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Eddie Valentin

@evalentin25.bsky.social

2.8K followers 1.2K following 310 posts

Public historian, personal research interests: Reconstruction, borderlands history, and the military experiences of Black Americans. Views expressed here are my own.

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Eddie Valentin @evalentin25.bsky.social · Nov 10

Hi new followers! Most of my current work as a public historian focuses on WWII, but my personal research interests center on Reconstruction and the experiences of Black soldiers in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. I post about books, current events, history, and sports from time to time.

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Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 2d

North Carolina Republicans announced today they’re going to pass a new congressional map to draw a Dem out of Congress; they already did last cycle, going from 7-7 to 10-4. Thus would be 11-3. t.co/XLJIhe8vZn

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José Sepúlveda @josesepulveda.bsky.social · 3d

ProPublica obtained records from the Department of Agriculture that detail the 94 million pounds of food, down to the number of eggs, that never reached food banks because of the #Trump administration’s cuts to The Emergency Food Assistance Program.

My latest video for @propublica.org.

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 3d

yearly reminder to people insisting that we view Christopher Columbus as "a man of his time" that *the people responsible for the Spanish Inquisition* thought Columbus was out of pocket

Thomas Lecaque @tlecaque.bsky.social · 3d

Christopher Columbus was dragged back to Spain in chains by a crusading knight, convicted of tyranny and immeasurable cruelty, pardoned by Isabella but banned from returning to Hispaniola.

Fuck Columbus.

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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 4d

The “rushed” deal was handed to a firm with “no track record” as a federal contractor, a rival’s lawsuit alleges.

How a new firm with DHS ties won a $915 million contract to help immigrants "self-deport"

The “rushed” deal was handed to a firm with “no track record” as a federal contractor, a rival's lawsuit alleges.

www.motherjones.com

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Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 4d

AI has lost the dunce vote. It’s over

Nate Silver
@NateSilver538 • 5h
•.°
I'm just one person, and my programming needs are somewhat unusual (building various kinds of statistical forecasting models). But I'm just not seeing the consistent productivity gains from LLMs that I would have expected if you'd asked me 6 months ago.

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Bobby Lee @bobbylee.bsky.social · 4d

Always a good day when a new issue of the Western Historical Quarterly drops 🗃️
academic.oup.com/whq/issue/56/3

Volume 56 Issue 3 | Western Historical Quarterly | Oxford Academic

The official journal of the Western History Association. Publishes original articles dealing with the North American West. Each issue contains reviews and notices of significant books, as well as rece...

academic.oup.com

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Apoorva Mandavilli @apoorvanyt.bsky.social · 4d

The Trump administration on Saturday scrambled to rescind layoffs of hundreds of CDC scientists who were mistakenly fired on Friday night in what appeared to be a substantial procedural lapse.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/h...

Trump Administration Is Bringing Back Scores of C.D.C. Experts Fired in Error

www.nytimes.com

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Richards Center Penn State @richardscenter.bsky.social · 12d

We're looking for TWO postdoctoral scholars in African American history and history of the Civil War era. Fellowships are for two years, and the anticipated start date is July 1, 2026. The deadline to apply is NOVEMBER 1!

Links in the replies below.

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Richards Center Penn State @richardscenter.bsky.social · 4d

Congratulations to our faculty affiliate Lucien Holness for his presentation of "Juneteenth: The Commemoration and Celebration of Emancipation and the Making of Freedom" at the Central Pennsylvania Civil War round table on Tuesday!

In a classroom with a number of attendees, Dr. Lucien Holness stands at a lectern speaking.

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Keri Leigh Merritt @kerileighmerritt.bsky.social · 6d

Happy to announce that after my Lillian Smith bio comes out in Sept 2026, a new 10 year anniversary edition of #MasterlessMen - edited down with a new introduction - will debut spring 2027 (@CambridgeUP).

It will also have a new foreword by Pulitzer Prize winner Steven Hahn!!!

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Eddie Valentin @evalentin25.bsky.social · 6d

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the headline for this article should’ve been some version of this.

Screenshot from article that shows situation on the ground in Gaza was not immediately clear and that Israeli troops would remain active in the area

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Courtney E. Thompson @cethompson.bsky.social · 7d

Sure would be nice to highlight Lost Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, too.

Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 7d

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

nyti.ms

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Eddie Valentin @evalentin25.bsky.social · 7d

Congrats!

