St. John’s College is far from an ideal place, but it put a few notions in my head that I think are worth holding onto

Still need the video to meaningfully affect the situation on the ground. The video won’t bring the people who died back, nor does it have all the folks who have died in ICE custody or in places like CECOT. Worst case scenario, though—someone hopefully archives this stuff so we can remember.

Most important forecast for tomorrow

Could you imagine if two or three years ago federal agents shot someone because they were carrying a gun? There’d have been articles of impeachment passed within a week.

Much more broadly, we need an honest conversation about how government information collections can and are being weaponized, used to suppress dissent, and turned into tools to regulate the behavior of people and institutions. We need to stop building haystacks just so we can look for needles.

This misuse of children's data has been known for years by NIH. Accountability is overdue. We need real enforcement and an honest reckoning with how genomic data can be weaponized. We are witnessing a renaissance of scientific racism--federal institutions are both ignoring and encouraging it.

This is why it’s so essential that Europeans make clear now to think tanks and opposition groups what it’s going to take to get America welcomed back into the international system. I am terrified that the next administration is going to be in for a rude awakening and everyone will suffer.

Another chart from @nature.com that should scare people. These NIH advisory councils are responsible for reviewing proposals before grants are awarded, and they start going dormant in a month. Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

I see a lot of people dunking on this but literally please do not rely only on the cloud, AI, or any service for storage. This is where I even get nervous with companies and government agencies relying on Google Drive/Microsoft 365. 3-2-1 backups for data security are still a thing.

Evidence that State Department people are broken people

So if you’re wondering about the Board of Peace list, remember one thing: Many of the countries are ardent defenders of Palestinian rights in multilateral fora, including pushing for official recognition. Better than even odds that they’re here to pressure the US and IL on those rights.

Foreign PhD students are a significant and core part of the university STEM workforce, and limiting their funding may result in a mass exodus of our brightest minds, @colesci.bsky.social tells @davidmjourno.bsky.social ⤵️ sciencebusiness.net/news/interna...

Why does this graph in the Nature "US science after a year of Trump" article scare me so much? Because according to recent research published by my former colleague, Amy Nice and her coauthors, when we lose ten international students, you also lose funding to support eight Americans.

If there is one thing the last few weeks have reinforced to me, it’s to support local news sources. Enormous thank you to @sararuberg.bsky.social, Alex Mann, and the entire @thebaltimorebanner.com team for continuing to support the truth for the people of Maryland.

Flagging this excellent memo on AI and Education by my colleagues Felicia Fullilove, Jillian Mammino, and Michelle Sheckells. They point out the risk of large scale AI deployment without adequate pedagogical data and recommend several community-based pathways to seeking ideas and solutions.

🚨HOLY CRAP. An ICE whistleblower just revealed a secret memo authorizing ICE officers to break into homes without a judicial warrant, which DHS's own legal training materials say is unconstitutional! ICE then hid the memo from the public, passing it along by word of mouth and private conversation.

I cannot underscore enough the global transformation taking place and how much of the U.S. National Security establishment is going to misread it. “You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination.”

The President is saying in this press conference that if it weren't for tariffs, Chinese cars would overtake the U.S. car market. There's something to this. The PRC has invested heavily in automotive development. The United States has gyrated between policy actions, undermining our competitiveness.

Next week, join FAS and @eesionline.org for this season’s hottest briefing on emerging solutions to tackle the wildfire crisis, and the federal policy strategies for getting these solutions into the field. Register for in-person or livestream ➡️ www.eesi.org/briefings/vi...

Reupping my post from yesterday, there is nothing stopping anyone from reading Dr. King’s actual writings today or tomorrow, too.

I wrote in @sciencebusiness.net about how, even now, people in the United States in Europe need to start thinking about how to reintegrate the United States into the international system. That isn’t possible unless we understand how isolated we’ve become, even before this administration.

This, unfortunately, extends far beyond DHS. In the words of another colleague: “Have you ever known a government agency to support anything that might limit their ability to make an independent decision?” With the Title 9 security agencies like DHS, that usually meant seeking new authorities.

Bluesky wants to be able to show when I’ve gone live on Twitch. Regarding gaming, trust me no one wants to see that level of play.

