Fascists and authoritarian regimes try to control universities and turn them into purveyors of state propaganda through extortion…... www.politico.com/news/2026/08...

Trump administration asks colleges to commit to education overhaul

Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s letter contains some similarities to a compact offered to and rejected by a small group of schools last year.

politico.com

As in Iowa. Nobody wants to take this joke of a curriculum when they could just take normal humanities courses so right-wing politicians have to (note the irony) force students to take courses at their ‘intellectual freedom’ centers.

Christopher McKnight Nichols@cmcknichols.bsky.social · 2w ago

Facing low enrollment, Ohio may mandate university civics center courses www.axios.com/local/columb...

ICE thugs tackled and tried to handcuff a man at Las Vegas airport. When they realized they were being filmed, they simply walked away, leaving the man on the ground with a handcuff attached to one arm. The Las Vegas Police found no outstanding warrants for the man and removed his handcuffs.

Outrage after ICE agents tackle man at Las Vegas airport

Video footage of ICE agents tackling a man at Las Vegas Airport has sparked public outrage and criticism from officials.

bit.ly

How Israel turned Gaza into an “annihilation zone” by leveling the land.

How Israel Turned Gaza Into an “Annihilation Zone”

The Caterpillars have been here for a long time. In August 1950 the area that came to be known as the Gaza Strip was cut off from the rest of Palestine by a ditch carved into the soil by a single-b…

buff.ly

A temporary pause after two deadly ICE traffic stops is not accountability. Neither is more training for an agency empowered to terrorize communities. @delia.bsky.social says abolishing ICE is only the beginning: dismantle DHS.

House Democrat Says Abolishing ICE Isn’t Enough — DHS Must Go, Too

“The problem isn’t ‘training.’ DHS was built to violate our rights,” said Rep. Delia C. Ramirez.

inthesetimes.com

Why do I keep getting these insane, AI-generated descriptions of my own book from people who claim to be "book marketers?" Who are these people and where did they all suddenly come from? How does this grift even work? Why on earth do they think I want my "name to feel like a trusted brand"?!?!

I wrote about what looks very much like a formal US plan to institutionalize a global network of concentration camps.

Little Gitmos everywhere

The White House explores entrenching U.S. concentration camps worldwide.

degenerateart.beehiiv.com

This morning in Biddeford, Maine, a 26-year-old man said goodbye to his wife and daughter and left for work. Moments later he was dead, shot in the head by ICE agents, the second man ICE has killed in six days. ICE is killing our neighbors. ICE cannot be reformed. Abolish ICE.

Currently flopping like a giant, book-writing fish between points 5 & 8…

Tom Cox@dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Note from my notebook (2018). Still relevant. www.tom-cox.com/my-notebook-2/

ICE agents must be tried for the murder of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo.

Jennie Coughlin@jenniecoughlin.bsky.social · 4w ago

Federal immigration agents who killed a man during a traffic stop in Houston on Tuesday had been searching for a different person, according to a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman.

apnews.com/article/ice-...

Family demands an independent probe after ICE officer fatally shoots a man in Houston

The son of a Mexican national fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Houston says he was a hardworking father who had been working toward a work permit after 35 years in the...

apnews.com

🔥 from @durba.bsky.social muse.jhu.edu/pub/434/arti...

Booo.

Block Club Chicago@blockclubchi.bsky.social · last mo.

The Chicago National Archives closure will be a loss for historians and researchers — even deep-sea divers. blockclubchi.co/4papGdE

ICE (and their CBP equivalents) cannot be reformed, cannot be “trained.” They are already doing what they’re trained for, which is terrorizing our communities. It’s Abolish ICE or nothing, and I need dem candidates to stop pretending otherwise.

Block Club Chicago@blockclubchi.bsky.social · last mo.

Who were the Midway Blitz Border Patrol agents? Most were veteran immigration officers. blockclubchi.co/4eD8XMr

I understand the excitement about technology “rediscovering lost texts.” I do, & I get the media hype. But I wish people knew that there are hundreds of thousands of “lost” texts just sitting in manuscripts in libraries, which have never been published outside of those single manuscripts. 1/n

Sonja Drimmer@sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · last mo.

What I said here about an earlier project still holds. 2/n bsky.app/profile/sonj...

helpful coverage from @elpais.com english.elpais.com/usa/2025-08-...

