Oh, does it benefit the US to provide aid to foreign countries? That would have been good to know back in January and February.

Excited to share the launch of my new center at UCSD focused on trust and transparency in U.S. elections. We will be supporting research on election administration and voter confidence through research-practice partnerships. More to come! today.ucsd.edu/story/uc-san...

Judge Diane Goodstein crossed the Trump administration last month. Yesterday, her home burned, her husband was injured and it's being investigated for arson. www.postandcourier.com/news/crime/s...

This is a must-read

To explain: At the start of his opinion, Judge Young includes an anonymous note received by his chambers, which reads “Trump has pardons and tanks..what do you have?” Responding to the note, Young says we have our “magnificent Constitution” and “here’s how that works out in a specific case —“

He just gets it

More than 1800 detainees are missing after the closure of Alligator Alcatraz. Their families and lawyers can’t find them and they’ve vanished from the ICE database. Feels like this should be a much bigger story www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

Reminder that it started small and somewhat ridiculous with Gulf of America and escalated from there. Apply that lesson with everything this administration does.

A lot of respect for Kristof for not letting this go. It will be easy to forget the USAID cuts in the years to come. It's good to have people around making us remember.

Facing a proposed $1.2-billion fine and severe medical research grant cuts at UCLA, the University of California has not gone head-to-head with Trump in court. So on Tuesday, groups representing more than 100,000 of its employees did. www.latimes.com/california/s...

Nobody: Me: I wonder how different peace/conflict and democracy researchers will encode an election conducted over discord in their various datasets… 👀

Good job alert: job-boards.greenhouse.io/aclu/jobs/81...

Because there’s no screening test for ovarian cancer, it’s often discovered so late that it’s hard to cure. Awareness of early symptoms is key: –bloating –pelvic or abdominal pain –feeling full quickly –peeing more often If these last for 2+ weeks, call your doctor! For more info, visit ovarian.org

I am from Missouri and do politics for my job, and am just now learning of this sit-in to protest attempted RW seat-stealing.

New study by @brendannyhan.bsky.social, @jasonreifler.bsky.social & colleagues demonstrates that prebunking election fraud rumors — by warning about anticipated false claims & filling conceptual gaps that those claims exploit — helps to reduce belief in falsehoods: www.science.org/content/arti...

A Salvadoran restaurant around the corner from my house is closing down because of the occupation by federal forces. My local city council member is urging people not to order delivery because so many drivers are being seized.

I know this isn’t the point but high vis over full camo is so fucking funny

If you read/listen to NPR's coverage, this is how the story goes: "The first strike took place around 10 a.m. when Hussam al-Masri, a cameraman for the Reuters news agency, was operating a live feed with a bird's-eye view of nearby Israeli military positions." It was a direct hit on a journalist.

No one wanted to hear this years ago when @tompepinsky.com said it. Maybe now.

This really hit home

It's kind of amazing that we showed we could cut child poverty in half for roughly 100 billion/year (absolute peanuts in a 7 trillion dollar budget), did it for a year, and then just stopped doing it.

Last night's Encinitas city council meeting was something else. Not sure the rest of the country understands how scalding white hot having ICE show up at our schools is, but every demographic you can imagine in our little super wealthy suburb showed up and was fucking pissed. youtu.be/1sTbOgtJDyI

This was in my feed next to the news of DHS planning to purchase its own air fleet for deportations. We're going to euthanize a robotic probe that's working fine, sending us both data and beauty, to we can buy prison planes.

!

Appreciate them doing this in the most evil lighting possible

My new one in in the NY Times @nytopinion.nytimes.com on how states, courts, and the public can combat the risk Trump poses to the midterm elections (gift link): www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/o...

Another day, another reminder:

The Black divers excavating slave shipwrecks: Members of Diving With a Purpose search out and investigate the vessels’ remains, bringing history to light and memorializing lost lives www.theguardian.com/us-news/arti...

Hey @nytimes.com How about some follow-up here. You've said for weeks and weeks that Harvard was "about" to capitulate for $500 million. They haven't. Who is right?

My 2026 nightmare scenario. Current GOP majorities in Congress steal the election by using false accusations of voter fraud as a reason not to seat elected Democrats.

The aspiring dictator is amassing troops from loyalist regions in the capital. “What would you say if you saw it happening in another country?” @brendannyhan.bsky.social

At Trump’s request, multiple red state governors are sending hundreds of armed National Guard forces into DC. This military occupation of the district is unprecedented and unjustified. If it’s allowed to stand, this country will be well on its way to becoming a police state. 1/22

The brakes on runaway autocratization are off

It sounds conspiratorial to suggest that Vladimir Putin told Donald Trump behind closed doors to launch an assault on mail-in voting in elections administered by the states, and Trump immediately set about mobilizing federal power to do it… but that is literally Trump’s account of what happened.

Can Cash Transfers Save Lives? Evidence from a Large-Scale Experiment in Kenya www.nber.org/papers/w34152 "Unconditional cash transfers (accounting for spillovers) lead to 48% fewer infant deaths before age one and 45% fewer child deaths before age five...concentrated among poorer households."

Democracy Dies in Unilateral Disarmament There is an option if you don't like this. Like everything else about preserving our democracy, it's entirely up to the far right authoritarian party to stop acting like a far right authoritarian party, & Democrats can't fix that. bsky.app/profile/mcop...

bingo

Again, I ask, sincerely & without trying to be overly alarmist, what anyone has seen to make them believe that the 2026/28 elections will be free, fair, democratic, & constitutional by any meaningful definitions of those words or standards of modern 🇺🇸 history. bsky.app/profile/mcop...

San Diego will now track when police respond to immigration raids and post legal rights info online after the community complained about officer presence. Practical step to rebuild trust without violating federal law.

All academic institutions will soon realize we are in this together, facing an autocratic ruler who wants to destroy academia, science, and public health (together with media and courts - pick up a history book). There is only one solution - stand up, speak up, and, critically, collective action.

I guess, on the plus side, they aren't really being subtle about their efforts to manipulate future elections. Remains to be seen whether that will matter...

so building a ballroom certainly feels like one of those 'he doesn't plan on leaving' things because especially this person isn't going to build something for the next guy and I mean I don't know how long a ballroom takes to build but its not going to be quick and Jan 2029 is approaching

That's three, alongside France and the UK.

an amazing toolkit by Stand Together for Higher Education, for faculty "in response to growing political attacks on academic freedom, institutional autonomy, and the public mission of higher education" "Use and adapt what you need. Share what works. And above all—Stand Together." lnkd.in/gtXRh39

It's a pretty big deal that Israel's mainstream leftist human rights NGOs are saying this. It suggests something turning in domestic Israeli public opinion, which has so far been utterly indifferent to Palestinian suffering

B'tselem, today: "[T]he unequivocal conclusion [is] that Israel is taking coordinated, deliberate action to destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip. In other words: Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. www.btselem.org/publications...

@gavinnewsom.bsky.social: "We're trying to play by one set of rules. And these folks on the other side play by a completely different set of rules. So much so that the president United States called Greg Abbott and told him, in essence, find 5 additional seats so he can rig the election next year."