Meredith McGill

@mlmcgill.bsky.social

C19 American Lit and Culture; poetry & poetics; trying to understand these dark times. Also, idly scrolling, interested in what you are reading….

I was a Compliance Officer. I covered BSA/AML fraud for 7 years. If they closed his accounts, he is most definitely guilty. 300+ times guilty.

Max Miller released audio recordings of conversations he has with his ex wife. In one of them, she accuses him of clandestinely recording their conversations. “I have never recorded our conversations” he says, while recording their conversation. This is domestic violence. Ask me how I know.

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US Historian friends: a grad student asked about recent-ish scholarship on the “counter-Enlightenment” in the C18 and early C19 US, and I’m coming up short. Pre-Transcendentalist Rx to Unitarianism, which I can help on. All suggestions welcome!

Another example of the problem with the fixation with Trump’s putative emotions: here a story about the Trump administration’s corruption, incompetence, and venality is framed as one about Trump’s “wrath.” www.nytimes.com/2026/08/01/u...

In Dropping Reflecting Pool Case, Pirro Draws Trump’s Wrath

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney in Washington, blamed shoddy construction, contradicting President Trump’s pet theory. Mr. Trump said he disagreed “100%” with her.

nytimes.com

Worth remembering that Talarico raised so much money he just gave some away to other Texas candidates and Mamdani raised so much money during the primary that he told people to donate to Adrienne Adams. People aren't giving up on Ds. They just don't like the DNC. The DNC should think about that!

G Elliott Morris@gelliottmorris.com · last wk.

can my comparative politics folks come up with any other example of the opposition party being $2m in debt when the incumbent government is ~20 points underwater on approval?

"The actual epistemological crisis we are entering now is one better exemplified by the Vanderbilt report’s AI-generated analyses: automated data collection, sloppy analysis, and a growing sprawl of LLM-generated pseudo-evidence." 9/n

Hire some people now at the DNC (for example) who are keeping track of the money that states that voted for Harris are currently illegally losing. Add the $$ up figure out the interest payment and be ready to restore with penalties assessed.

Gallup-Lumina poll on college confirms that Americans are upset about the personal politics of professors--that is, 11% are concerned. Three-quarters are upset about lack of affordability. Colleges should ignore the Twitter / Atlantic debates and lower costs while heading to debt-free for all

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It's awful isn't it. We are being deluged with academic robotext content and it is taking up *so much time* and that wasted time is because of *AI companies* failing to understand - or not caring about - their tech interacting with actual social and professional contexts.

Probably more helpful to think of them not so much as “Canadian wildfires” but rather “climate change wildfires currently consuming Canada”

The real bombshell is not that China stole 2020. It is that Trump released: 1) an intelligence assessment describing a Putin-directed operation that used Biden-Burisma allegations and American intermediaries to help TRUMP. Putin+Trump colluded in 2020. Lost election still Russia 2024 again.

This is, at the same time, a remarkable rebuke of the man Trump is installing as Attorney General, who was basically called a fraud by the court, and of what we can only describe as Blanche's job application for the position, and exactly what we should expect he'll do with his power.

Trump’s extraordinary ‘settlement’ agreement is defeated by the court

A judge rules against a complex high-value fund being created without legislation or oversight by a court

prospectmagazine.co.uk

stuff like this is why one important avenue for court reform is just nixing the shadow docket altogether and forcing these people to explain themselves to the public when they issue orders. also, making their records property of the united states and subject to publication when they leave the bench.

Alex Aronson@alexaronson.bsky.social · 3w ago

Amy Coney Barrett just told Congress that it would be inappropriate to explain the reasoning behind the Court’s unreasoned shadow docket orders. As if unreasoned judicial orders are a thing. They are not. The reasoning is the whole point.

I think @govandybeshear.bsky.social should just appoint a Dem to fill McConnell’s seat. It would force proof of life, and the state law that stripped him of that power should be challenged in court. I’m sure Thune would refuse to seat the appointee, but I think it’s a fight worth having. BE BOLD!

ICE is engaged in a very large escalation nationwide, with the agency claiming to be hitting record arrest numbers amid the return of quotas. This has gotten very little attention from the media because ICE learned lessons from the chaotic disasters of Kristi Noem’s tenure. Keep a watch.

WA Whistles@wawhistles.bsky.social · 4w ago

ICE is surging in the Seattle area. (Map shows activity in the last week) Do you have your whistle with you?

Map of ICE sightings from iceout.org, 7/1-7/8, showing Puget sound area between Fort Lewis and Marysville.

English prof conundrum: the Norton Anthology of Poetry, shorter ed., is out of print. It’s been my mainstay for Intro. What do folks use instead? [How did they let this happen??]

Oh yeah, that’s just what students pay university fees for - a polemic from a man with no academic qualifications and no published research, trying to force them to adopt a particular ideological viewpoint. Grim.