Melissa Vanden Bout

Brown University is ‘functionally inaccessible’ to transgender students after Trump settlement “Everyone I talked to thought it only applied to sports. But it applies to everything," one transgender student told The Advocate.

The Trump administration effectively created a de facto bathroom ban at Brown University and none of the major media is covering it, and if they do, they character it as about sports. This is how the trans visa ban was enacted and characterized.

www.advocate.com/news/transge...

Who has a lead?

Awwww. That’s really cute.

If I have to explain to you why it's a bad idea to use a machine that makes shit up 15-80% of the time AND destroys the environment AND contributes to rising fascism and genocide AND puts brilliant skillful creatives out of work by stealing their work, then we're already speaking different languages

"there are an increasing number of children—probably in the thousands—that need to be in the hospital because they can’t eat food. They have got to that stage of severe acute malnutrition where their bodies just can’t digest food. And so those kids need to be in intensive care."

Murderous fuck.

An image that looks like it is from the NYT opinion section. Heading: “Is There A Smart Way to Cede Power to the Galactic Empire?” Sub-hed: Three Opinion writers debate whether Lando Calrissian should make a deal with Lord Vader. There are four images of contributors with names: Jar Jar Binks, Salacious B. Crumb, Nute Gunray, and Ross Douthat. The last line reads “Produced by A Lack of Critical Thinking”

What the F are we doing, people????

Hamed AleazizNicholas Nehamas By Hamed Aleaziz and Nicholas Nehamas Aug. 5, 2025, 4:51 p.m. ET On Tuesday morning, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced in an internal email that it would offer cash bonuses to agents for deporting people quickly, an incentive meant to motivate the staff to speed up President Trump’s mass deportation campaign. Less than four hours later, the agency abruptly canceled what was supposed to be a 30-day pilot program. “PLEASE DISREGARD,” Liana J. Castano, an official in ICE’s field operations division, said in a follow-up email to agency offices around the country.

🚨WHOA. According to @haleaziz.bsky.social, the Trump admin was actually going to implement the ICE "bounties" it has repeatedly said were false, offering $200 per arrest leading to a rapid deportation — and only walked the plan back after the New York Times got a copy of the memo.

When they talk about “merit,” this is what they mean.

one of the most infuriating parts of the Epstein story is over the same years that young women went to police and reported assault, and were ignored, law enforcement is pushing this idea that they need massive grants and manpower to rescue thousands of girls they say don’t even know they’re victims

Yeah! Just took the fam to the Ren Faire in all new digs, made by me. Good stuff.

With alt text.

Utterly damning account of how the US and the UK directly interfered with international judicial procedures sanctioning and holding the Israeli govt to account for its atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza.

Trump Just Released His Plan to Revoke Birthright Citizenship. It’s Worse Than Imagined. Try as it might, the government cannot cover up the horrors with bureaucratic legalese.

Chatting with @anacabrera.bsky.social on MSNBC in a few minutes about the Trump administration quietly plotting the first step of its attack on birthright citizenship slate.com/news-and-pol...

The Hegseth brothers (Pete and his younger brother Phil, a top adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and DHS's liason to the Pentagon) may be collaborating to pressure Pentagon brass to get more involved in domestic law enforcement.

Seems like Dems should take an interest in that.

The idea that President can negotiate/dictate bilateral “deals” by using the full force of the federal government to punish and humiliate his perceived enemies goes against the whole idea of the rule of law. That should be the story, rather than normalizing this authoritarian behavior.

“I think there’s still a deal to be had, but from our perspective, at the end of the day, Harvard has a $53 billion endowment,” she said. “They don’t need federal funds. And even if they win a lawsuit, great. But what happens next year? What happens the year after?”

This former Trump administration official, who is still working closely with Miller’s “task force,” is all but saying, “Great university you have there. Shame is anything happened to it.”

