Quick story. My op-ed on how corporations that kept their DEI programs performed just as well financially was accepted & factchecked at TIME Magazine. Just needed "pro forma review by the legal department." Suddenly the piece is spiked Why? Benioff owns TIME and wants to ingratiate himself to Trump
Adam Sheingate
@adamsheingate.bsky.social
Political Science Johns Hopkins University US politics, Ag policy, American political development.
I wrote this five years ago in an attempt to explain to my undergraduates what 9/11 means to me personally and how I still grapple with its significance. Twenty-five years later, perhaps we are beginning to understand what was wrought. medium.com/@sheingate/t...
To my students on the twentieth anniversary of 9/11
It was a day very much like today. A clear, blue sky. Perfect weather. I was preparing to teach my first class of the semester when a…
medium.com
The business model of spam fundraising depends on hooking a group of elderly donors who give at a disturbing frequency, summing to sizable amounts. Most of them don't appear especially wealthy. I've compiled a handful of these cases. There are thousands of cases like these in the FEC data. 🧵
The Democratic Party has let a consulting industry exploit elderly donors in its name, wreck its reputation and finances in the process, and walk away rich whether the party wins or loses. When a mirror is held up, the instinct is to break the glass rather than look. On why the press looks away:
Just updated my syllabus (24 students, 75 mins., upper level seminar). Some highlights -Class starts with 15 min. reading and annotating text -Entry/exit tickets, low stakes writing tasks (50% of grade) -Paper: draft, then R&R w/AI-prompt for comparison -Syllabus insert on un/acceptable AI use
I wrote this because most journalists facing this pressure can’t. The paper we count on to check authoritarianism spiked an investigation into the Democratic Party because the party’s lawyers threatened to sue. Holding authoritarians accountable starts with holding your own side accountable.
With Fear and Favor
Institutions don’t have courage. They have incentives.
data4democracy.substack.com
There are four overlapping scandals here: 1. Fundraising spam tactics are hallmarks of elder financial exploitation 2. The Dem establishment is in on it 3. Most of what is raised goes to fundraising consultants 4. Capitulation to legal threats by NYT and The Bulwark on a fully vetted story 🧵👇
Hook and Squeeze
How Democratic consultants, committees, and party leaders built a fundraising spam pipeline that funnels money from a captive pool of elderly donors into their own operations.
data4democracy.substack.com
I think about all the ways our politics would be different today had Trump won the 2020 election, including higher vaccine acceptance among Republicans.
Just really feeling appreciative today that Donald John Trump rushed the Covid vaccine through and took it himself and told everyone to. Good job Trump MAKING THE COVID VACCINE
Very cool map tool showing birthplace of every World Cup player. umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/birth...
Birthplaces of every 2026 FIFA World Cup player
Fully handmade, slop-free, every item checked manually. Some players could be tracked down to the city, some to the neighborhood, it's all specified in the description. Messi has the hospital he was ...
umap.openstreetmap.fr
NEW SPECIAL ISSUE OF GOVERNANCE: TITLE: The New Politics of EU Industrial Policy: From the Regulatory State to a Transformational State GUEST EDITORS: @donatodc.bsky.social, @katemcnamara.bsky.social & @manuelamoschella.bsky.social AVAILABLE HERE: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1...
A characteristically sharp read from @himself.bsky.social that picks up on my argument on AI hyperregulation and traces how national security tools have become instruments of domestic political control. You cannot build sweeping discretionary powers abroad and then be surprised when they come home.
"the Amodei and Biden administration position that you could have your cake and eat it too, depended on a semi-explicit consensus on what US national security was, and how sweeping powers with ambiguous constraints could or could not be used to pursue it. That consensus has now shattered"
We are entering a new phase in universities where degrees will be handed out, and it may well not be possible to know if the student did any work at all. Full post here: rorytruex.substack.com/p/will-ai-br...
Will AI Break the University?
