in online corners like these I think people largely recognize how credulous, unprincipled opposition to "wokeness" functioned as lightly papered over defenses of impunity, but it's one of those drums people should probably start beating for normies

just opening up the new Epstein docs at random:

Did Underage Girls Ruin Politics?

Tomorrow in the @nytimes.com

I just googled this man like 'ew who tf is this Tom Barrack guy' and the answer is the sitting, Donald Trump-appointed U.S. Ambassador to Turkey

Transcript: Ro Khanna Says Schumer Must Resign In Wake of Budget Deal Khanna says that the capitulation by Senate Democrats is a “moral surrender.”

"I’ve been impressed with Van Hollen's moral clarity on key issues," says @rokhanna.bsky.social, when I asked him who should replace Schumer. newrepublic.com/article/2029...

#BREAKING: Over no public dissents, #SCOTUS denies Kim Davis's petition asking the justices to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges (which recognized federal constitutional protections for same-sex marriage):

www.supremecourt.gov/orders/court...

This is not a surprise to anyone who was closely following this case. It *ought* to be, however, a moment to reflect upon the responsibility (or not) of media outlets that, deliberately or not, led folks to believe that a grant was a serious possibility (which it never was).

This is really good to see: Miki Sherrill just put out a statement sharply criticizing the Senate Dems' pending cave in the government shutdown, ripping it as "malpractice" and a betrayal of the people who are "counting on us to fight for them." Sherrill knows what drove her victory. Wake up, Dems.

I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time. Every day my phone buzzes. It is a neighborhood group: four people were kidnapped at the corner drugstore. A friend a mile away sends a Slack message: she was at the scene when masked men assaulted and abducted two people on the street. A plumber working on my pipes is distraught, and I find out that two of his employees were kidnapped that morning. A week later it happens again. An email arrives. Agents with guns have chased a teacher into the school where she works. They did not have a warrant. They dragged her away, ignoring her and her colleagues’ pleas to show proof of her documentation. That evening I stand a few feet from the parents of Rayito de Sol and listen to them describe, with anguish, how good Ms. Diana was to their children. What it is like to have strangers with guns traumatize your kids. For a teacher to hide a three-year-old child for fear they might be killed. How their relatives will no longer leave the house. I hear the pain and fury in their voices, and I wonder who will be next. Understand what it is to pray in Chicago.

“I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time.”

aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...

The single biggest question in American law today is:

Are lies a get-out-of-laws-free card? Can the government simply lie to grant itself new powers? And is everyone else under an obligation to act as if obvious lies are true, or at minimum, that they might have merit and deserve respect?

The AP tracked down details of some of the people killed in President Trump's military strikes on drug smugglers he describes as narco-terrorists.

They were, with one exception, not high-level criminals. One was a fisherman. One was a bus driver; another a taxi driver.

apnews.com/article/trum...

One thing I'm seeing over and over again is that leftward-shifts aren't only being driven by places with sky-high turnout; places with lower turnout also shifted left around the same amount, implying a decent amount of voters changing their minds

Extrapolating from my current output I will either become the eternal god emperor of humanity, usher in a planetary extinction event, or produce a series of modestly influential whitepapers over the next 10 years.

"This is not just a battle over tariffs," explains Evan Bernick of the Northern Illinois University College of Law. "It is a battle between competing political economies within the American right. And how it works out will speak to just who ultimately has hegemony, who... is shaping the law of the United States." While Bernick expects the businesses and states challenging the tariffs to prevail, "if they do not," he says, "that tells me things about the relative power of these competing factions that I did not previously know.

On tariffs at SCOTUS www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

More broadly, heavily-Latino counties moved far to the right in NJ last year, and back to the left this year:

Border Patrol agent Lairmore testifies that he was not injured by the sandwich, but he felt the impact through his ballistic vest.

The sandwich came apart and "kind of exploded" on his chest upon impact, he says.

"I could smell the onions and mustard."

Research on "millionaire migration" shows that it rarely happens and that states could raise their top tax rates way higher.

www.asanet.org/wp-content/u...

As always, @stevevladeck.bsky.social explains everything clearly and clear-eyed

The welfare state is about dignity, equality, and making people not poor, but as @itsafronomics.bsky.social says/cites here, it’s often also an investment that more than pays for itself

Citing Trump Order on “Biological Truth,” VA Makes It Harder for Male Veterans With Breast Cancer to Get Coverage A Department of Veterans Affairs memo obtained by ProPublica erects new roadblocks to care for veterans with the rare but deadly cancer. The agency cites no new science but relies on an executive orde...

SCOOP

The admin is making it harder for male vets w/ breast cancer to get their care covered

The admin cites Trump order: “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”

I got the memo laying it all out

www.propublica.org/article/vete...

Graph showing that jails working with ICE led to the early expansion of arrests in 2025.

An alarming share of ICE arrests rely on collaborations with local law enforcement – even in places that are "sanctuary cities"

From January to June , 45% of all ICE arrests were transfers from local jails:

On the contrary I think govnt was the last bureaucracy with a THERE there. And everyone’s experience with the vacuous managers who do nothing in academy/finance/consultants gave the impression government is the same. My parent who worked for a public school had to do real things.

The first time the Confederate flag ever paraded through the US Capitol was on January 6, 2021.

The first time the White House was damaged in over 200 years since the US rebuilt in the 1820s after the British burned it in the war of 1812 was mid October, 2025.

When you are pure of heart no amount of earnestness is Cringe. When you are a malevolent little freak no amount of sarcasm is enough to make you cool

Everyone wants to streamline bureaucracy, but maybe we'd get better results by making it *harder* for university admins to chase fads. Imagine the money we'd save with a mandatory cooling-off period before launching a "Center for Blockchain Studies" or dumping millions into the latest edtech toy.

You know how billionaires end up with severe cognitive deficits as a result of becoming surrounded by yes men who constantly tell them their every idea is genius? What if we made a bot that just does that to everyone. I think that would be a good idea.

Federal agents invaded even the offices of The Crisis and the National Association for the advancement of colored people and asked searching questions: " just what, after all, were our objects and activities?” I took great satisfaction in being able to sit back in my chair and answer blandly, “We are seeking to have the constitution of the United states thoroughly and completely enforced.” It took some ingenuity, even for Southerners, to make treason out of that.

How W. E. B. Du Bois responded to government policing of "anti-American" sentiment during the 1910s:

"I took great satisfaction in being able to sit back in my chair and answer blandly, 'We are seeking to have the Constitution of the United States thoroughly and completely enforced.' ”

THREAD. Did you know that at about 1/3 of all stranger homicides in the U.S. are perpetrated by police? But there's something hidden here that is important to understand in this authoritarian moment.

NEW: The private jet that flew 10 shackled migrants to an Eswatini prison last weekend is owned by Israeli-American billionaires with close ties to Trump.

It’s oligarchs all the way down.

My first for @zeteo.com:

zeteo.com/p/this-famil...

This is why I’m extremely skeptical of any attempt to add ‘ideological diversity’ to academia, despite thinking that there are fields where some version of it would genuinely epistemologically healthy: I simply do not believe that modern conservatism actually can supply people who are not this: