An appeals court has sided with the EPA in the legal battle over termination of $20 billion in Biden-era climate grants, a major victory for the Trump administration’s bid to cancel hundreds of environmental grants and boost fossil fuel production.
Political Scientist (all views own), Visiting Assoc Prof @ Columbia SIPA; civ-mil relations, military orgs/manpower, public opinion, foreign policy, militarized policing, democratic theory, intl/natsec law, pol econ
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An appeals court has sided with the EPA in the legal battle over termination of $20 billion in Biden-era climate grants, a major victory for the Trump administration’s bid to cancel hundreds of environmental grants and boost fossil fuel production.
US is a federal system. Re: the division of labor over migration management today, one may assume the feds control the policy area. Three things to keep in mind: 1) the feds didn't always control the area; states did for a century before the Civil War. 1/
Today, 20+ senior national security leaders submitted their critique of the DOE's climate report -- "wholly inadequate" for tackling the security risks posed by climate change. Signees include the former Commandant of the Coast Guard, PACOM commander & AFRICOM commander. Read their comment here:
Argh who is this cutie??
Yes, it was carefully hidden in the New England Journal of Medicine. Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine (www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1... ) 1/2
Here are pics of my baby that I’ve now had for five months. Just because.
So happy I stumbled upon the National Constitution Center's Interactive Constitution. The text is accompanied by short essays from legal scholars (e.g., @stevevladeck.bsky.social ) explaining debates about the interpretation of various sections and clauses. constitutioncenter.org/the-constitu...
"the threat of homelessness is most acute not in the poorest regions of the country, but in the richest, fastest-growing ones. In places like these, a low-wage job is homelessness waiting to happen." There's no housing in Marin for those who earn less than $65K, which is more than most workers earn.
Enormous impoundment-related changes in Trump/Vought's Circular A-11 update from Friday, which is OMB's guidance to agencies They: -removed the definition of impoundment -said GAO's impoundment determinations don't matter -claimed pocket rescission authority -claimed profound deferral authority 🧵
The Guardian has today printed the names, and where possible, images, of all the media workers killed in Gaza, as part of an international day of action involving more than 150 media organisations. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...
ICYMI: For the 20th anniversary of Katrina's landfall, I did a special article: my personal recollections as NWS meteorologist-in-charge in Jackson, MS from the days leading up to and through landfall. Behind the scenes for an emotional journey through a historic event: tinyurl.com/4h2a23sf
This “explicit” is a weird editorial choice. The constitution gives the president no power over this at all. It’s not ambiguous.
The thing the mainstream media is not remembering about Hurricane Katrina is their own lethal, racist contribution to treating rumors as facts used to demonize the stranded in New Orleans, turning them from victims to be aided to enemies to be contained.
Right. Same thing as 2020 [see below].Through 2 debates and a session on Economics in Chicago during the 2024 campaign I never heard a reporter bring up the cost of the 2020 tariffs & the bailout to farmers WE paid for to cover Trump’s tariff folly. I’m sick of it. www.forbes.com/sites/stuart...
Yikes 😬 This is awful for Americans…especially small businesses. www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcn...
ICYMI, Social Security’s chief data officer reported that DOGE staff took actions that “constitute violations of laws, rules, and regulations, abuse of authority, gross mismanagement, and creation of a substantial and specific threat to public health & safety.” He was fired. Now this.
unbelievable. one of the very few graduate translation programs in the anglosphere is shut down. america is nothing if not INSULAR
House Republicans Want To Doxx Wikipedia Editors Over Bogus ‘Bias’ Complaints Congress has absolutely zero constitutional authority to investigate a private website for its editorial decisions. Zero. None. This is First Amendment 101. Yet House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and…
Tariff take job. www.startribune.com/iron-range-l...
Refugees in Kenya have died at food distribution centers, officials noted, including a pregnant woman crushed to death during a stampede. Aid workers said they expected more people to get hurt “as vulnerable households become increasingly desperate.” (Published May 2025)
This is the standard page and has been for a long time. Can I guarantee that it will work? No. Will the agency necessarily listen to you? No. But it can make a difference if the agency sees how much oppositiin there is to a change, and it can make a difference in subsequent court challenges.
