Bart Bonikowski

The Rise of Rodriguismo in Costa Rica Costa Ricans elected Laura Fernández, a continuity candidate whose predecessor presided over a political project that breaks with the country’s democratic traditions.

Excellent analysis of the current situation in Costa Rica. 🇨🇷

HT @franroblesr.bsky.social 🙏

The people who needed their own half time show are the same people who needed their own water fountains.

I get tired of saying it, but I’ll say it again: the nature of oppression in America is that they workshop it first on Black, Latino, Asian & Native people.

But it is always, in the end, coming for everyone.

"I'm coming to Boston and I'm bringing hell with me."
--Homan in February

"Do I expect violence to escalate? Absolutely."
-- Tom Homan in March

"I actually thought about getting up and throwing that man a beating right there in the middle of the room"
-- Homan in July, referring to a D congressman

My colleague Kevin Munger asked me and a bunch of editors to sit and think through AI and peer review. Our take:

osf.io/9sxnc/files/...

We envision an increased (!) involvement of humans in the evaluation of social science.

ICE never stopped LA operations and seems to have stepped up this month if anything

if bovino is out and conservatives are turning on noem then there is a real opportunity to demand that miller resign too.

The killing of Alex Pretti and the grotesque lying was an overreach by the administration. They've paid a price and had to pull back a bit. But it's when there's some disarray that the democratic opposition needs to intensify the offensive, and turn a marginal tactical success into a major victory.

In the early 1930s the SA was roughing people up, creating chaos in neighborhoods, seeking to terrorize with the occasional killing. By the late 1930s it had been supplanted by the SS, which was much better trained.

This essay by @aselrod.bsky.social is devastating but persuasive. A must-read. A one-off electoral victory (which itself is not a given) is unlikely to save the Republic. And the international order is irreversibly altered for the worse.

www.liberalcurrents.com/after-trump-...

If every Democrat voted NO on funding ICE, it would not have passed the House. But, 7 House Democrats voted to fund Trump's lawless, masked goons, so it passed.

Hakeem Jeffries refused to whip his members to vote against ICE funding. Genuinely unforgivable.

Even after Trump is gone, the world will remember that he threatened to forcibly seize the territory of a peaceful democratic ally, and our institutions failed to immediately remove him. That makes US dangerously unreliable, not just one senile gangster.

The Old World Order is Dead Unipolarity was given, not taken

Paul Musgrave on the end of unipolarity: short, eloquent, and devastating.

open.substack.com/pub/musgrave...

a heavily armed paramilitary force with legal immunity is occupying a city and going door to door kidnapping non-white adults and children in furtherance of an explicitly white nationalist political project

I do not understand why Dems (or someone) are not broadcasting wall to wall montages of ICE thugs abusing our neighbors, abducting children, terrorizing US citizens, invading homes w no warrant, or murdering mothers. This should be a massive exercise in ISSUE SALIENCE driven by Dem elites.

So all colleges and universities will bring back the DEI stuff they cut when obeying in advance right...............................................................................................................................................right?

The single best theory of the last few months

I know that many of us are hoping against hope that the current ethno-nationalist, authoritarian, and anti-democratic crisis will pass. Living our lives, resisting as we can, waiting for elections. This speech by Canadian PM Carney is a wake-up call for us as much as it is for our (former) allies.

Also, the fact that this isn’t a leading headline on either NYTimes or WaPo is rather astonishing. Our closest ally is saying the international rules based order, such as it was, is over. The days of propping up American hegemony, are over. Our allies are choosing to reimagine the future without us.

Trump Marks First Year In Office With Unhinged Racist Rant Targeting ‘Very Low IQ’ Somalis President Donald Trump spent the first anniversary of his second term on...

Trump's many, many blatantly racist remarks about Somalis and other immigrants did not provoke a single direct question from the White House press corps. talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-m...

This line graph illustrates the percentage change in agency staff levels from the previous year for nine major U.S. federal scientific and health organizations between the fiscal years 2016 and 2025. The agencies tracked include the CDC, Department of Energy, EPA, FDA, NASA, NIH, NIST, NOAA, and NSF. For the majority of the timeline between 2016 and 2023, the agencies show relatively stable fluctuations, generally staying within a range of +5% to -5% change per year. However, there is a dramatic and uniform plummet starting in the 2024–25 period. Every agency depicted shows a sharp downward trajectory, with staffing losses ranging from approximately -15% to over -25%. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows the most significant decline, dropping to roughly -26%, while the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) shows the least severe but still substantial drop at approximately -15%.

This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again.

www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

Explaining women’s skepticism toward artificial intelligence: The role of risk orientation and risk exposure Abstract. This article examines the gender gap in attitudes toward the adoption of AI in the workplace, with a focus on how gender differences in risk orie

1/ 🚨 New paper out today in @pnasnexus.org w/ @sborwein.bsky.social @rmichaelalvarez.bsky.social @bartbonikowski.bsky.social and Peter Loewen: "Explaining Women's Skepticism toward Artificial Intelligence: The Role of Risk Orientation and Risk Exposure" 🧵
academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

💯

I’m fully on board with the idea of governors bringing in the national guard to protect their citizens from rogue ICE agents.

I’m glad to see Bill say this. But when after a century of just the type of abuse we saw today - relentless and cruel, ensnaring our children and intimidating our communities - young Black people said in frustration, anger, and demand for change “defund the police” - so many of you denounced them.

@chrislhayes.bsky.social: “A 37-year-old American citizen, the mother of a young child is dead tonight. She was shot in the face by an agent of the federal government, and that government has spent the day telling despicable lies about her.”

I hate to break it to you, but heavily-armed government militias are roaming unchecked through US cities and shooting human rights observers dead in the streets. That's happening in our country.

Here’s some things that can be done by a party out of power

- file impeachment articles every day in the House

- withhold unanimous consent in the senate and filibuster every nominee

- be everywhere with comms saying this is lawless and impeachable

The US government is now freely killing people at sea, in other lands, and on its own streets.

It is difficult to see what more is needed for Congress and the Supreme Court to exercise their constitutional duty to check and balance what is now a rogue state abroad and a gangster state at home.

It’s genuinely wild that the United States spent decades building an elaborate rules-based international order which de facto cemented its permanent status as the dominant global hegemon, sustained by ideology rather than might, and now is just blowing it all up for literally no reason