Happy Birthday to President Obama. Here's how he celebrated the day in 2005. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi6J...
Wait, wait, don't tell me (2005): Senator Obama
YouTube video by TheObamaDiary.com
youtube.com
Virginia Haufler
@vah301.bsky.social
Professor, international political economy, corporations, CSR/ESG politics, cat lover, wannabe mando player
unfortunate update: bsky.app/profile/texa...
Texas Observer@texasobserver.org · yesterdayNew from Andrew Joseph Pegoda: In an attempt to overcomply with Texas law, the University of Houston will eliminate over 100 women's studies, gender and sexuality courses from the core curriculum. It won't be enough to appease extremist Republicans.
Well, the FCC Commissioner has made the decision, first announced in an op-ed in Breitbart, stating that a regulatory body does not have to observe laws made by Congress if they don't feel like it. Every month is new and unprecedented territory. docs.fcc.gov/public/attac...
He serves in the branch that the Constitution specifically charges with the duty of removing the President for criming.
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · yesterdayCornyn: "There's nothing we could do to rein in the president"
Bombshell report from the Wall Street Journal: DHS has been tracking down Americans at work and on the road who are critical of immigration policies, spending millions on contractors to surveil First Amendment protected speech and create political dossiers. Outrageous. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
How ICE Is Weaponizing Social Media Against Its Critics
The agency says its surveillance program searches for threats to agents, but critics see free-speech infringements.
wsj.com
I had, somehow, never read this story. You could say a lot about the mastery of craft in it, and probably someone has, but for now I’m just sitting in silence. I will be thinking about this story for a long time.
Helen Kennedy@helenkennedy.com · yesterdayRead it here if you haven't yet. Today is the very best day of all days to read it for the first time. short-stories.co/@raybradbury...
If one of the primary functions of the press is to check power, it really feels like much of the mainstream media ecosystem is fundamentally broken. Worse, as of now I see no institutions capable of stepping in as a viable, preferable alternative.
The New Republic@newrepublic.com · yesterdayBanks permitted millions in suspicious transactions tied to Epstein—and former 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi had the story months ago. But the report would never air. trib.al/ZShZlIS
“In recent months, ICE has deployed a round-the-clock digital dragnet to scour the public internet—from Facebook to Instagram to X—for speech that could endanger the agency’s mission.” Speech. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
How ICE Is Weaponizing Social Media Against its Critics
Agency says its surveillance program searches for threats to agents, but critics see free-speech infringements.
wsj.com
After a college student finally found a treatment that worked for his ulcerative colitis, UnitedHealthcare decided it wouldn’t pay for the costly drugs. His fight to get coverage exposed the insurer’s hidden procedures for rejecting claims. (Published Feb. 2023)
UnitedHealthcare Tried to Deny Coverage to a Chronically Ill Patient. He Fought Back, Exposing the Insurer’s Inner Workings.
After a college student finally found a treatment that worked, the insurance giant decided it wouldn’t pay for the costly drugs. His fight to get coverage exposed the insurer’s hidden procedures for r...
propublica.org
President Trump is banning students majoring in degrees that don’t make enough money from taking out college loans. Degrees for social work, art, religious studies, teaching aides, and music will be hit the hardest. trib.al/aaAEu6v
Trump Moves to Cut Off Student Loans for Tons of Degrees
Under a new rule, if your degree doesn’t make enough money, you won’t be able to get a student loan.
trib.al
Imagine a bank closing the accounts of the sitting president and the reason listed is money laundering. Just imagine the appropriate level of political scandal that something like that should cause. Now imagine the leading newspaper of the country, @nytimes.com, not writing a word about it
Allison Gill@muellershewrote.com · 2d agoNEW: Capital One closed hundreds of Trump accounts for money laundering. We wouldn’t have known if Trump hadn’t sued. Now he’s got tax immunity. My latest: www.muellershewrote.com/p/new-capita...
NEW: The Treasury Dept. will be going after leftie NGOs to make them disclose all the smaller NGOs they fiscally sponsor. “It will have an asymmetrical impact on the left, just because the right is organized differently,” a source familiar told me. My latest. puck.news/inside-trump...
Marco Rubio’s Enemies Within
The Trump administration is building a counterterrorism framework to target left-wing groups at home and abroad, raising concerns that it could be used against political opponents, nonprofits, activis...
puck.news
Tulane's Muira McCammon documented how Google turned off reviews for 90+ ICE detention facilities, erasing accounts of conditions inside. Google says disabling ICE facility reviews was "unrelated to a government request." But McCammon argues the effect is the same: dissent rendered invisible.
As Google Scrubs ICE Detention Reviews, Platform Power Serves State Interests
Google’s content moderation choices threaten to render accounts of treatment inside federal detention centers invisible, writes Muira McCammon.
techpolicy.press
I completely missed this. As part of Trump’s planned rebuild of Dulles (because playing with his toys is basically all he wants to do these days) he says he wants to build a parking garage that would be 60% larger than the current largest parking *lot* in the world?
Martin Austermuhle@maustermuhle.bsky.social · 2d agoOne part of Trump's $22 billion makeover of Dulles that's been missed is his big, beautiful, world-record 32,000-spot parking garage. That's *way* more parking than recent estimates show the airport needs, and it would tower over the historic terminal: www.notus.org/metro/dulles...
