A ream of norms are being shattered daily, but as a tech expert this one really shocks me. For a generation CSAM has been *THE* flaming red line for a tech platform. If they spent money on ANYTHING, it was moderating it miles away. To even have the whiff of it was a Federal kiss of death. Now? 🤷‍♂️

Updating an undergrad syllabus on culture and identity in American Political Development (last taught in 2020!). Any suggestions on newer works to include? Polisky

Local assisted living facilities are taking additional security measures because the residents don’t want their care to be interrupted when ICE abducts their staff. Schools are closed for the safety of students, faculty, and staff. There is no facet of society or stage of life unaffected.

Cartoon on ICE Agent Kills Woman During Minneapolis Immigration Raid

The New York Times states it plainly in display type: Videos Contradict Trump Administration Account of ICE Shooting in Minneapolis

You and your wife drop your 6-year-old off at school. You just moved here. You see ICE terrorizing your new neighbors. You film them, as is your legal right. Your wife complies with orders. She is then shot in the head. You still have to pick up your child later today. This could be you.

It’s a lot harder to get folks to accept that a white mom deserves to be gunned down by the police. That’s true because of racism and often classism. My mentor has a great book on this about who gets widely protested in police shootings.

The President is now collecting imperial tribute outside the U.S. Treasury to be dispensed in an extraconstitutional manner (which allows him to further arrogate powers given to Congress by the Founders)

one takeaway from the grok noncon porn thing is that much of the media just isn't interested in an issue they can't pretend has two sides or that doesn't give them an opportunity to shit on the left. Also it would be uncomfortable to justify remaining on twitter after acknowledging it

So campus speech. Much viewpoint diversity. Very marketplace of ideas. Whatever you call institutions that do this sort of thing, they cannot be called "universities." It is a category mistake.

I think the AI angle of this is obscurant. It doesn’t matter that grok is “an AI” whatever you take that to mean. Suppose X hired a team of guys to photoshop the clothes off of women and children whenever anyone asks. That’s functionally identical what happening here. It’s not complicated.

Every time I see a news article about ChatGPT pushing vulnerable people to harm themselves and others, I want to know how the universities who have eagerly proclaimed their partnerships with this company intend to account for the increasing evidence of the harms of this tech

A side story is there’s a ton of insider trading on these prediction markets. New accounts making hundreds of thousands on their first and only trade, that maduro would be ousted. Seems like insider trading is legal if not encouraged on these platforms

The fact that someone calculated that a $25,000,000 political donation in a six month period was a rational business decision says a lot about how precarious the people pushing AI think the fate of the technology is.

Yep, the level of vicious bigotry is extreme and we can cannot give an inch. There is a movement on the far right, supported by billionaires and powerful people in the White House, who want to ethnically cleanse Somalis from the U.S., and we must describe it as such and treat it as such.

Airport #FridayReads on our travels back to Denver #BookSky

why not the APGAR score?

Did I need a 2025 Wrapped from my kitty litter? No, no I did not.

We are *all* Real America in the same way a naturalized citizen who took his oath five seconds ago is exactly as much of a citizen as someone whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower.

The most popular post by far, 3x more than the runner up, is "The age of no consent." UX has long felt like the field is in a crisis, and now we see it at its peak: what's the point of investing in a good user experience when you can just force people to use your shitty features?

Speaking of typos, someone should direct Ms. Dhillon to U.S. v. Murphy, 406 F.3d 857, 859 n.1 (7th Cir. 2005), aka the greatest footnote in appellate court history. scholar.google.com/scholar_case...

New article: "Legislative Control and Partisan Disparities in Dyadic Representation" in @lsqjournal.bsky.social w/ Dan Butler and @steverogersinfo.bsky.social. GOP leadership doesn't shy away from policies where GOP constituencies disagree with the party platform, impairing dyadic representation!

It has been a bracing moment for American federalism, with both unprecedented efforts to extend executive control over state and local govts, novel forms of subnational resistance. Where is federalism going? Paul Nolette and I have edited a new issue of Publius on that question. Short thread:

If someone says to you, "what are you doing about students' use of AI?" ask them, "do you think that this should be my problem? How good do you think my response can be? Should it not be up to legislators & administrators to defend against a commercial industry's attack on your child's education?"

