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Daniel Westreich @epidbydesign.bsky.social · 1h

RIFs at CDC.

Destroying the Epidemic Intelligence Service, NCIRD, NCIPC & a dozen other areas/divisions/branches will cause enormous harm and suffering to America, and indeed to the whole world.

Call your Reps about it.

Then call them again.

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John Donegan @donegan.bsky.social · 11h

BREAKING: Antifa leader Habeas Corpus has been arrested in Portland.

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Jason Dogwood 💙 🏳️‍🌈 🌱 @jasondogwood.bsky.social · 5h

On this day in 1991 Anita Hill accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment. Few believed her claims then, not enough people believed Hillary Clinton in 2016 and too few listened to Kamala Harris in 2024. See a pattern? Believe women, burn the patriarchy.

#BelieveWomen

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Siva @sivav.bsky.social · 1h

newrepublic.com/article/2013...

Why This Essay Could Cause the University of Virginia to Shut Down

How Linda McMahon’s latest “compact” would do deep and permanent harm to American higher education

newrepublic.com

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David Corn @davidcorn.bsky.social · 4h

A classic case of irresponsible both-sidesism from the NYT. The story is that Trump and MAGA propagandists are lying about Portland to incite a conflict, not that there are different views of the matter.

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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 3h

Updates to this thread:

Eugene Volokh emphasizes that even when the federal gov't is allowed to require that *its grants* not be used to express a particular message or viewpoint, it can't constitutionally tell universitites what viewpoints to enforce w/*their own* funds raised elsewhere.

The Proposed "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education" and the First Amendment

[1.] There's a lot going on in the Trump Administration's proposed "Compact," and there's a lot that we might want…

reason.com

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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 3h

@walterolson.bsky.social at the Cato Institute emphasizes the same thing that struck me so much: the enforcement mechanism in this compact. He calls it a "retroactive push-button guillotine."

(The DOJ is standing there at the button; the university is the one whose neck is below the guillotine.)

Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 15h

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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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 2h

And I have a thread about Marc Rowan’s effort to defend the compact he seems to have largely instigated (in the NYT’s opinion pages)—

Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 13h

The NYT's news pages did a solid job of covering the role of billionaire Marc Rowan in concocting the incredibly dangerous "compact" by which the Trump administration proposes to take over American universities.

But the opinion pages invited Marc Rowan to offer a rather wolflike defense. A brief 🧵—

Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 6d

The Times' coverage of Rowan's role has been remarkable. It is sad to me that after forcing his alma mater, Penn, to oust a really good president for incredibly poor reasons, Rowan's megalomanical next thought was "maybe the federal government should do this everywhere" and they're actually trying.

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 3h

President who engaged in housing discrimination as landlord lays off housing discrimination staff

◥◤Kriston Capps @kristoncapps.bsky.social · 3h

HUD laid off so many fair housing investigators on Friday that it shuttered the regional offices that oversee discrimination cases in 9 states: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

HUD Issues Layoff Notices, Targeting Fair Housing Staff With Deep Cuts

Fair housing staffers who investigate claims of housing discrimination at field offices nationwide were among the hundreds of HUD staffers who received layoff notices.

www.bloomberg.com

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The New Republic @newrepublic.com · 3h

The Pentagon has to provide The New York Times information about Elon Musk’s security clearances, a federal judge ruled Wednesday—and the billionaire’s own posting habits helped decide the case. trib.al/f74QkIn

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Lena Sun @lenasun.bsky.social · 4h

NEW: @CDCgov hit hard by massive firings that several staff describe to me as a “bloodbath.”
Among those RIFd:
—leadership of the center for immunization and respiratory diseases;
—leadership of global health center
—leadership of the measles outbreak response; 1/4

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Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social · 4h

Like Bari Weiss being stuffed by a billionaire atop CBS to lie to normies, this is billionaires stuffing rightwing ideas into AI systems to lie to normies.

The whole fascist takeover of the US is built atop an information war.

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 5h

The administration “is currently pressuring OpenAI and other AI companies to make their models more conservative-friendly.”

OpenAI is trying to clamp down on ‘bias’ in ChatGPT

GPT-5 is better at resisting liberal ‘pressure,’ the company says.

www.theverge.com

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bob barker 🍸 @insortediaboli.bsky.social · 8h

“The president is being fed a steady diet of AI generated propaganda videos from his team so they can direct his energies and signatures towards their own goals” is a real and true statement about America in 2025

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 1d

I strongly urge everyone to not just read this warning from @marcwatkins.bsky.social, but heed it, and be vocal and forceful pushing back against using AI to grade student writing. This must be anathema if we're going to have a world where learning means something. substack.com/inbox/post/1...

