The country was shut down for nearly a year, tons of death and suffering, the global economy in tatters and oh yeah the outgoing president tried to stage a violent coup at the end. THAT is handing off a disaster.
Matthew R. Deroo
@deroomat.bsky.social
Ph.D. Languaging and Literacies. Immigration. Musings on my interdisciplinary academic life, pop culture, and politics. 双语 who loves travel (views my own)
A major bank closing 300 Trump bank accounts because they were flagged for potential money laundering should be a far bigger story…
Is the President Laundering Money?
A major bank closing 300 Trump bank accounts because they were flag...
youtu.be
BREAKING NEWS! The Senate has paused the OMB rule that would put Trump appointees in charge of federal spending. Next step - Contact your MoC and tell them to permanently REVOKE THE RULE: zurl.co/1SXEN Article: zurl.co/23mF8
Senate finalizes funding patch that would block Trump’s grant overhaul
Language is included to delay the president’s move to put political appointees in charge of grant approval.
zurl.co
Lucy’s football with Charlie Brown
Charlotte Clymer@charlotteclymer.bsky.social · yesterdaySusan Collins announcing she'll vote against a controversial nominee is basically the moment it becomes clear that nominee will be confirmed. It means Thune has enough votes to confirm, and thus, Collins gets a pass to look independent.
He's not alone in being targeted and possibly charged. It's happening all over the US. 30-100 years sentences given in Texas.
Ryan Estrada@ryanestrada.com · last mo.A cartoonist named Daniel "Des" Rolando Sanchez Estrada was tried as a terrorist and sentenced to 30 years in prison for having anti-Trump comics in his car. Prosecutors connected him to a 2025 anti-ICE protest he didn't even attend because he was in the same book club as others who were.
📌Susan Collins is voting "no" on the repulsive Blanche because she has been given political cover by Thune. Her vote doesn't matter. This isn't a heroic decision, it is pure politics, and whether anybody wants to admit it or not it's how she has survived like a parasite in that chamber for 30 years.
“Academic freedom has declined sharply in the USA because of state and federal actions that have weakened institutional autonomy…in the Academic Freedom Index Update 2026, is part of what the report’s authors see as a significant and systemic challenge for higher education around the world.”
Digital Warrior - Combat Disinfo@digitalwarrior.bsky.social · 3d ago2/ The Academic Freedom Index Update 2026, from FAU Erlangen-Nurnberg and the V-Dem Institute, is built on 2,357 expert assessments across 179 countries. It found decline in 50 countries over the last decade. Only 9 improved. Report: al-fanarmedia.org/2026/04/acad...
There's a nasty fight between DHS contractors battling each other over deportation dollars and accusing each other of benefitting from a rigged system. Caught in the middle are immigrants, as @dfriedman.bsky.social, Will Sytsma, and I detail www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
As for-profit companies battle over ICE contracts, immigrants are caught in the middle
"There is so much money right now in detaining people."
motherjones.com
—the cul-de-sac we have managed to drive this discourse into, where higher education is wholly (or even primarily) about economic benefits that accrue to the individual student, would be unrecognizable to the architects of the public university system in any state, or indeed anywhere in the world.
i’m never gonna be able to fire a cruise missile yet the question of using my tax dollars for them has never been up for debate
USA TODAY Opinion@usatodayopinion.usatoday.com · 3d agoOpinion: Mamdani's idea may sound appealing, but it's NYC taxpayers who will take the hit, subsidizing discounts they may never even use.
Yet another piece of evidence supporting @karaswisher.bsky.social’s argument that you need people from a variety of backgrounds in the room discussing GenAI features. Someone in the deployment group should’ve said, “Um…can we think about what people will do this for a moment, before releasing it?”
404 Media@404media.co · 6d agoUPDATE: After the publication of this piece, Google sent 404 Media a statement saying it was “rolling back this feature in Google Earth while we work on implementing stronger guardrails.” www.404media.co/google-earth...
Judges have called President Donald Trump’s Justice Department “unlawful,” “unethical” and “unseemly.” Now, they’re questioning if government prosecutors can be trusted. www.propublica.org/article/just...