The first ever successful & impactful cyber-physical attack on European critical infrastructure outside of Ukraine? “Russian hackers took control of a Norwegian dam this year, opening a floodgate and allowing water to flow unnoticed for four hours, Norway’s intelligence service has said.”
This looks amazing, Jason!
The Education Department has cut off funding for campus-based child care at more than a dozen colleges, accusing the schools of conflicting with the administration’s polices by teaching children about gender and race or prioritizing diversity in hiring.
This week, @bertiehb.bsky.social speaks to @mparrington.bsky.social, a senior scientist at @copernicusecmwf.bsky.social, about this year’s record-breaking wildfires, and the public health implications of increasing air pollution. Listen below: www.landclimate.org/have-wildfir...
The average American simply has no idea how quickly the infrastructure that keeps us safe and healthy is collapsing. These systems run in the background thanks to government employees who quietly do critical work. Those employees are being purged and systems are being destroyed.
Yikes, sorry 😳
@wearehighered.bsky.social
Whee! fortune.com/2025/08/28/t...
a scoopy one from me, with an assist from @accountable.us: Bill Pulte is using Palantir to gather "mortgage fraud" accusations and weaponize them against Dems in order to abet Trump's government capture. but, he formerly disclosed owning Palantir stock—and that's not his only potential conflict:
A dramatic, extremely worrying moment; over 61,000 people held in ICE detention. That is the highest number ever on record in United States history; roughly 6,000 higher than the previous record set under Trump six years ago, and over 21,000 higher than when Trump took office just seven months ago.
There are four main arguments for AI in education: 1. Efficiency, saving teachers time 2. Equity, making education inclusive 3. Improving outcomes by personalizing learning 4. It's inevitable Is it true? Nope. Micro 🧵
You can search by term, but be aware that the official name of the thing may be different from the way it’s discussed in the media. So it’s better if you know when the thing was opened for comment and can scroll through those looking for it.
You may see lots of news about federal agencies announcing a planned change and it being “open for public comment” … but where? Here: www.regulations.gov
Good point - it’s not easy to find: www.regulations.gov/document/FS-...
Comment here: www.regulations.gov/document/FS-...
NEW: Last week, oil literally rained down on a Black town in rural Louisiana where 60% of folks live in poverty. The company isn’t taking responsibility & the federal + state governments are saying residents have to clean it up themselves. capitalbnews.org/louisiana-oi...
Trump admin planning to change student visas from lasting for duration of academic program to fixed 4-yr term, and then much harder to renew Could destroy US ability to attract global talent, particularly those seeking advanced degrees in STEM. The median time to complete a PhD is 5.7 yrs per NSF.
Nearly all PhDs take 5 years--with finishing in 4 a rare outcome. This is deliberately designed to eliminate the international powerhouse that is US postgraduate training.
However evil you think this is, it’s worse: “The A.I. companies selected to oversee the program would have a strong financial incentive to deny claims. Medicare plans to pay them a share of the savings generated from rejections.”
Vaccines are scrupulously and rigorously researched, trialed, tested and continuously monitored. I get a little tired repeating this but it’s important. They are not the villain but the potentially fatal diseases they prevent are. I and my colleagues have seen them all.
The only reason to lift the rule is to allow private companies to log, mine, or otherwise develop on public lands, threatening more/worse fire, water pollution, wildlife/biodiversity destruction, etc.
This article links to a study and does a good job explaining some of the dynamics. Importantly, responsible fire mgmt can be done under the current conditions; it does not require lifting the Roadless Rule. www.latimes.com/environment/...
Comment period is OPEN! Express your thoughts about rescinding the Roadless Rule! Note 1: MORE forest fires start near roads, bc the #1 cause of forest fires is humans Note 2: clear cutting and logging generally actually reduce forest resilience to fire apple.news/AC1r2TR7fQlG...
