bonniewilson.bsky.social

there's a moment in PARADISE LOST where Satan arrives in Eden and realizes Hell isn't a place; it's a thing he carries within him and it'll follow him wherever he goes. and i think about that when i see these awful rich men whose monstrous wealth has enriched them not at all

BREAKING: Mark Wolf, appointed to the federal bench by Ronald Reagan, writes that he is resigning as a judge to have the freedom to speak out against the president's assault on the rule of law.
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

"A team of independent forensic analysts examined their testimony. The experts called it consistent and credible, saying most of the acts described met the United Nations’ definition of torture."

In our name, with our tax dollars.

Trump II is an indelible stain on our national honor.

Congress: Rein in Trump's unconstitutional military action No president should have unchecked power to kill without evidence, trials, or congressional oversight. This administration has labeled these 64 victims “unlawful combatants" to justify killing them wi...

This cause is close to my heart - please sign: sign.moveon.org/petitions/co...

The original press release: www.epicenter.org/the-episcopa...

I'm shaking almost too hard to type. I entered SLC airport and heard screams and cries for help. I could see people gathered around, watching. I sped over to discover this woman face down on the floor, four grown men pushing her down, while she cried "HELP ME" and pled for her child.

AI as Governance Political scientists have had remarkably little to say about artificial intelligence (AI), perhaps because they are dissuaded by its technical complexity and by current debates about whether AI might ...

AI as governance -- @himself.bsky.social on how AI reshapes markets, bureaucracy, democracy...and culture. Very happy ot see this getting the mainstream social science treatment.
www.annualreviews.org/content/jour... I can't believe I missed this paper coming out!

Extremely important paper predicting $240-$481 B annual GDP loss due to international student restrictions under proposed immigration policy, affecting the STEM workforce. Notably, this doesn't include other effects on STEM from research/training grant terminations, proposed indirect caps, etc.

FYI: it’s, uh, *not nothing* that the head of an entire Christian denomination — here Rev. Karen Georgia A. Thompson of the United Church of Christ — issued a statement decrying DHS agents for shooting one of her pastors in the face with a pepper round, adding, “No one is safe from tyranny."

A photo of former President Donald Trump sitting in the Oval Office, holding up a large architectural rendering of an opulent ballroom interior. He is looking at the image seriously. The background features ornate gold decor. Below the image, a news article headline reads “White House releases list of donors for Trump’s multi-million-dollar ballroom,” and highlighted text names major companies such as Apple, Amazon, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Google, Coinbase, Comcast, and Meta as donors for the proposed 90,000-square-foot ballroom.

Call this what it is: rank corruption.

Major corporations funding a president's vanity project is a textbook model for pay-to-play. Why else would tech giants, crypto firms, and defense contractors care about a 90,000 sq ft ballroom?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the last several months, and Graff nails the thought: “It turns out, in the end, that there’s only one check and balance that actually matters: Good character. Everything else in a constitutional system follows and relies on that simple foundation.”

Known Lethal U.S. Attacks on Civilian Vessels in the Caribbean Total reported killed: 34 people Notification Date Number Reported Killed Approximate Location Notification URL September 2, 2025 11 “in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility” (later revealed as between Sucre, Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago) View September 15, 2025 3 “in International Waters… in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility”; Colombian president claimed it was a fishing boat in Colombian waters View September 19, 2025 3 “in international waters… in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility” near the Dominican Republic View October 3, 2025 4 “in international waters just off the coast of Venezuela” View October 14, 2025 6 “in International Waters… just off the Coast of Venezuela” View October 16, 2025 2; 2 reported survivors “in the Caribbean” View October 17, 2025 3 “in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility” View October 21, 2025 2 “in the Eastern Pacific” View

34 people killed in 50 days. Their guilt or innocence unknown, for an alleged crime that doesn't carry a death sentence. That's a lot of death.

adamisacson.com/boat-strikes/

This is who is paying for the destruction of the White House East Wing, per @wsj.com

Altria Group Inc.
Amazon
Apple Inc.
Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp.
Caterpillar Inc.
Coinbase Global
Comcast Corp.
Hard Rock International
Google
HP Inc.
Lockheed Martin Corp.
Meta Platforms Inc.
1/3

