Thanks to @kkdumez.bsky.social and @annewhitesell.bsky.social for their great insight in this @rns.org piece by @alejacorazonhm.bsky.social, reporting on @prri.org 's latest survey report on abortion attitudes in America. religionnews.com/2026/04/23/w...

Dear White House correspondents, It's not too late to develop flu symptoms and decide that you should stay home and miss having dinner with fascists. Think about it. Sincerely, Mark

Meet “ASU Atomic,” a subscription platform that claims to offer customized learning modules for fee-paying users. None of the ASU faculty whose course materials were harvested for the module I generated were aware that their image, lectures, lessons, or other teaching materials are being used.

If I worked for Meta, everything I’d write going forward would use this method…

Some other arrests Kash didn’t disclose to the Senate when he came up for confirmation.

The mother's story is a stark example of how immigration policy can change drastically with each administration — and transform the lives of immigrants.

Happening at a university near you

It’s happening:

the chief executive of Cancer Research UK is neither a cancer patient nor a cancer researcher, and yet everyone seems to understand that that’s fine, because neither of those would be the correct experience for the job??

No lies detected

Weekend listening suggestion:

Most effective war propaganda ever? Day after day, a team backing Iran’s theocratic regime releases videos, made with AI, that ridicule Donald Trump and glorify those who resist him. It shows a remarkably sophisticated understanding of American culture

Lawrence Freedman: The US leads no longer. But is the full extent of the current crisis appreciated? Not just the coming economic hit but also the impact of Trump’s self-destructive behaviour. All allies are adjusting to US incompetence. This makes increased defence spending more urgent.

This really speaks to why when this happened a lot of Black people were more numb than mad. But one thing that I, and the people whose perspectives I trust were not, was blindsided.

The same people who won't call Trump out for his "low IQ" tweets, or his Islamaphobia, are the same ones who will be attending tonight's dinner. Is somebody going to make a labeler for all people who attend tonight?

Even as a critic who has tried to write about MJ’s legacy with nuance and grace, I appreciate the clarity the director of Leaving Neverland brings to the table

"She coined the term ‘intersectionality’ and helped to develop critical race theory, now her life’s work is under attack by Washington’s war on ‘woke’. As her memoir is published, the legal scholar explains why she’ll never stop speaking truth to power” www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...

By holding up a figure like Kelly, liberals give a quintessentially bad-faith actor the appearance of good faith. Truth is, Megyn Kelly is a fascist. She's in a fight with other fascists. Liberals should not be in the business of saying one side in that fight is making a good point.

Palantir employees are now bothered that their company wants to install fascism - but that goal was clear for years. Palantir founders Alex Karp and Peter Thiel have been outspoken about it. They also openly tried to recruit employees who were OK with helping install fascism. Guess that failed. 1/

My PhD dissertation on how the separation of work and home shaped gender identity in 19th century America would have been prohibited in 21st century Texas

incroyable

In the first eleven months of 2025, 10,109 doctoral-trained scientists left the federal government. The losses were concentrated in agencies that fund medical research, regulate environmental standards and model climate. theintellectualistofficial.substack.com/p/more-than-...?

This is so stupid. Georgia’s ballots already feature human-readable audit trail and enable risk limiting audits. And one idea is OCR?? All for made up vote-counting FUD. So they blew up a functioning system and replaced it with nothing. vbnewsletters.votebeat.org/p/how-the-ge...

Trump’s ballroom is costing taxpayers nothing, just like he said. Unless you count the taxpayer money he’s shoveling under the table. A comically corrupt administration, from top to bottom. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/25/u...