Our comment on the DOE CWG report is done. It tips the scales at 439 pages, approx. 3x longer than the DOE report. This is related to Brandolini's law: The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it. Example: refuting one sentence.
ICE officials are using artificial intelligence to generate leads for immigration raids, which have sometimes sent agents to the wrong house. www.reuters.com/legal/govern...
In Helsinki, the court case against the #EagleS captain and 1st and 2nd officers started yesterday. Iltalehti reports that 🇫🇮 police wiretapped the crew after detaining them and intercepted instructions by the operator to tamper with evidence: www.iltalehti.fi/kotimaa/a/f4... (Google transl. text)
That sounds like a very cool project!
The NYT story about the DOGE breach has additional details and is even more alarming, which you might not have thought was possible. Via Nick Nehamas Free link: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/u...
Deforestation has killed half a million people in past 20 years, study finds
Thank you for your service
My sister in Christ. Let us all hope.
We accept lawyers as friends, and historians. We’re not sure we understand what sociologists are saying but we’re willing to learn.
And neither of us thought our niche interest in the National Guard and reserves would make us The Only Political Scientists Who Know Stuff About The Guard, so if you are in our club and we don’t know you reach out! We are nice.
And I didn’t think my dissertation-era competence in comparative industrial policy would ever be relevant to the US but here we are!
Not gonna lie I really didn't think my dissertation on interservice rivalry and the unification debates was going to become relevant again in this specific way
Ouch 😬
Don’t worry, having grown up with Marines I make fun of the Navy, too.
Haha no I checked Does the Dog Die and apparently it does so no Rambo movie for me unless I can have someone tell me when not to watch
SOOOO changing the name to War Dept wouldn’t be “changing it back”, it’s subsuming the Navy and Marines (and Air Force/Space Force) into the Army! This aggression shall not stand! BEAT ARMY n.b. I did Army ROTC so I’m allowed to make fun of them
After the war, the Army drew back down significantly, but with the onset of the Korean/Cold War, the Army grew again and then stayed fairly large even during “peacetime”; for the first time in US history we had a huge standing peacetime Army, and the Dept of Defense became a major political player
Once he was made the first secretary of defense, however, he advocated for MORE power/authority and a larger staff in order to manage the unruly Navy, which is partly why the 1949 amendment happened.
Forrestal, as secretary of the Navy, thought this was a terrible idea and fought it tooth and nail to try to maintain the Navy’s independence and budgetary clout, but he did not succeed.
Into the National Military Establishment (Natl Security Act of 1947), but then in 1949 that act was amended, remaming the NME to the Department of Defense and giving the Secretary of Defense significantly more power …
sorry, for non-nerds: Originally we had the Dept of the Navy and the Dept or War (Army). Navy was around all the time; Army was tiny & marginal except when we had a war. After WWII, in which the Army and Navy famously fought each other almost as much as they fought the axis, they were combined …
Trump on deploying the National Guard to Chicago: "I have the right to do anything I want to do. I'm the president of the United States."
In poli sci, "the top 20% of departments produced 75% of all faculty and the bottom 50% accounted for less than 5% of all tenure track faculty members at a research university. 49 programs did not have a single graduate placed in a TT position at a PhD-granting department in the past 10 years."
I honestly can’t wait to see how the Navy reacts to 1. The admin trying to change the name to Dept of War and 2. The claim that it was the War Dept (and apparently the War Dept alone) that won the two world wars. This is Naval Erasure!! Forrestal is rolling in his grave!!
Excited to see what novel legal theory SCOTUS comes up with to say this attempted removal is consistent with their ruling from 3 months ago that explicitly said he didn’t have the authority to do this.
Yes, the stakes here are large. Very large.
Fully support
The reason why older generations burnt the shit out of their meat and boiled the shit out of their vegetables, was your kid died if you didn't. Medium rare steaks and roasted Brussels sprouts are a side effect of an intact food safety infrastructure
Bc the sidearm is not the normal weapon for anyone except officers, some NCOs, and MPs.
