This is THEFT. There is no other word for it. They are stealing almost $1.8 BILLION dollars to pay Trump‘s allies, despite knowing that these people are not legally entitled to any money and be laughed out of court if they filed a lawsuit for money damages.

Ladies and gentlemen... the weekend. (also: you are important and are not alone 🧡)

I think a U.S. president should not use the FBI to persecute major politicians, Federal Reserve Board members, or anyone else because the president has a political or policy disagreement with them. It's the sort of behavior that should trigger impeachment by the House and removal by the Senate.

We're so past this, but I can't stop thinking of the now-cliché "What would you say if it happened in another country?"

The gobbledygook is unfortunately Democrats' actual plans. "Americans are broke. SO we're going to paperwork you a tax credit that will be paid for by lifting several subsidies with various qualifying income caps!" We actually do need someone with rhetorical gifts at the top of the next ticket.

So glad that congress isn’t alive to see this.

Department of Excursions

"We started a war of aggression for no reason & commenced it by accidentally bombing an elementary school & killing over 100 kids." That simple fact is so horrific that it's just kind of bouncing on the surface of our collective consciousness. We can't absorb its full implications & significance.

We tried to find the real site of the College Camp, a Williamsburg place now on William & Mary's campus, where thousands of Virginians (free, enslaved, indigenous, some women camp followers) trained and served in the era of the revolution. This place must have been nuts. news.wm.edu/2026/01/30/p...

One of the reasons this is so under-appreciated is that our university presidents have been & continue to be almost totally absent from the public square in loudly & collectively condemning this existential assault on our institutions & our industry coming from the far right authoritarian party.

“Trump invaded Venezuela, kidnapped its president, stole a bunch of its oil, sold it, and stashed the money in banks in Qatar” is a stone-cold CLASSIC of this genre

Lincoln: Whenever I hear a man defend slavery, I have the worst urge to see it tried out on *him*. Wonder what he'd think of the defenders of masked unidentified officials shooting the faces of people who don't comply? Hard to say which defense lacks more instinct for self-preservation.

As a government employee, my salary, my employment records, my research notes, even my email – all are public record. Meanwhile this upholstery enthusiast thinks that simply revealing the identities of his goons is a crime.

New at the Free Press: A College Student Interrupted My Talk On Why Colonialism Was Good For A Solid Minute - Here IS Why That Is The Biggest Threat to Free Speech in America

yep. i can identify any number of structural issues but at the end of the day the basic problem is the republican party. this has been apparent for at least 20 years. it is also an incredibly unpopular observation to make among “serious” people.

Currently at the funeral for the penny, happening at the Lincoln Memorial:

This Yglesias piece in the NYT is horrifically bad. Almost every "fact" it cites is provably false. At best it is cocktail party banter from a pundit who knows nothing of energy. At worst, it was cut/paste from oil industry talking points. So, a rebuttal: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/18/o...

Powerful stuff.

"the issue isn’t that we need more 'boy-friendly' reforms. It’s that boys are socialized to compete only with boys and to read girls’ success as illegitimate or emasculating. The result is dissonance, resentment, and disengagement for boys—and hostile climates for girls." time.com/7335723/auto...

What the hell is the point of the filibuster if not to prevent something like this? I'm at a loss for words.

1/ The US Government has quietly removed a memorial to Black soldiers who died in World War II from the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, South Limburg. The move follows a complaint from the right-wing Heritage Foundation to the American Battle Monuments Commission. ⬇️

I’ve come to believe that we need to gather considerable forces and a campaign to demand the removal of face masks by ICE, Border Patrol, FBI and police. It is a practice in conflict with the principles of transparency & accountability that are central to the concept of democracy.

yeah, the idea that Trump will stop Boko Haram types by ending aid to the Nigerian federal government is as confused as the idea that he is actually interested in the welfare of the same Nigerian Christians he put on a categorical travel ban 5 years ago news-archive.hds.harvard.edu/news/2020/03...

