Emery Berger
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emeryberger.bsky.social
Emery Berger
@emeryberger.bsky.social
Professor, Computer Science, UMass; Amazon Scholar. I work on programming languages & systems, among other things. http://PLASMA-UMass.org, http://github.com/plasma-umass, http://CSrankings.org, http://github.com/emeryberger. ACM Fellow.
Reposted by Emery Berger
I've been on the road so I'm behind the times—but if you wanted to destroy US science, I can think of no more expedient action.

Blatant unconstitutionality aside, fuck this backwards forwards and sideways.

www.science.org/content/article/u-s-congress-considers-sweeping-ban-chinese-collaborations
November 14, 2025 at 3:03 AM
Reposted by Emery Berger
Trump getting booed at the Commanders game
November 9, 2025 at 11:05 PM
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i closed out my column this week with this preemptive jab at basically every commentator currently looking for ways to say that last night didn’t count
November 5, 2025 at 3:21 PM
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Remember when Obama cancelled funds for NJ after Christie won governorship in 2009? Or when Biden cancelled funds for VA after Youngkin won in 2021?

You can’t remember that, because those things never happened.

What Trump threatens—cancelling funds because of election results—is unprecedented.
November 3, 2025 at 11:07 PM
Reposted by Emery Berger
New York Times editorial board has compiled "a list of 12 markers of democratic erosion." www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

This is what "not the odds, but the stakes" was all about.

During the 2024 campaign, those 12 markers could have been in place and operating to guide news coverage everywhere.
October 31, 2025 at 2:36 PM
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Alvin Holsey, who ran bombings as SouthCom head, resigned with no explanation. Rep Adam Smith says Pentagon denied request for testimony and Rs aren't pushing for it.

"We need to hear: Did he quit because he believed he was being given illegal orders?”

New details:

newrepublic.com/article/2025...
October 31, 2025 at 6:05 PM
Reposted by Emery Berger
This was published one year ago. Everything is, sadly, true today.
October 30, 2025 at 12:21 AM
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So many own goals.
Once again: higher ed is one of our most successful exports. We export more higher ed to China than soybeans. And yet Trump and the mini-Trumps are deliberately destroying the quality of our product
October 30, 2025 at 11:53 AM
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This is true—Bessent owns $25 million of farmland in North Dakota—and a reminder of why farm bailouts are nothing more than a giveaway to feudal lords who demand the government grossly distort agricultural economics to make their tax haven "farms" even more valuable to them.
Bessent on American farmers being hurt by tariffs: "Martha, in case you don't know it, I'm actually a soybean farmer, so I have felt this pain too."
October 26, 2025 at 2:08 PM
Reposted by Emery Berger
Ed Luce watching democracy die in the United States of America
October 24, 2025 at 6:53 AM
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Reagan's approach to the world prominently featured two things:

1) Russian aggression bad, Western democratic alliance good
2) Free trade good, tariffs and other barriers to trade bad

Pretending it's the opposite is the sort of reality inversion only someone who rejects truth itself could buy.
October 25, 2025 at 3:43 PM
Reposted by Emery Berger
BREAKING: new racist Republican groupchat has been leaked to Politico featuring texts from Paul Ingrassia, Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel.

Ingrassia’s texts include vile pro-Nazi & racist messages targeting Black people, Chinese people, and Indian people.
October 20, 2025 at 8:29 PM
Reposted by Emery Berger
🚨🚨🚨Hegseth has now struck a boat belonging to the ELN guerrillas — bringing the US into a shooting war with group that has been fighting the Colombian govt since 1964! Meanwhile, Tump cut off aid to Colombia claiming President Petro was in league with traffickers.🙄
This is insanely dangerous!!!🚨🚨🚨
October 19, 2025 at 5:13 PM
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Those with sharp eyes might detect a subtle difference in NYT play last month of an event in one city, w 100,000+ attendees, versus play this morning of some 2500+ events w many millions of attendees, in all 50 states.

See if you can spot it! /s

Then you can find today's story on p A23
October 19, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Reposted by Emery Berger
notice the general mood of the timeline? how everyone is in a good mood and there’s a lot less misery and dooming? how there’s a lot of “we’re going to beat these assholes”?

anyway that’s why these events are important
October 18, 2025 at 6:54 PM
Reposted by Emery Berger
"Think of this as the equivalent of participation in a faith community that meets to worship—a regular practice to guard against loneliness and despair, and check in with others going through a similar experience.”
How to Spook a Fascist
YouTube video by Degenerate Art by Andrea Pitzer
www.youtube.com
October 18, 2025 at 10:02 PM
Reposted by Emery Berger
when i say that i yelped in shock at this kid’s sign
October 18, 2025 at 9:54 PM
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David Byrne at #NoKings on his bike.

(via @wutangforchildren.bsky.social)
October 18, 2025 at 7:43 PM
#NoKings #Amherst #Massachusetts “Fascism for Dummies”
October 18, 2025 at 8:14 PM
Even the Tusken Raiders have had enough! (#NoKings Amherst Mass.)
October 18, 2025 at 8:05 PM
Reposted by Emery Berger
Instead of "This is inappropriate!" Democrats - especially those who might run for president - should say right now "Anyone who participates in this should know: You are committing a crime, and in the next administration you will be prosecuted."

That will change the frame of the story.
Again, it is a full-blown federal felony crime for anyone in the White House or Executive Office of the President to order tax investigations into anyone.

And it's not just a crime to DO it, it's even a federal crime for an employee not to REPORT such an order to the Treasury Inspector General.
October 16, 2025 at 1:11 PM
Reposted by Emery Berger
Again, it is a full-blown federal felony crime for anyone in the White House or Executive Office of the President to order tax investigations into anyone.

And it's not just a crime to DO it, it's even a federal crime for an employee not to REPORT such an order to the Treasury Inspector General.
October 16, 2025 at 2:52 AM
Reposted by Emery Berger
Old enough to remember when kids being anti-semitic was the basis for a federal government assault on higher education
October 15, 2025 at 6:17 PM