Don't condemn Americans for voting Trump into office. The line is that people are stupid and democracy doesn't work. But the USA wasn't meant to be a democracy but to balance elite interests (Senate, unelected Supremes, an electoral college). The problem isn't democracy because we don't have one.

Iowa GOP is about to ban the "study of subgroups of Americans" from required Intro to US History courses. This would, I assume include all ethnic studies, women's history, etc. So we have moved from anti-CRT to anti-anyone but white men in just 2 years. www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/...

So the NH lawmaker in charge of Ed policy and sponsor of last years law banning CRT because systemic racism is a myth is caught planning to racially segregate schools in a lawmaker group chat (with no push back). granitepostnews.com/2026/01/14/l...

🧵 The autoworker at the Dearborn Truck Plant is a proud member of a strong and fighting union—the UAW. He believes in freedom of speech, a principle we wholeheartedly embrace, and we stand with our membership in protecting their voice on the job.

“ the thing to do is to realize that we are an empire in decline, and we are writhing in this kind of irrationality, particularly in the international realm. And it will continue for another decade or two, until the power, American power, finally slips away.” www.democracynow.org/2026/1/13/al...

I had my 70 undergrads fill out a survey that among many things asked them to rate their politics and how many social media followers they had. Conservatism correlated strongly with higher numbers of followers. Not surprising but a reminder of the climate we live in.

Senate Bill 1 is reshaping Ohio public universities; 5 major changes by Laura Hancock www.cleveland.com/open/2026/01...

Quoted in Aisha Baiocchi's excellent article on the GOP rage for civics centers that I've long called affirmative action for conservatives. www.chronicle.com/article/the-...

Announcing the first textbook to meet the requirements of Ohio's SB 1. UNPATRIOTIC CIVICS examines the mandated 'founding documents' without sentimental myths. a.co/d/1DouSQT @stopsb1oh.bsky.social @honesty4ohioed.bsky.social @osuaaup.bsky.social @ohaaup.bsky.social

Dear Bluesky friends, I'm refreshing all my online info in preparation for my book launch in a couple weeks and I would very much like one of you who knows how to edit Wikipedia to add some missing books to the publications list on my Wiki page. I've placed the list on the next page. Thanks! 1/3

This is what you get when you have a constitutional structure designed to facilitate minority rule and a political party that has learned how to exploit this essence fully.

2025 is in the books: 2 1/2 marathons (1 age group win) 4500 bike miles 1000 run miles 100 swims 2 70.3 triathlons 1 book 1 article 1 Chronicle Review essay 2 book reviews 1 conference paper 2 all-campus awards 1 PhD student graduated But I’d trade it all not to have had to write 2 obits.

Weird... I began updating my syllabi for the Spring term and checked the university calendars and MLK Day is just a blank. Probably just a glitch in the software...

Being a boomer who watched Sanford & Son and listened to the Grateful Dead, when the WaPo advertises its new product I think of something else...

Weird to be the output of an AI hallucination. No, I did not write an article on hobo soup for the National Geographic, though I would have relished the assignment! spice.alibaba.com/spice-basics...

According to an EdWeek poll, only 14% of teachers who voted for Trump think "Combating discrimination against students" is something the Federal government should do. The only thing we agree on across the partisan divide is we all hate curricular mandates. epe.brightspotcdn.com/bd/a5/a6645f...

The White House twisted the 13th Am. into an achievement of the Founders: "On this day 160 years ago, the United States of America ratified the 13th Amendment of the Constitution, immortalizing a self-evident principle that stirred the hearts of patriots..." www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-st...

"Is there in science and letters, a reward for the labor they require? Scholars...renounce their pleasures, neglect their exercises, and destroy their health: For what? Is curiosity so strong? Is the pleasure that accompanies the pursuit and acquisition of knowledge so exquisite?" - John Adams

“…Daniel “Des” Sanchez is accused of transporting a box that contained “Antifa materials”… zines and pamphlets. Some contain controversial ideas — one was titled “Insurrectionary Anarchy.” Should I be concerned my writing has been published in anarchist magazines? theintercept.com/2025/11/23/p...

“We don’t deserve the trust of the nation if we’re unclear about the divisiveness of swastikas,” the official said. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

Journalist Steven Melendez writes a terrific article in the Chicago's Newcity Magazine about the historic corruption in the Weights and Measures bureaucracy. Glad to see my old work on the "Honest Weight" progressive movement revived. www.newcity.com/2025/11/05/t...

When the billionaire class talks about “patriotic capitalism” and saying things like democracy was a mistake and “a select group of elites are exactly the right people to move the country forward” they are not a political faction, they are an aristocracy. tinyurl.com/3nvvsr4h

Ohio's GOP just voted to twist my gerrymandered district into a hyper-gerrymandered one. Ohio will go from a two to one GOP advantage to four to one in a state that is 55 /45. The Patriots complained of Parliament's "rotten Burroughs" which were less extreme. ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/10/31/o...