The M17
Called it guard.io/labs/scamlex...
But not normally with this weapon
“A Texas County Cuts Over 100 Polling Sites as Trump Attacks Mail-In Voting Nationally” electionlawblog.org?p=151740
He is also completely wrong. 55 million is the total number of people in the entire world who hold visas which allow them to enter the United States.
This hasn't gotten nearly enough attention. In earlier times, officials even LOOKING at confidential files was considered a major scandal. Today a Trump crony is scouring mortgage files to find dirt on the president's political enemies and it's being greeted with "New allegations emerge!"
This is about the concept of "continuous immigration vetting," an idea from Trump's first term. Rather than having people be checked for compliance at specific interactions with the government such as a visa renewals, there would be an automated system running constant checks.
SMASHES REPOST BUTTON
on mail-in ballots, which are very nasty and unfair to mr. donald j trump
Like. Doesn't anyone else think it's weird how the UK farm sector says "farming is SO HARD, that's why crops always fail & we're forced to import food" meanwhile the Dutch are right across the North Sea with similar weather & soil, even worse flooding, and way less land …exporting food to the UK
Dear political economists of BlueSky, I’m looking for something I can assign to students that goes through the different types of industrial policy (ISI, export-growth, infant industry, etc) and discusses the conditions under which they succeed (or not). Any articles? Chapters? Blog posts? ❤️
Anything @marknevitt.bsky.social writes in this field is worth reading
During the 1970s, an arson wave ravaged poor communities across the US. Some lost 80% of their housing. Residents were blamed. In reality, landlords—paid by insurers and enabled by the state—drove this arson-for-profit epidemic. I reviewed @benchansfield.bsky.social's revelatory BORN IN FLAMES:
I’m sorry but I’m still stuck on Grammarly marketing a service to students to psychologically profile professors and rewrite work based on the results and it’s barely made a splash. However effective, even the attempt is just anti-learning. It’s cultivating sycophancy, not thinking.
Look, this is a little outside of my area of expertise, and it’s more of a human health issue than a fisheries sustainability issue But in my professional opinion, you should not eat radioactive shrimp. (And while I have your attention, lots of shrimp are caught or farmed in unsustainable ways)
International students also *make the experience of college better* for US students. Squeezing out international students will make the university experience smaller and more expensive, and set off a chain reaction that puts some of them out of business.
MIT’s NANDA initiative found that 95% of generative AI deployments fail after interviewing 150 execs, surveying 350 workers, and analyzing 300 projects. The real “productivity gains” seem to come from layoffs and squeezing more work from fewer people not AI.
As of late last month, the investigation—led by US senator Jon Ossoff, a Democrat of Georgia—had unearthed 41 cases of physical and sexual abuse; 14 involving pregnant detainees and 18 involving children.
🚨New paper from our colleague @dianebolet.bsky.social and co-author @florianfoos.bsky.social: Media interviews with extreme-right activists normalise their ideas. 👉 Uncritical interviews ↑ agreement & perceived support 👉 Critical interviews ↓ persuasion but still raise perceptions of popularity
“With no stated goal, and with an acquiescent Congress and Supreme Court, the country could end up with the U.S. military occupying its major cities before most Americans realize what’s happening.” www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...
WELL NOW, would you look at that? A massive, 24-YEAR-LONG study of MORE THAN 1.2 MILLION people in Denmark found NO LINK between aluminum in childhood vaccines and autism, asthma, OR chronic disorders. Aluminum is an ADJUVANT. It ENHANCES your immune response to a vaccine. That’s it.
Attacking federal employees and making data disappear are two themes of this administration. So this is a twofer: the annual survey of federal employees has been cancelled. Obvious reason is to hide big declines in worker morale, engagement and satisfaction. federalnewsnetwork.com/workforce/20...
Late last night I mapped crime rates for cities in OH, SC and WV to show how often they exceeded the rate in DC — where those states’ governors are sending National Guard troops to “combat crime.” www.pbump.net/o/more-peopl...
