Liza Shapiro, PhD

My take on why many (white) progressives say that Israel is making the US go to war is that they would very much prefer that to be the case than to have to examine their own culpability and participation in America's white supremacist militaristic reality.

So much easier if it's outsiders.

a pack of kittens closes in a a large dog standing on a chair

David Attenborough [whispering]:

“As the predators close in on their helpless prey, we can only watch in silent horror, for it is not man’s role to interfere in the hierarchy of nature.”

a white orb covered in black speckles and spots rests on a dark sofa cushion. the left side is a dalmatian’s face, tucked in toward her haunches with her thin tail wrapped up to hug her face. she is looking at the camera with one sleepy brown eye.

This is Koyuki. Please do not disturb her. She's in ice cream scoop mode right now. Needs to focus. 12/10 (IG: fuji_bull)

this is what conservative students on university campuses really want: the freedom to say Nazi slogans, the n-word and call for violently killing Black people and more, without consequences of any kind. No protest from fellow students, faculty or admin. Utter impunity to be hateful little prats

“The Epstein class sexually abuses women and girls with impunity.” “The Epstein class covers up sexual abuses.” “The Epstein class work together to punish people who speak out against what they’re doing.” Look, “the Epstein class” is men.

Definitely the first State of the Union where the president talked about the military killing unarmed fishermen as a laugh line

I propose to make universal the old policy of the Blackfriars conference at the American Shakespeare Center:

If you do not end your paper on time, you will be forced to exit, pursued by a bear. Literally, a bear will come take your paper from you.

Iranian protesters don't owe us an explanation Without anti-authoritarianism, 'anti-imperialism' is just conservatism with left-wing aesthetics

My latest: Without anti-authoritarianism, 'anti-imperialism' is just conservatism with left-wing aesthetics

www.hauntologies.net/p/iranian-pr...

FAMU can't use the word Black on anything posted around campus related to Black History Month, to stay in compliance with Florida state laws against DEI. Black students can't use the word Black at their Historically Black College during Black History Month.

Pour one out for every professional political pundit, writer, consultant whatever that has spent the last decade trying to pretend that the Trump phenomenon was about trade or opiates and not a big chunk of white america losing its mind over having a black president bsky.app/profile/kyle...

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This indifference or enthusiasm for sexual violence is a cultural pathology born of misogyny, not a peculiar or unique degeneracy of the rich. You know people who have responded to rape like that.

the reason DHS officers wear masks is because it allows them to commit crimes with impunity. there is literally no legitimate reason for it.

Nope. Son of Holocaust survivor. My father was 11 when the Nazis invaded his hometown in eastern Poland. He survived only by fleeing to a different city with a false baptismal certificate. The comparison is apt. Carry on.

JD Vance @JDVance X.com Today we remember the millions of lives lost during the Holocaust, the millions of stories of individual bravery and heroism, and one of the enduring lessons of one of the darkest chapters in human history: that while humans create beautiful things and are full of compassion, we're also capable of unspeakable brutality. And we promise never again to go down the darkest path.

Legitimately a feat of carefully calculated writing to issue a Holocaust Remembrance Day statement of this length without mentioning either (1) the people who perpetrated the Holocaust or (2) the people against whom they perpetrated it

Tweet from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum: "Anne Frank was targeted and murdered solely because she was Jewish. Leaders making false equivalencies to her experience for political purposes is never acceptable. Despite tensions in Minneapolis, exploiting the Holocaust is deeply offensive, especially as antisemitism surges."

The US Holocaust Museum being more outraged by Tim Walz saying that, like Anne Frank, children today are in hiding from armed agents of the state, than they are about the fact that children are in hiding from armed agents of the state, is why Holocaust remembrance culture is in crisis.

To be fair when it happened in Germany, my grandparents were probably also too busy correcting other people's historical comparisons to do anything about it.

Just started doing new data analysis and I know I keep saying this, but: I really, really don't think people appreciate how much this moral panic was a deliberate and extremely expensive invention.

just gonna throw out a quick reminder that in America police kill a yearly average of 3 civilians per day, routinely in situations very similar to these ICE killings, and decades of explicit support for police impunity by US politicians is why ICE feels theyre able to get away with this right now

Ed tech is profitable. It is also mostly useless Independent research identifies few learning gains

Blistering piece on ed tech in @economist.com.

‘Although ed-tech companies tout huge learning gains, independent research has made clear that technology rarely boosts learning in schools—and often impairs it.’
economist.com/united-state...

ICE budget set to triple to $30 billion in 2026. Trump request: $11 billion, plus estimated $19 billion from reconciliation bill. The red line chart shows gradual increase in the ICE budget from 2016 to 2025, before skyrocketing to a projected $30 billion in 2026. 2026 estimate based on Trump's budget request and White House documents stating that 25% of reconciliation homeland security funding is for 2026.

Most of this year's ICE budget comes from last year's reconciliation bill. House Democratic leaders discouraged its members from offering amendments eliminating that funding. Didn't want the party to come across as anti-ICE.

www.stephensemler.com/p/ice-budget...

The New York Times When a Coat Becomes a Symbol of Conflict How the choice of outerwear for Gregory Bovino, the president’s Border Patrol chief, turned into part of the deportation story.

Gregory Bovino Der ICE-Kommandant im Nazi-Look Martialisch und effektheischend, so tritt ICE-Kommandant Gregory Bovino gern auf. 22.01.2026, 17.09 Uhr

the nyt style section vs. der spiegel

I’m seeing posts from people (outside of MN) about how US citizens should carry their passports.

And let me say that *inside* MN, we are calmly responding to requests with: “No, I don’t have to show you any documentation.”

Because that’s how you protect everyone, regardless of immigration status.

I mean, here we have a feel-good story of ordinary defiance. Pushing back against hate. But you, the reader, may know (as I did not) who Mark Harris is and that his husband is in fact legendary American dramatist Tony Kushner. This would be like if Saul Bellow or Joan Didion told you to get fucked.

the problem with an untrained secret police squad that shoots people in their cars isn’t that they’re untrained

Unrelated to sword but that haircut is super cute.

We wanted to understand what's going on in Iran. So we talked to three unvaccinated Joe Rogan listeners at an Arby's in Scranton.