Peter Thiel is building a parallel justice system — Powered by AI - Coda Story His investment in Objection.ai points to a new model: private investigations, AI verdicts, and accountability mechanisms that operate outside democratic institutions.

Recommended reading from @nicdawes.bsky.social.

Making the Liberal Media | Columbia University Press Conservatives have disagreed about many things, but they have long been united by the belief that the mainstream—or “liberal”—media is biased against... | CUP

As I argue, it’s never enough. No amount of conservative shifts of editorial policy or pandering to the right will stop them from believing the press is against them. They don’t want a voice, they want control.

cup.columbia.edu/book/making-...

Donald Trump truth social post. I’m winning a War, BY A LOT, things are going very well, our Military has been amazing and, if you read the Fake News, like The Failing New York Times, the absolutely horrendous and disgusting Wall Street Journal, or the now almost defunct, fortunately, Washington Post, you would actually think we are losing the War. The enemy is confused, because they get these same Media “reports,” and yet they realize their Navy has been completely wiped out, their Air Force has gone onto darker runways, they have no Anti Missile or Anti Airplane Equipment, their former leaders are mostly gone (This has been, in addition to everything else, Regime Change!), and perhaps, most important of all, THE BLOCKADE, which we will not take off until there is a “DEAL,” is absolutely destroying Iran. They are losing $500 Million Dollars a day, an unsustainable number, even in the short run. The Anti-America Fake News Media is rooting for Iran to win, but it’s not going to happen, because I’m in charge! Just like these unpatriotic people used every ounce of their limited strength to fight me in the Election, they continue to do so with Iran. The result will be the same — It already is! President DONALD J. TRUMP

The Anti-America Fake News Media is rooting for Iran to win, but it’s not going to happen, because I’m in charge! Just like these unpatriotic people used every ounce of their limited strength to fight me in the Election, they continue to do so with Iran. The result will be the same — It already is! President DONALD J. TRUMP

The Agnew of it all aside, it is interesting that he is celebrating the downfall of WaPo, given that its decline is largely attributable to Bezos’ MAGA realignment.

The Onion Has a New Plan to Take Over Infowars

SCOOP with Elizabeth Williamson: The Onion has a new plan to take over Infowars. It has entered into an agreement to license the Infowars brand and plans to operate it as a comedy site. A Texas judge must approve the deal.

www.nytimes.com/2026/04/20/b...

"This sauce has almost no flavor. Kind of tastes like a more watery ketchup. I wish grandma was still alive."

Why Yale’s term paper on what’s wrong with college gets a ‘D-’ | Will Bunch An Ivy League university's report on the loss of faith in higher ed ignores what really killed the American Dream of college.

That Yale report on what's wrong with U.S. college saw some trees (high cost, unfair admission, etc.) but missed the forest: the 60-year right-wing crusade to undermine higher ed, from slashing budgets to stifling speech

How to really fix college. My new column www.inquirer.com/opinion/yale...

Iris Long, Scientific Mentor to AIDS Activists, Dies at 92

It’s hard to express how important Iris was to ACT UP’s scientific development. She was the catalyst who started it all. Iris Long, Scientific Mentor to AIDS Activists, Dies at 92 www.nytimes.com/2026/04/17/h...

A line of books at a table

If you’re at OAH and haven’t picked up a copy of my new book yet, the Columbia UP table has MAKING THE LIBERAL MEDIA for sale!

Making the Liberal Media | Columbia University Press Conservatives have disagreed about many things, but they have long been united by the belief that the mainstream—or “liberal”—media is biased against... | CUP

And if you’re not, you can find it here! (Use discount code CUP20 to save $7)

cup.columbia.edu/book/making-...

A line of books at a table

If you’re at OAH and haven’t picked up a copy of my new book yet, the Columbia UP table has MAKING THE LIBERAL MEDIA for sale!

The idea that this was staged is farfetched. I think the reason Team Trump was secretive on some of the details related to the shooting has a simpler and less conspiratorial explanation: his injuries were extremely superficial, but his team wanted to exaggerate them for sympathy/narrative reasons.

MAGA Is Increasingly Convinced the Trump Assassination Attempt Was Staged Conspiracy theories about the Butler, Pennsylvania, shooting have ramped up in recent weeks as once steadfast Trump supporters turn on the president.

NEW:

Much of MAGA is now convinced that the Trump assassination attempt in Butler, PA was staged

www.wired.com/story/maga-i...

