So, a university president fired a professor because they taught a course that discussed there being more than two genders, and now the university president is being fired for not having fired the professor quickly enough, is where we're at. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/u...

Worth noting that Khalil (and others) who have everything to lose, have shown more bravery and commitment to free speech than elites across academia, corporate America, culture and politics bsky.app/profile/josh...

Committee to Elect John Fetterman President

This is a great video. If you want to learn more about "agrivoltaics" read this piece by *another* @motherjones.com long-time contributor @tomphilpott.bsky.social www.motherjones.com/environment/...

What Epstein records have not been made public?

The president of the United States just declared war, actual military war, not a metaphorical one, on a major American city, and one governed by his political opponents. In any other period, this would be impeachment-worthy.

Today marks *1 year* since Israeli forces killed 26-year-old American Ayşenur Eygi. Her family has heard nothing from Biden & Trump admins, and Israel. State Dept. told us it has “no higher priority” than US citizens — but then referred us to Israel for info on Israel’s killing of the US citizen.

Variety describes Bari Weiss as “a well-regarded opinion writer who has tilted at extreme views, particularly those who are emblematic of the progressive “woke” movement.” Not sure whether to laugh or cry.

On Wednesday, as firefighters worked to contain a 9,000-acre blaze in western Washington's forests, federal officials escorted 44 of those firefighters off the premises, arresting two of them on charges of illegally entering the country.

The IRA was surprisingly effective at spurring investment in green energy. Where it failed was making it *politically* sustainable by delivering immediate tangible benefits to the public. In that sense, the Green New Deal was, in retrospect, the more prudent and realistic approach. on.ft.com/4n4Ayra

What a horrifically sinister Black Mirror episode.

Farm work is dangerous in ways that most of us will probably never understand or appreciate. #colorado #medsky @tomphilpott.bsky.social www.cbsnews.com/colorado/new...

I woke up a year ago 100% certain that I had to make a documentary about the Winston Salem chapter of the Black Panther Party. So I did. We aim to release it early next year. This weekend I’m at Blackstar, looking for inspiration. If you’re in town, DM to meetup.

Trump family-backed golf resort in Vietnam are grabbing over 900 hectares of land that currently currently supports fruit farms. Farmers are offered rice and fistful of dollars as compensation www.reuters.com/world/asia-p...

what

The American berserk. apnews.com/article/cdc-...

Tourists from Ohio, and joggers: stop your incessant drug dealing right now. Or learn the hard way.

Could the Cuomo brothers be bigger clowns? I’m having a hard time imagining it. But I’m sure they will give me occasion to very soon. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/11/o...

Starting in September, Gov. Greg Abbott and GOP lawmakers will make it even harder in Texas to prevent school shootings, suicides, and murders by domestic abusers www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

They are basically industry spokespeople at this point

People like Huckabee like to erase the fact that the our edifice of international law comes from the years after World War II when countries wanted to ensure that *such a war never happened again*.

This guy's head's in the Crusades.

Pro tip: If you see someone wearing a cape, they're probably not a hero. They could even be a proto-fascist.

1. This week, the FBI released its comprehensive crime report for 2024, which revealed that both VIOLENT CRIME and PROPERTY CRIME reached their LOWEST LEVELS SINCE THE 1960s This a massive story. But you might not have heard about it, even if you follow the news closely. Here's why.

6. Americans warped perceptions of crime “warp public opinion in ways that set back policy changes shown to improve public safety.” We are spending billions of dollars constructing detention centers to house immigrants to combat a non-existent crime wave.

i think it is hard for some people to really their heads around the reality that kennedy is staunchly anti-vaccine and thinks that people should suffer through disease and that those who die deserved it and that those who survive are a better order of human being

The AI infrastructure build-out is so gigantic that in the past 6 months, it contributed more to the growth of the U.S. economy than /all of consumer spending/ The 'magnificent 7' spent more than $100 billion on data centers and the like in the past three months *alone* www.wsj.com/tech/ai/sili...