Friend.com still not beating the allegations

Remember back in 2014(ish) when we would all watch these unfold on Twitter and how EU ministers, ambassadors, and journalists would keep us “up to the second” informed about the state of deliberations, including minor changes in meal plans and what that meant for the state of negotiations?

Nothing is stopping anyone from re-reading Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” today.

When you decide to play chicken with the EU’s Anti Coercion Mechanism.

Golden Dome isn’t real and if it were, it would bankrupt the country and fall victim to the fact that the laws of physics still exist.

A possibly I hadn’t considered: AI-induced psychosis simply convinces people that the superintelligence is already here. Shit gets really scary really fast as LLM’s gleefully reinforce the darkest delusions of those with real power who fall victim to the technology.

The State Dep't Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs today posted that detaining people "for 'liking' posts online shows how paranoid [an] illegitimate" regime is, referring to "political prisoners." On Friday, a fed'l judge refused to dismiss a lawsuit over State taking similar actions in the U.S.

When I was at the White House my team wrote policy that specifically addressed this - the use of often discriminatory facial recognition tools in law enforcement contexts or other areas where civil rights were in play. The image below was the worst case scenario - what we were trying to avoid. 1/3

Here we go, so more folks can see the relevance of DQS to not only astronomy, but also to security and safety interests.

We were working on this in OSC early last year when everything got scrambled. The team there is still looking to try to make space ready for these large scale investments, but it’s hard. Released a memo back in September to try to help us catch up on the regulatory and risk side

The problem for democracy: when consequential AI policy decisions are made through executive discretion rather than deliberative process, they escape ordinary channels of accountability. We cannot contest what we cannot see. AI governance by caprice is still regulation—just less accountable.

Gov Walz addresses Minnesota and nation about ongoing Trump Regime assault on his state youtu.be/fGTsYXBWQgU?...

Anyone who’s better at tariff policy wanna help me out with this? How does a chip that is manufactured in Taiwan and gets to China by way of Singapore (example) get captured by this? Unless they’re getting shipped to LA and then back across the ocean to the PRC, what is the collection process?

NGL the number of going away parties for old friends and colleagues last year made it impossible to say I don’t really drink

While this isn’t a policy announcement, this would be seismic if if happened. It would literally change, and possibly shut down much of the scientific system of the United States overnight

And I’m going to hammer this home again, these systems have a tendency to manifest under both parties and are often just as poorly implemented and justified. It’s not ok when it happens under more “normal” circumstances.

About to do something that will cause most of my former coworkers at State to wonder if I’m drunk or if I’ve been replaced by an alien. My early EU counterparts may wonder what my actual game is. Anyone who knows me well will know that I stubbornly refuse to say things that I don’t believe.

Frequently I wonder if these folks are the people who read Great Gatsby or watched Mad Men and were like “yeah we want that back!”

For those not keeping count, my old agency, where I built my career, is threatening the closest ally of the United States if they ban a platform that is weaponizing pornography, including against foreign officials.

Oh FFS @cnn.com @thebaltimorebanner.com had this detail two weeks ago. News outlets are now acting like people, including myself, weren’t begging to come forward to correct the fabrication. www.thebanner.com/community/cr...

Thought to be honest, it's harder to think of a policy that impacts people over the past twelve months that --shouldn't-- draw scrutiny under the Major Questions Doctrine than it is to think of policies that would be OK.

“They declined to provide details about its use citing national security reasons.” I’m sorry, but if the government is building systems that can result in the entrapment and detention of people traveling for legitimate reasons, then the people need full transparency regarding their use.

Hi @beasmeeply.bsky.social I remember playing a sailing board game when I took sailing class. It got a lot right! Forget what the name of the game was.

YouTube this morning’s algorithm just started playing back —all the Andor monologues— so you know things have gotten crazy

Oh good, because last night I remembered that I happen to have contemporaneous text messages proving Salo was picked up beforehand.

SpaceX is a defense contractor

Just a reminder that for 80 years, we used the multilateral system to build collective power to ensure stable outcomes and push back against gangster diplomacy. The same tools we helped build are now being used against the United States for the same purpose. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/09/b...