Federal Judges Chastise Trump’s Justice Department for “Unlawful,” “Unethical” and “Unseemly” Conduct
ProPublica reviewed hundreds of cases in which judges criticized the actions of federal prosecutors. In many, judges expressed frustration that they can no longer take the government at its word.
propublica.org
Yesterday, @asanews.bsky.social announced that, due to cuts in funding from the National Science Foundation, it will no longer run its Dissertation Research Improvement Grants. The consequences of these funding cuts to science and the future research capacity of the US will be staggering.
What do you call a country that continues to punish people for simply disagreeing with its leadership and corporate fascism? futurism.com/artificial-i...
High School Teacher Arrested for Clapping in Support of Anti-Data Center Activists
A local high school physics teacher was hauled out by four police officers for clapping six times during a city commission meeting.
futurism.com
Trump is waging a “Khmer Rouge-esque war on American science & intellectual achievement writ large,” escalating the climate crisis while systematically gutting the research needed to predict, mitigate, & survive it. #academicsky
The Strongest El Niño in History Is Coming. Get Ready. - The American Prospect
Donald Trump has no ideas, but America is ready for a U-turn on climate change.
prospect.org
More on @ncte.org’s betrayal of its membership and mission by dissolving CCCC: www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...
NCTE Dissolves 77-Year-Old Composition Association
The National Council of Teachers of English’s decision was met with swift backlash from Conference on College Composition and Communication members, who say their organization is vital to advancing co...
insidehighered.com
Trump's Energy Secretary told Congress the grant cuts had nothing to do with politics. Then the regime's own lawyers admitted in court they killed $7.6 billion in grants "based solely on the political identity" of a state. 16 states. All 16 voted for Harris.
The Trump Regime Lost All Week. Here’s What They’d Rather Hide.
A judge guts their mail-ballot scheme, they confess in court, and a red-state town beats their $100,000 shakedown
dworkinsubstack.com
Free college. Problem solved.
Jess Calarco@jessicacalarco.com · 2w agoNew research shows that marriage is more common among people with than without college degrees. But rather than use those findings to argue for investment in higher education, Fortune is blaming college-educated women for rejecting low-earning men w/o college degrees. fortune.com/2026/07/26/c...
"The most important political struggle surrounding AI may therefore not concern the technology itself, but who gets to define which futures — and which forms of resistance — are legitimate,” write Velislava Hillman and Nick Couldry.
Critics of AI Aren’t Anti-Tech Extremists
Recent US intelligence documents hype up the threat of “anti-tech violent extremist activity” against data centers. Casting protests as ideologically extreme is a shortcut to silencing critics of AI a...
jacobin.com
wth? "In a 2-1 vote, the GOP majority on the EEOC voted to roll back a six decade requirement under an anti-discrimination law in the U.S. that requires employers to submit annual data on the racial and gender composition of their workforces. There is now a 30-day public comment period." #BlackSky
Why the US may stop collecting workplace race and gender data
A newly proposed change would eliminate annual workplace demographic reporting used to monitor discrimination trends.
aljazeera.com
Despite the whining about “ historical accuracy,” the racist backlash to the casting in Nolan’s Odyssey is about the right wanting to justify racial hierarchy by projecting it into a past where it did not actually exist. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
bloomberg has a fun article today arguing that the Cybertruck is the biggest flop in automotive history. it includes this glorious graph.
This is insane www.nytimes.com/2026/07/24/b...
Trump Administration Admits Canceling Grants to States That Did Not Vote for Him (Gift Article)
Federal officials said in court documents that they halted billions of dollars in funding for energy projects to states “based solely” on whether they backed President Trump in the 2024 election.
nytimes.com
For decades, the Office for Civil Rights investigated whether educational institutions’ policies disparately impacted minority groups in discriminatory ways. Not anymore.
ED Scraps Tool to Investigate Discrimination
For decades, the Office for Civil Rights investigated whether educational institutions’ policies disparately impacted minority groups in discriminatory ways. Not anymore.
insidehighered.com
As Trump returns to tariffs, it's worth checking out what we've gotten from the trade war so far.
Russ Vought set out to ensure a second Trump term would not be hampered by checks and balances: “I don’t want President Trump having to lose a moment of time having fights in the Oval Office about whether something is legal or doable or moral.” (Published Oct. 2025 w/ @newyorker.com)
Russell Vought, Trump’s Shadow President
From the wholesale gutting of federal agencies to the ongoing government shutdown, Russell Vought has drawn the road map for Trump’s second term. Vought has consolidated power to an extent that inside...
propublica.org