If Jeff Bezos could afford to spend $75 million on the Melania movie & $500 million for a yacht to sail off to his $55 million wedding to give his wife a $5 million ring, please don't tell me he needed to fire one-third of the Washington Post staff. Democracy dies in oligarchy.

Finally back into a consistent writing schedule for the first time since 2020. I was tenured in May 2020, was on faculty senate, and was part of our Uni emergency mgmt team. COVID for me (professionally) was multiple years of massive service load. I don't regret that work...

It's a "forget about thorns damage and die on the crackback" sort of day - but the sun is shining and classes start tomorrow so that's something to look forward to!

Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen is the best epic fantasy series I’ve ever read send tweet

Look, I know we're all sick of hearing "if this had happened with any other president ..." but it's absolutely true and absolutely can't be forgotten. For some reason, this nation gives this idiotic spoiled brat a free pass from things that would destroy the administration of any other person.

Beshear: Let me be clear. The president has both the funding and the authority to fund snap during a shutdown. In fact, every other president in every other shutdown has done so. People going hungry in this instance is a choice that this president has made.

“Screw responsibilities, let’s do magic.” CC: @jamesngilmore.bsky.social

BREAKING: economist discovers “second shift,” a concept coined by sociologists almost 50 years ago; gives it new, stupider, and less explicitly labor-oriented name

I've seen a lot of concern about staying within the "rules" of each bracket; and would like to reiterate that these are not rules. They are the average expectations of players in that kind of game. If your deck doesn't meet those expectations, you can ALWAYS mention it to adjust those expectations.

EXCLUSIVE: One Saturday afternoon in October, my phone lit up with a notification. I glanced down at the message. “Anna, Lindsey Halligan here,” it began. So began my text exchange with the woman who is prosecuting the president's perceived political enemies. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/anna...

Who’s eating the tariffs? You, mostly. @cnbc.com www.cnbc.com/2025/10/16/t...

My book American Idolatry uses data and history to tell Christians 1: the best way to love God is to love your neighbor and to define neighbor as broadly as possible And 2: Christian nationalism keeps you from doing #1 b/c it demands you idolize power, fear, and violence

My high school German teacher passed away this week. She was one of those one-in-a-million teachers who changes the way you think about learning. As a professor, she's one of the teachers I regularly think about as someone I want to emulate. Today, I'm thankful for amazing teachers.

Lot of unhappy things going on at large and in this article, but one of them is that there a contingent of RW activists searching through social media for comments they can use to get people fired or worse. Be careful. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

An antisemite shot two kids in Colorado, at least one of whom is Jewish. The White House “fighting antisemitism” doesn’t care, because the shooter was a student radicalized online into far right beliefs, which the regime is cool with, rather than a student verbally criticizing Israeli govt policy.

Some claim "Christian nationalism" is just "loving Jesus" & "being patriotic." Lots of social scientific evidence shows the "Christianity" of Christian nationalism is much more than that. In fact, it brings with it 5 pieces of cultural baggage. kettering.org/five-element... @kettering.org

Protesters chanted that President Donald Trump is the “Hitler of our time” while he dined at Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab on Tuesday, a rare journey outside the White House to a D.C. restaurant. https://wapo.st/3V6st9v

ICYMI: -SCOTUS ruled that "common sense" racial profiling is A-okay when ICE does it -The WSJ released Trump's vulgar Epstein drawing -The White House sent out an invitation for the public hanging of the separation of church and state -The ickiest Murdoch gets to keep control of Fox

This week on Culture Critically, @aspyle.bsky.social joins us to talk about the relationships between crisis communication and critical analysis podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

Great episode, really fun listen from a couple of “well seasoned millennials”

My brilliant friend and colleague @jamesngilmore.bsky.social has relaunched his podcast and you should absolutely check it out! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

This is why "diversity of thought" is a dead end. Equating anti-science quacks with professional scientists is how you end up putting worm-for-brains RFK in charge of spreading measles to Texas families. Scientific consensus is good, actually.

This is really unfair to everyone who just voted for him for the racism.

Whoa. "Now the debate among national security professionals is over whether the secretary was just incompetent or whether he was drunk. That’s how low this has gone. - Seth Moulton, not pulling any punches

GET IN LOSERS, WE’RE GOING TO DESTROY THE COUNTRY

I had to bring this here because it’s so good

This is a profoundly evil betrayal and a direct reflection of Trump's soul—a disgusting, small, and shameful ghoul who gets off on harming the powerless. www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

Huh.

Spot on thread from @jessicacalarco.bsky.social

Donald Trump is lying to you.

KYIV INDEPENDENT: “It’s time to say it plainly. America’s leadership has switched sides in the war. The American people have not, and they should speak up.” kyivindependent.com/editorial-a-...

Oh you could say I dabble in Photoshop #teslatakedown @niedermeyer.online

Spoiler: kids started dying

Okay... we feel like we say this every week but *a lot* of stuff happened. Let's break it down, starting with @brbarrett.bsky.social on why the DOGE takeover is worse than you think... (sorry, but you gotta read this one.)

Everyone knows what happened here. Trump can only exist around people he can causally humiliate. Guys lie JD and Rubio. He wanted to do a ritual humiliation of Zelensky and Ukraine but Zelensky wouldn’t accept that and so Trump reacted like a stung bitch.

Y'all are gonna want to check out this new research helping make sense of the incredibly powerful draw of Right-Wing news. If I had to choose 1 impediment to finding our way thru all of this *waves hands*, it's the RW media ecosystem. It's available for free (pre-print).

This doesn’t exist and will literally save $0

Slow response in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene: when asked why money wasn't being spent and was referred to the Governor's Recovery Office or "Grow NC." Its director and director of communications did not respond as of this report www.wxii12.com/article/hele...

The GOP claims slashing $880 billion from Medicaid is about eliminating "waste, fraud, & abuse.” That's a smokescreen. The “fraud” amounts to less than 1/10th of 1%, not even close to $880 billion. Their actual plan slashes coverage for millions & leaves families without care. We won’t be fooled.

💪 you heard that right

This is how i responded to @bsky.app:

With another set of news headlines about political elites using “””Roman salutes””” I just want to note that the Nazi salute means “I want to murder your family” and the n-word means “I want to lynch you.” That’s what they mean, they make me righteously angry, and I won’t let anybody minimize them.

Let's say their names: * General CQ Brown, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: FIRED FOR BEING BLACK * Admiral Lisa Franchetti, Chief of Naval Operations: FIRED FOR BEING FEMALE * Admiral Linda Fagan, Coast Guard Commandant: FIRED FOR BEING FEMALE All replaced by less qualified white guys.

WYOMING: “Thank you, Madam chairman.” “I prefer ‘Mister’ chairman.” “Well you all voted preferred pronouns cannot be compelled speech.”

Here’s the thing with this sort of headline…. I don’t care. I don’t care that you regret what was an obviously terrible choice. He told us who he was from day 1. He tried to overthrow the government when he lost in 2020. He’s a fascist. You made this bed. Sleep in it.

I do appreciate how creative humans are and how they can make songs about the fall of democracy that really slap