Robert Dale Parker

Read more about your rights when interacting with military troops or federal agents at aclu.org/deployment_kyr

Republicans got their marching orders and shutdown talking points, but when questioned, they fall apart.

Sen Roger Marshall wasn’t ready 🥴

If you like yelling about misuse of the passive voice, THIS IS IT.

If you’re white, your accomplishments are your own and you can resent and criticize the country all you like, but if you’re black and successful you should be grateful to white people for allowing you in their presence. bsky.app/profile/jess...

AAUP President Todd Wolfson unpacks the dangerous consequences of the Trump administration’s compact, which aims to exert ideological control over universities and colleges. As Wolfson makes clear, this partisan incursion into higher education affects ALL sectors.

@proftwolf.bsky.social

Back in Chicago. The last time I remember seeing this many helicopters flying overhead I was in Kabul

The Dark House: Absalom, Absalom! at 90 - British Association for American Studies 2026 marks 90 years since the publication of William Faulkner’s masterwork, Absalom, Absalom! (1936). Widely considered the greatest Southern novel of all time and among the most influential literary…

2026 will mark 90 years since the publication of Faulkner's "Absalom, Absalom!".

The Faulkner Studies network are calling for papers that respond to any aspect of the novel, to be delivered during an online conference next May.

Learn more:

Newspaper article from UK Times, 4 April, 1974 ‘Universities “Exploiting Students as Cheap Staff”’ from Tim Devlin, Education Correspondent, Liverpool, April 3 Postgraduate students, it was alleged here today, are being exploited as cheap labour by the universities and their ‘appalling’ rates of pay are being used to keep down the wages of other staff, particularly laboratory technicians

From The Times, 4 April, 1974

This is an accurate, informative headline, unlike the ones atop some of the other news stories on this topic. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Note that the Trump Administration is already going back to schools with whom it earlier reached "deals" (such as UPenn and Brown) for further concessions. Conceding to a bully has only emboldened them to make new demands.

So Trump is defunding the police.

What was once a great school…

A lot of people think that every international student admitted means one fewer spot for domestic students, when the opposite is more likely true - the tuition revenue international students bring allows public universities to provide substantial discounts to domestic students, improving access.

Right. Let's also use the word LIE.

ICE attempted
and failed to disappear a food delivery guy.
It needed to be scored.

Probably 40+ border patrol some holding automatic weapons on South Michigan Avenue just now 12:20 pm. Fully masked. #NoIceInChicago. @icirr.bsky.social @indivisiblechicago.bsky.social

‘A cottage of one’s own’: Newly unearthed Virginia Woolf stories to be published A chance discovery at a country house revealed the three funny – sometimes surreal – interlinked tales, written almost a decade before Woolf’s first book was published

Newly found Virginia Woolf stories:

www.theguardian.com/books/2025/s...

(Found by my terrific former student Urmila Seshagiri.)

#Booksky #VirginiaWoolf

Ranking Member Jamie Raskin Prepared Remarks for the Judicial Conference September 16, 2025 Thank you, Chief Justice Roberts, for the invitation. Forgive my directness here but the times are serious, as you know, our time is short. I have just five minutes and don't want to trespass on Senator Cruz's time. Sometimes these days I feel as if all the foundational principles are being trampled and lost. Often, I hear my colleagues in the House, and these are fellow Democrats, get up to protest some Executive usurpation of legislative power and they begin their lament with the plaintive cry, "We are a coequal branch of government..." And I always feel they have lost the argument right there just by repeating that fifth-grade dogma. First of all, co-equal is not even a word. It's an embarrassing redundancy like "very unique" or "irregardless. "

But there's a reason all legislative power is vested in the Congress and there's a reason it's in Article I. The Founders had a revolution against monarchy and its constant assaults on liberty. In America, the Framers determined, only the representatives of the people would have power to declare wars, pass budgets, impose taxes and tariffs, and so on. Article lis pages and pages of all the powers vested in Congress. Then you get to Article Il, which is tiny. The key paragraph says a president shall be removed from office upon impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors. If we are co-equal, why do we have the power to impeach, try, convict, remove and permanently disqualify the president and he doesn't have the power to impeach, try, convict, remove and disqualify us? The core job of the president is plain: "To Take care that the laws are faithfully executed." That's it. Not abused, not thwarted, not impounded, not redirected, but faithfully executed. A lot of the cases entering the federal courts are variations on this theme.