(RNS) - Last Friday (Oct. 17), the Rev. Hannah Kardon, a United Methodist minister in the Chicago area, stood alongside other protesters demonstrating outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Broadview, Illinois. As a line of Illinois State Police began marching toward her and other demonstrators, gripping wooden batons, footage shows the pastor with her hands raised in prayer. Officers then pushed into the protesters, forcing them back. One officer shifted his stance, reared back and began shoving his baton like a battering ram - jamming it repeatedly, Kardon says, into her leg. A few seconds later, the pastor was pulled from the crowd and thrown to the ground. All the while, Kardon says, she never stopped praying. When officers began to arrest her, they tied her arms behind her back and placed her along the curb. "I said, 'God, please help these people to know that what they're doing is wrong, and help them to turn around," Kardon, who leads United Church of Rogers Park in Chicago, said in an interview. Her leg, she said, has developed visible bruises.

NEW: 200+ Chicago-area clergy — Protestants, Catholics, and evangelicals — have signed a letter decrying ICE's efforts and voicing a willingness to put their "bodies on the line" for migrants.

"What Kristi Noem and her ICE agents are doing is immoral," they write. religionnews.com/2025/10/21/a...

Why Shame No Longer Works in American Politics While it once played a role in binding society, shame has lost its power—and so have the liberal tools that depend on it.

The celebration of Charlie Kirk exposes a fundamental shift that defines our era: While shame once bound society together, it has lost the ground that gave it power—and there’s no going back.

In conversation with @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social & @ezraklein.bsky.social:
newrepublic.com/article/2015...

Politics is about power. Our conversations about political parties should be, too. Presidential excess is really about how the rest of the political system has failed

Wrote a thing. Up way too early burning the candle at both ends trying to write more things.
goodpoliticsbadpolitics.substack.com/p/politics-i...

We need to talk about Russell Vought – But Properly Why certain mainstream outlets insist on sanitizing Vought as a devout “small government” conservative – and what actually animates his war against pluralistic democracy

We need to talk about Russell Vought – But Properly
 
Why certain mainstream outlets insist on sanitizing Vought as a devout “small government” conservative – and what actually animates his war against pluralistic democracy.
 
New piece:

"American civil society has more than enough financial and organizational muscle to stop this authoritarian offensive. But it requires collective resolve. And it requires leadership, which has been in painfully short supply."

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Human Error Is the Point: On Teaching College During the Rise of AI - The Rumpus My syllabus is a mess of half-remembered intentions. I re-use icebreakers that I know don’t work. I forget to grade the first assignment until Week Four. I write emails that begin with “So sorry for t...

therumpus.net/2025/10/02/h...

“…it’s time to listen to people with ideas about how to break out of this dilemma between winning elections and having principles. American democracy needs a stronger moral center, not a weaker one.”

Response to the ‘Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education’ | Office of the President

Dartmouth response to the Trump Administration Compact

president.dartmouth.edu/news/2025/10...

Kept thinking about the debate between Klein and Coates and wrote down some thoughts.

How Can We Live Together? - Boston Review Ezra Klein is wrong: shame is essential.

"Common decency stigmatizes people that do not participate in it—removes them from voluntary association. We indeed have to live with one another, but terms and conditions apply."

me on why Ezra Klein should be ashamed / why shame is Good Actually

www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...

In Defence of Classical Administrative Law In a recently completed paper, Philip Murray and I develop a defence of what we term the classical account of administrative law. The question with which we are centrally concerned is whether (as t…

A new paper from Philip Murray and me: 'In Defence of Classical Administrative Law'. We argue that the voidness of unlawful administrative acts is central to the rule of law and that recent challenges to that view can and should be resisted.

publiclawforeveryone.com/2025/09/16/i...

As we watch an administration that wishes to use state power to silence opposition and criticism, we need a vocabulary that can describe their project. Not in negative terms, as what they wish to destroy, but in positive terms, of what they want to build.

Here is my attempt at that vocabulary:

The White Civility Council As the nation reckons with the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, there has been a notable trend from mainstream pundits and press outlets. They have tended to downplay or outright i...

All right, I wrote about it:

I wrote this story because the case of the Guatemalan children hasn’t received nearly as much media attention as it deserves.

I wanted to highlight the full extent of the government’s depraved conduct.

I hope you’ll read and share. Don’t look away.

www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-...