than mild 2001)

Could contribute to magnitudes' rise from 0.02% of jobs to .03%
#KnownFromBLS

ISM Services PMI Employment index since 2005

ISM Services Prices index (advanced 3m) vs core PCE 3m/3m. The ISM Prices index implies core PCE near 4%.

ISM New Orders index for past 20y

This was a *very* bad report. Employment down, implies ~4% annualized core PCE, and demand is clearly weak given new orders.

*US JULY ISM SERVICES PMI FALLS TO 50.1 FROM 50.8; EST. 51.5

LA Times: "'It backfired,' said one senior administrator at UCLA, reflecting the sense of whiplash. .... 'Within hours of announcing our settlement, the DOJ was on our back.'

WHO COULD'VE SEEN THIS COMING

www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/0ypqo...

The problem is far bigger than Jeffrey Epstein | Rebecca Solnit Treating the scandal as an aberration misunderstands the global epidemic of violence against women

"One of the reasons the epidemic of violence against women is so unacknowledged is because cases like these are talked about individually, and often treated as though they are shocking aberrations rather than part of a pervasive pattern that operates at all levels of society."

Lecturer (Education) in Modern European History at Queen's University Belfast Apply now for the Lecturer (Education) in Modern European History role on jobs.ac.uk - the leading job board for higher education jobs. View details.

A proper 12-month replacement post with decent salary (for UKHE, at least) in modern European history. Belfast is a decent place to live - relatively affordable apart from extortionate pint prices - and I can personally vouch for what a great & friendly School we have.
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOE451/l...

📌

New #DigitalHistory site:

South Asian Britain: Connecting Histories

"explores the links among South Asians across the United Kingdom, as well as the connections between South Asians and other groups in Britain, from the 1830s to the present day."

southasianbritain.org/about-databa...

#History 🗃️

This is exactly the boost of confidence I needed to write. If a man can confidently put this garbage out in the world, I can finish my books 🤣

This is a really, really important story, which is why I provided a gift link. Many people, when they think of higher education, think of elite universities. But most higher education is nonselective (i.e., they admit everyone), and a lot of it is community colleges.

Key point: The losses are so large bc the economic benefits of universities to their communities and our country are so great.

That's why possible NIH budget cuts--expertly visualized by SciMAP--are so damaging. Check out their maps ⤵️

scienceimpacts.org

The economy is on the precipice of recession. That’s the clear takeaway from last week’s economic data dump. Consumer spending has flatlined, construction and manufacturing are contracting, and employment is set to fall. And with inflation on the rise, it is tough for the Fed to come to the rescue. Unemployment remains low, but that’s only because labor force growth has gone sideways. The foreign-born workforce is shrinking, and labor force participation is declining. Telling is the economy-wide hiring freeze, particularly for recent graduates, and the decline in hours worked. It’s no mystery why the economy is struggling; blame increasing U.S. tariffs and highly restrictive immigration policy. The tariffs are cutting increasingly deeply into the profits of American companies and the purchasing power of American households. Fewer immigrant workers means a smaller economy. Any notion that the economic data misrepresents the reality of how the economy is performing is way off base. There are revisions to the data, even big revisions, but they universally say the economy is doing worse. That’s because it is. BTW, the DOGE cuts are a key factor in the revisions—not because BLS has cut staff, although that can’t help, but because the government often reports payrolls to BLS late. It didn’t matter when government employment was stable, but now that it’s declining, the cuts are picked up in the revisions.

Trump is panicking because the economic numbers are giving a recession vibe.
From the Chief Economist at Moody's.

say it again:

4 million people work in higher ed, the largest employer in 10 states, second largest employer in 10 more, and in 60 of the 100 biggest cities

demolishing higher education is economic sabotage

I think it’s mostly the second. Propaganda works and many people are morally and intellectually weak and suggestible, and we put powerful new propaganda tools in the hands of the far-right across he board as well as letting them take over old ones, like the Telegraph.

Why a NASA satellite that scientists and farmers rely on may be destroyed on purpose The Trump administration has asked NASA staffers to draw up plans to end at least two satellite missions that measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, according to current and former NASA employees.

"They are the only two federal satellite missions that were designed and built specifically to monitor planet-warming greenhouse gases."

NPR's ‪@rhersher.bsky.social‬ on Trump administration plans to potentially destroy satellites‬.
www.npr.org/2025/08/04/n...

India Street Lettering: A Book A journey through typographic craft and culture

OK we're planning to end Late Pledges on the India Street Lettering campaign tonight. One day left to reserve your book through Kickstarter!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/bla...

Or pre-order on our site (this isn't going anywhere):

www.blaft.com/products/ind...

'The children haunt me at night': A protest forces Israelis to face kids killed in Gaza ***

“Write my name on my leg, Mama
When the bomb hits our house
When the walls crush our skulls and bones
our legs will tell our story, how
there was nowhere for us to run."

www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

The US could see a 30-40% decline in new international student enrollment, resulting in nearly $7 billion in lost revenue and more than 60,000 fewer American jobs. https://www.nafsa.org/fall-2025-international-student-enrollment-outlook-and-economic-impact

Valuing our treasured print history in the era of the ‘bookless’ library Today we eagerly embrace new technology for fear of being left behind. A toddler with an iPad in hand is a welcome sign of a child learning to succeed in a digital world. Remainders of the pre-digital...

"Much #digitisation is being performed by private companies operated for profit. In the future, do we want the only copies of rare and important #books and #periodicals to be controlled by businesses rather than public #libraries that are free for all?"
theconversation.com/valuing-our-...