Gift from a Ph.D. abvisee who just finished. It's inscribed, "Reality is what resists. - Bruno Latour" ❤️

I lo e that crypto bros are worried that Trump's going to give them a bad name.

ICE is a threat to public safety. Now threatening to prosecute the ICE watchers.

China has been trying for years to break the log jam of its high savings rate. Now, with Trump's help, they may actually do it. The Great Nation Builder strikes again.

My union.

Ending the Fed's independence would rebalance trade in the most disastrous way imaginable, via a collapse of the US dollar.

The ECB's situation is totally different from the Fed's. The US exposure to tariff shocks is much greater than the EU's, who still have lower barriers with their big non-US partners: UK, China, Russia. And who is going to lower interest rates when our bondholders are getting yippy?

Trump's plan to bail out failing coal-fired power plants will cost ratepayers more and will worsen pollution and climate change. And it's illegal.

The cornerstone of Trump energy policy is to make us pay more so that we can have energy that kills more people and helps make the planet unlivable.

Beware this model legislation from Heritage, now being fed to pro-fossil state legislators and introduced as a bill in many states. It is nothing but a disguised subsidy for fossil fuel generators that kneecaps renewables, at customers' expense. herit.ag/4i4nWx5

U.S. media have completely dropped the ball on explaining where trade deficits come from and all their non-tariff sources.

U.S. citizen interested in grad studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver (Canada)? Grad programs are re-opening applications of US programs for one week. With expedited decisions. U.S. Applicant Week: www.grad.ubc.ca/us-applicant... #AcademicChatter #Canada #GradSchool

RIP. Unfortunately, the obit does not mention Clem's greatest performances. Try X Offender.

Roanoke VA

The countries hardest hit with tariffs are also the most intensive users of thermal coal for electricity. Their manufacturing sectors will surely double down on coal fired power now that they are being squeezed by tariffs. Forget about climate progress for at least the near future.

“These firings cede the university’s decision-making authority to bullies and bad-faith actors committed to silencing speech with which they disagree.” - Harvard @aaup.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/u...

We asked legal experts how Columbia University would fare if they sued the Trump administration. "On the merits, there’s no doubt that Columbia would have won." chroni.cl/3FI9hdJ

New Yorker cartoon.

When the Trump regime's desire for control gets in the way of real efforts to make government more efficient.

In the past 20 years, annual coal mining fatalities have been reduced from about 30 per 100,000 miners to 10-12. Yet the @dol.gov Inspector General has pointed out the failure to reach mine inspection goals. Now that IG has been fired and mine safety offices are being closed. bit.ly/4kZ0XGJ

Let's be clear here. This is not about complying with the law. It is about 1. threats, fear, and money; 2. Board members who only begrudgingly supported diversity to begin with and are more than happy to have federal gov. backup for eliminating this office. bit.ly/4j5fwql

Pete Hegseth in 2016: "How damaging is it to your ability to recruit or build allies with others when they are worried that our leaders may be exposing them because of their gross negligence or their recklessness in handling information?"

The Virginia Tech community is in the street. Stop the attacks on higher ed, on DEI. To our Board of Visitors: get a spine and stand up for us@

New article by my student, Pratyusha Kiran gets inside fast fashion supply chains to look at constraints faced by Indian manufacturers.

"We will not take lectures on antisemitism from segregationists & neo-nazis. We will not allow [the]..pres..to claim the mantle of Jewish safety as they shred the Constitution & spin outlandish..theories to justify the suppression of dissent.." lithub.com/a-columbia-u...

@nytimes.com : "an ethical situation that has few precedents in modern American history." Translation: corruption on a massive and unprecedented scale. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/23/u...

@haaretzcom.bsky.social Reporting that Israel is preparing to conquer and occupy the entire Gaza Strip., and to impose full military rule over the entire population.

Here's the powerful open letter from @alt-epa-workers.bsky.social EPA staff. www.ehn.org/epa-environm...

More chaotic trade policy. The port fees are a reverse tariff, making US exports more expensive. This "improve the trade balance by handicapping U.S. exports" plan would also require shippers to use 20% U.S. vessels. They didn't know that there are zero U.S. ships for liquid natural gas (LNG).

Straight-up human trafficking.

I can't stop fuming at the silence of my Columbia U. class of '83 classmate, a certain ex-POTUS, regarding the Trump attacks on our alma mater.

I'm a little uneasy with the term "coal renaissance," just like I would not refer to a "measles renaissance."

Illegal firings of Biden-appointed @ferc.gov commissioners in 10, 9, 8 ...

This is as though Trump discovered that China has more malnutrition than the U.S. and launched a costly policy to catch up. oilprice.com/Latest-Energ...

This is a plan to subsidize coal because we need to catch up to China in pollution. It will increase, not decrease the cost of energy. What country pays more in order to pollute more? finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-s...

I'm thinking a lot about how the Trump negative personality cult is a trap. Don't fall for it.

The workers want to strike. The stakes are so high that the sacrifice is worth it, and they go into it open-eyed not even knowing if the strike fund will hold up. But the collaborationist union boss won't authorize it, claiming he knows better what's good for the workers. Schumer is that guy.

What a huge betrayal of everyone who has been out in the streets, showing up at town halls, calling in every day, the residents of DC who soon will not have functioning city services.

US to world: F*** you, f*** off, and f*** you again. In a speech before the UN’s General Assembly last week, a Trump administration representative said the U.S. “rejects and denounces” the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. bit.ly/3XPY2Wy

Now that one of our two parties is openly pursuing collective abdication, thought I had better reread this. Book club anyone? www.alibris.com/Ruling-Onese...

What distinguishes patronage-style corruption, which we are seeing plenty of, from genuine kleptocracy is access of the corrupt official to secret, unaccountable, revenue streams of state-owned enterprises. You may be wondering how Trump could do that, but so is he.

If you are reading this, it probably means you are doomscrolling the authoritarian apocalypse, instead of actually doing something about it. I can't recommend action enough. Switch off social media, limit it to a small bit of time per day, and work on your organising instead.

This seems just a bit credulous, not even entertaining the possibility that the US-Ukraine ceasefire proposal was pre-coordinated with Moscow. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/12/w...

Of all the own goals and self-owns of the Musk/Trump regime, all the ways they are making America less great, dismantling the publicly funded R&D system will make us the least great of all.

Our pro-Palestine student leaders are some of the most well-informed, ethical, caring people you could ever meet - a credit to our institution. It has been a pleasure to work with them, support them, and to get to know some of them.

She... who is obeyed. open.substack.com/pub/mexfiles... My friend Richard Grabman writes, from Mexico City:

"The rule of law is for suckers." - Schmitt

Oil and petrochemical companies pay the congressman. The congressman strikes down EPA rules regulating toxic pollution from the tire industry. The tire industry buys the petrochemicals. That's the short and long of it. www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energ...