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NightMar on Hicks Street, Part 4: The Rabbit’s Revenge @histoftech.bsky.social · 12h

The Virginia Senate just told UVA it’s not getting state funding if it accepts the compact since UVA exists to serve Virginia, its residents, & their interests—not be a tool of the federal govt. Scoop from our student newspaper, who’ve been doing vital reporting www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...

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Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 11h

AI “summaries” are not summaries but slop

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Alex @mplsalex.bsky.social · 11h

I dunno, feels like reaching the “hiding your neighbors from the masked secret police” stage of things in like 9 months doesn’t bode well for the next couple of years.

Sophie Sherry @sophiesherry.bsky.social · 14h

During a military-style raid on a building in Chicago’s South Shore, one resident heard a knock on his door.   It wasn’t the feds — it was a mom and her 7-year-old daughter, pleading for help.

He let them hide in his unit for the next 3 days.

chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

Neighbor shielded 7-year-old during South Shore federal raid: ‘I didn’t want them to take her’

During the Sept. 30 raid one tenant protected a terrified girl and her mom. Remnants at the complex, including a detailed map of all the units, offer clues to what authorities may have known before th...

chicago.suntimes.com

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Ryan Anderson @anthropologia.bsky.social · 5h

It just keeps going!! Unreal.

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Ryan Anderson @anthropologia.bsky.social · 11h

Portland, not burning: isportlandburning.com#factcheck

Is Portland Burning?

No. See real-time Portland cameras, PulsePoint incidents, and sourced fact checks.

isportlandburning.com

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Ryan Anderson @anthropologia.bsky.social · 11h

TIL someone set up a whole site to debunk these claims about Portland burning to the ground: isportlandburning.com#factcheck

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 11h

If I lived in Portland I’d be filming daily videos of the reality there and sending them to every single person in my contacts.

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Alex @purplechrain.bsky.social · 11h

Just checked with my sister in Portland AND with this website and it appears that, once again, Portland is not burning.

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 11h

The president says there are very few stores left in Portland, Oregon, and the ones that are left are made of plywood.

I know we’re numb to this, but in any other time he’d have been removed by the 25th Amendment by now

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 11h

Trump: "Portland, I mean -- every time I look at that place it's burning down. There are fires all over the place. When a store -- there are very few of them left -- but when a store owner rebuilds a store they build it out of plywood. They don't put up storefronts anymore. They just put wood up."

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Ryan Anderson @anthropologia.bsky.social · 15h

Ugh this kind of stuff is depressing. I also ran into the whole bot/survey problem a couple years ago and it made me want to give up: www.preprints.org/manuscript/2...

www.preprints.org

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Lisa Messeri @lmesseri.bsky.social · 19h

The president of MIT has declined to sign "the compact". Full letter, as shared with the MIT community:

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%.

• 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

cc
Ms. May Mailman
Mr. Vincent Haley

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Ryan Anderson @anthropologia.bsky.social · 16h

And also the associated problem of trusting people to delete the files when all is said and done. Back in the 80s you got the negatives and that was that.

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 17h

Important thread:

Lauren MacIvor Thompson @lmacthompson1.bsky.social · 17h

I am writing this because it has swiftly become crystal clear to me that many people have no idea what is happening or how this works. Here is a thread for non-academics to put into context what just happened to Dr. Mark Bray, a fellow historian.

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Molly Knight @mollyknight.bsky.social · 18h

if you want to cheer for a team that has never even made the World Series and represents one of the funnest cities on earth, may I humbly suggest the Seattle Mariners:

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Ryan Anderson @anthropologia.bsky.social · 17h

The whole situation with Dr. Bray really illustrates just how much all those claims (by certain folks) about supporting free speech were just completely hollow. He and his family have fled the country because of harassment and threats. This is where we are right now.

Lauren MacIvor Thompson @lmacthompson1.bsky.social · 17h

I am writing this because it has swiftly become crystal clear to me that many people have no idea what is happening or how this works. Here is a thread for non-academics to put into context what just happened to Dr. Mark Bray, a fellow historian.

