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Nick Fleisher

@nickfleisher.bsky.social

2.8K followers 720 following 5.4K posts

Linguist at UW-Milwaukee. Syntax & semantics, higher ed, Wisconsin politics &c.

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Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · Nov 4

Grammar/syntax/semantics
Wisconsin politics
Academic freedom and shared governance
Philadelphia and Philadelphia sports
Modular synthesizers
Open source software
Stockholm, Sweden
All things Donald Fagen

Nora Reed (they/them ze/hir) @nora.zone · Nov 4

okay, time for a prompt post to distract us all from the horrors. quote this post with your areas of expertise, interest, hyperfixation and/or obsession and invite your audience to ask you questions about them.

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Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 5h

The time between Cascadia Subduction Zone events is measured in ALDS Game 5's

Reposted by Nick Fleisher

Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 7h

New from me at Cato: I go through the numerous and massive First Amendment and academic-freedom violations of Trump's proffered "compact" with universities and then talk about the mechanism by which it would be enforced, by way of what I describe as a "retroactive push-button guillotine."

Universities Must Defend Their Independence by Rejecting Trump's "Compact"

The Trump administration has proffered a “compact” to universities that would require them to surrender their independence and academic freedom. How many First Amendment violations can we identify in ...

www.cato.org

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Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 6h

Lotta good playoff baseball this year, they should consider not having 2026 be the last year of MLB

Reposted by Nick Fleisher

Behemoth & Leviathan, LP 🎃 @harkov311.bsky.social · 1d

As I was saying...

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Amy @lolennui.bsky.social · 7h

Dr spaceman saying, “but we have no way of knowing where the heart is”

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Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 7h

Doctor pronounces Trump "nephrologically prepubescent"

Reuters @reuters.com · 8h

Trump, 79, has "cardiac age" of 65-year-old, doctor says reut.rs/4mZNZbu

Trump, 79, has "cardiac age" of 65-year-old, doctor says

Donald Trump was found to be in "exceptional health" in a medical evaluation, the U.S. president's doctor said in a memo released by the White House on Friday, with his "cardiac age" 14 years younger than in "chronological age."

reut.rs

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Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 15h

The argumentation is shoddy throughout, even if you accept the tendentious premises. I guess it's good that Rowan identifies himself as one of the minds behind the compact, but it deserves every bit of the universal condemnation it's getting.

Daniel Drezner @dandrezner.bsky.social · 15h

I was chuckling pretty hard as I was reading this drivel but then I got to "these are not politically partisan requirements" and lost it. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/o...

Opinion | Academia Is Broken. Trump’s University ‘Compact’ Can Help Fix It.

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Nick Fleisher

Kathleen Clark @kathleenclark.bsky.social · 19h

A master class from MIT in responding to authoritarian overreach:

Your “premise … is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.
… America’s leadership in science & innovation depends on independent thinking & open competition for excellence.

Dear Madam Secretary,
I write in response to your letter of October 1, inviting MIT to review a "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education." I acknowledge the vital importance of these matters.
I appreciated the chance to meet with you earlier this year to discuss the priorities we share for American higher education.
As we discussed, the Institute's mission of service to the nation directs us to advance knowledge, educate students and bring knowledge to bear on the world's great challenges.
We do that in line with a clear set of values, with excellence above all. Some practical examples:
• MIT prides itself on rewarding merit. Students, faculty and staff succeed here based on the strength of their talent, ideas and hard work. For instance, the Institute was the first to reinstate the SAT/ACT requirement after the pandemic. And MIT has never had legacy preferences in admissions.
• MIT opens its doors to the most talented students regardless of their family's finances. Admissions are need-blind. Incoming undergraduates whose families earn less than $200,000 a year pay no tuition. Nearly 88% of our last graduating class left MIT with no debt for their education. We make a wealth of free courses and low-cost certificates available to any American with an internet connection. Of the undergraduate degrees we award, 94% are in STEM fields. And in service to the nation, we cap enrollment of international undergraduates at roughly 10%.

