In Harvard Magazine, a devastating dismantling of the legacy of an alumnus, John Roberts. He held himself out as an institutionalist, and then used his position as Chief Justice to slowly dismantle the rule of law in America, laying the predicates for totalitarian dictatorship.

Truly excellent new piece by Lincoln Caplan in @harvardmagazine.bsky.social on John Roberts, seen in full. Careful, meticulous, devastating case on how "institutionalist" has enabled destruction of crucial institutions. Including his now discredited court. www.harvardmagazine.com/legal/suprem...

There’s a lot in here that deserves a pull quote, but this is the most egregious. I need people to recognize the gravity of the situation here in Chicago;

The First Amendment explicitly guarantees: -the right of the people peaceably to assemble -to petition the Government for a redress of grievances -the free exercise of religion -freedom of speech If this priest had also been press, ICE would have violated all five 1A freedoms at once.

Journalist Mario Guevara has been deported. He spent three-plus months in ICE custody after livestreaming a protest, before being flown out of the U.S. on Oct. 3. In a recent post, he wrote: “My dedication to my work cost me my freedom.”

Here’s Kaleb Horton on Charles Portis. slate.com/culture/2020...

Still shocked by the news about Kaleb Horton. I only knew him through his writing, but his writing meant a lot to me, and I'm really sad that there won't be more of it. Everything @mattdpearce.com says here is true. He had the gift. mattdpearce.substack.com/p/the-last-m...

“Steve Held, the journalist arrested tonight and taken to a so far undisclosed location, was part of the reporting team that exposed the falsity of ICE’s official narrative on the fatal shooting of Silverio Villegas González. His work speaks for itself.”

Holy shit. Kaleb Horton was a standup guy, a monumental talent, and just so sincere about his love for his family, his hometown, and his craft. Gutting, cutting, huge loss for all of us.

I was saddened to learn of the sudden passing of Kaleb Horton. (See thread below.) One of the best American writers of his generation. Most recently at Rolling Stone, but at every outlet where his byline appeared, he had that very rare gift for literary eloquence that read like ordinary speech.

One of the best pieces by Kaleb Horton ever is no longer easily available, because of course MTV wouldn't maintain actual good music writing done for its site once. Thankfully I found it again via some digging: his 2016 memorial to Merle Haggard on his passing. Link here, screencaps to follow.

Here’s Kaleb Horton on John Prine. pitchfork.com/reviews/albu...

Rest easy, Kaleb Horton. About the only post 2016 election piece worth a damn, and one of the few that showed how 2024 was going to happen too. web.archive.org/web/20221130...

One of the most humane people I've ever sat down with. I think about this book all the time. What a loss.

I experienced this last week & refused, saying I had never before been asked to provide the names of any analysts I was planning to quote to get a comment. Spox replied that maybe they were D donors. (In that case, it was 3 retired top military JAG officers.) I guess that was not a weird oneoff.

we wrote about this WH tactic recently. they’re asking journalists for expert source names and then using them to look up political donations in FEC records to try to discredit those sources as biased. www.npr.org/2025/08/18/n...

Looking up something in the Boston census of 1900, and these are just other families on the same pages. 2 children surviving out of 14 1 child surviving out of 5 0 children surviving out of 10 3 children surviving out of 4

For the latest @harvardmagazine.bsky.social, I talked to Brandon Terry about recent rollbacks of civil rights and how we've been telling ourselves the wrong story about MLK and the Movement. www.harvardmagazine.com/social-scien...

There is absolutely no way that AI would have made the same choice that Stanislav Petrov made on the 26th of September 1983, when he literally saved the world.

"Media capitulation is a slippery slope. Once owners compromise their companies’ editorial independence — once they step across the line into compliance — the temptation to cave further to official pressure grows even stronger." My statement at launch of the Media Capitulation Index...

ProPublica spoke to about 150 people who had lived in homeless encampments when cities cleared them out in “sweeps.” We distributed notecards so people could tell us about the toll in their own words. ➡️ This is what they wrote: projects.propublica.org/impact-of-ho...

“An Armenian woman I considered an aunt asked me every time I saw her, ‘Rümeysa, please write about us. Please let the world hear our story.’ I am keeping my promise, Auntie.” www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2025...