"The AI infrastructure build-out is so gigantic that in the past 6 months, it contributed more to the growth of the U.S. economy than /all of consumer spending/" - @mims.bsky.social My takeway is that The US has gone ALL IN BET OF THE 21st Century on AI, while China has gone all in on green tech

The AI economy is clearly a vast and jiggly bubble. The Hard Fork podcast hosts—‪@caseynewton.bsky.social‬ and @kevinroose.com‬—desperately need to read this. And then read up on the telecom crash and the housing crash. Y'all are doing it again (crypto, web3).

New post, begging tech journalists to read up on the telecom crash and the housing crash. Capital expenditures on AI now represent more economic activity than consumer spending. And there is a minefield of financial gimmickry just under the surface. open.substack.com/pub/davekarp...

NBC: "A previously unreported network of hundreds of accounts on X is using AI to automatically reply to conservatives with positive messages about people in the Trump admin." Researcher Darren Linvill says the bots exist to "massage perceptions." Great illustration for this story too:

sobbing into my laptop looking at this and wondering what we did for god to curse us and give us car-oriented slop instead

The White House's war on disabled Americans continues, going above and beyond Project 2025—now with attacks on a popular hiring program no one even lobbied against.

“They don’t want anyone to see how they treat people. They want to be doing this”—their deportations—”with no witnesses.”

Tedious to point this out, but: - When a tongue-tied Biden said "President of Mexico" instead of "Prez of Egypt," it was a several day story. -Hours after Trump says whoever appointed J Powell made a big mistake (it was him), the episode appears not to merit a story on any national-media sites.

The Los Angeles raids make Deaf immigrants more vulnerable prismreports.org/2025/07/14/l...

Reckless and evil on multiple levels.

In the latest episode of Unconfined podcast, I interview veteran journalist Michael Grunwald about his new book We're Eating the Earth. I disagree with Mike on fundamental issues, but I think his provocative argument is worthy of discussion. Here's my short essay+links. clf.jhsph.edu/unconfined-p...

Bloomberg let something slip here: Anthropic's "annualized revenue" "increased from $3bn to $4bn in the last month" - meaning it increased from $250m to $333m a month ($83m~), exactly as Anthropic added priority service tiers + a more expensive model. www.wheresyoured.at/anthropic-an...

This is a bewildering and dangerous position for the DOJ to take and, again, is orders of magnitude more threatening to free speech than anything the Biden administration did. reason.com/2025/07/14/t...

I don't mean to sound hysterical but there are some pretty clear historical examples of "force the urban-dwellers to the farms," and none of them are great.

"The development of new wind and solar power plants is now heavily restricted or outright banned in about one in five counties across the country" heatmap.news/politics/law...

Sludge used as fertiliser on farmland can contain harmful chemicals that scientists suspect are entering food chain www.theguardian.com/environment/...

With homelessness being criminalized across the country, it's not hard to see where this is headed. These new detention centers likely won't be just for immigrants—they could very well be used to imprison the newly unhoused.

An astonishing figure in this piece: Last year, the U.S. budgeted $12.8B for new affordable housing. This country is now poised to spend $45B on immigrant detention centers. That's nearly *four times* as much on cages as on homes—in the middle of a devastating housing and homelessness crisis.

“A blueprint for Democrats everywhere, of all kinds of ideological and cultural stripes, if only they will set aside their assumptions and heed its lessons.” www.nytimes.com/2025/07/03/o... @polgreen.bsky.social

Issue 64 of Baltimore Beat is live. Our cover photo was shot by Devin Allen.

@tomphilpott.bsky.social #panama www.bbc.com/news/article...

New: The EPA has told staff overseeing the country’s industrialized Midwest — a region plagued by a legacy of pollution — to stop enforcing violations against fossil fuel companies, multiple sources told CNN. www.cnn.com/politics/epa...