Well Musk's new Grokipedia is trash, but I must admit that its entry on the Haymarket Affair is quite good. (I may be biased as it references my work extensively...) grokipedia.com/page/Haymark...

Can I just point out that Erika Kirk’s fundraising letter that repeatedly refers to “the evildoers that took Charlie’s life” and “they tried to silence [him]” is conspiracy mongering and reckless?

Robert Gould Shaw, Glory, and the Problem of AI 🗃️ open.substack.com/pub/kevinmle...

What could go wrong? "...layoffs at health agencies were allowed to stand, including those of workers with top-secret clearance responsible for monitoring and protecting the United States from biological, chemical and nuclear threats, The Post reported." www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

The Dept of Ed legal definition of patriotic education is creepy. "Citizens must understand why our free-market economy is a highly evolved system of cooperation fostered by our constitutional republic, and how it functions to secure the blessings of liberty for all Americans." tinyurl.com/bdddfj7u

"Civics Institutes" are just affirmative action for conservatives. Want proof? www.theassemblync.com/education/hi...

Civics grifters don't even check their most basic facts. Here is the newly released report on civics in Higher Ed hailed by civics boosters. It lists Ohio as having no civics requirements when in fact it passed the most detailed law in the country in March. jamesgmartin.center/2025/10/50-s...

The caucasity! And it gets wilder. Moynihan's (white, single, destitute) mother was quite literally ON WELFARE! This is the same guy who practically created the myth of the Black matriarch and the controlling image of the Black welfare queen! www.theguardian.com/news/2003/ma...

Ohio's GOP has opened the door to renewed socialist education by requiring every student in state university to take a course that includes study of "the American economic system and capitalism." There is no other description of what this requires. Thank you comrade State Senator Jerry Cirino!

The firehose of corruption is overwhelming, I know, but if this NYT investigation is true, these offenses are as impeachment-worthy as anything these corrupt kleptocrats have done across two administrations www.nytimes.com/2025/09/15/u...

Trump's budget justified cutting funds to teacher training because: "taxpayer dollars being weaponized to indoctrinate new teachers" in "inappropriate and unnecessary topics" such as 'anti-racism'" Anti-racism is indoctrination now? www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...

Trump's Const. Day EO is all blood and soil with a dash of McCarthyism: its all "refortifying our storied national customs, culture, heritage, and values" and guarding "our constitutional way of life against those who seek to destroy it — from within or without." www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

The next move to censor Higher Ed is announced in Newsweek of all places: "The Charlie Kirk Act ...must declare that American universities, funded by taxpayers, cannot be laboratories of Leninism, Fanonism, and Islamism...All of it must be...completely extinguished." www.newsweek.com/honor-charli...

BTW, I am speaking on Slavery's Fugitives and the Making of the U.S. Constitution at the BGSU Constitution Day Symposium Friday (9/19) at 4:15 in Rm 207 of the Union. In spite of the reluctance of the BGSU Marketing Dept. to mention my existence, they did relent and squeeze my name in at the bottom.

Conservatives want their history simple and consistent. They refuse complexity and the existence of different standpoints. In doing so they end up silencing and censoring rather than understanding the dynamics of the institutions they love. 1/3 www.city-journal.org/article/trum...

Its time to change the name of the Dept of Education to the Dept of Indoctrination. www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

Why do I suddenly have the dreadful suspicion that some people are following my posts just to report them to my bosses?

Worthwhile reposting this one from the days after Trump was shot. www.counterpunch.org/2024/07/15/t...

“Republicans were...the party of the rich and Democrats the party of the poor, the working class. That...has flipped. Today, Democrats are the party of rich coastal elites, and Republicans are a blue-collar party.” Ted Cruz is not wrong. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

So I set ChatGBT a task and it’s been working on it for a week and this is the update I get: “Good morning, Tim. The Constitution Day media contact sheet isn’t finished yet — “ I was told that ver 5 was PhD level—correct, like the worst first year in seminar who didn’t do their readings.

Cranky old college graduate says too many people go to college: "too many of them will study too little under the undemanding supervision of faculty who teach too little. Colleges illustrate the seepage of rigor from American life." Your future gig job awaits. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

OK - here it comes. AI education's Kitty Hawk moment. They are coming for all of us teachers next... www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

Thank you, @profmk.bsky.social, for chopping it up with me on @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social about his new @lsupress.bsky.social book, “Slavery’s Fugitives and the Making of the United States Constitution.” newbooksnetwork.com/slaverys-fug...

It is absolutely pathetic how much ink the New York Times has spilled trying to launder this dolt into a “genius.”