“The words ‘slavery’ or ‘slave’ appear only twice, including in the entry on Frederick Douglass, who ‘escaped from slavery to become a leading voice for liberty.’ Douglass is presented not as an opponent of slavery …”

Happy anniversary of this not happening

Texas Tech just instituted “one of the most extreme anti-speech policies ever imposed at a public university.” The policy bans professors from discussing LGBTQ+ topics in core & lower-level courses and eliminates entire fields of study across the five-university system. #AcademicSky

James Ho with an utterly crazy concurrence (that no one else joined) declares that SB4 is an appropriate use of Texas' power to defend against war, repeatedly citing a Great Replacement-theory-promoting book that claims Mexico and other countries are "weaponizing migrants" against the U.S.

shoutout to everyone who insisted that weiss was a hyper-competent genius who would work her magic on CBS

Breaking News: Gov. Janet Mills of Maine vetoed legislation that would have blocked new data centers in the state until November 2027. It would have been the first state moratorium on data centers as the A.I. industry booms.

Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas Wallace Jefferson on why he wanted cameras in the courtroom and why the Texas high court allows clerks to sit in on the justices' conferences.

Disappointing that he is failing so rapidly, and might be replaced with someone comparably evil but more proficient.

One of most qualified, euphemistic, convoluted ways possible of describing Elon Musk's consistently racist twitter feed: "at times sharing views that experts said echoed white supremacy."

This article tracks the rise of what @profkori.bsky.social has identified as "know-your-place-aggression." This is the predictable result of Rufo, Trump and Miller's attacks on Black achievement I n higher education, indeed Koritha anticipated all of this years ago. 🤬

Thom Tillis did this - turns out Republican senators still have leverage when they care to use it.

it is important to emphasize that this was *the point*. this was *intentional*. elon musk is a vicious white supremacist who thinks poor african children ought to die, so that the world can be whiter

In case you missed it! JCB Director Karin Wulf reflects on the first installment of the series The Revolution Is News, which features Joe Rezek discussing Common Sense and more. Catch up on all the latest at jcblibrary.org/news/joseph-...

BREAKING: This first collective bargaining agreement, which takes effect April 27, is a major step for Vineyard’s backstage and overhire IATSE union crew members.

Higher Ed Stakeholders Pushing Back on Government’s Anti-DEI Stance

Indian American historian here and so guys I checked this is real. Trump posted an article that called India a “hellhole” and Asian Americans “gangsters with laptops” or maybe I am just a lady gangster with my i phone! And now the justice dept wants to denaturalize foreign born citizens!

New Fox poll is absolutely crushing for Trump: *Approval on economy: 34-66 *Approval on inflation: 28-72 (!) *Dems now lead GOP on economy *55% say Trump mentally unfit for office On the pod, @gelliottmorris.com is so illuminating on all these numbers and much more: newrepublic.com/article/2094...

What must it be like, as a leader of another country, seeing U.S. leaders act like a global energy supply crunch is a good thing because it’s created a backup at U.S. oil export facilities. The backup is bad, Pete! This stuff is supposed to run smoothly. A backup doesn’t mean they’re selling more.

Daily Memo: At Least 15 Latinos Have Been Deported to The Congo As ICE Escalates In Southern California Full report: lataco.com/detainees-de...

“We were in Vietnam for 18 years” is not reassuring. It’s horrifying. A president who cares about the Constitution would be explaining legal authority, objectives, limits, diplomacy, and congressional consultation. A strongman shrugs and says, “I’ll take as long as I want.”

Eerie: I just used “uxoricide” to describe Fairfax’s act in a chat; folks had never heard it. Tip of the hat to another Latin student! My POV: feminists show quiet strength. Misogynists bray loud weakness. When you’re a secure man, seeing women as people with agency & humanity isn’t threatening.

It's a positive development that the State Department produced a public memo on its views of international law and the U.S. war with Iran. And now this critique of the memo - by former State Department lawyer @bcfinucane.bsky.social - is devastating.

All the "free speech" folks from the last fifteen years have taken the position: "This is bad, but it's the fault of the left for going too far."

I wrote last summer in @lawfaremedia.org about the very real limits confronting DOJ’s denaturalization push www.lawfaremedia.org/article/what...

www.berkeleyside.org/2026/04/22/m... "Even a poster of Martin Luther King Jr. has been yanked. Cal has also banned student organizations from hosting events at the center after complaints about pro-Palestinian signs."