In the heart of the Miccosukee, the Native American tribe that shut down Alligator Alcatraz

The community found refuge from white persecution deep in the Everglades swamps centuries ago. Together with environmental groups, they succeeded in forcing the closure of the immigration detention ce...

english.elpais.com

Rebecca Nagle@rebeccanagle.bsky.social · last mo.

BREAKING: Alligator Alcatraz has officially closed. A lot of outlets won’t report on this, but the Miccosukee Tribe played a key role in the fight.

We are in a full on dictatorship, rivaling the most entrenched ones in the world. Anti ICE activists, who printed a zine, are labeled “terrorist” and sentenced to 30-100 years in federal prison. By this metric we’re all targets. Genuinely chilling. www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

‘This is injustice’: how leftist zines were used to sentence anti-ICE protesters to decades in prison

Advocates sound alarm after zines were used as evidence to convict protesters of terrorism charges tied to 2025 protest at Texas ICE facility

theguardian.com

As peer-reviewed scholarship and teaching in the humanities is being massively attacked, defunded, and eliminated from public higher education, the right-wing is setting up parallel indoctrination centers at universities around the country, often collabing with billionaires & right-wing legislatures

This is a wonderfully insightful read for those who care about Chicago transit issues! Would love to read more directly from transit workers.

Streetsblog Chicago@chi.streetsblog.org · last mo.

Syndicated from A City That Works: An anonymous CTA bus driver (not shown), who seems to have some serious urban planning skills, discusses exactly what the transit authority should do to address bus bunching. 🔥

Israeli military assassinated Al Jazeera Mubasher cameraman Ahmed Wishah, a little more than two months after targeting and killing his brother thedissenter.org/israeli-mili...

Israeli Military Kills Yet Another Al Jazeera Cameraman

Israeli military assassinated Al Jazeera Mubasher cameraman Ahmed Wishah, a little more than two months after targeting and killing his brother

thedissenter.org

A reminder that civil immigration enforcement is not allowed within 1,000 feet of courthouses in Illinois. Why are Chicago police going after street vendors trying to make a basic living, while ICE makes a mockery of our laws?

Block Club Chicago@blockclubchi.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Chicago police ticketed an immigrant street vendor — and ICE agents then swooped in to arrest her and her nephew when she had to make a court appearance. The incident is raising fresh concerns about the city’s potential collaboration with federal agents.

Who attacks a turtle sanctuary?

Israeli attack kills famed turtle sanctuary ecologist in Lebanon

Mona Khalil led decades-long effort to protect nesting site for turtles near her home in south of the country

theguardian.com

Isn't everyone bored of these pieces yet? "The American research university system is the engine of American innovation and the envy of the world. Here's how we should burn it to the fucking ground." Not thought provoking. Not even provoking. Just tiresome.

Chronicle of Higher Education@chronicle.com · 2mo ago

Opinion | Liberal education once prepared students for citizenship. Reviving it will require a radical shift: less academic research, far more serious teaching. https://chroni.cl/4uJBSmy

ICYMI: Earlier this week @djbyrnes1.bsky.social @zoetakaki.bsky.social @domguan.bsky.social wrote about ICE’s increased activity, and violence, over the past month in Chicago and the suburbs, as we’ve seen more car crashes, weapon pointing, and courthouse abductions.

“ICE never really left:” car crashes and courthouse arrests mark spring escalation

Videos show federal agents pointing weapons at bystanders and trying to access state property as rapid response groups have reported at least 80 detainments across Chicagoland in the last five weeks.

unraveledpress.com

The price we pay of inaction on safe streets is in the lives of our neighbors. It’s unacceptable, and I am sick and tired of the endless devaluing of life for the convenience of drivers. My heart goes out to this person’s loved ones. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Papa Rides a Bike@paparidesabike.bsky.social · 2mo ago

A cyclist was just killed on Halsted. I'm not going to post a photo

Bizarrely an unpublished article I wrote for the now-defunct Newsweek Pakistan in 2011 has been published by The Standard (15 years later)! thestandard.com.pk/the-last-mao...

The Last Maoist in Mayfair

Meet Izzat Majeed, the man who made Pakistani music globally relevant again.

thestandard.com.pk

*mutters* they could've spent that money on faculty, staff, and librarians

May-lee Chai (she/her)@mayleechai.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Subhed from the NYT article on CSU adoption of ChatGPT: “California’s public universities spent $16.9 million on A.I. during a financial crisis, and the result has been chaos.” Gift link www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/m...

Kicking off my summer triathlon training with a 20 mile ride in my hometown’s state park on my mother’s bicycle 🚲.