BREAKING: A federal judge has granted a restraining order blocking President Trump's call-up of the National Guard in Portland. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

“No self-respecting university could ever accept something like this,” said Lee Bollinger, a First Amendment scholar and former Columbia University president. “Trying to protect conservative ideas against being ‘belittled’ — that’s about as violative of the First Amendment interests as you can get.”

On Reddit, UT Austin faculty talking about leaving.

From 1939-1945 German officers also listened to speeches from civilians about how the laws of war didn’t apply to them. And then they participated in the Holocaust, starved millions of prisoners of war, destroyed villages and cities, and were defeated.

This is absolutely right on every point and everyone who sits on a governing board or serves as president or provost or similar should please make the time to read it. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/o...

Mr Rowan is quite right that we could lose our global edge in higher education — by yielding to the eccentric and in this case authoritarian ideas of bullying, oligarchic alumni. His compact would put US universities on roughly the same footing as Russia’s. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/03/u...

This current American presidential administration is run by people who are quite obviously mentally ill, and we need to start talking about that.

“Munich Airport in Germany was forced to close after a wave of drone sightings, airport officials said early Friday local time.” www.cnn.com/2025/10/02/e...

And it's not a one-time capitulation. If DOJ ever says you violated the vague and unconstitutional terms, they will take back ALL federal funds from that year and you have to return ALL private funding from donors who want their gifts back from that year. It's a never-ending protection racket.

mr trump is working tirelessly to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by making meat unaffordable and of course the woke left gives him no credit

People magazine is on Bluesky. It's hard to believe but their political coverage does not suck. They have a strong news editor. @people.com if you want to follow.

The regime’s new proposed “compact” with universities — conditioning federal funds on giving up academic freedom & free speech & throwing trans & non-US students under the bus — is unconstitutional. Every university must reject it. It’s classic hang together or hang separately.

A panel of three federal judges in El Paso are now hearing arguments in a lawsuit challenging the controversial new map of Texas' congressional districts. The judges' decision will determine whether Texas can use the map in the 2026 midterm elections. Read More👉 ebx.sh/cSsSm5

Trump's higher ed ransom note is here - everyone would have to acquiesce to their unprecedented demands or not be "given priority for grants," plus they can demand "reimbursement" for "violations" www.wsj.com/us-news/educ... A mechanism to enforce fealty. An attack on academic freedom and democracy

IF ANY CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY SIGNS THIS RADICAL AGREEMENT, THEY'LL LOSE BILLIONS IN STATE FUNDING — INCLUDING CAL GRANTS — INSTANTLY. CALIFORNIA WILL NOT BANKROLL SCHOOLS THAT SELL OUT THEIR STUDENTS, PROFESSORS, RESEARCHERS, AND SURRENDER ACADEMIC FREEDOM.

UPenn professors have responded forcefully to the Trump administration's that colleges sign a "compact" in order to secure funding: "When an invitation is accompanied by consequences for not accepting it, it is in fact a threat, not an invitation." aaup-penn.org/statement-by...

Despite These Times...my department is hiring! I really like my department, we have a good mix of disciplines and organisms and we're really low-drama. We also get pizza at faculty meeting. So if you're a computational and structural biologist, join us! 🧪 jobs.rutgers.edu/postings/260...

The White House is targeting blue states with its first wave of cuts to federal projects following the government shutdown. The Office of Management and Budget is withholding billions in energy and infrastructure money in more than a dozen states that voted against Trump.

Sorry we had to cancel your cancer treatment, but the Secretary of Defense had to fly all the generals in so he could call them fat.

The military cares about climate change because they understand it's setting the ground for more conflicts, and because their bases are underwater. Seems like having your bases underwater might affect military readiness.

Relieved to read the editorial board of my local paper here in Fort Worth (largest republican majority city in Texas) come down on the side of free speech and academic freedom. www.star-telegram.com/opinion/edit...

In my new Substack essay I argue that the Anchorage summit wasn’t just a gaffe — it was a geopolitical green light that helped embolden Putin and accelerated attacks across Europe and Ukraine; read From Anchorage to Anarchy and why Trump’s spectacle costs lives:

And if that doesn't get everyone to stop talking about the Epstein files, inflation, and bad job numbers, there's always the option of starting a war with Venezuela

Hearing rumors that the War Department's military campaign against Portland has begun with helicopters spraying liquid Tylenol over neighborhoods in SE Portland known to have high concentrations of pregnant Antifa members. Will report back once I get full confirmation on that.