Public discourse on this subject has utterly failed to direct citizens' attention to the actual problem, which is that a commercial industry is assaulting education. So every week we get another thoughtless op-ed on blue books or the death of the college essay, etc etc.

Yes, this!: "this isn't a crisis in teaching; it's an attack on learning" I'm finding that I don't have just to change assignments. I have to **abandon my entire teaching strategy**, which has always been built around scaffolded independent projects across the semester.

Last year: projectile vomiting This year: fever and hacking cough Is this what they mean by a war on Christmas?? Or am I just cursed?!

Some of you have forgotten that only three years ago you were perfectly capable of writing a text, writing an email, telling a bedtime story to a child, and it should worry you that powerful companies have convinced us we can’t do things we’ve been doing since the dawn of time.

Someone should take this case on and help this TA sue the shit out of this institution. Not sure how far it’ll get in these courts but my god this is so awful.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect and the Streisand Effect, when merged, become the Bari Weiss Effect

Refusing to take sides in a 'fight over bigotry' is tantamount to taking sides.

THIS. This is why the AI bros telling historians what is acceptable and normal for us to do and use in teaching and research all fucking weekend has bothered me so much. Underneath it all is a blazing contempt for our field, and we CAN ALL SEE IT fellas

CBS News chief Bari Weiss pulls 60 Minutes story Weiss said investigation had to include comments from Trump administration 60M's ⁦‪Sharyn Alfonsi‬⁩ said multiple US agencies refused to comment - and this lets WH veto coverage My NPR story www.npr.org/2025/12/22/g...

Tuskegee 2.0. And - surprise, surpise - it's black people who are the guinea pigs again.

This is some Mengele shit

Current issue of @theonion.com nails it again.

Hours before 60 Minutes was set to air a story on deportees who were sent by the Trump administration to prison in El Salvador, describing “brutal and torturous conditions,” 60 Minutes announced that it has pulled the segment and will air it in the future.

It’s the “season of love and giving”…but this year, doesn’t it seem more like a “season of fear and taking”? Like many of you, I’ve been saddened by the human impact of draconian government budget cuts and how angry many housed Americans are at unhoused Americans. 🧵 1 of 9

Let's buy a holiday gift for EVERY child in Denver's public housing. Even $5 helps. You've raised $40,000 so far. No child should go without a gift this holiday season. Thank you for your generosity!

I’m sorry, but it is disgraceful to be an academic who uses this technology to conduct research. It should be prohibited in all of our scholarly institutions, including universities and journals.

Oh.

ICYMI. This strange situation remains unresolved. The board says it's waiting on a judge before further action but, as of now, it could technically unsuspend the execution anytime, forcing everyone to scramble for a clemency hearing next week. The death warrant is good until noon on Christmas Eve.

Because, again, the federal fucking government is trying to stop companies from selling binders. Not because of any concerns about safety or possible harm, but specifically because trans men use them to mitigate dysphoria. They're saying this openly, explicitly.

Because the endgame of the anti-trans folks isn't about surgery, or hormones, or bathrooms, or sports teams. Those are way-stations on the path to the world they're trying to build, which is a world of stifling gender conformity. And you can't beat them by giving them part of what they want.

In addition to this administration trying to kill kids, and they're also coming for our binders? OUR BINDERS.

My forthcoming book— For which I began research in 2006. Is now posted on the website for Princeton University Press. Cover will be added soon. The King’s Slaves: The British Empire & the Origins of American Slavery

Another incredible case of white racial grievance about the academic job market. He reveals at the end that he wouldn’t provide the necessary application materials!

David Brooks, who wrote in the NYT last month, "The Epstein Story? Count Me Out" is... in the latest Epstein photo dump published by @oversightdemocrats.house.gov. He should absolutely be fired by NYT for this. Major conflict of interest that he didn't disclose.

Get papers on menstrual equity, partisan dehumanization, the TVA, and judicial constructions of bathrooms under review. Write a book proposal and make serious progress on new project on vital records.

I don’t know how it works at the New York Times, but my editors at The Guardian would never let me publish this if they knew that I was one of the elites who spent time with Epstein. And if I published it without telling them, I would be out of a job.