Robin L Turner
@robinlturnerphd.blacksky.app
Mostly a reskeeter. tradition, gender, land tenure, and resource politics in Southern Africa. I block would be followers without profiles.
If ever there was a better example that different people are taking very very different lessons from this political moment here you go
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 13h agoMax Miller on why he's staying in the race: "When we go back to 2015 and 2016, & people in the media looked at President Trump, & everyone came out with allegations. Dozens of women, dozens of crazy allegations, dozens of nasty criminal misconduct. And you know what he did? He stayed in the fight."
One of the hardest things to teach people is that white supremacy doesn't require racial hatred to keep itself going, and this thread kind of does a good job at pointing out how and why that happens.
Big Ol’ Mush@chadstanton.blacksky.app · 8h agoI think a good way to think about the current moment is understanding white supremacy as a spectrum with passive acceptance as the status quo out to actively arguing for global genocide.
New Working Paper with Micah Baum and Joaquin Endara: Students tend to become more liberal during college. We study whether individual faculty make their students more liberal. We find no evidence that faculty affect student partisanship. Working Paper: edworkingpapers.com/ai26-1538 1/
Do Faculty Affect Student Partisanship?
We study whether Democratic college professors make their students more liberal. We link voter data to salary records from 33 state flagships and show that faculty skew Democratic, especially in the h...
edworkingpapers.com
This is a really interesting read paired with that AEJ paper I shared at some point this week. Both show no clear evidence that faculty affect students' partisanship. Again, no priors will be updated. (I'll find my post with the other paper and reply with it below)
Annaliese Paulson@annaliesep.bsky.social · 10h agoNew Working Paper with Micah Baum and Joaquin Endara: Students tend to become more liberal during college. We study whether individual faculty make their students more liberal. We find no evidence that faculty affect student partisanship. Working Paper: edworkingpapers.com/ai26-1538 1/
the end game.
Jess Piper@piperformissouri.bsky.social · 14h agoThe Heritage Foundation asserts that women never needed sports in the first place. To prove that Title IX has become a tool of “feminist social engineering.” To demonstrate that women don’t need sports and that “clubs, intramurals, and exercise classes” is enough. open.substack.com/pub/jesspipe...
Bad news, though the silver lining is that these mandates to train AI models on white nationalisst slop will hasten model collapse
Mike Ludwig@mludwig.bsky.social · 13h agoTrump’s Federal Trade Commission Is Threatening to Punish Big Tech for “Woke AI” Free speech groups sound alarm about a proposal from Trump's FTC to jawbone companies into training AI models on white nationalist narratives and undermine state laws. Meanwhile, Elon Musk wants his nude deepfakes...
"Republican Senators Thom Tillis and John Cornyn each reneged on their promises to meet with victims of Jeffrey Epstein, with Tillis even leaving them waiting in his office for 45 minutes before they gave up." newrepublic.com/post/213959/...
Epstein Survivors Say Republicans Ghosted Them Before Blanche Vote
Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse say they were stood up after having scheduled a meeting to speak about Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general.
newrepublic.com
NEW: A series of issues in Apple’s web browser engine — the tech underlying all browsers on iOS — means that Apple’s iCloud Private Relay tool, which is supposed to hide a user’s IP address, in many cases doesn’t actually work. In fact, its exposing users' real IP addresses.
Apple's ‘Private Relay’ Is Exposing Users' Real IP Addresses
Researchers found a group of issues that mean Private Relay isn't actually protecting users' real IP addresses. 404 Media verified the issues do expose IP addresses.
404media.co
A shout out to @americanstudier.bsky.social’s website that reminded me about the important anniversary date. Check out the newsletter: civicsandcoffee.substack.com/p/ending-wel...
Ending Welfare - Not Poverty
A Look Back At The End of AFDC
civicsandcoffee.substack.com
I got someone spitting mad earlier this year because I *insisted* on referring to their tool as an LLM and not AI, and would not let them force me into using AI as the term. I realized for a lot of people this has become an item of faith, not cold analysis of a tool.
Mfer could have had a fairly normal IPO with his one company that makes money (off lucrative & sketchy government contracts) but his entire fortune relies on a shell game: xAI (aka Grok) "acquired" X (aka the platform Grok is on) and was "acquired" in turn by SpaceX to hide their staggering losses.
You know what’s not great for women’s sexual desire? When men partners pressure them to have sex! Surprisingly, there’s been very little research on this association. UNTIL NOW! 😉 Excited to announce our new open access article on sexual coercion & desire, published in Sex Roles! rdcu.be/fxXCV
About 100 courses in women's, gender and sexuality studies are slated to be removed from the core curriculum at the University of Houston, as colleges around the state try to appease the right-wing culture war. It will never be enough to stop the next attack.
University of Houston Nixed Its Gender and Sexuality Classes. That Won’t Stop Texas’ Crusade Against Higher Ed
College administrators wrongly hope that anticipatory obedience will satisfy a GOP-run Texas Legislature that is increasingly hostile toward education.
texasobserver.org
They allowed a feedback loop of suicide-related content to build up, possibly leading to the suicide of one kid, to provide a control group so they could figure out whether or not safety measures dampened engagement. 10% of users were in the control.
Suresh Venkatasubramanian @geomblog.bsky.social · 12h agoThis is absolutely awful
New @bloomberglaw.com article by Olivia Carville - TikTok experimented on users, putting 10% (about 15M people) in a "filter bubble" exposing them to repetitive content that the algorithm thought they wanted, but was toxic. If you want to know why these cases are going to be massive...
