Playing tonight www.youtube.com/live/g862hiq...

Pretty sure you don’t need to quote ethics experts to say the $1.8bn slush fund is corrupt.

Yay for the Watertown band doing the right thing!

💔😭🕯️Former hockey and floorball player Yurii Orlov was killed by Russia in Kyiv today. By preliminary information, his girlfriend was also killed alongside Yurii. Deepest condolences. The death toll from the Russian strike on Kyiv has risen to 8 people.

The search and rescue operation in Kyiv after the russian attack has been completed. Twenty-four people were killed, including three children. Forty-eight people were injured.

An extraordinary story. And a reminder of the war crimes Russia is committing every day www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/0...

Stalinist vetting of high school orchestra music here in Wisconsin. Only symphony pieces with correct ideological inspiration allowed: Watertown school board will not allow high school kids to play an instrumental orchestra piece because the composer wrote it with a woman from Stonewall in mind:

There is a statue of author Alex Haley in East Knoxville, TN. Knox County just removed Roots from all school libraries.

👇👇

UPDATE Death toll just rose to 12 people killed by Russian attack on Kyiv today. Two of those killed are children.

The relevant portion of the Jason Collins discussion

Nothing to see here, just cows casually walking under the anti-drone nets in Kramatorsk, Ukraine. They have been installed to protect people, animals and transport from Russian drones near the frontline and over critical routes. Hundreds of kilometres of old fishnets now catching Russian drones.

The companies have quietly raised concerns about what they see as a deliberate and escalating campaign against American business interests in Ukraine. The White House, despite its pledge to defend U.S. commercial interests abroad, has been muted in its response. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/w...

Zelensky's decree allowing the Red Square parade is important beyond its entertainment value. It shows Ukraine's military threat was credible enough to Pu that he had to beg Trump to beg Zelensky for a ceasefire. The proof that Ze's power goes beyond coms is in the 1000 POWs who'll go home tomorrow.

What did I tell you? Pu rep Ushakov said it:

These lists of students and professors, along with course plans, provide an unprecedented glimpse into the 'militarization of education' as part of the hybrid war waged by Vladimir Putin's regime.

"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." –Justice Louis Brandeis Words spoken many years ago that are just as relevant today. We must continue the fight to get big money out of politics.

Anyone in NY who is free tomorrow afternoon (5/4, 2 pm), Sharon Clark and I will be presenting our paper with N Andreeva, "The Sunny Side of Essentialism: Race & Jazz in Russia" at Harriman Institute at Columbia. harriman.columbia.edu/event/the-su...

Read @donmoyn.bsky.social and @pamherd.bsky.social on "The Trump plan to add work requirements to public housing" and then make your voice heard by adding a public comment. The deadline is today, May 1 and you get get all the info you need from the blog post below. Here is the link for comments:

My and @abenewman.bsky.social Underground Empire is on sale at $1.99 for the Kindle edition. If you've been sitting on it, this is the time to buy it. If you've read it and liked it, would love it if you shared this post, and be more grateful than I can say if you starred/reviewed it on Amazon.

What has been the impact of the Roberts Court on democracy? Wealthy people have more political power than everyone else. Partisan actors have more power to reduce voter choice. Black people and other minority groups are offered fewer protections and less visible political representation.

It’s the “ill will.”

Please join us in congratulating poli sci major Miranda Garcia-Dove on receiving the 2026 Truman Scholarship. Miranda has impressed us time and again through her work in BridgeMadison and beyond. Read more here: news.wisc.edu/now-a-truman...

More personalistic dictator shit. wapo.st/4mZoDvN

Good god. Trump fired the entire National Science Board without explanation on Friday afternoon.

He never had the money to pay for the ballroom. It was always a scam. We were always going to have to pay for it. They were just waiting for the right moment to hit us with the bill. This is now the time.

Warriors coach Steve Kerr has a better understanding of foreign policy and the Middle East than the Trump Administration and many DC pro-war pundits. www.newyorker.com/news/the-new...

Reminder that Hannah Arendt called statelessness the forced removal by the state of "the right to have rights," leaving only "people who had indeed lost all other qualities and specific relationships except that they were still human."

Reporter: What do you make of Republicans saying that Virginia— AOC: Wah wah wah. We have asked Republicans for 10 years to ban partisan gerrymandering. And for 10 years, Republicans have said no. What they’re just mad at is that they have been accustomed to a Democratic Party that rolls over.

This is a great read from @caity.bsky.social! take time out from the horrors to learn a number of important things in this article:

russian steel giant severstal teeters on the brink of loss as production collapsed. How can a steel firm having 20% production loss and 370x fold in profits during a war is anyones guess. Seems that even looting ⏬️ Ukraine cant help 1/ united24media.com/latest-news/...

A tale of two Americans: The Pope speaks out against Russian atrocities. The president says nothing (and even worse, relaxes sanctions on Russia while ending aid to Ukraine).

The national media is eating up this report as justification for perpetuating the lie that universities themselves - as opposed to decades of attacks from the far right authoritarian party - are responsible for eroding trust in higher education. You can almost hear them salivating at the chance.

Jim Jordan is commenting on Eric Swalwell's sexual misconduct allegations. Jordan was assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State while team doctor Richard Strauss sexually abused at least 177 athletes. Multiple wrestlers testified under oath they told Jordan. He did nothing. He was never charged.

if you wanna keep your job, don't be a fucking creep. it's really that simple.

Exactly. @juliadavisnews.bsky.social points out this was not the first time👇🏽 Trump is very obviously lying (as usual) and anyone pretending to buy it is just telling on themselves

🔴 Russia struck the Pechenihy dam in Kharkiv region with six guided bombs, targeting one of the area’s largest reservoirs and a key water supply facility. united24media.com/latest-news/...

When all this is over, I'll keep coming back to the fact that the US both 1) un-sanctioned Iranian oil and 2) blocked Iranian oil exports within a 30-day period as the best encapsulation of the strategic incoherence of this whole war.

This is a must read

Orban's system was rigged to give plurality winners with widespread support in the countryside super-majorities in the parliament - so Peter Magyar generated widespread support in the countryside and has been rewarded with 69% of the parliamentary seats. Now he can undo Orban's constitution!

Hungarians deserve every congratulations for giving Peter Magyar a bigger margin than Orban has ever gotten in all of his rigged elections - and this within the system that Orban rigged. Magyar now has a constitutional majority to undo Orban's constitutional prison and govern as a democratic leader.

Zach gets it exactly right. Orban was an authoritarian who built a rigged election system for his own gain. But Peter Magyar cracked the code - realizing that every vote in the countryside was worth two to three votes in the cities and so racked up countryside support, winning 2/3rds of the seats.

Illiberalism is not Inevitable www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

The end of Viktor Orbán’s autocratic regime is a victory not just for Hungary, but for people who value democracy around the world. Congratulations to Tisza, to incoming leader Péter Magyar, and to Hungarians everywhere.

I’m shocked since we sent our best negotiators.

Thousands of Wisconsinites volunteered their hearts out in 2024, re-elected Tammy Baldwin, but were crushed to fall short in the presidential contest. They got back up and helped Susan Crawford beat the world's richest man in 2025. And they never stopped. Tonight is Chris Taylor's win—and theirs.

Chris Taylor wins state Supreme Court election civicmedia.us/news/2026/04...

Wisconsin is showing that you can fight creeping authoritarianism by getting organized and consistently voting, year after year, in small races and big ones, to win back democracy by voting in people who actually support democratic process.