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Jonathan S. Jones @jonathansjones.bsky.social · 7d

Look what came in the mail today, @uncpress.bsky.social @simpsonvos.bsky.social @profsommerville.bsky.social! 🗃️

Printed copy of Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans and America’s First Opioid Crisis held by the author in the background

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Dahlia Lithwick @dahlialithwick.bsky.social · 10d

with @mjsdc.bsky.social and @imillhiser.bsky.social on the term ahead

SCOTUS Is About To Make Trump’s Dreams Come True

From voting rights to trans rights, presidential powers and beyond, the new Supreme Court term is a win-win for the court’s conservatives, and Trump.

slate.com

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Scarewolf Bar Kochba @dickius.bsky.social · 10d

Wow, it must be terrible being told that you can’t use the bathroom.

'Very difficult situation': Kristi Noem whines locals not letting ICE agents use restrooms

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem complained that her agents were not being permitted to use restrooms in Chicago because of opposition from residents.During a Sunday interview on ...

www.rawstory.com

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KEW @kidadaewilliams.com · 12d

‘Bodies of Labor,’ Hearts of Hope: A new Black History Museum exhibition at Richmond's Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia explores experience through toil
richmondmagazine.com/arts-enterta...

‘Bodies of Labor,’ Hearts of Hope

A new Black History Museum exhibition explores experience through toil.

richmondmagazine.com

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Jenny Cohn @jennycohn.bsky.social · 12d

“Anduril and Palantir battlefield communication system 'very high risk,' US Army memo says” 10/3/25… 1/ www.reuters.com/business/aer...

Anduril and Palantir battlefield communication system has deep flaws, Army memo says

The much-needed modernization of the U.S. Army's battlefield communications network being undertaken by Anduril, Palantir and others is rife with "fundamental security" problems and vulnerabilities, and should be treated as a "very high risk," according to a recent internal Army memo.

www.reuters.com

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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 12d

NEW: By a 6–3 vote, the Supreme Court allows the Trump administration to cancel Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelan migrants.

KBJ, dissenting, says she "cannot abide our repeated, gratuitous, and harmful interference" while "lives hang in the balance."
www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

I view today's decision as yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket. This Court should have stayed its hand. Having opted instead to join the fray, the Court plainly mis- judges the irreparable harm and balance-of-the-equities factors by privileging the bald assertion of unconstrained executive power over countless families’ pleas for the sta- bility our Government has promised them. Because, re- spectfully, I cannot abide our repeated, gratuitous, and harmful interference with cases pending in the lower courts while lives hang in the balance, I dissent.

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Kevin M. Levin @civilwarmemory.bsky.social · 13d

Took two days off after submitting the final draft of my Robert Gould Shaw bio, but now I am back to work on my new book project, which is a study of the Gettysburg Campaign from the perspective of the thousands of enslaved laborers forced to travel with Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.

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Eddie Valentin @evalentin25.bsky.social · 14d

Conveniently for Microsoft, one of those required changes involves granting permission to analyze my content. Cloud storage has been super nice and convenient, but I might have to revert to just storing things on my physical machine and external storage devices again.

Screenshot of a prompt from OneNote that shows I have to check a box to allow "experiences that analyze your content" to use online features for OneNote

Eddie Valentin @evalentin25.bsky.social · 14d

So with this unexpected time off, I decided to go back to working on the book. About a year and a half ago, I switched to OneNote to store and organize my research notes. I recently discovered that I can't sync changes to OneDrive from the desktop OneNote app without changing my privacy settings.

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Greg O’Malley @gogogomalley.bsky.social · 19d

Finishing a Ph.D. on slavery in early American or Atlantic history this year? Consider applying for the University of California's President's Postdoc program. I'd love to sponsor at applicant if working with me @ucsantacruz.bsky.social might be a good fit!
ppfp.ucop.edu/info/how-to-...

How to apply

ppfp.ucop.edu

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Quinta Jurecic @qjurecic.bsky.social · 17d

I have been haunted by this statement all day www.kgw.com/article/news...

Local News
Trump seems to back off Portland military plan: 'Am I watching things on television that are different from what's happening?'

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Mike Sacks @mikesacks.bsky.social · 18d

Justice Anthony Kennedy tells @npr.org's @ninatotenberg.bsky.social "very worried" about our country, and that "Democracy is not guaranteed to survive."

Kennedy wrote Citizens United and was the fifth vote in the rest of the Roberts Court's anti-democratic decisions.

www.npr.org/2025/09/27/n...

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