Andy Pinedo

I cannot sufficiently underline how despicable it is that the IOC has required Haitian Olympic athletes to remove an image representing the leader of the Haitian Revolution (against SLAVERY) from their uniforms.

Mills recognized that as the power elite becomes increasingly degenerate, it is increasingly difficult for their intellectual acolytes to formulate reasonable ideological justifications for their corrupt and irresponsible actions. In these circumstances, the power elite resorts to intellectual repression against those who call attention to their declining political capacities; that is, the intelligentsia who work in universities, museums, the arts, scientific institutes, entertainment, and the mass media.

Sociologist C. Wright Mills saw this coming—and tried to warn us—60+ years ago.

jacobin.com/2026/02/wrig...

The same universities that punish students and faculty who call for racial justice, a free Palestine, and/or an end to sexual harassment know about, protect, and promote faculty like the one named below… what does that tell you?

DHS keeps making false claims about people. It's part of a broader pattern Trump administration officials have falsely linked Alex Pretti and Renee Macklin Good to domestic terrorism. It's part of a larger pattern by the Department of Homeland Security.

Professor @brendannyhan.bsky.social speaks to the danger of the Trump administration and the Department of Homeland Security’s repeated false claims. “Every American should be worried about that, because if they can lie about this, what else could they lie about?” he says, via @npr.org.

There is a case to be made that any board of a university that signed an agreement that required paying a fee has breached their fiduciary duty and I think somebody should explore it

i honestly can't understand why any of you would spend mental energy on coming up with charitable excuses and defenses for why these names are in these files but sadly it is something so many people do in every individual sexual harassment case as well. so much cope, so much rationalization.

Arkansas moves to ban books in prisons as a drug-fighting measure In addition to banning books, Arkansas corrections officials would prohibit magazines and newspapers from being sent to inmates. It would be the strictest ban in the U.S.

Arkansas moves to ban books in prisons as a drug-fighting measure
Corrections officials would also prohibit magazines and newspapers from being sent to inmates. It would be the strictest ban in the country. www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2026/...

Epstein survivors say financier lured them with promise of college education Multiple survivors claim Epstein dangled admission to top universities to ensnare them in his sexual abuse network

Based on what I've seen, at least 4 current/former Harvard professors have now been named as Epstein associates. Which seems notable given prior reporting that Epstein used false promises of "elite" college admissions to lure young girls into his web of abuse.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

“People don’t understand what this job is,” he said, adding, “You cannot pick and choose, because among the very rich is a higher percentage of unpleasant and not very attractive people. Capitalism is a rough system.” In defending his pursuit of Mr. Epstein and candidly describing the burden of raising money, Dr. Botstein gave insight into how the need to attract dollars can appear to run headlong into an academic institution’s stated values. Mr. Epstein gave prolifically to many charities and universities, including Harvard and M.I.T., and the Wall Street Journal report showed that his network of contacts was wider than had been thought, including prominent figures like the linguist Noam Chomsky and Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury secretary and president of Harvard. Dr. Summers sought money for a poetry foundation, led by his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard literature professor. Mr. Summers declined to comment. “Would we accept money from Jeffrey Epstein today? No,” Dr. Botstein said, describing the former donor as a “monster” and “truly evil man.” “We had no idea, the public record had no indication, that he was anything more than an ordinary — if you could say such a thing — sex offender who had been convicted and went to jail.”

As more academic names keep coming up in the Epstein files, I keep thinking about this NYT interview with the Bard president from a few years ago, and wondering how many people were rationalizing in similar ways.

www.nytimes.com/2023/05/05/u...

<Aide whispers in his ear>

Trump: What does Barbra Streisand have to do with this

A new study from Anthropic finds that gains in coding efficiency when relying on AI assistance did did not meet statistical significance; AI use noticeably degraded programmers’ understanding of what they were doing. Incredible.

Journalist Georgia Fort has been released from custody (video @fox9mn.bsky.social)

Georgia Fort statement:

all while cutting PhD spots. loser stuff. www.ctinsider.com/news/educati...

Teaching exercise that is helpful with my policy students. Based on the solution, hiring this fella to a fancy position and giving him $$$ in this environment, what is the root of skepticism with higher ed that Yale is attempting to solve? Whose skepticism do they seek to assuage?

Again, new work requirements for Medicaid highlight the profits to be made from adding complexity to the safety net. Since Georgia implemented work requirements in 2020, they have spent twice as much on Deloitte consultants and administrative costs as on healthcare for people. As the other 55 states and territories are now forced to join Georgia and implement new work requirements, millions will lose their healthcare and Deloitte will cash in.

Read the highlighted sentence a few times, jfc

From @lukeferrell.bsky.social's "THE MEANS-TESTING INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX"

lpeproject.org/blog/the-mea...

Holy moly this chart: Cumulative US measles cases

U.S. government has lost more than 10,000 STEM Ph.D.s since Trump took office A Science analysis reveals how many were fired, retired, or quit across 14 agencies

Wow. This is devastating.

www.science.org/content/arti...

At some point, academics are going to need to take responsibility for the ways their research has influenced the most despicable ways society responds to "crime". Like, broken windows policing, the more and better police training academic crowd continues to harm without shame.

I think what a lot of folks miss is how profitable deportation is for the corporations involved & the politicians they're backing.

Holding people, physically removing them, is cost for the taxpayer & profit into the pockets of the worst people you can imagine.

This is an important paper on social class barriers among faculty in academia.

First-generation college grads earn less and are placed at lower prestige institutions despite being just as productive as other faculty.

Faculty from upper class backgrounds are overplaced for their research records.

The UFW (United Farm Workers) seeks an Internal Organizing Coordinator (bilingual required) to be based in Santa Rosa, CA. Details can be found at: unionjobs.com/listing.php?... #1u #UnionStrong @ufw.bsky.social @ufwfoundation.bsky.social

“The Homeland” Is War on America: The Blood-and-Soil Nationalism That Killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti — Vanity Fair In the time following 9/11, even conservatives voiced skepticism of the proposed Department of Homeland Security, writes Ta-Nehisi Coates. Now, Trump seeks to cleanse, purge, and expand this so-called...

Ta-Nehisi has a way of clarifying things. So good to read him today.
It’s in Vanity Fair but I got past the paywall by using Apple News.

Latest ChatGPT model uses Elon Musk’s Grokipedia as source, tests reveal Guardian found OpenAI’s platform cited Grokipedia on topics including Iran and Holocaust deniers

When evil copulates with evil.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Statement from Michael and Susan Pretti Parents of Alex Jeffrey Pretti “We are heartbroken but also very angry. Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital. Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately, he will not be with us to see his impact. I do not throw around the ‘hero’ term lightly. However, his last thought and act was to protect a woman. The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He had his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down, all while being pepper sprayed. Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man. Thank you.

Kare 11 local news just read, in full, this statement from Michael and Susan Pretti, the parents of Alex Pretti.

"Please get the truth out about our son."

You have to read this. Firsthand affidavit from one of the women who was there and recording the video. She talks about how Alex Pretti was directing traffic when she arrived. She watched him be killed in front of her. She's afraid to go home, worried she'll be arrested.

There's a prison revolt at a concentration camp in Texas in solidarity with Minneapolis:

Alex Pretti from his early days working at the VA

Alex from our time working together, while he was in nursing school. Later, he moved to ICU, working as a nurse to support critically ill Veterans. He had such a great attitude. We’d chat between patients about trying to get in a mountain bike ride together. Will never happen now

Meanwhile…

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/24/u...