People who entered the US legally and have no criminal charges are being held in the Everglades camp, according to records obtained by the Miami Herald. Maybe that’s why the government won’t release the names of those being detained. www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

For the new issue of @harvardmagazine.bsky.social, I sat down with @chenoweth.bsky.social to talk about democracy, civil resistance, and where we are right now. www.harvardmagazine.com/2025/07/eric...

I knew that many people with disabilities experience discrimination in medical environments, but I had no idea the extent of it. Lots of helpful details here from @lydialyle.bsky.social in @harvardmagazine.bsky.social. www.harvardmagazine.com/2025/05/heal...

The way people are talking about the current demolition of research funding and HE legitimacy reminds me of the early days of COVID when I (and others) said it would be at least six years before any normalcy. Rage, despondency, rejection…eventually voting for a dictator just to feel alive.

To put these top-line budget numbers in context, cuts of this magnitude would effectively mean no new grants in FY2026. The entire extramural budget would go to existing, continuing grants. An abject failure of American ambition. And a betrayal of our global leadership in health science innovation.

NEW: We obtained DHS data that shows the US knew only 32 of the 238 Venezuelans deported to a prison in El Salvador in March were convicted of US crimes, only 6 of those violent. Trump called them “savages,” “monsters” and "the worst of the worst.” www.propublica.org/article/trum...

Cato has published my comprehensive review of the ~240 Venezuelans the US government renditioned 2 months ago to Salvador’s notorious prison. We identified FIFTY who came legally, never violated any immigration law, but are imprisoned at the US government’s request and at US taxpayer expense.

A Chicago Pope implies the existence of an MLA Pope and APA Pope

Well the NIH has cancelled the Women's Health Initiative, the largest study of women in history It has been running continuously since 1991 and has provided massive key knowledge about diseases in women Unreal www.science.org/content/arti...

To put a finer point on it. Trump’s contention isn’t just that he can deport people without them appearing before a judge, but that he can render them into a life sentence in a foreign dungeon with no process whatsoever.

A Guatemalan immigrant with no Massachusetts criminal record was arrested Monday on Tallman Street after federal agents shattered the glass on his vehicle as he and his wife waited inside the car for their lawyer to arrive. Read story and view full video: newbedfordlight.org/lawyer-feder...

“Staff described grappling with challenges that they say are more dire than a mere downsizing... Many said they were unsure how long before the fraying of certain initiatives could turn fatal, risking programs that operate largely unseen by the public but that they insist protect lives.”

A tricky thing about modern society is that no one has any idea when they don’t die. Like, the number of lives saved by controlling air pollution in America is probably over 200,000 per year, but the number of people who think their life was saved by controlling air pollution is zero.

with apologies to @xkcd.com

Why are we trying to make people obsolete?

In effectively a single blink of the historical eye, we’ve seen our entire constitutional system simply … stop. We can clearly see what’s happening is wrong—illegal and unconstitutional—and the actors who can do something about that just … aren’t. www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/america-s-...

"If it continues like this, democracy [there] will not last another six months." www.cbc.ca/news/world/t...

"Among those detained was Ernesto Campos, a U.S. citizen and owner of a Bakersfield landscaping company. Agents stopped Campos’ truck and slashed his tires when he refused to hand over his keys." Many, many documented examples here. Excellent piece.

Once again loving this interpretation of Caesar’s last words #IdesofMarch 🗡️

This is great work by Michel Martin. www.npr.org/2025/03/13/n...

one thing i keep thinking about is how there is simply no way to design a constitutional system that can resist authoritarian incursion if participants in that system do not actually care that much

Watch every second of this. I don’t care who you voted for or where you’re from – this is simply un-American. Every single Patriot needs to stand up immediately and make it clear: We will not let Donald Trump put dozens of families, including veterans and kids, on the street.

Again, Jews were less than 1% of the German population in 1933.

The reason for “female mice” is because until recently research ignored the differences between men and women which led to treatments that were dangerous or ineffective for women.

This was just 233 days ago:

"The most underestimated element in the current crisis of our democracy is the degree to which many politicians fear for their lives if they do anything forthright to cross or defy President Trump."