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Lauren MacIvor Thompson @lmacthompson1.bsky.social · 17h

I am writing this because it has swiftly become crystal clear to me that many people have no idea what is happening or how this works. Here is a thread for non-academics to put into context what just happened to Dr. Mark Bray, a fellow historian.

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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 1d

www.wweek.com/culture/2025...

Can you put into words what that purpose is? You and the frog have really become icons of this protest.

There’s been a nice overall whimsy that has shown up. The frog is amazing. We had a bunch of other inflatable people here last night, too. I saw people playing Twister the other day.

What they rely on is fear. So by coming out in an absurdist manner, it speaks to them, to some extent, that we’re actually not that afraid.

It also dismantles their narrative a little bit. When they try to describe this situation as “war-torn,” it becomes much harder to take them seriously when they have to post a video saying [U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security] Kristi Noem is up on the balcony staring over the Antifa Army and it’s, like, eight journalists and five protesters and one of them is in a chicken suit.

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Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 1d

in case you wanted to read something not from this administration about what antifa is and isn't

buttondown.com/theswordandt...

We Keep Us Safe: On Antifa

This past Saturday, Donald Trump announced that his administration would be deploying federal troops to Portland, OR, authorizing the military to use “full...

buttondown.com

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Molly Knight @mollyknight.bsky.social · 1d

Feel for Orion Kerkering, man.

His error isn’t why the Phillies lost. They lost because they scored one run.

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Molly Knight @mollyknight.bsky.social · 1d

The Phillies are a great team. Maybe the best team.

One mistake. What a heartbreak.

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David Burbach 🌹 @dburbach.bsky.social · 1d

For professional reasons I should have listened to that "antifa summit" yesterday, but I learned here DHS Sec. Noem, the govt's authoritative voice on such matters, said -- literally -- 'antifa' is just as organized, sophisticated, and dangerous as Hezbollah, ISIS, or Hamas.

The Daily Show @thedailyshow.com · 1d

The following is REAL footage from Portland, 2025. Viewer discretion is advised.

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Ryan Anderson @anthropologia.bsky.social · 1d

What's also maddening about this is that it's not like it's super hard to find out what he actually did and said. It wasn't some deep secret. TPUSA was uh, pretty loud about what it was doing.

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Ryan Anderson @anthropologia.bsky.social · 1d

👇👇👇

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 1d

There’s a reason academics universally rejected the initial push to canonize Charlie Kirk as a saint devoted to free speech.

We know all too well that’s the exact opposite of reality.

Matt Gabriele @profgabriele.com · 1d

I know this case is all over - & it should be - but Turning Point USA has waged a harassment campaign against faculty for more than a decade. I know of at least a half dozen other faculty, personally, who have received death threats and several of those who felt so unsafe they too left their homes

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Matt Gabriele @profgabriele.com · 1d

I know this case is all over - & it should be - but Turning Point USA has waged a harassment campaign against faculty for more than a decade. I know of at least a half dozen other faculty, personally, who have received death threats and several of those who felt so unsafe they too left their homes

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 1d

Are we great yet?

Mark Bray, a Rutgers University professor and expert on anti-fascist groups, is fleeing to Spain with his family due to death threats that stem from a campaign by Turning Point USA and other conservative groups to get him fired, falsely labeling him as an antifa member.

Antifa expert at Rutgers University says he is moving to Spain because of death threats

An expert on anti-fascist groups who teaches at New Jersey’s flagship state university is moving his family overseas.

apnews.com

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 1d

There’s a reason academics universally rejected the initial push to canonize Charlie Kirk as a saint devoted to free speech.

We know all too well that’s the exact opposite of reality.

Matt Gabriele @profgabriele.com · 1d

I know this case is all over - & it should be - but Turning Point USA has waged a harassment campaign against faculty for more than a decade. I know of at least a half dozen other faculty, personally, who have received death threats and several of those who felt so unsafe they too left their homes

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 1d

Are we great yet?

Mark Bray, a Rutgers University professor and expert on anti-fascist groups, is fleeing to Spain with his family due to death threats that stem from a campaign by Turning Point USA and other conservative groups to get him fired, falsely labeling him as an antifa member.

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