source:
https://orgchart.mit.edu/letters/regarding-compact

• We value free expression, as clearly described in the MIT Statement on Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom. We must hear facts and opinions we don't like - and engage respectfully with those with whom we disagree.
These values and other MIT practices meet or exceed many standards outlined in the document you sent. We freely choose these values because they're right, and we live by them because they support our mission - work of immense value to the prosperity, competitiveness, health and security of the United States. And of course, MIT abides by the law.
The document also includes principles with which we disagree, including those that would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution. And fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.
In our view, America's leadership in science and innovation depends on independent thinking and open competition for excellence. In that free marketplace of ideas, the people of MIT gladly compete with the very best, without preferences. Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education.
As you know, MIT's record of service to the nation is long and enduring. Eight decades ago, MIT leaders helped invent a scientific partnership between America's research universities and the U.S. government that has delivered extraordinary benefits for the American people. We continue to believe in the power of this partnership to serve the nation.
Sincerely,
Sally Kornbluth

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Reposted by Nick Fleisher

Filipe Campante @filipecampante.bsky.social · 21h

It might be hard to convey to people outside economics just how seismic this is. The Trump effect has most certainly arrived to US academia.

Florian Scheuer @florianscheuer.bsky.social · 1d

I am delighted to share that Nobel laureates Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee will join our Department of Economics @econ.uzh.ch at the University of Zurich on July 1, 2026, as Lemann Foundation Professors of Economics.

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Rob Tracinski @tracinski.bsky.social · 19h

Theyre just threatening to shoot us now.

But it’s a bluff. Call it.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 19h

Sen. Roger Marshall: "October 18 is when the protest gets here. This will be a Soros paid-for protest for his professional protesters. The agitators show up. We'll have to get the National Guard out. Hopefully it will be peaceful. I doubt it."

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Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 18h

Thiel is above all deeply stupid

The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 18h

Exclusive: Tech billionaire Peter Thiel warned that Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and critics of AI are “legionnaires of the Antichrist” in private lectures that connected government oversight of Silicon Valley to an apocalyptic future.

Inside billionaire Peter Thiel’s private lectures: Warnings of ‘the Antichrist’ and U.S. destruction

In leaked recordings of private lectures by tech billionaire Peter Thiel he argued that “the Antichrist” is likely to take the form of a critic of technology.

wapo.st

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Reposted by Nick Fleisher

Josh Moody @byjoshmoody.bsky.social · 20h

MIT rejects "compact" proposed by the Trump administration.
MIT prez wrote: it "would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution" and "is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone."
orgchart.mit.edu/letters/rega...

Regarding the Compact | MIT Organization Chart

orgchart.mit.edu

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Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 1d

Rosie O'Donnell

Schooley @schooley.bsky.social · 1d

The question is who winning the peace prize would piss Trump off the most?

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Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 1d

Somehow that got me thinking about 89, and now I am thinking: who is the player who is most hated but would have been most loved by Philly fans if he had ever played there, and I think the answer is Chris Chelios by a mile

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Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 1d

Somewhat more niche but Ryan Howard taking a called third strike to end the 2010 season also left a mark

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Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 1d

Never

Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 1d

I mean '93 was pretty bad

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Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 1d

This is why we watch sports: because you never know when you're going to witness the worst thing you've ever seen on a field of play

Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 1d

Ending your team's season on a little league-level brain fart is about as brutal as it gets in baseball

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Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 1d

At least now I can unproblematically root for the Brewers to go all the way

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Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 1d

Ending your team's season on a little league-level brain fart is about as brutal as it gets in baseball

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Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 1d

Everybody in the stadium knew Kerkering should go to first, including him as he threw it

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Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 1d

Highest called strike I've seen in my life

Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 1d

Unintimidated by Scott Walker, Marc Thiessen: 9781101636213 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

“Today, we can sound like conservatives and act like conservatives—and still win elections. Those who say we can’t don’t see what I see in Wisconsin and what my...

www.penguinrandomhouse.com

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Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 1d

Checking in with Scott Walker's ghostwriter

James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 1d

A columnist still at WaPo.

Headline: "Yes, Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize."

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Reposted by Nick Fleisher

Ryan Doerfler @ryandoerfler.bsky.social · 1d

An actual opposition party would run this on a loop in every conceivable space.

CollinCountyDems @collincountydems.bsky.social · 1d

This is terrifying!

ICE breaks into this woman’s car in the pick-up line at West Loop Elementary school in Chicago and detains her before she can pick her kids up from school. (They were eventually let go after showing their documents)

This is Trump’s America.

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