But Harvard has a more antagonistic relationship with the Trump admiinistration, as the university has sued the administration to stop its retribution campaign against the school That dynamic has fueled worries at Harvard that the White House is seeking a far higher financial penalty as punishment for fighting, not because the schools troubles alone warrant $500 million.

Trump is acting like a mob boss. The administration cannot legally treat Harvard more harshly “as punishment for fighting.” At no point in this article is a legal predicate for these extortionist schemes mentioned.

Harvard also has much more federal money at stake. The Trump administration has warned that it could ultimately strip $9 billion in funding for Harvard; it threatened $510 million in funding for Brown.

ON WHAT LEGAL BASIS IS THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION MAKING THESE ‘THREATS’ AND ‘WARNINGS’?
Trump could just as easily demand the John Harvard statue in Harvard Yard for the new White House ballroom.

A student-led mass uprising liberated Bangladesh from 16 yrs of fascist authoritarian dictatorship on Aug 5, 2024. Today we honor the young people who were massacred (1400+) & injured (20,000) in the July Revolution to help rebuild democracy in Bangladesh.
My oped: thehill.com/opinion/inte...

A Texas Judge Is Suing For the Right to Ignore the Supreme Court’s Same-Sex Marriage Ruling The Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that marriage is a fundamental right. Only Brian Umphress dares to ask the question: What if that doesn’t apply in Texas?

No really, Republicans are serious about undoing marriage equality:

A Texas judge is currently suing for a legal right to only officiate weddings for different-sex couples

This would empower state actors to selectively withdraw LGBTQ people's fundamental rights

ballsandstrikes.org/legal-cultur...

new video shows the ICE agent who claimed he was randomly "assaulted" by this 4'11" US citizen on her way to work is shown literally picking her up and carrying her away.

Headline from Harvard Crimson: "Harvard President Garber Tells Faculty He Is Not Considering a $500 Million Deal With Trump."

Text of story: Harvard prez Garber says report of a deal "was apparently leaked to the press by White House officials." NYT ran with it as a story.

Important details from this story:

1) Yet another news-break by student journalists (this time @theharvardcrimson.bsky.social) www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

2) Harvard saying "see you in court," not "let's make a deal."

3) Per Garber, WH/MAGA leaked news of a "deal." NYT then ran with it.

So the White House leaked this maybe misinformation to pressure other universities? And it maybe worked on Cornell and Brown? Cool system of mafia government we've got going here.

A Teen Was Detained at Alligator Alcatraz. Could They Be the First of Many? It comes after weeks of uncertainty around how minors would fit into Florida's immigration crackdown.

new @teenvogue.com: Florida officials claimed they wouldn't hold minors in mosquito- and sewage-ridden Alligator Alcatraz, but a bombshell report in July found a 15-year-old was detained there in July. young people in Florida are afraid.

said one, "If it happens once, it’s going to happen again.”

Strawberry, Galaxy and Bat Walking Sticks with Bibipins logo over them

We're already to 21% of the initial goal! To help people in need of walking sticks receive them for free. Thank you everyone for the donations. Every bit helps!! Please share!!

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SCOTUS Could Be Set to End Key Protection for Minority Voters Read more here.

🚨BREAKING: The U.S. Supreme Court escalated the high-stakes redistricting battle in Louisiana by ordering new legal briefings on whether intentionally creating a second majority-Black congressional district — to comply with the Voting Rights Act — might violate the U.S. Constitution.

"I hear this word 'pivot' coming from researchers: I'm going to pivot my research, I'm going to write a grant and focus on LGB and take out the T…That alarms me…we can't bend the knee to this administration…we, as scientists, have an ethical obligation and duty to fight back."

💯

Oh hey fuck this entirely.

If LinkedIn is going to actively start removing hate speech protections for trans people, it might be time to start petitioning certain groups to make their feelings known to LinkedIn, at scale

These agreements with universities that essentially say, "DEI for Jews and no other groups" also include the de facto right for the US federal government to define who counts as a good Jew and who does not. And that is really bad for most Jews and for everyone else!