Tried to say that in June: the Trump family and admin's embrace of them confirms their Epstein family values.
What are Trump’s connections to the Tate brothers exactly? | Rebecca Solnit
According to Heidi Blake in the New Yorker, the Tate and Trump circles have overlapped at Mar-a-Lago. What does that mean?
theguardian.com
There are a lot of important things going on. Maybe this isn’t a top twenty concern. But, this is actually workplace harassment, the kind that can get people killed.
@carmenlynn.bsky.social · 5d agoThe Koch Nazis are back “A shadowy network of conservative activist groups, backed by Koch-linked dark money, is deploying hidden cameras and mass public-records requests to hunt down and destroy the careers of college professors and administrators — and it's working.”
Trump admin changes are slowly suffocating the nonprofits that support victims of gender-based violence. It's Vanessa Lantz's job to inform callers that all resources are taken: “They’re just like, ‘I don’t even know if I’m going to be alive by the end of this weekend.'" 19thnews.org/2026/07/san-...
This domestic violence shelter was told it no longer aligns with the Trump administration’s priorities
Trump’s war on ‘gender ideology’ and diversity is hurting San Francisco Asian Women’s Shelter's ability to help victims — many of whom can’t get help anywhere else. It’s already cost them nearly $500,...
19thnews.org
No professional accomplishment has ever made me happier than this. theonion.com/translator-o...
Translator Of Original ‘Minions’ Epic Poem Slams ‘Sexless, Bloodless’ Film Adaptation
PHILADELPHIA—In a 4,500-word essay published in Harper’s Magazine, Emily Wilson, known for her popular translation of the Minions epic poem, blasted the latest film Thursday as a “sexless, bloodless” ...
theonion.com
What would you say if you say it in another country? Would you say “that sounds like a bastion of free speech”? (HT @brendannyhan.bsky.social)
Jess Calarco@jessicacalarco.com · last wk."Davis, the government says, has attended and facilitated meetings about protests and discussed his anti-authoritarian ideology with other activists. He is not accused of violent acts, taking any specific actions at protests nor having any encounters with ICE agents. He is facing 6 years in prison."
I dunno but it should probably be a bigger deal that the White House announced it wants to slap a 100% tariff on drug imports at the same time it is eliminating Medicare drug subsidies. And we’re talking about critical life-saving drugs like insulin, blood thinners, antibiotics, and heart meds.
"Unlike many others forced to halt their research [due to Trump cuts], Sehgal and his co-authors released their study anyway...with a fraction of the intended sample size. Still, removing the gas stoves relieved the participants’ asthma so much that the results were clear even with only 85 of them."
The EPA halted a study on gas stoves and asthma. But even partial results were striking.
Research that used a federal grant to pay for asthma patients to have their gas stoves replaced showed a dramatic fall in asthma attacks. The program was cut short after President Donald Trump took of...
wapo.st
Should be a bigger story— “Alexandra Bravo, prosecutor investigating 🇺🇸 strikes on 3 Ecuadorian boats and survivor accounts of torture/kidnapping, shot dead… hitman on a black motorcycle opened fire… Bravo’s sister jumped to protect her, also killed…” www.dropsitenews.com/p/prosecutor...
Proposal would strip scholarly qualifications and peer review from Fulbright-Hays Fellowships and other programs--who gets fellowships will be decided by the Dept of Ed alone . Add your comments to the Federal Register by July 31. www.historians.org/news/aha-sub...
AHA Submits Comment Calling for the Protection of Federal International Education Programs - AHA
The AHA has submitted a comment to the Federal Register objecting to a proposal by the Department of Education to rescind the regulations governing the federal Title VI International Education and Ful...
historians.org
Israel is giving Trump's former campaign manager millions of dollars to fill the internet with pro-Israel articles written by AI, not so that anyone will actually read them, but so that *LLMs will train on them* & regurgitate their perspective. This is the future of the information environment.
Israel Is Paying Millions to Train AI Chatbots How to Talk About Gaza. It's Working.
Former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale is overseeing an operation posting hundreds of blog posts on behalf of Israel, with the goal of infiltrating artificial intelligence.
dropsitenews.com
I’m looking for a freelancer based in Spain or France to cover the wildfires and heat wave. If that’s you, my DMs are open and I’d love to talk through story ideas!
“A database of more than 38,000 scholarships maintained by the National Scholarship Providers Association shows the number of grants with women-specific eligibility criteria has declined 19% since 2023,” www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Schools Are Cutting Women’s Scholarships Even When They Don’t Have To
RPI, Middlebury College and Duke University are among those that have ended or altered programs aimed at supporting female students.
bloomberg.com
It is happening here. To us.
Liberal Currents@liberalcurrents.com · last wk.“There has been persecution in the form of increased social scrutiny, harassment and violence. And there has been persecution in the undercutting of access to vital, lifesaving gender-affirming medication despite the overwhelming medical consensus for it.” www.liberalcurrents.com/the-american...
The largest privately held company in the United States is refusing to concede to workers’ demands for more dignified workplace conditions, including protected bathroom breaks.
Over 1,700 Cargill Meatpacking Workers Locked Out After Demanding Bathroom Breaks
The largest privately held company in the United States is refusing to concede to workers’ demands for more dignified workplace conditions, including protected bathroom breaks.
sentientmedia.org