Here's the remarkable thing: Americans have brought over 300 cases in federal district courts against the Administration so far for usurping legislative powers, defying federal laws, or violating the rights of the people. This summer, researchers found that plaintiffs were winning an astonishing 77% of the cases in the district courts. Moreover, they found that President Trump was losing about equally before Republican-appointed judges (72%) and Democratic-appointed judges (80%). The numbers in the federal circuit courts of appeal are similar, with plaintiffs against the Administration winning overwhelmingly and again without a sharp partisan valence to the appeals courts' voting. A good example is the birthright citizenship case where four district court judges, two appointed by Republican presidents and two appointed by Democratic presidents, all struck down the President's purported negation of birthright citizenship. Then, on appeal, three circuit courts again all ruled against the Administration. But everything is flipped when the cases come to the Supreme Court.

This rules - @raskin.house.gov straight up called out Roberts to his face.

democrats-judiciary.house.gov/media-center...

By an informal count, 59 spoke out yesterday against the MA Special Commission's approach, 18 in support. Many who spoke out were Jews critical of IHRA's labeling of various criticisms of Israel as antisemitic. Here are a few quotes:

Only an administration intent on committing war crimes in the present and future would stoop to calling Wounded Knee a "battle" rather than what it truly was: a massacre of over 250 Lakotas, mainly women, children, and the elderly. 1/

Faculty insert AAUP academic freedom statement into class syllabi Some Columbia professors have inserted a statement supporting academic freedom into their fall 2025 class syllabi in light of the University’s July 23 <a href="https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2...

“Knowledge flourishes when inquiry is free and respectful."

The AAUP supports statements affirming academic freedom in class syllabi!

@aaupcu.bsky.social

#DefendHigherEd #AcademicFreedom

Happy birthday, Mr. Faulkner!

We are delighted to share the Call for Papers for our next colloquium, celebrating the 90th anniversary of Absalom, Absalom!'s publication.

May 2nd and 3rd, 2026, online via Zoom (more info in the image below).

The back of a bite-size shredded wheat box with a picture of a smiling boy and a smiling man who looks uncannily like Zohran Mamdani.

Sure, I know that Zohran Mamdani is super popular and showing up everywhere, but I didn’t expect to see him on the back of my morning cereal box.

@zohrankmamdani.bsky.social

#ZohranMamdani #Mamdani #NewYork #NewYorkCity

Rare Portraits of Enslaved Mississippians Displayed at Art Museum The Mississippi Museum of Art now owns the only two known portraits of enslaved Mississippians that were painted before the Civil War.

The Mississippi Museum of Art now owns the only two known portraits of enslaved Mississippians that were painted before the Civil War.

"Portrait of Frederick" joins "Portrait of Delia," both hanging in the same museum together for the first time in history.

📢 Our open letter reminds public higher ed leaders + administrators that their actions must follow the law, not political rhetoric. The First Amendment protects the teaching of controversial topics. Executive orders and legislation to the contrary cannot override this constitutional protection.

There's a wrong way and a right way to report this

What really matters is the egregious human rights violations, but tangentially: can you imagine having a social circle with no immigrants, no LGBTQ+ people, no one with an antiauthoritarian sense of humor, and Jews are only allowed if they're hardline Zionists? What must those parties be like?

10 Reasons Why the Iambic Pentameter is Not Like the Human Heartbeat On an idea about poetry that needs to die

'And that underlying rhythm probably sounds quite familiar: it’s like a heartbeat. Shakespeare loved iambic pentameter because it sounds very close to natural, heart-felt speech': argh, this kind of thing (from Shakespeare's Globe website) drives me mad: someflowerssoon.substack.com/p/10-reasons...

About ten years ago I internalized the realization that "none of us are free unless all of us are free" isn't just a good quote, but a core truth of any anti-fascist existence.

“After years and years of illegal and unconstitutional federal efforts to restrict free expression, I also will sign an executive order to immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America.”—Donald J. Trump, Inaugural Address, 1/20/25