One reason why elite schools (Columbia, Brown, Cornell) caving to Trump’s illegal impoundment and extortion is so galling — a betrayal, really — is that they would have won had they fought. By giving up, they guaranteed every other school will have to fight harder.

Jamelle was cooking. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/o...

I am SO EXCITED for this zine (and for finding my clipart soulmate Lee through the magic of @qzap.bsky.social)!

ICE vs the clergy

Every decade, we hear "the kids can't read or write!" Interventions that don't work are proposed. Those that do work are ignored: reducing class sizes, making kids & families feel safe at school and welcome, becoming a community resource. When their expensive reform fails, they yell at us again.

NEW: The Trump administration is exposing one of the last pristine wilderness areas in the country to oil and gas drilling. Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve is a key habitat for Arctic wildlife, including caribou, grizzly bears, and thousands of birds.

Message to all faculty: your expertise is no longer trusted or valued at this so-called “university.”

Platkin: They didn’t go to the mat to make sure people could eat. They didn’t go to the mat to make sure people could afford their health care. But they sure as hell made sure they could make hundreds of thousands of dollars on our backs based on some bogus theory of how they were harmed.

About half of what it was going to cost to fully fund SNAP in November during the shutdown.

crazy IG em_clarkson

1.

Here’s a gift link (no paywall) to the article, “Catholic bishops condemn ‘indiscriminate mass deportation’ in rare statement”: wapo.st/448fDw6

WATCH: @raskin.house.gov explains the deal that would allow eight GOP senators lucrative lawsuits over phone record subpoenas: "It's certainly the most corrupt provision authorizing financial self-dealing and plunder of the public passed by Congress in this century."

I'm doing research on Direct File at the moment, and DOGE people at IRS did not understand that they were firing the best tech talent *because all of those were probationary.* We still don't have a good number of how many people were purged and under what conditions. Fells like we should know that.

A high-resolution digital map allows people to plan their routes along the ancient roads of the Roman Empire go.nature.com/4nHZmoM

Big Tech is plotting a $100M lobbying and campaign spending blitz to block AI regulation at the state and federal level. We must stop this takeover before it's too late.

Just slightly worse than frozen iguanas. 😬😳

I told y'all, the compact failed. They've pivoted back to one-off deals with institutions.

Hey, all! My kid's public school is having a meeting for a discussion about AI implementation. If anyone has talking points that have worked in the past to keep it out of the classroom, I'd love to hear them.

UPDATE: The Senate votes 53-47 to shoot down the Baldwin amendment to extend ACA funds for 1 year. A party-line vote with every Republican rejecting it.

Kevin Curry, a food influencer and a former SNAP recipient, explains where SNAP recipients can get the most up-to-date information on their benefits, and how anyone can find free or affordable food. n.pr/47Awavd

Tell me you don’t understand risk pools without telling me you don’t understand risk pools

BREAKING: The Trump administration has renewed its Supreme Court appeal to keep full SNAP payments frozen during the shutdown.

Upcoming *free* intro to book arts workshops (letterpress printing+bookbinding!) 11/18 & 12/2, plus paid classes (w/member discount): typeset+printing your own holiday cards; simple folded book (or zine!) structures; & if you've printed before a brushup on our presses vabookarts.org/classes/wint...

The average SNAP benefit per month is $177 a person. The average ACA benefit per month is up to $550 a person. People want us to hold the line for a reason. This is not a matter of appealing to a base. It’s about people’s lives. And working people want leaders whose word means something to them.

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.

An agreement to agree to do a later vote is NOT an enforceable contract so what in the actual hell are Americans getting out of this deal??

It is very notable that several Dems are putting out strong statements that effectively backhand members of their caucus

Why has the government been closed at all if Senate Dems cave now? Didn't they say that they could not go along with throwing millions of people off health care? What's materially changed? A *promise* is not action. ALSO fascists lie and I've been told by some Senate Dems that the GOP is fascist.

Dems backed Trump into a corner where he’s advocating for starving Americans and hemorrhaging support. If they vote to let him off the hook in exchange for nothing it’s a cataclysmic failure. I know people are in pain but insulating Republicans from political consequences is not the answer.

Americans can’t afford this deal. Democrats can fight AND win — just like we did in our budget battle in Michigan. A promise isn’t a deal. Don’t settle.

“People are blaming republicans for food prices and flight cancellations and health insurance costs and are furious about gilded ballrooms and Gatsby parties and the president is falling asleep on tv and is the most deeply unpopular president in history, time to cave” is a hell of an argument

If your senator doesn’t take messages, send them a note via their online contact forms.

“I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time.” aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...

My last opinion writing workshop of the year is on Tuesday. You can register here or sign up to be notified of 2026 dates when I figure them out: www.elizabethspiers.com/workshops/

Trump‘s brilliant plan of 50 year mortgages means that after your first 20 years making huge interest payments to a bank you will have paid down almost none of the principal and they will still own the house you are living in with 30 years to go. A scam from a career con man.

This. Protection from scams is essential for the public good/democracy and part of the power we the people expect to be on our side. Trump, Inc. is not for the public good. At all.

Former Chair of the Republican House Freedom Caucus.

Thread

if you are food insecure for both the humans and pets in your household there is a tool called Pet Help Finder that can help locate pet food banks nearby and other free or reduced price assistance and supplies for pets. no one, ABSOLUTELY NO ONE, should have to give up their pet bc of this.

So it turns out... the US air travel system was incredibly, deeply dependent on federal funding to just run day-to-day all this time, to the benefit of private airline shareholders, when everyone thinks that state-run trains are leeching off the government. Weird!

At least they FINALLY admitted why they refused to negotiate on the shutdown. First they lied and promised Dems they would “negotiate” this, but only AFTER they voted for the CR. But Dems were correct when they assessed that Republicans NEVER intended to extend these subsidies.

*The Harvard Plan* by @onthemedia.bsky.social and @bostonglobe.com is very good. Much detailed commentary from a range of participants, well contextualized. There are two three-part series. I recommend both. www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm...

The most incredible library in the world, @bodleian.ox.ac.uk opened to OTD 1602, through the energy, money & commitment of Sir Thomas Bodley. It began with 5k books, & now more than 22m, with 2m+reader visits a year, & multi-million online users across the globe. Privilged to be its 25th librarian!

Today, Mike Johnson will keep the House adjourned for the 95th day out of the last 107. 12 days of work in 107 days. With full pay and benefits. The senate has been working, so this is not about the shutdown. It is about avoiding a vote to release the Epstein files.

People want more affordable health insurance, not a savings account. This is just a Republican bait-and-switch to repeal Obamacare for the 70th time. Let’s get serious — extend the health care tax credits and open the government.

Chris Murphy: "There will be pretty substantial damage to a Dem brand that has been rehabilitated if on the heels of an election in which the people told us to keep fighting, we immediately stop... if we surrender without having gotten anything, I worry it'll be hard to get them back up off the mat"

While Trump’s lawyers file an emergency petition with the Supreme Court tonight to do everything they possibly can to avoid paying SNAP benefits to the needy so they can starve, Trump flies to his country club for another weekend of parties and golf.

Loved all of these! RIP, Mr. Meyer, and thanks.

DHS confirmed it has stopped automatically storing officials' text messages. Instead, officials are supposed to take a screenshot, send that to their work email, download it onto their work computer and run a text-recognition program on it. Every time. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/u...