Just an absolutely gutting essay by Tatiana Schlossberg, a writer, mother of two young children, and cousin of RFK Jr who is dying of leukemia. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

Various group-philosophical pessimisms will have you believing that universalism is impossible, not worth striving for. That if you don't oppress, you will inevitably be a victim. I refuse. We are best protected by democracy, by the rule of law, by human and civil rights.

This has gotten surprisingly little attention — it's not even on the front page of @science.org right now — but it's really hard to describe what the SAFE Research Act would do to US science and scientists without sounding insane www.science.org/content/arti...

Trump is the ultimate Facebook Boomer.

This isn't a closing election argument, it's Vidkun Quisling explaining why surrender is better than resistance.

Can't overstate how fucked up it is that unraveling what is arguably the greatest achievement in the history of humanity is now a motivating issue of one of the two dominant parties in the U.S.

This is the sound of candidates losing the struggle against the crushing weight of partisan gravity. This is nationalization and polarization and presidentialization swallowing everything else. This is the dangerous collapse of dimensionality, in one chart leedrutman.substack.com/p/the-modera...

I've been watching the Foundation series on AppleTV and I'm not sure if I'll make it thru- I like all the characters, but I hate when they speak to each other. Granted, they're usually in extraordinary situations, but no one talks like a normal human being- the dialogue is all so portentous.

Before the civil rights act was signed it was a great question how effective the civil rights movement was going to be, too. Difficult to predict the future but we're much better off that people tried so hard to do the right thing to the best of their ability.

Student government leaders of MIT, UVA, U of AZ, Dartmouth, UPenn, Brown, and Vanderbilt united in their opposition to the "compact" proposed by the Trump administration.

Here is an enduring challenge in my field, foreign policy. For decades, there was a broad and bipartisan consensus of US foreign policy abroad, within which presidents would vary. Things like "treaties will be honored" and "basing commitments will last as agreed to by our predecessor", predictable.

this is fucking obscene

If Dems win in 2028, Trump will likely pardon everyone in his administration. Starting now, Dems should run on ending the presidential pardon power. Maybe it makes no difference, maybe it wins elections, but maybe by 2028 Trump is so unpopular that we have the votes for a constitutional amendment.

This may be the last time you ever see a current issue of the CDC's weekly MMWR: www.cdc.gov/mmwr/index.h...

I don't know what congressional Dems should demand in a funding bill. The basic issue is that the Trump admin is trying to dictate spending in violation of Congressional appropriations. If Trump, Miller, and Vought can't be trusted to obey the law, what is the point of negotiating a funding bill?

Over the weekend ICE abducted an NIH contractor when he showed up to a courthouse for his green card hearing. He is documented. His wife is a citizen. He is also member of the skeleton crew of animal care staff that works through a shutdown, to ensure the health and wellbeing of research animals.

I do not regret to inform you that we are going to win

IMO this hasn't gotten enough attention: a recent memo at NIH announces that peer review will be devalued in determining which grants get funded, granting more power to political appointees to make decisions based on the admin's whims over scientific merit kffhealthnews.org/news/article...

I visited the apartment building ICE raided on Tuesday today. Story to come, but you can walk right in. Half of the apartments have no doors on them. Children's stuff abandoned in some flats. *Citizen* residents told me they were arrested and held for hours in zipties. This is America

The basic problem for Trump's popularity is that he won in 2024 arguing that the US (inflation, crime, immigration) and the world (foreign wars) were in chaos because of Dem weakness and we need a strongman to bang heads, but now he's the one creating chaos and people don't like it.

Odd whiplash in my feed from the daily back-and-forth between "the Trump administration is too weak and stupid to consolidate power into an authoritarian regime" and "the Trump administration is rapidly consolidating power into an authoritarian regime".

BREAKING: Our client Mario Guevara, an Emmy-winning journalist detained by ICE in retaliation for livestreaming law enforcement activity, will be deported tomorrow to El Salvador. Mario and his family are being punished for his reporting. This cruelty is meant to stifle our free press.

Seattle No Kings Oct 18th. Fighting Dictatorship Together ***Mass Rally and March***          12-4 PM Oct. 18th              Seattle Center    Join our community in standing up against the abuses of power, cruelty, and corruption. #nokingsseattle #nokings #seattle tinyurl.com/seanokingsoct18

This needs to become a huge story

“They’re, they’re animals anyway. That’s what I would tell my kids all the time,” said the ICE agent, according to body cam footage. spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-...

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.

Truly impressive number of birds migrating tonight. More than 800 MILLION birds up in the air right now❗ #BirdMigration

"I have spent the last few weeks addressing and preparing for a military invasion by the President of the United States. No, I’m not a soldier or a foreign adversary. I’m the Governor of Illinois"

There is no world in which it is normal for the president to publicly call upon his attorney general to hurry up and prosecute his political foes. It’s like the Watergate tapes but posted on social media. Let’s get a grip on what’s happening here.

KASHKARI: “.. the labor market and the stock market could both be right: Technology is driving rapid growth of industries that don't require as much labor, resulting in a booming stock market and sluggish hiring environment.” www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2025...

My most romantic urbanist option: All sidewalks should be at least wide enough for a couple to walk together holding hands while leaving enough space for faster pedestrians to pass them.

Democrats are doing what a lot of people *on here* asked them to do by holding shadow hearings. Help amplify!

they don't have the capacity to compel obedience by the process of law. they don't have the capacity to compel obedience by violence. the only lever by which they can obtain obedience is fear. do not offer it to them.

The federal government is dictating what speech is permitted. *DISNEY SAYS 'JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE' TO BE PREEMPTED INDEFINITELY

They don’t have the power to do what they’re threatening on a grand scale. But they want us to think they do.

Do not assume that everything they set out to do is inevitable. They have been successfully fought on multiple fronts, from courtroom wins that have actually stuck to city and state governments that haven't backed down, to activists in the streets organizing against their violence.

This is unhinged, dangerous, and reckless. At this point I don't know how you conclude anything other than that Musk is trying to foment pogroms against immigrants across the west.

The Crimson, scooping every news outlet not run by undergraduates working in between classes, gets into how court orders mandating return of research funding have been flaunted, and makes a clear case for contempt proceedings against DOGE officials. www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

He seeks to rule by decree because he cannot govern within the law.

BREAKING: ICE is sending Russian dissidents back to Russia. When the dissidents arrived in Russia, the Russian authorities were given documents relating to their asylum applications in the US which under US law are confidential. This seems to be part of a secret agreement between Trump and Putin.

No Donald, Chicago is not your war zone

JD Vance said he doesn’t care if the US commits war crimes. Did it make the news? Donald Trump said he’s declaring war on Chicago. Did it make the news? Executive agencies keep posting Nazi blood-and-soil propaganda. Did it make the news?

The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal. Donald Trump isn't a strongman, he's a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.

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.

Where do black people fit into this vision of America? Hispanic people? Asian people? Be explicit you fascist scumbag. Show your work

I wrote this weeks after trump won in 2016 and almost ten years later I still think there is basically nothing more to say, not because I am super smart but because this is all so very empty and stupid www.lawfaremedia.org/article/bull...

Maybe the only we survive this is with a twinge of sarcasm and very dark humor😞.