Aren’t you glad we put an anti-vaccine activist at the helm of Health and Human Services?

"The historian in me says 75 or 100 years from now... we’re not going to talk about politics at all. What we’re going to talk about is the fact that we were living through a technological revolution that was creating economic and cultural upheaval [and leading to] institutional collapse." —Ben Sasse

Every single journalist should be asking these questions. (Listen to the full question, but ignore the inane response from Leavitt.)

You can still be shocked can't you, even after years of this shit. That sentence chilled me to my bones. To see an American president say that. To see him boast about it.

That Trump post is a clear expression of genocidal intent. Clear cut case with zero caveats.

This should be THE headline everywhere right now! No sugarcoating, no paraphrasing. Just quote him!

Trump is promising to wipe out “a whole civilization.” This sounds like a nuclear holocaust. How is this not the top story across all major news outlets? And when will the Republican Party intervene to stop this madness? This is a five-alarm fire and we cannot keep normalizing this language.

“For Donald Trump to lose this war is not for America to lose. Indeed, it may be part of America winning, in the sense that America survives as a liberal democracy [and] can move away from the kind of utterly nakedly, appallingly, grotesquely lawless & violent state that it’s become.” —Peter Beinart

Actual road I just passed in California. (Fun fact: this town was intentionally named to be last in a list of places.)

This guy needs to run for president.

My upcoming book, Crisis of the Common Good, is all about the underlying spiritual sickness in America - how we have come to worship profit, consumption, and technology at the expense of real meaning and connection. Here are the dates for the book tour.

Trump wants $1.5T for defense spending. “The administration said it would couple the proposed increase with … $73 billion in cuts across domestic agencies, including the elimination of some climate, housing and education programs.” So, we’re gutting social programs to make 5% of our defense budget?

No one has seen anything like: a) this current space mission b) the Iran strike in June c) the nuclear weapons they took out d) the amount of money Obama was going to give Iran e) the Iran strike in March f) the military (watch this space for updates)

"criticizing AI use in journalism or other creative industries is classist" NO IT IS NOT there is a class that benefits enormously from cognitive surrender, epistemic warfare, and the enclosure of all hitherto produced culture and it is NOT THE WORKING CLASS

4) Leadership needs to be brave and act now, before more damage is done. In the words of Senator Murphy: “We choose to act like we are hopeless, that we are powerless to stop [the tech industry]. That they are immune to majoritarian power. They are not.”

Quick and dirty; here's ICE arrests in Minnesota by criminality, from October 2025 to early March 2026. Note the MASSIVE spike in arrests of people with no criminal record /"convicted criminal" means any conviction no matter how minor. "Other immigration violator" means no known criminal record.

When I was a student, my advisor @greggormattson.bsky.social told me that all sociology theses make one of two arguments: (1) It's more complicated than you think or (2) It's socially constructed. Now that I'm a professor, I can say that this is 100% true. (Does anyone know of exceptions?)

Excellent episode with @wbrangham.bsky.social of the PBS News Hour about the rise of AI companions and their mental health dangers. youtu.be/VTN1_0gwZSs

This is very grim “This erodes roughly one-fifth of the average worldwide decline in maternal mortality achieved since 1985.”

Remember when his Sieg Heil was just a gesture of heartfelt joy?

“'Today is my wedding anniversary,' said one Sandy, Utah resident. 'But this is my priority. I cannot stand for there to be a concentration camp in my state.' "Another resident said this was her first time participating in a protest..." ksltv.com/local-news/w...

“No more regime-change wars.”

Out of curiosity, I asked ChatGPT about my research. It continues to provide these ridiculous responses, despite Sam Altman's claims that the program is substantially improved and no longer hallucinates.

“I think all of us in academia have an obligation to speak out and protest when our rights are being trampled on. And that’s what’s happening here.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Always a good sign…

To the David Brookses of the world: Americans think *Republicans* are elitist, not Democrats. They’re worried that Democrats are weak and ineffective, not that they look down on the masses.

Apropos of nothing, of course. open.substack.com/pub/robranki...

Extremely important and heartbreaking reporting from @propublica.org. Looking at this artwork from children, you cannot fail to be moved. This is an abomination. www.propublica.org/article/dill...

I love this man so much!! Happy Valentine’s Day, Rob 🥰

A direct, prescient, and essential speech by @ricksteves.bsky.social. It is vital to remind ourselves that we are indeed seeing what we are seeing and Rick Steves helps us illuminate the stakes of the world today. www.youtube.com/watch?v=E20u...

"President Trump on Thursday announced he was erasing the scientific finding that climate change endangers human health and the environment..." You cannot erase science. You can blatantly ignore it and allow as much mass suffering as you want, but the truth stands. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/c...

My colleagues and I have a new paper on dementia stigma in the United States. We used a vignette experiment to study how the (a) gender and (b) impairment level of a fictional older adult shape stigma. Some interesting findings below: alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

A rare @nytimes.com article that places the news in its proper context, noting (for example) that Trump believes immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.” www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/u...

Every American needs to watch this:

As with everything, this latest midnight tantrum will amount to nothing. BUT just to stress how abnormal this presidency is: seven years ago, it was pretty major news that a *private* 1971 tape caught Reagan referring to Black people as monkeys. www.bbc.com/news/world-u...

“The state-approved version doesn’t include chapters on media and technology, global inequality, race and ethnicity, social stratification, or gender, sex and sexuality.” Just horrifying. All faculty should refuse to use this. (h/t @professorkd.bsky.social) www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

Wrote today about how Republican lawmakers, seemingly, had issues with ICE this whole time? (with more than a slight tip of the hat to Martha Gellhorn’s reporting in rural Germany after WWII) robrankin.substack.com/p/no-one-eve...

I get so tired of these @nytimes.com stories. The median income for a family of 5 in New York City is $87,500. The family profiled here makes 60% more than that. So this family's "strategy for making it work" is... more money. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Horrifying. This is not a free America. ICE is arresting and hunting witnesses to the murder this morning of Alex Peretti.

Beyond helping establish DHS itself in 2003, Mr. Mitnick was a senate-confirmed Trump choice for General Counsel for DHS in his first term. I've talked with him a few times, and he's not a man for hyperbole. So bear that in mind when you see him calling out DHS's "lawlessness, fascism, and cruelty."

The night is long that never finds the day.

Pam Bondi just sent a letter to Minnesota officials saying ICE will leave if the state turns over its voter database to Trump. Guess what? This has never been about safety or immigration. It’s a pretext for Trump to take over elections in swing states.

YES, YES, YES, 1,000x YES!

Excellent call-in discussion on Minnesota Public Radio right now. Addressing serious questions about how we live in this country now and after this regime is over. www.mprnews.org/listen

I hope Democratic senators and congressmen understand, out of pure lizard-brain self-interest if moral decency happens to be unavailable, what is at stake for them if they don't handle this the right way. This is a true "If not now, when?" moment.

If you’re a Democrat looking to run for president in 2028, now would be a good time to find the nearest microphone and state clearly that you will prosecute every Trump Administration official enabling this state sponsored terrorism to the fullest extent of the law.

How can anyone think that it might be appropriate to perform a trial, which would be considered unethical and not approved in their home country, in another country? #MedSky #PoliSky #AcademicSky

This pre-shooting video clearly shows victim holding a phone as if to film. Agent lays hands on first. Victim does not resist, walks backwards as agent pushes. Fellow observer does not interfere. Zero indication of aggression from victim, who appears only to be filming.

DHS is already lying and saying they fired “defensive shots” at the guy. He was already on the ground and being pistol-whipped when he was shot!