eli

The "cognitive decline and brain damage from repeat COVID infections" and "easy to use robot that makes slop and melts your critical thinking skills" is a hell of a combo in a post-fact media ecosystem

I prefer “anti-fascist“ for a host of reasons and this is a nice practical one.

Read This When Things Fall Apart by Kelly Hayes | Pilsen Community Books A bundle of letters to activists and organizers on the frontlines in catastrophic times from Let This Radicalize You co-author Kelly Hayes In social movements, some heartbreaks are all but inevitable.

My publisher’s been very patient. I’m not doing everything I said I’d do to promote this book (out in a few weeks) because I’m an organizer in a city under federal attack. My days are full and emotionally exhausting. Any help getting the word out means a lot. It's a book people need right now.

But did it have elbow patches?

Despicable. He seeks to win the votes of cowards who are willing to sacrifice trans people on the altar of political opportunism and indifference. Up to us to shatter his grandiose dreams.

It would be incredible if folks coming into consciousness around the ICE raids were also able to make the connection the family policing. I highly recommend Dorothy Roberts book “Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families--and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World“

New Journal Report: Cass Review “Echoes Fallacies Promoted By Anti-Trans Disinformation” While American lawyers pushed the anti-trans Cass Review this week, Australia’s top scholars rebuked it.

1. A new journal report in the prestigious Medical Journal of Australia eviscerates the Cass review, saying it is filled with fallacies and launders anti-trans disinformation.

It methodically goes through each problem in the review.

The latest from S. Baum.

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If you're watching the situation in Chicago from afar & want to help, on the off chance you have spare $$, you can give to the Midwest Immigrant Bond Fund, which posts "bond for individuals held in the custody of ICE w ties to IL, IN, KY & WI who cannot afford to pay"
www.mibfc.org/helpusgrow

Obituary for Mark Helmsing | Waskom Capitol Hill Chapel Share memories & support the family

My friend Mark Helmsing is gone. He was an incredible human, brilliant scholar, and outstanding educator. I will miss so much about him but especially his deep thoughtfulness, his sense of humor, and his bear hugs.

What Northwestern has changed on DEI-related websites In recent decades, Northwestern has touted its efforts to support students through Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives.  “At Northwestern, we believe that diversity — of background, identity, ...

Many NU websites have been updated to fall in line with the Trump administration’s orders and have erased resources, history and information that were once easily accessible to students, faculty and staff.
—
Reported by Alexander Hernandez Gonzalez

The administration has determined that if you describe this accurately for what it is, you are also an enemy of the state

Incredible ruling in a case brought by the AAUP against Rubio and the State Department.

A federal court found that "arresting, detaining, and deporting noncitizen students and faculty members for their pro-Palestinian advocacy violates the First Amendment." www.aaup.org/news/court-r...

We Want Them Back: Protest and State Violence at Broadview ICE Facility Hundreds protested outside Broadview ICE in Illinois, resisting Operation Midway Blitz and denouncing raids, deportations, and state violence.

CHICAGO / SUBURBS

If you want to know what it's looked like at the ICE facility in Broadview (Chicago), this brilliant photo essay from @almacampos.bsky.social & @pgoyette.bsky.social at @southsideweekly.bsky.social is a very good place to start.

This is absolutely a lie. There is no reason shutdowns trigger layoffs. They never have before. Trump is simply using the shutdown as an excuse to take federal employees hostages and to further gut the government.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/shutdown-h...

Northwestern students blocked from enrollment after refusing controversial antisemitism training Students say mandatory training video is biased in favor of Israel and could inflame campus tensions over Gaza

To the 300 Northwestern students refusing to watch US-Israeli propaganda: I applaud your integrity & critical analysis. I may not be able to teach & you may not be able to learn on campus. But we WILL teach & learn throughout the world to make a better future 👊🏾 www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Politics ‘The Right Way’? How Charlie Kirk’s Professor Watchlist Censors and Harasses Academics of Color The years-old 1200-name blacklist has ruined professors’ lives, chilled speech, and previewed exactly how the Trump administration is responding to Kirk’s killing today.

Some say Charlie Kirk did Politics the right way, that he was an authoritative champion of free speech and discourse.

Part of that “Politics” is a 1200-person Professor Watchlist that’s led to harassment, censoring, cancellation campaigns, and death threats.

Kimmel reinstatement preempted Disney+ price increase The Handbasket reported first Monday evening on Bluesky

NEW — I wrote about my confirmed scoop from last night that Disney hastened Kimmel's return because of a planned Disney+ streaming price increase announcement coming on Tuesday:

A few strategies I use:
1. Talk with students about how: 1) AI tends to produce work that is at best mediocre and at worst just wrong, 2) using AI habitually weakens the critical thinking skills that make college valuable, and 3) AI exploits environmental resources and content creators.

NYT has been spreading dangerous transphobic misinformation disguised as journalism for quite some time, but it took the Kirk coverage for all to see that they’ve abandoned serious reporting.
If you want investigative reporting in the age of fascism check out
@assignedmedia.org
@democracynow.org

The Trump White House Is Trying to Price Law Students Out of Public Service A proposed Department of Education rule would make borrowers ineligible for loan forgiveness if the administration doesn’t approve of their work.

The Dept of Education is now accepting comments on a proposed rule that would overhaul Public Service Loan Forgiveness, and make it too expensive for students to go into work that threatens the Trump administration

Folks have til *Sept. 17* to oppose the changes

ballsandstrikes.org/legal-cultur...

One of my favorite places!

This may explain why there’s an aggressive response to people who merely post Kirk’s own words. It threatens the existence of the alternate Kirk - the motivational speaker that had been marketed to young kids and white Christian groups through selective quotation & clips.

The fact that Matthew Dowd lost his job for pointing out Charlie Kirk’s hate speech, while Brian Kilmeade openly suggests we should euthanize the homeless and there is zero outrage, shows exactly what is terribly wrong with today’s political mainstream media.

I have written and deleted a lot of posts but I keep thinking about how the brutal assassination of Minnesota State senator Melissa Hortman, her husband Mark, and their beloved dog Gilbert in June did not prompt this same level of calls for empathy, sympathy, and flags at half-mast.

Haymarket Books for Fighting Fascism “Fascism, it’s always about using nationalism, and the nation, as a bludgeon to generate support for death policies, on behalf of death governments. For violence and repression and exploitation, inter...

Haymarket Books for Fighting Fascism

Cognitive scientists and AI researchers make a forceful call to reject “uncritical adoption" of AI in academia A new paper calls on academia to repel rampant AI in university departments and classrooms.

With students heading back to the classroom, a group of cognitive scientists and AI researchers has published one of the most forceful and evidence-backed calls yet to reject the "uncritical adoption of AI" in academia:

Project 2026: Trump's plan to rig the next election From nationalizing voter suppression to flooding the streets with federal agents, the president and his allies are using all the tricks in the authoritarian playbook to tilt the midterms in their favo...

Breaking: Missouri House passes new gerrymandered US House map giving GOP 90% of seats in state Trump won with 58% of vote. Destroys district held by Black Rep Emanuel Cleaver, one of 2 Dems in state

Texas was just start of Trump’s sweeping plan to rig midterms www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Also, I know it is a small point in the overall march towards fascism, but the idea that gender is performative and a spectrum is backed by science.

The *actual* “gender ideology” is being imposed by the folks who insist, against fact and reason, on a strict binary.

I encourage people to watch this video. The selected footage shows the professor doing nothing even slightly out of line, whereas the student misinterprets the law and hopes to impose her religious beliefs on the material.

Administrators caving to this is terrifying.