Not even a full *start* to the list of current illegality of this administration.

Increasingly seeing Europeans (and others) who assume folks in the US are ok w/ what the aspiring despot is doing. One more element on the disheartening pile that is this current reality.

Man, Du Bois had some bangers, but for me, it doesn't get much better than his scathing indictment of the "Christianity" of the United States. Certainly this was all true of the nation in his lifetime. But in my lifetime, his criticisms have never felt so true of the nation right now.

DOJ is out of control. The crime of impeding federal agents requires physical force. Speaking out against the way ICE is being deployed is not a crime. www.cbsnews.com/news/justice...

The authoritarianism is coming fast now

US higher education was a crown jewel, generating knowledge, wealth, prestige, and power unrivaled by anyone. And the US is throwing it away, because Americans elected a govt ideologically opposed to truth, science, merit, and racial/gender equality, preferring to weaken the country to reduce that.

What if he invades Minnesota

Our Department at Aalborg University is hiring an Associate Professor in Sociology with a focus on quantitative methods: www.stillinger.aau.dk/videnskabeli...

DOGE was hustling that data OUT of federal agencies as rapidly as possible, using techniques associated with hackers and cybercriminals. People don't understand: our data IS the treasure. That's why federal agency heads tried to intervene physically to protect it. www.npr.org/2025/04/15/n...

🚨Job alert! The ENDOW project is hiring a Research Officer in Research Database Management, to be based at @lsemethodology.bsky.social. Oversee & expand our database & contribute to research on social & economic inequality. Deadline 15 February. Share & reach out! jobs.lse.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...

the problem with an untrained secret police squad that shoots people in their cars isn’t that they’re untrained

I had to look up Lizardman's Constant: the 4% of people who will tell a pollster lizard people are taking over the world, ie the minimum answer you will get for even the most absurd question.

Conference update: IC2S2 Virtual Day. While Vermont is an incredibly kind and welcoming state, national policies and federal actions have a real impact on conference access, particularly for people from countries who cannot enter the US due to federally enacted travel bans. 1/6

#sociology job!

Just one day without a "these fucking assholes" reaction would be shocking.

Wait, what?!?

Redefining legal status on the fly and retroactively to imprison refugees. This truly is deplorable. The racism isn't veiled at all any more in this administration's approach. It was never in question. It's just (more) right out in the open now.

"This is what bad policing looks like, they [forget officers] said. And it puts everyone at risk."

If you believe the bully's projection of "might makes right" it may be the only way I've come up with for maga "logic" to approximate anything even remotely approaching internal consistency.

"But more fundamentally, ICE is violence-prone because its main purpose has become theatrical. Under present leadership, ICE is less a law-enforcement agency than it is a content creator."

ffs

Ironically, Google's AI results do a decent job of compiling & communicating the justifications I primarily lean on explaining to students why AI use for many in-class tasks is a shortcut that undermines the thinking process/aims I have for what we'll get out of participating in the course.

While these decisions are good, they don't reinstate work that was stopped, and in many cases, really can't pick back up from where it left off. I.e., this may limit future damage (thankfully), but can't recover much of what has already been lost via these over-reaches. And that remains infuriating.

"It's a thing that tin pot dictators do right before starting a hyperinflation and destroying their own economies." youtu.be/XGYHbCJVQCg

Why are people insistent on framing LLM usage in all or nothing terms?

Amendments update: - 1st, 4th overtly attacked or ignored - 14th, 15th being (il)legally challenged - 22nd openly questioned - (I'm probably missing others.) It's almost like they don't think the Constitution has legal implications anymore.

We are a pariah state—on climate and many other issues—thanks to this guy and his enablers. “Trump’s greenhouse gas emissions will cause Trump’s heat waves, Trump’s droughts, Trump’s floods, and Trump’s wildfires.” Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/c...

Video message from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KckG... www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/s...

Expansion of the surveillance state.

I can't say this loudly enough: THEY ARE TRYING TO NORMALIZE THE KILLING OF CIVILIANS FOR PARTICIPATING IN FIRST AMENDMENT PROTECTED PROTEST ACTIVITIES.

An arsonist hit a Mississippi synagogue Saturday. Seven Torahs were damaged or destroyed in the fire. One Torah, from the Holocaust, was in a glass case and wasn't touched. The same synagogue was bombed by the KKK in 1967. mississippitoday.org/2026/01/10/f...

"In every society fallen to authoritarianism, the state goes after the press first+ closes in on universities next. All of us who live, work,+learn within the university should think of our institution as part of the larger constitutional structure of the nation." www.chronicle.com/article/univ...

Still among the best commitments to a bit I can remember. We could all use a little levity atm.

I recently learned that some people actually have times where their brain is actually "off"; this is fully unimaginable to me.

If your ultimate goal is to fully erode any lingering confidence in gov't to foster its further dismantling, and to concentrating power either in the hands of the few, and/or privatize everything, is there anything you'd be doing differently?

The "providing a common enemy" approach to inducing social balance:

Job: Open-rank position in Environmental Health and Implementation Science in the Department of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior, Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina. uscjobs.sc.edu/postings/196...

I made this joke a few weeks ago. Sadly (unsurprisingly?), it appears the joke isn't far from reality... bsky.app/profile/jimi...

Black people five years ago: you know, they can kill anyone they want to out there Everybody today: hot damn, did you know they can kill anyone they want to out there?

"I’m going to pause here just to review: an institution that purports to be a university has told a philosophy professor he is forbidden from teaching Plato." surreal times dailynous.com/2026/01/06/t...

"To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." - Judgment of the International Military Tribunal, 1946

Tenure and academic freedom were invented to entice people with subversive views to speak openly rather than organize clandestinely. It’s interesting to watch what happens as they are eroded.

This is absolutely 🦇💩 & horrifying.

Please share - @pewresearch.org wants to hire a data archivist who will be an advocate for data users, helping to ensure that our datasets are easy to discover and reuse by researchers, journalists, and the public. pewtrusts.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/CenterExtern...

Two things about the phrase "Academic politics are so vicious because the stakes are so small." 1. I never knew Kissinger is typically attributed as its source (e.g., www.aaup.org/academe/issu...). 2. But good grief does academic social media seem to act as if it's true (e.g., see recent days)!

The McLanahan Award is given in honor of Sara McLanahan, a remarkable scholar, mentor, and policy advisor. The award goes to a senior scholar for extraordinary contributions to the study of family change, the well-being of children and families, and related social policies.

Good morning epi methods community! Please consider applying for (and spreading the word about) this position here at Minnesota. It's a great place to be! (You can read the whole description and apply here: apply.interfolio.com/179313) #EpiSky

Once again, I implore media outlets to stop saying these are CDC decisions. These are changes being made unilaterally by RFK Jr. against the expert advice of CDC scientists. I note that RFK Jr. no longer recommends flu vaccine for kids in the midst of a horrible influenza year.

Andrea Vest Ettekal & I wrote a chapter a few years ago overviewing network methods for developmental researchers. The paper itself is more review/summary than anything. But part of why I was happy to contribute to that was it became an outlet to publish a table I'd had kicking around for a while.

RFK Jr lies a LOT, but this time he is caught telling the truth