The Dangers of using AI to Grade

Nobody Learns, Nobody Gains

substack.com

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Eric Michael Garcia @ericmgarcia.bsky.social · 3h

Some good news: Most people don't trust Trump and RFK Jr.'s claims about autism.
Just four percent of respondents told a KFF poll they believed the claim was definitely true, while 30 percent said it was probably false and 35 percent said it was definitely false
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

Only 4% of Americans think Trump claims about Tylenol and autism ‘definitely true’

Americans are largely divided on partisan lines on whether they trust the Trump administration’s health claims on autism and vaccines

www.independent.co.uk

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Jack Tripper @chadstanton.blacksky.app · 1d

“We should replace Bad Bunny with Lee Greenwood” is an also a perfect summation of the “deal” they’ve offered universities.

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Suzanne Conklin Akbari @sakbari.bsky.social · 4h

“Private equity billionaire Marc Rowan was revealed last week to be the driving force behind a Trump administration campaign pressuring nine major U.S. universities. Apollo Global Management, which Rowan co-founded in 1990, own[s] the for-profit University of Phoenix.”

Louise Seamster @louiseseamster.bsky.social · 6h

Private equity gets its toothhold into firms through economic squeezing, devalues them, then breaks them into parts to sell off. This compact is the squeeze that will simultaneously advantage for-profit ed *and* make it easier to PE-ify non-profit ed. The ideological component is a means to an end.

Louise Seamster @louiseseamster.bsky.social · 6h

an article with more context
www.republicreport.org/2025/billion...

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Leah Litman @leahlitman.bsky.social · 6h

More judges speak to the press (the NYT) about what a disaster the Supreme Court (specifically the shadow docket) has been - “incredibly demoralizing & troubling”; a “judicial crisis”; a “slap in the face to district courts.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/u...

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Albert Pinto @70sbachchan.bsky.social · 4h

Argentina edition of Libertarian bible

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Siva @sivav.bsky.social · 3h

newrepublic.com/article/2013...

Why This Essay Could Cause the University of Virginia to Shut Down

How Linda McMahon’s latest “compact” would do deep and permanent harm to American higher education

newrepublic.com

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Angie Rasmussen @angierasmussen.bsky.social · 14h

I don’t know who needs to hear this but the CDC is being eviscerated right now. America is not going to have any kind of outbreak response capacity after tonight. Americans’ health data is no longer secure. Say goodbye to federal public health in any capacity. It’s a disaster. We won’t recover.

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The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 4h

In an unusual acknowledgement, the Trump administration said that its immigration crackdown is hurting farmers and risking higher food prices for Americans by cutting off agriculture’s labor supply.

Trump administration says immigration enforcement threatens higher food prices

U.S. farmers face labor shortages and potential food price hikes due to Trump’s immigration policy, the administration acknowledged in a Federal Registry document.

wapo.st

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The People's Fabric @peoplesfabric.com · 4h

"Just grabbing people, checking IDs. They arrested like, what I seen, a bunch of people. They had vans and stuff like that.”

Immigration enforcement agents interrogate, detain rideshare drivers at O'Hare Airport

Federal agents detained several rideshare drivers on Friday at a parking lot at O'Hare International Airport, the latest target in immigration enforcement across Chicago.

www.cbsnews.com

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 4h

between this and the reports of proposed data centers that will consume more energy than the entire population of nyc, i just want to revisit this bit by james landay from a million years ago, back in .... ah, march 2025

What’s more, the idea that AI’s power demands will keep growing at the rates they have been recently is unrealistic, says James Landay, codirector of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. AI companies have an economic incentive to use power more efficiently. The recently released DeepSeek model indicated that robust models can be built with less power and therefore at a lower cost, he says. Many companies in the industry are already following DeepSeek’s lead, working on ways to make their models more efficient, he says.

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Siva @sivav.bsky.social · 5h

newrepublic.com/article/2013...

Why This Essay Could Cause the University of Virginia to Shut Down

How Linda McMahon’s latest “compact” would do deep and permanent harm to American higher education

newrepublic.com

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