Field Notes from a Tough Year
rorytruex.substack.com
Introduce yourself with ten bands you’ve seen live: The Replacements Fishbone Galactic Violent Femmes Grateful Dead The Blasters St. Vincent The Hold Steady Foo Fighters King Sunny Adé
Introduce yourself with 10 bands you've seen live: The Police XTC The Waitresses Rancid Ramones Elvis Costello & the Attractions Rickie Lee Jones Harry Chapin Katrina & the Waves The Who (sort of, no Moon)
Despite all the ways Trump has sought to aggrandize the spending power, the real institutional changes to appropriations are actually happening in Congress. open.substack.com/pub/mattglas...
The Dawn of Partisan Appropriations
Winners and losers in a brave new world of discretionary spending
open.substack.com
In a new paper, we view the US as a mixed case of state formation and state building that shares elements with both Europe and Latin America. We point to 1815 as an inflection point in APD that reflect fundamental changes in the int'l system. link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Focusing on energy prices and the Strait of Hormuz while people are dying might seem crass, but energy prices are the prices that anchor prices for pretty much everything else - including food. And lots apart from oil passes through those straights. From @ifpri.org: www.ifpri.org/blog/the-ira...
The Iran war: Potential food security impacts
Problems in the Strait of Hormuz reverberate globally.
ifpri.org
When we say the president is *politically* rather than legally constrained in warmaking, what exactly does that mean? Don't overthink it. blog.mattglassman.net/notes-on-the...
Notes on the political constraints on presidential warmaking
My view, as discussed last week, is that presidential warmaking is an almost wholly political issue, rather than a legal one. No court is going to stop a war...
blog.mattglassman.net
Bookmarking this for when I teach intro American again. I start with ideas and end with institutions so the focus here on Huntington's IvI gap is very useful. Also, I agree much can be learned from the Progressive Era about how political reforms make it on the agenda for politicians and parties.
My case for optimism -> www.vox.com/politics/480...
Wow, I was eleven years old the last time the US won a gold medal in hockey. Amazing game.
Very little has changed since I wrote this piece 10 years ago. www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/o...
Opinion | The Political Consultant Racket (Published 2015)
nytimes.com
I have no idea if that's what's going on here, but "grift" campaigns are real... and a serious problem. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/u...
This “5 classes question” guides my approach to teaching. I tell my students when they are old like me they might remember five classes they took as undergrads. My goal as a teacher is to be one of them.
Nevermind the jobs you had, tell me 5 classes you took at university: Politics of Revolutions American Political Thought Ancient Philosophy Free Will Tai Chi
In a new Op-Ed in @thehill.com , CLF’s Daphene Altema-Johnson, @andrewtl.bsky.social & @ptand.bsky.social discuss how the 2025 Dietary Guidelines promote more meat & dairy—but what Americans really need is more fiber, which comes from foods like legumes. thehill.com/opinion/heal...
I think the answer is in how Congress handled disputed elections in the past, esp. the 1870s and 1880s. Art 1, Sec 5: "Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns, and Qualifications of its own Members." What stops the GOP House refusing to seat Dem members, esp. in close races?
the question to ask about this is, okay, he wants to cancel the midterms. how does he get the VA state board of elections to cancel the midterms? how does he get the georgia board of elections to do it? how does he convince republican house members to quit their jobs and give up their paychecks?
THE 2026 CHARLES H. LEVINE MEMORIAL BOOK PRIZE CALL FOR NOMINATIONS (See thread below and attachment for nomination instructions):
Upcoming deadlines to apply to Syracuse U's great Qualitative and Multi-Method Research 2-week summer program! Fellowships available to cover the costs! Pls circulate widely! www.maxwell.syr.edu/research/cen...
Early iterations of the Schedule F made the case that language in statute allowed the removal of civil service protections to senior officials. Revised version leans into unitary executive theory: the civil service statute is unconstitutional. They are betting SCOTUS will go along.
Here's the Eight Democratic Senators who voted to end the shutdown arrayed from left to right using their first dimension nominate scores. No real surprise. As many noted, Coons and Warner (both to the right of Kaine) are up for reelection in '26.