Very sad to hear about Dolly Parton today. If you want to see a beautiful Dolly moment, here is a video I often return to: a practice session of The Last Thing on My Mind with Doc Watson, another legend, before Merlefest in 2001. youtu.be/oaK0V5otwE8?...

Doc Watson and Dolly Parton - Merlefest 2001

YouTube video by Bolling Willse Sr

youtu.be

Now available in HINDI & BANGLA: "Nativist Backlash and 'Left-Behind' Areas: What India’s Trade Agreements Mean for its Political Economy" by @benjaminhelms.bsky.social (Texas A&M University) HINDI: casi.sas.upenn.edu/hindi/iit/be... BANGLA: casi.sas.upenn.edu/bangla/iit/b...

I wrote a short piece for @casipenn.bsky.social exploring the likely domestic political consequences of India's continued integration with the world economy. Based on two articles published @ajpseditor.bsky.social, coauthored with Junghyun Lim.

Center for the Advanced Study of India@casipenn.bsky.social · 2mo ago

"Nativist Backlash and “Left-Behind” Areas: What India’s Trade Agreements Mean for its Political Economy" by @benjaminhelms.bsky.social (Bush School of Government and Public Service) casi.sas.upenn.edu/iit/benjamin...

Wrote a short article for @voxdev.bsky.social using results from my primary data collection. This article is based on a forthcoming @thejop.bsky.social piece where I argue that male migration is an under-examined pathway for female political engagement. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

VoxDev@voxdev.bsky.social · 11mo ago

🆕 How men’s migration increases women’s political engagement in India Today on VoxDev, Rithika Kumar (Rice University Political Science) discusses how male internal migration impacts women's roles and political engagement in India: https://ow.ly/60WU50Xbx7L

1/🧵 Judges across ideological lines are ruling against Trump at strikingly similar rates (84% liberal, 86% centrist, 82% conservative). This isn't partisan opposition to Trump—it's the judiciary functioning as intended by cutting across partisan lines to uphold the Constitution.

wrote an op-ed in our local paper drawing attention to the effects of USAID cuts on Illinois businesses TL;DR it's bad!! How USAID funding cuts hurt Illinois www.news-gazette.com/opinion/gues...

My Turn | How USAID funding cuts hurt Illinois

"The domestic consequences of the USAID shutdown will hurt the entire country directly," writes UI Assistant Professor Cleo O'Brien-Udry. "Illinois will be dramatically impacted due to its large agric...

news-gazette.com

The White House's press release on widespread USAID fraud shows nothing of the sort, @charlesjkenny.bsky.social writes. He explains in a new blog post:

The White House Demonstrates USAID’s Efficiency

The White House issued a press release three days ago apparently designed to justify the ongoing stop-work orders at USAID, alongside pulling agency staff out of the field and locking them out of…

cgdev.org

Interactive map of USAID agriculture cut impacts on farms, ports across the US storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/29fc...

Andrew Natsios, USAID administrator in the George W. Bush administration, has a few things to say about the Trump/Musk/Rubio assault on the agency. Worth watching. No pulling punches. via PBSNewsHour www.youtube.com/live/ZI6XIKx...

PBS News Hour live episode, Feb. 5, 2025

YouTube video by PBS NewsHour

youtube.com

Right on the money, from my esteemed colleague. www.politico.com/news/magazin...

‘What Elon Musk Said Is a Bold-Faced Lie’

A former Republican director of USAID says the agency is critical to U.S. interests and can’t be abolished or folded into the State Department.

politico.com

Interesting to not see Texas among the GOP states initially supporting Trump’s birthright citizenship EO irp.cdn-website.com/6a12d959/fil...

@benjaminhelms.bsky.social and I published a paper in 2022 showing that TPS, because it increases remittances, actually decreases subsequent unauthorized migration. academic.oup.com/isq/article-...

Labor Market Policy as Immigration Control: The Case of Temporary Protected Status

Abstract. Controlling immigration has become a central political goal in advanced democracies. Politicians across the world have experimented with a range

academic.oup.com

Quick effort by a group of USAID supporters to mobilize against the shutdown and takeover -- includes a rally in DC on Wednesday. Website here:

Our congressional delegation pursuing oversight on reports of Elon Musk’s illegal activity at USAID was just barred from entering the building on the orders of Musk and the Trump Administration. Nobody elected Musk — this is illegal and corrupt and we will keep fighting it.

Aaron Fritschner@fritschner.bsky.social · 2y ago

Members of Congress with @beyer.house.gov @vanhollen.senate.gov now seeking entry at USAID

FYI

Can the president dissolve USAID without an act of Congress? No. www.justsecurity.org/107267/can-p...

Can the President Dissolve USAID by Executive Order?

Congress established USAID in statute, and the president may not unilaterally override a statute by executive order.

justsecurity.org

🚨Why do people turn out less in some places than others, even in compulsory voting systems?🚨 In our new paper, forthcoming at BJPS, we highlight the role of migratory turnover in increasing voting costs for communities and test it using new municipal panel data from Brazil.

OK, here is my pre-registered take: Trump will make American immigration attitudes great again, again. goodauthority.org/news/trump-2...

Trump immigration policies could shift public opinion yet again.

Mass deportations and tougher Trump immigration rules could backfire, and actually boost U.S. support for immigration.

goodauthority.org

Alexander Kustov@akoustov.bsky.social · 2y ago

Will the US negativity to immigration reverse now? Quite likely! Folks forget immigration backlash works both ways. Pro-immigration politics may be unpopular, but so is unnecessarily cruel anti-immigration politics. Our new paper on "The Reverse Backlash" is open-access now doi.org/10.1093/poq/...

A 75-degree day in Houston - who knew it could happen?

Spot my newest office decoration.

Excited to share that my article "War on Aisle 5: Casualties, National Identity, and Consumer Behavior", coauthored with Sonal Pandya and Rajkumar Venkatesan, has been published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution! Take a look here: doi.org/10.1177/0022...

"By extending temporary protection to certain people who are already here and giving them the opportunity to work, TPS is a smart and humane way to improve the lives of people living here and abroad." Check out my piece on TPS with David Leblang and Tom Jawetz with CNN www.cnn.com/2023/10/05/o...

Opinion: A smart and humane answer on immigration | CNN

The Biden administration’s Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program is a humane policy that will improve the lives of people living here and abroad, write authors Ben Helms, David Leblang and Tom Ja...

cnn.com

The Biden administration has extended TPS to more Venezuelans, offering them legal labor market access in the US. In research with David Leblang, we find that TPS helps migrants send remittances home, and if anything, reduces subsequent migration. www.nytimes.com/2023/09/20/n...

U.S. Will Allow Nearly 500,000 Venezuelan Migrants to Work Legally

The move, announced late Wednesday, followed intense lobbying by New York Democrats before and during President Biden’s visit to New York City this week.

nytimes.com