Personal Account. Carol Kakalec Kohn Professor of Social Policy. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. I ❤️ surveys. I 😖Administrative Burden. My views do not represent the views of my lovely employer!
New, from me: It is fine to disagree with aspects of the pandemic response. But what we saw at Fauci's hearing was something different: a show trial where cranks tried to threaten and shift blame to an public servant. Here is why this is bad for all of us.🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/watching-t...
Watching the show trialsAnthony Fauci and the politics of retributiondonmoynihan.substack.comVery excited for this new essay at "Can We Still Govern?": The key claim is that planning for a progressive future cannot just focus on new policies. It also has to include - to start with - political power. What does a power-shifting perspective look like? 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/rebuilding...
Rebuilding Democracy Requires Rebalancing PowerWhat does a power-shifting agenda look like?donmoynihan.substack.com
I remember seeing someone (very reasonably) complaining here a few days ago that there seems to be next to no visible thinking on left and center about how to join the dots on administration and democracy. This is the beginnings of an answer to that complaint donmoynihan.substack.com/p/rebuilding...
Rebuilding Democracy Requires Rebalancing PowerWhat does a power-shifting agenda look like?donmoynihan.substack.com
They were both born in Rochester Hills how the fuck is the Muslim not a Michigander
RavWhat the fuck?? “While Mr. El-Sayed is fringy and radical, he’s also a Muslim man. Ms. Stevens is a white woman. This puts her at a disadvantage in the identity Olympics that internal Democratic Party politics have become.” www.wsj.com/opinion/free...
UKHSA report shows 2,877 excess deaths caused by May and June 2026 heatwaves, up from 1,500 last year. Need a fundamental rethink about the design of infrastructure, homes, shops, workplaces. Need maximum workplace temperature laws to protect workers. Voluntary codes won't give enforceable rights.
UKHSA report shows 2,877 excess deaths caused by May and June heatwavesThe 2,877 excess deaths represents a significant increase on the 1,504 excess deaths observed in summer 2025.www.gov.ukPrem SikkaHeat-related deaths are rising in the UK, likely to double this year. Could be tackled by laws specifying maximum temperature for workplaces. Countries such as Spain and Belgium have such laws, give workers enforceable rights. What will the UK govt do? Watch the Minister's reply.
man I will just never get over the fact that the collective response to the pandemic, and an absolutely miraculous vaccine development, was to destroy public health in this country and smear everyone involved I generally take a positive view of humanity overall but it's so depressing
Aaron RuparMoreno to Fauci: "Who the fuck did you think you were?"
Not personal: e.g. IMO, this work is incoherent, superficial and badly-written. Personal: e.g. You're ugly. You're hideous. Your tattoos are ugly. You're a bitter old woman. You're jealous. You're evil. You're ungrateful. You should shut up forever. I hope you die. I hope this helps!
BREAKING WSJ: The Trump admin plans to end a subsidy program that helped hold down premiums for Medicare drug plans — a move that could leave many seniors facing higher rates for their prescription coverage next year.
Exclusive | Trump Administration to End Medicare Drug Plan SubsidyProgram that held down premiums won’t be renewed for 2027, resulting in higher costs for some seniors.www.wsj.com
This today's piece in which I bemoan what Trump is doing to make government worse instead of better, and reference a @donmoyn.bsky.social and @pamherd.bsky.social newsletter on administrative burdens and how to make this issue matter in politics. www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-is-m...
Trump Is Making Government Worse on PurposeInstead of seeking to simplify and improve citizens’ lives, this administration keeps creating new obstacles and burdens.www.thebulwark.comDon MoynihanGreat piece: it raises one of the questions that haunts me. What if we invest a ton of effort in making government work better, but political leaders simply are fine with it failing?
Finally posted an ad for the postdoc position on my new NSF-funded project—come help build a new method to study plants' responses to environmental variation in space and over time, and figure out interesting ways to use it! Apply by 23 August to ensure consideration. Details: buff.ly/qTvaqvD
I suffered through Kratsios' answer to Science: the Endless Frontier. The NYT summary is good, but there's more to it. And I should say that I welcome improvements to the scientific enterprise (which is why I'm participating in @alondra.bsky.social and Jenny Reardon's Public's Science project). 🧵
Trump’s Plan for Science: More Money for A.I., Less for Universities (Gift Article)Michael Kratsios, President Trump’s science adviser, proposed overhauling how the government funds research. Democrats said Mr. Trump’s actions had weakened science.www.nytimes.com
Stephen Miller said just the other day that all asylum claims are "fake." A couple deported from the U.S. to Guatemala were gagged, bound, and shot dead. Their 14-month old found crying next to their mother's body. People like Miller don't care though because this is the point: ethnic cleansing.
Overland couple shot dead in Guatemala after local ICE stop led to deportationsThe couple’s 14-month-old daughter was found crying beside her mother’s body in a sugarcane field last week, according to Guatemalan authorities and media.www.stlpr.org
“It is one thing if higher education is facing a lack of public confidence but other American institutions remain popular. It is quite another thing if all American institutions are facing a crisis of confidence, and higher education is just one among many.”
Tom PepinskyMy thoughts on the crisis of confidence in higher education, and the foolish belief that embracing technology is the solution to that crisis. tompepinsky.com/2026/07/27/t...
Every Republican who (correctly) demanded Graham Platner’s withdrawal should be demanding Max Miller resign and not stand for re-election
George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸“Two detectives, an Ohio county Division of Children and Family Services (DCFS) caseworker, and a Cleveland Clinic physician met on Zoom to discuss how the 2-year-old daughter of a congressman and granddaughter of a US senator wound up with a broken collarbone... www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
And no school has to cut those scholarships. None of those state laws or executive orders hold up if they fight.
Big Ol’ Mush“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...
NEW: The Trump administration’s slashing of the federal workforce has hurt the ability of the Census Bureau and other federal statistical agencies to keep producing reliable data about the U.S. population and economy, an @amstatnews.bsky.social report finds www.amstat.org/docs/default...
www.amstat.org
Yesterday, @asanews.bsky.social announced that, due to cuts in funding from the National Science Foundation, it will no longer run its Dissertation Research Improvement Grants. The consequences of these funding cuts to science and the future research capacity of the US will be staggering.
“Our results show a fundamental mismatch between the justifications for intensified immigration enforcement and the empirical patterns of that enforcement’s implementation. The majority of those arrested by ICE in the second Trump administration had no criminal conviction at arrest.”
Chloe N East (she/her)My paper is out today in PNAS documenting how ICE activity in Trump 2.0 compares to the last 10 years and the mismatch between the action and the rhetoric. Joint with the fabulous @caitlinpatler.bsky.social and @elizabethacox.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...