For 26 but especially 2028 it's time for Democrats to make clear that the current Supreme Court will have to be reformed (expanded in number, reformed in structure) to allow popular govt to continue in the United States. Not so much a litmus test as precondition for any other promise to be credible.

This is literally what the actual "siege" of the auxiliary ICE building looks like

As a resident of #Portland it is impossible to capture how unhinged this is. We are a low crime city and the ICE protest "siege" consists of one auxiliary ICE office that normally has at most a dozen weirdos debating what performance art they should use to block a single driveway

I agree! So assert your rights as a citizen of a functioning democracy. Engage. Participate. Speak up. Vote. Donate. Volunteer. And stop huddling behind a keyboard and mythologizing a failed real estate developer as Mussolini, Hitler, or Pol Pot. People who believe in democracy are the majority.

And the more you convince yourself that you live under fascism, the more you will imbue yourself with a learned helplessness, because fascism cannot be fought in courts or at the ballot box. They die in war or by internal overthrow from their own military or inner circle. /5

What a disgusting, ignorant, arrogant statement by the Secretary of Defense of the United States. Nobody trusts anything he says or does. That’s very dangerous for the US…we depend so much on our Allies. I served in Afghanistan in RC South 2009-2010 where thousands of Allies fought and many died.

There are good reasons not to do this. There are however bad reasons to do this, which brings us to Hegseth. He says the greatest danger to the US is not China or Russia but internal factors. He could be right, if what he has in mind is himself. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

Incredible. NYT reports that career DOJ prosecutors investigated James Comey and directly informed Trump's political appointees that there was insufficient evidence to get a conviction. Gonna keep suggesting that Trump's authoritarian designs are running into deep resistance (see piece below).

I honestly don't think everyone talks enough about how amazing it was when the world came together to fix the hole in the ozone layer, so I wrote this: everythingisamazing.substack.com/p/lets-all-r... It's a good reminder of what we're capable of.

I never thought it as alchemy, but it kind of is. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

OBAMA: It's fair to say that 80% of the world's problems involve old men hanging on who are afraid of death and insignificance, and they won't let go. They build pyramids, and they put their names on everything. They get very anxious about it.

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA 10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

President Trump’s warning to pregnant women to stop taking Tylenol based on a largely unproven link to autism sent ripples through communities of expectant mothers, parents of autistic children and health experts. https://wapo.st/3VT3TJH

Trump personally ordered this, which is of course an act of monarchical tyranny we fought a revolution over. But also: dude somehow thinks going back into his first term grievances is good politics when the public overwhelmingly rejected them in 2018 and 2020. And also: this is a legal loser, too.

Fox News’s Jesse Watters just called for the bombing of the UN, on national television. Maybe the FCC chairman should look into this, rather than a comedian‘s monologue. people.com/jesse-watter...

The Dijkstra lab at CMU seeks PhD students for Fall 2026, funded by an NSF award, focusing on aggression in cichlid fish. Apply to Dr. Dijkstra by Oct. 20. More info: https://sites.google.com/site/peterdijkstrausnl/home #phd

It's difficult to imagine Trump ruling any country other than America. If he did, he would be an international pariah. But because he is the President of the United States, foreign leaders are forced to pretend that he isn't an absolute lunatic. It's really something

Even Biology faculty? They want professors to lie to their students in their own area of expertise? This is insane.

If you think Tylenol is bad for children’s health, wait until you see what guns do.

The US supplements bread and other products with folic acid (to prevent neural tube closure defects a.k.a. spina bifida). One would therefore expect US autism rates to be far lower than in countries that do not supplement if RFK was right. I STRONGLY doubt that that is the case.

Yeah, I had to try three sites to cancel Disney+ but the runaround only made me more determined to do it.

The Dept. of BioSciences at #RiceUniversity, in Houston, Texas, invites applications for a tenure-track assistant professor position in Evolutionary Biology, with a preferred focus on organismal responses to environmental change. Please RT! Apply: apply.interfolio.com/173889

It's happening - Canada will criminalize hate symbols like swastikas used in protests by hate groups Fed Govt to table bill Friday criminalizing use of certain symbols to promote hate #Canada #NoHate #cdnpoli Bill will target symbols related to recognized terror groups www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

BREAKING: Disney+ is to replace the two-season run of Andor with a recut version that runs for only five minutes, and is just Mon Mothma apologising profusely to Darth Vader for any inconvenience, and letting him have whatever he wants.

Whose kids are getting 80 vaccines?