Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise. Happy winter solstice! Never give up.

"This promise of an AI future, is really just a collective anxiety that wealthy people have about how well they're gonna be able to control us in the future." - @tressiemcphd.bsky.social with an absolute mic drop moment about AI bullshit. Incredible words. Listen to all of it!

Clear evidence that at universities conservatives don't face higher obstacles than liberals to establish student groups + invite outside speakers. "These results fail to offer support for the view that conservative students encounter more difficulty in efforts to access campus resources."

The Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina has finally received full federal recognition, which it has sought since 1888. Tribal leaders were moved to tears after President Trump signed the measure. n.pr/3L95mJU

The Abundance movement often points to environmental groups as the obstacles to building. But who actually files the lawsuits blocking projects? It’s not environmental groups. It’s been lawyered-up HOAs protecting property values all along. Regulation by litigation is the problem.

My grandma used to say that if you lay down with dogs, you get up with fleas. Anyway.

This is the institutionalization of Turning Point's professor watchlist. It invites mass harassment and declares war on independent ideas. If unlearned sociopaths can influence your teaching through threats, academic freedom is essentially dead.

My friends, I say this with all the love in my heart: Right now might not be the moment for “But we should be TOLERANT and NUANCED about the plagiarism machines!” Your tolerance and “nuance” will be weaponised by the grifters and their apologists. Please respect yourselves more.

To have an adolescent daughter is to be read every single time you have a conversation. 😯

I am not sorry. This is simply true. Academics should be able to write fluently and express themselves clearly and academics should do their own work. It’s literally our job. It’s what we trained until 22nd grade to do. This is a simple observation that should require no explanation or defense.

Got some figures from the @lachlanmcnamee.bsky.social Salma Mousa & @kylepeyton.bsky.social DEI analysis from 4.67 million employment records at US public universities (1993-2024) Compact article gets it backwards. Unis diversified *leadership* not faculty.

ICE whistles work.

Worth reading this very carefully—not to spread panic, but to understand how civil rights are being threatened in specific ways by the use of new “indicators,” and of course all coming from an agency now run by conspiracy theorists

"Downtown businesses supported free buses because they helped bring people downtown & decreased workers’ transit costs." Ditto protected bike lanes. If you make travel easy, it turns out that people spend their time & money doing what they need & want to do--not fighting traffic. (Gift link)

This is horrific.

This is the core project of Trumpism 2.0

White men are 30% of the US and if they look around the room and see it’s less than 90% white men they think it’s affirmative action.

Brown has over 1,200 cameras and it wasn’t enough because cameras are a security blanket we’ve all been sold. They don’t prevent crimes and they barely solve crimes but in the meantime surveillance companies got rich and no one had to address the societal root causes of crime and violence.

This is the paradox: the "AI" bubble is based on hype. It's not about creating useful things. It's about hype to inflate stock. If the public resists the hype, then line does not go up. So they hype harder and harder, repelling most people with their hard sell tactics. It's a downward spiral.

A story I found about Haiti: In 1999, a group of Haitians were tired of political disorder and dreamed of a better life in the United States. So they built a small, 23-foot boat by hand using pine trees, scrap wood, and used nails. They called the boat "Believe in God."

What are we doing here. Like. What are we?????????? How does a giant cartoon hook not appear & drag this man off stage?

To all the young people in New York and across our country who count on gender-affirming care: I won't let this administration come for you, your doctors, or your lifesaving health care.  Your health care is still legal and protected.  I'll always fight for you.

It has been a brutal year and I love u

I want this a lot, actually.

Most towns could absolutely support one “culture bar” — a bar that’s programmed for cultural tv events like award shows. This is separate from the Oscar’s news that prompted this comment.

Here’s a hot take: dynamic pricing should not be legal. It’s swindling. Plain and simple.

WHAT

Two students were killed and nine others were injured in a shooting by an unknown suspect on the Brown University campus on Dec. 13, 2025. In a personal essay for Teen Vogue, Brown University senior Angela Lian reflects on the community that has come together in the shooting's aftermath.

I wrote about Yglesias “defending liberalism” by joining a right wing moral panic over critical race theory. His vision of liberalism has room for bigots, but no room for scholars concerned about structural racism.

Potential reparations outlined in the bill include official statements of apology, monetary compensation, property tax rebates, social service assistance, as well as licensing and permit fee waivers and reimbursement. trib.al/Kt3AEVe

Seven ways to stay engaged in the fight against rising authoritarianism. Throughout this year, guests on #TheContext shared practical steps anyone can use to stay informed, take action, and strengthen our democracy. Here are some of the insights that stayed with us.

This also happened during Trump’s first term. That 2024 dip? That’s when Democrats went on the defensive, and let Trump and MAGA dictate the immigration narrative. Why, it’s almost as if political leadership (good and bad) can actually drive public opinion, instead of always following it.

The writers room for 2025 is bananas.

Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen ‘slop’ as the 2025 Word of the Year.

State and regional redundancy in expertise will be the only way going forward in this administration and beyond. The implications of that reality are not entirely sanguine but here we are.

one of the great, pernicious myths perpetrated about higher ed—which media, higher ed administrators, politicians, and a number of faculty are complicit in spreading—is that humanities departments close due to some combination of cratering student demand and unjustifiable cost. It’s not true

Most of the time the “how are we supposed to function given these conditions” is a rhetorical question that hums in the background but today it is screaming in my face. WTF you guys? I mean WTF. You think a general strike could arise from mere exhaustion? Because I tell you what.

Honestly, I’m furious. Sandy Hook should have been the end of this. Yet on its anniversary more children are dead, injured, and traumatized. It is a horror that is entirely preventable. And we should prevent it. It is not impossible. No matter what the received wisdom has become.

The anti-Semitic mass shooting in Australia will cause a national conversation and policy change. We know this because the 1996 Port Arthur massacre led to significant restrictions on guns. The shooting at Brown will do nothing. We know this because it occurred on the anniversary of Sandy Hook.

Conservatives rebranded bigotry and every time the media uses “wokeness” as a euphemism they are helping a movement that it quite literally erasing the history marginalized people’s role in American life.

I'm being incredibly hesitant about what I share regarding Brown. Trying to stick to one reporter I know who's on the ground in Providence, the BDH, and the mayor of bluesky.

They sure do swing for the fences. Absolutely bananas on every conceivable level & many I had not imagined.

This needs to be smashed in its larval form. Unequivocally discredited & rejected right now. No hemming and hawing over what parts might be ok. No parts are ok. No quarter.

Really useful analysis of data to show how many people are going to ICE detention from local jails. These arrests are less visible to the public - as compared to raids or street arrests -- so we don't see the full scope.

The regime is weak. That doesn't mean it's not dangerous. But it means it's beatable, and we're beating it.

BREAKING: Democrats and Republicans in Congress just voted to pass the Protect America’s Workforce Act to restore federal workers’ union rights – the first time the House has voted to overturn a Trump executive order in this term. https://bit.ly/4oNyBQc

👀

The future is not foreclosed.

BREAKING: Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been released from immigration detention after a federal judge's order Thursday, his attorney's office says.

Lander going after Rep Dan Goldman in NY-10 *BRAD LANDER TO LAUNCH HOUSE BID AS SOON AS WEDNESDAY: POLITICO