Article spotlight, Framing Gaza: Medical Journals and the destruction of Healthcare, by Osama Tanous, Yara Asi, Weeam Hammoudeh, David Mills, Bram Wispelwey, published in the Communication, Culture and Critique special issue "Palestine as Communicative Epistemology," edited by Paula Chakravartty, Karma R. Chavez, Dina Matar; Volume 19, Issue 1 (March 2026)

introduction: Since October 2023, people across the globe have witnessed daily images of Palestinians in Gaza facing unfathomable horrors including attacks on hospitals, patients, and healthcare workers. As the genocide has unfolded, several fronts have emerged far beyond the Gaza Strip such as attacks on freedom of expression and protest, international solidarity, journalistic integrity, and academic freedom. In the medical field, the focus of this study, multiple health workers have been fired or silenced for speaking up against the genocide. This article explores medical journals as a medium of generating knowledge about the health conditions, and the attacks on healthcare during the Gaza genocide.

Abstract: A main feature of the Israeli genocide in Gaza has been the systematic destruction of the healthcare system. The Israeli military has methodologically generated conditions that drive disease, disability, and death, while simultaneously dismantling the capability of the health system to respond. Despite a purported emphasis on issues such as health equity and social determinants of health, many influential medical bodies across the world have failed to condemn these attacks on healthcare, let alone take meaningful steps for advocacy and accountability.

Abstract continued: The authors analyze academic articles in medical journals to examine how anti-Palestinian racism dehumanizes Palestinian healthcare workers and hinders meaningful institutional solidarity. They find that violence against Palestinians is often obscured, overlooked, or justified, and argue that journal framing helps the continued targeting of healthcare infrastructure, effectively creating a 'permission structure' for mass atrocities.

How do we account for the normalization of bombing civilian infrastructures like hospitals in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran?

Read this urgent intervention by medical doctors and public health scholars on the culpability of medical journals.

Free, open access article here:

doi.org/10.1093/ccc/...

The Yale report on trust in higher education has some good recommendations for reforms in many areas that I hope Yale and other schools implement.

But its diagnosis is oddly silent about what I suspect is the most important force driving the decline in trust in higher education: political attack.

The idea that universities ”tend to exclude conservative intellectual traditions” is off base on two fronts: 1) how are “conservative intellectual traditions” relevant to the most of the popular majors and faculty research areas, such as computer science, engineering, the natural sciences?/1

Elite institutions like Yale crank out a steady stream of conservative politicians, lawyers, and think tankers. How could an institution that “excludes” conservatives be so effective at conservative elite reproduction?

Still pretty stunned that humor is now a routine and central component of war propaganda.

"A letter from Saint Marsellus to the Gimp."

If he’s such a big Tarantino fan maybe we should call him Feet Hegseth.

Students in the Texas Tech system (64k, give or take) are now PROHIBITED from researching or writing anything "centered on" sexual orientation or gender identity as part of an undergrad honors or graduate thesis. Not faculty, mind you. Students.

In a blatant 1st Amendment violation, students in the Texas Tech University system are completely banned from researching or writing anything related to sexual orientation or gender identity as part of their thesis.

Secretary Hegseth on Wednesday shared a custom prayer, referenced as the CSAR prayer, used by the brave warfighters of Sandy-1 who led the daylight rescue mission of Dude 44 Alpha out of Iran, which was obviously inspired by dialogue in Pulp Fiction. However, both the CSAR prayer and the dialogue in Pulp Fiction were reflections of the verse Ezekiel 25:17, as Secretary Hegseth clearly said in his remarks at the prayer service. Anyone saying the Secretary misquoted Ezekiel 25:17 is peddling fake news and ignorant of reality.

Jesus isn't depicted wearing red and white robes and Pulp Fiction is gospel. A "just war" is a war that happens just because. Got it.

"We have been advised that if you want to run cool, you've got to run on heavy, heavy fuel. Alas, we are facing a major shortage of said heavy fuel--"

Backchannel talks mediated by the Sultans of Swing have reportedly stalled.

IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol painted a sobering picture of the global repercussions of what he called “the largest energy crisis we have ever faced,” stemming from the pinch-off of oil, gas and other vital supplies through the Strait of Hormuz. “In the past there was a group called ‘Dire Straits.’ It’s a dire strait now, and it is going to have major implications for the global economy. And the longer it goes, the worse it will be for the economic growth and inflation around the world,” he told The Associated Press.

“We were promised ‘money for nothing and chicks for free’ not this.”

Been waiting for this! A must read.

Does higher ed need reform? Absolutely. Do we need to make right-wing criticisms the basis of that reform by “taking them seriously”? Nope.

Making the Liberal Media | Columbia University Press Conservatives have disagreed about many things, but they have long been united by the belief that the mainstream—or “liberal”—media is biased against... | CUP

You can read about what this did in the media sector in my book.

cup.columbia.edu/book/making-...

Unfortunately universities are making the same mistake journalism did — using intense right-wing pressures as an opportunity for introspection about a whole host of other unrelated issues undermining their “trust” with the “public.”