2. With an active legal fight over the quiet period's scope playing out in the courts, election experts recommend eligible registered voters be vigilant about checking their registration status before their states' deadlines. Find links for checking your voter registration status here:
How to register to vote and check your registration status
For the 2026 elections, NPR has collected deadlines and information on how to register to vote — online, in person or by mail — in every U.S. state and territory.
apps.npr.org
Today is the start of the "quiet period" before the midterm election, a longstanding legal protection for eligible voters. Forty-four states, plus Washington, D.C., are banned from doing mass purges of voter rolls within 90 days of a federal election under the 1993 National Voter Registration Act
A federal law bans late voter roll purges. Republicans are pushing to reinterpret it
There's a ban on most states systematically purging voter rolls within 90 days before Election Day. Republicans are pushing courts to reinterpret that longstanding protection for eligible voters.
npr.org
Wow. DOJ is just flailing. After losing 20 consecutive lawsuits seeking states’ unredacted voter rolls, Trump's DOJ conceded Tuesday that its case against Washington is materially no different from the others, but still wants the federal court to accept the argument others have rejected.
After 20 straight losses, Trump DOJ struggles to defend demand for Washington state voter rolls
The concession left DOJ asking the Washington court to reject a judicial consensus that now includes 20 district court rulings and one federal appellate decision — without identifying any distinct fac...
democracydocket.com
I’m telling you this as a political scientist. The person who is electable is the one who is elected. This can and does change over time. Any and all speculation about “electability” is either puffery or anxiety and is often both.
Julia Azari@juliaazari.bsky.social · 23h agoOne way to be safe is to never write an electability take
There’s no way to spin this. “Big yech”—actually a nice typo (slip?) in the article—was able to buy off the leadership of the nation’s second largest teacher’s union for a paltry $12.5 million.
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 14h ago“Teaching educators about AI is a ‘moral imperative’, said Randi Weingarten, the AFT president.” “And without outside funding, it was a choice between taking big tech’s money or doing nothing, she said.”
Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000, ep 82 www.buzzsprout.com/2126417/epis... … in which @savasavasava.myatproto.social joins @alexhanna.bsky.social and me for a good hard look at “harm reduction” as misapplied to “AI”.
So many people I encounter, especially in HigherEd, believe the only strategy for this moment is "keep your head down." @debtcollective.bsky.social didn't change priorities in 2024, nor in 2020, nor in 2016. They barreled ahead. There first big win was $800 million. This one is $11 billion.
Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 14h agoCongratulations to everyone who worked their asses off for something that any semi-decent and ultimately self-interested government should have done in penance www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/b...
I want to run a foundation/ strategize a media research org without having to fundraise I don’t think non profits will save us… I CAN do a lot better than the clowns I watched you listen to AN I HAVE PROOF But … while I am absolutely winsome MY FRIENDS ARE BROKE DOGOODERS
They could always sign up to give comment at a public meeting.
The Wall Street Journal@wsj.com · yesterdayNew York City’s business elites are long accustomed to direct access to City Hall, where even Democratic mayors felt the need to court the city’s wealthiest and most influential corporate leaders. That access is getting shredded by Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
By serving the minds of U.S. kids up on a platter, Weingarten reminds me of Samantha Power who wrote THE book on genocide but when she was in a role to do something about it under Biden, she did nothing. Hard for me to believe that she doesn't see that AI's cognitive impact is threat to democracy.
'Why Fascists Fear Teachers' explores how attacks on education undermine democracy
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, talks about her new book "Why Fascists Fear Teachers."
npr.org
Citizen.Coping@propcazhpm.bsky.social · 3y agoI still have the book Samantha Power wrote, "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide". She had so much to say about U.S.'s role in Rwanda. After her entrée into halls of power, she's silent. Haven't heard nann peep from her since Oct 7th. She should re-read her own book and resign.
They are learning how to ride a bike as adults. It's never to late to learn if physically able. They even have 80 years giving it a try. The same goes for swimming and reading.
A bicycle class for adults who never learned how to ride
YouTube video by CBS News
youtu.be
The extreme heat & drought in Puerto Rico have gotten too little attention in the rest of the US. Things there are very bad. apnews.com/article/puer...
Puerto Rican cities hit with water rationing measures as record dry conditions persist
Puerto Rico will implement water rationing measures in San Juan and other major cities as a drought grips the U.S. territory with no relief in sight.
apnews.com
Time to apply to Diverse Voices, an amazing writing workshop at the Poynter Institute now celebrating its 10th anniversary. It’s a mostly free program aimed at helping journalists bring their culture and identity to their work. Deadline to apply is Sept. 18. DETAILS: www.poynter.org/shop/writing...
Power of Diverse Voices: Writing Workshop for Journalists of Color (2026) - Poynter
This transformative workshop welcomes journalists of color from all backgrounds and experience levels who are looking to harness the power of their own voice. The free, in-person program addresses und...
poynter.org
It’s really important to understand that the criminal legal system in the U.S. already produced the infrastructure to make ICE possible. If we ever rid ourselves of ICE the way to make it harder to revive it will be destroying and defunding the institutions it has borrowed so much from
The Marshall Project@themarshallproject.org · 13h agoAdapting to public pushback, the Trump administration is pivoting to expand immigration detention bedspace nationwide.
from the video (on FB) bro got off his electric unicycle (lol) when he heard cries for help and just kind of maneuvered to give the woman a chance to get away. he didn't even end up having to fight the guy. peak performance www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/g...
Good Samaritan describes helping stop Georgetown attempted sexual assault
A man leaving an early morning showing of the new Spider-Man movie at the AMC Georgetown sprang into action to help a woman yelling for help from the bushes in the nearby waterfront park.
nbcwashington.com