I'm shaking almost too hard to type. I entered SLC airport and heard screams and cries for help. I could see people gathered around, watching. I sped over to discover this woman face down on the floor, four grown men pushing her down, while she cried "HELP ME" and pled for her child.

I'm not saying Trump is an authoritarian who would lock up reporters for investigating his party, I'me just saying his party members think that.

One year ago

Step by step guide to higher ed crisis for Dem candidates giving stump speeches. This isn’t hard: 1) States cut taxes to serve the rich 2) with less revenue, they cut public higher ed budgets 3) with lower budgets, schools raise tuition and throw money at investments, athletics, and development

The East Wing Desecrators Given the extraordinary and unprecedented destruction of the entire East Wing, built in 1942 for the Office of the First Lady, it’s important to note who enabled this. In this thread, I run through the companies and organizations involved and provide contact info. 🧵

Roughly 1.4 million federal workers are going without pay due to the government shutdown. About half of them are furloughed, while the other half has been deemed essential and is working without pay. n.pr/4ngKyx3

The title? "Observations Upon Certain Passages in Mr. Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, Which Appear to Have a Tendency to Subvert Religion, and Establish a False Philosophy."

Many of my liberal peers see clearly how mainstream outlets have ruined their already imperiled businesses by capitulating to bad-faith right-wing criticism. They have a harder time seeing that the Democratic Party has fallen victim to the same kind of self-sabotage.

Emphases I saw here in Williamsburg, VA: much more insistent anti-fascism than last time, even more insistent centrality of constitutional order, rule of law. A lot appeals to history here: "If they want 1939 Germany, we'll give them 1789 France." Some very simple principles as below:

Proud papa moment: my son J published a letter in the @nytimes.com today (in print tomorrow) on the need to think our definitions of autism.

this rocks. when indiana edu killed the student newspaper, Purdue stepped up, printed the forbidden issue, drove it to Bloomington and stocked the boxes.

Once in a while, a succinct description of a progression of choices takes your breath away with the intentional, focused corruption.

Second article of impeachment of Richard Nixon: “He has endeavoured…to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be intitiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.” www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

A parable about AI in history/higher education. Yesterday, I had a student come to my office. She'd written, "I just cannot read 18th century cursive." Oh, no, I thought, finally, that young person I'm always reading about who simply *can't* read old sources, has arrived in my life.

My mother clocked out and walked past the parking lot to a public sidewalk to conduct 2-minute conversations as a union rep at her federal agency, to avoid doing political work on the job. She wouldn't sign a petition, while on her lunch break on her phone.

hands off, y'all, I've already locked this one down

I know it's trite at this point, but I can't get over how much the description and media treatment of these incidents makes it seem like a video game and not the end of actual, real-like-you, adult people's lives

“Authoritarianism is wrong, murder is evil, corruption is awful, the law must be followed, America should not be brought to its knees for Trump’s benefit” - simple principles that somehow we struggle to rally around, because of our paralyzing fear that some silent majority will not approve of them

"one officer smiled for a selfie with her as she cried."

We are fighting for the freedom to have time to build, to create, to love, and to live lives not of just survival, but of fulfillment and joy.

Don't. Print. Lies. In. The. Newspapers. This is just a slightly politer version of the lies Robin Vos spreads about UW all the time (bsky.app/profile/mcop...). It's ugly. It's not true. Nor are the grants lies true. Frankly, it's all obscene given the authoritarian assault now on 🇺🇸 higher ed.

Fascism can die in all kinds of different ways. Shame, ridicule, failure, regret… it’ll even die if enough people find a new sense of empathy. We should work so it dies in one of those peaceful ways. The damage will be less, the cleanup, easier.

I came across this report and found it interesting. Even something I might pursue getting I ballot in my state. Short summary in slides. www.americanprogress.org/article/the-...

imo, it's also indicative of some very high level discussions on narrative management in the wake of Luigi Mangione's actions not being vilified by a majority of the public. I think that scared a lot of folks at the top, & they were damned sure it wouldn't be allowed to happen again.