My hometown absolutely floored me this past week. FLOORED. For safety reasons, I haven’t said much about it. But I’m so damn proud of my family and friends. So proud.

They lied about it. All of it. A thug cop shot an unarmed woman five times without justification, boasted about it to his colleagues, and then this administration tried cover it all up by arresting her and charging her with felonies.

Teaching media law and ethics is, uh, interesting, because I have to explain to my students that this should not happen, is not legal, but yet. But. Yet.

An FBI agent-in-training filed a lawsuit after he was handed a letter signed by the bureau’s director, Kash Patel, saying that he was being “summarily dismissed” because of “political signage.” The only thing that could be, he quickly realized, was a rainbow pride flag that had hung near his desk.

$8M Settlement Reached After Prisoner’s Vicious Beating In Essex County, NJ patch.com/new-jersey/n...

" a modern-day Paul Revere."

This tracks: Cornell researchers: xAI's Grokipedia cites neo-Nazi website Stormfront 42 times, Infowars 34 times, and white nationalist website VDare 107 times www.nbcnews.com/tech/elon-mu...

xAI is currently in talks to raise $15 billion at a $230 billion valuation. The flagship product is self-identified "MechaHitler" chatbot with training so warped it describes Elon Musk as more physically fit than LeBron James. It is powered by gas turbines poisoning South Memphis.

I haven't had enough time to process this yet but, I've studied the anti-vax movement for 7 years of my career and I can't believe I'm now at the point where I can't recommend the CDC as a trustworthy source of health information. This is dangerous, insane, and embarrassing.

1. Texas A&M has voted that Professors must seek out official permission to talk about trans people, sexuality, or race. One of the professors said that the new policy would make routine lessons on things like the Holocaust impossible. Subscribe to support our journalism.

"never in modern U.S. history has the office intersected so broadly and deeply with the financial interests of the commerce secretary’s own family, according to interviews with ethics lawyers and historians."

Data on race and ethnicity has put us on the cusp of breakthroughs in treating kidney failure, which disproportionately affects Black Americans. But the Trump administration has halted that data collection as part of its war on supposed "DEI." Important new story from @laylaayanna.bsky.social

"Greene allegedly drove to Pennsylvania and paid a body-modification artist $500 to carve the wounds on her face, neck, and upper body" newjerseyglobe.com/congress/van...

32 DOT political appointees have close industry ties or financial links. It’s not a fox guarding a henhouse, one observer said. This is “the fox designing the henhouse.”

The USDA has designated 444 counties as farming-dependent; their average vote share for Trump was 77.7%. investigatemidwest.org/2024/11/13/t...

Extraordinary that the Texas government would be so corrupt that it would have to black out more than 80% of its emails with Elon Musk.

"In a New York Times essay last April, Summers lamented that the University had “repeatedly failed to impose discipline and maintain order.” If Summers won’t step aside voluntarily, Harvard should take his advice — and begin by disciplining him." 👏👏

…. I would climb into a cave for the rest of my life on Earth if was this guy. Standing in front of students saying “sorry I am a creepy ass sex pest who asked known pedophile for tips” I mean Jfc

If I were sick, I would simply choose to be healthy. Bing bang boom bsky.app/profile/atru...

Trump is planning on stripping tens of thousands of public servants of their whistleblower protections. Here's what our lead counsel @AndrewBakaj had to say: "This is not accountability, this is retaliation masquerading as reform." Read more below. ⬇️ whistlebloweraid.org/whistleblowe...

Curriculum changes afoot here at Montclair State. It is still unclear to me exactly what this means and what the implications will be. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/19/n...

The conference said that after this year’s conference, they had received “universal praise” from St. John’s staff, and said they were “caught by surprise” by the announcement.

what the fuck is the big ten doing my column: www.extrapointsmb.com/p/what-the-i...

this is a major part of what's broken me over the past few months. so many of these people lost their jobs simply for accurately quoting something a man said, while the New York Yankees held a moment of silence for a man who blamed Jews for the "downfall of American culture." shared reality is over.

I keep thinking about the decision the NYT made to use those obviously glamorous and sexy photos of Nuzzi to illustrate that story about her. I'm not a prude but for that specific story that is quite a choice. I'd like to be in the meetings where they decided that.

we are going to win

At least 15 people were punished for allegedly invoking “karma” or “divine justice,” and at least nine others were disciplined for variations on “Good riddance.”

"This research suggests that at stake here is not only the freedom of scholars and academic institutions, but also the future of discovery itself."

Finally some good journalism news out of LA, where lots of new news orgs are popping up www.niemanlab.org/2025/11/more... by @speppered.bsky.social

NJ news orgs can apply by Nov. 21 for scholarships to attend News Product Management Certification program mailchi.mp/centerforcoo...

absolutely sick to my stomach over the fact that i just typed telos dot news into my browser

Astonishing. Good for them. “We want to speak directly to members of the Military and the Intelligence Community. The American people need you to stand up for our laws and our Constitution.”

Beyond furious.

This is a brilliant idea. Collaborate with each other. We can even make it fun.

"In any other administration, at any other time in American history, this level of corruption would be a political disaster — a scandal that could bring down the administration. For the Trump administration, it is a Tuesday."

ICE raiding Midnight Masses on Christmas is crossing a line that I thought it wouldn't.

"They're driving around Charlotte in unmarked cars wearing paramilitary garb masks, stopping people on the street randomly based on the color of their skin. They're just sweeping sidewalks. They're sweeping parking lots. They're going into stores and churches." NC’s governor on ICE. Trump’s America

The destruction of US science will be felt worldwide for decades. Take it from @msier.bsky.social, who was the lead program director for the Biological Oceanography program at the US National Science Foundation.

Turns out that the $16MM payoff ABC made to Trump bought them only a few months' reprieve. Weird how that happens.

It's not that I ever thought corporate boards were brilliant or whatever, but honestly the whole Tesla thing still is just flabbergasting to me. Even in cold, hard, capitalist terms. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/o...

"Mr. Chalco Chango told them that he was blind and could not see the image, according to his lawyers, who said the agents pushed him against a wall, handcuffed him and put him inside a car." www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/n...

“There is no pretense of evenhanded justice,” she said. “That core principle is gone.” www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/u...

The beleaguered media law and ethics professor is once again asking, could we slow our roll a little bit

New Jersey politics will be blown wide open by the first politician willing to complain about their busted-ass commute a lot

Finally reading my friend/colleague @jeffjarvis.bsky.social’s book. Would recommend! Very useful for teaching my social media fundamentals class next semester, among other things.

So help me, I admit it, I did just check if he posted. I know the writing is bad, the whole thing is bad, but I can’t stop myself omg

Our community in NJ is fundraising for grocery cards for families impacted by detention. Over 1,000 people are detained at Delaney Hall Detention Center in Newark. Their detention leaves families suddenly without income, stability, or support. givebutter.com/GroceryCards

I mean, look, I'm not a reporter, so who am I to talk? But on a day where the president both just called a woman reporter "Piggy" and is celebrating someone who had people bone saw apart one of my colleagues, I might just be a little ready to defend my colleagues and profession. But that's just me

"Many college journalists are laser-focused on their beats, and are unfazed by the possibility that their stories might piss off a source,” Bill Grueskin told me Monday. “They’re doing the things that the best reporters do. They’re just not able to buy a beer when their story shakes up the world.”