David Shumway
@nearleft.bsky.social
Professor of English, Carnegie Mellon. Film, popular music, literature. All opinions are my own.
Reposted by David Shumway
The dripping contempt the right wing SCOTUS majority holds for district judges is truly a sight to behold every time. When they deign to give actual reasons for their shadow docket holdings, it’s “look at the absolute idiots who keep getting everything wrong!”
December 4, 2025 at 11:31 PM
The dripping contempt the right wing SCOTUS majority holds for district judges is truly a sight to behold every time. When they deign to give actual reasons for their shadow docket holdings, it’s “look at the absolute idiots who keep getting everything wrong!”
Reposted by David Shumway
"AI has become the high-fructose corn syrup of the digital realm: It’s now in everything, even if you don’t want it there." www.sfgate.com/tech/article...
The time has come to declare war on AI
"It's now in everything, even if you don't want it there."
www.sfgate.com
December 4, 2025 at 9:29 PM
"AI has become the high-fructose corn syrup of the digital realm: It’s now in everything, even if you don’t want it there." www.sfgate.com/tech/article...
Reposted by David Shumway
Good work, @pghreviewofbooks.bsky.social, now I gotta get @nearleft.bsky.social’s book.
Updike's Realism - Pittsburgh Review of Books
I have chosen to focus on Updike’s Rabbit novels because they demonstrate that print fiction continues to represent society in the complexity that we find in
pghrev.com
December 4, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Good work, @pghreviewofbooks.bsky.social, now I gotta get @nearleft.bsky.social’s book.
Boycott complicit institutions.
BREAKING: Northwestern University has agreed to pay the U.S. Treasury $75 million, over the course of three years as part of an agreement with the federal government to restore funding and end investigations into the university
Full statement from NU below:
Full statement from NU below:
November 29, 2025 at 3:35 AM
Boycott complicit institutions.
Reposted by David Shumway
How many Supreme Court justices have been redacted from the Epstein files, anyway?
November 29, 2025 at 12:37 AM
How many Supreme Court justices have been redacted from the Epstein files, anyway?
Reposted by David Shumway
How did the @nytimes.com editors let this sentence appear?
"Critics have likened Mr. Trump’s approach to extortion, while others have chalked it up as a cost of doing business with this administration."
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/u...
"Critics have likened Mr. Trump’s approach to extortion, while others have chalked it up as a cost of doing business with this administration."
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/u...
Northwestern University Nears Deal to Resolve Its Conflict With the White House
www.nytimes.com
November 29, 2025 at 1:07 AM
How did the @nytimes.com editors let this sentence appear?
"Critics have likened Mr. Trump’s approach to extortion, while others have chalked it up as a cost of doing business with this administration."
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/u...
"Critics have likened Mr. Trump’s approach to extortion, while others have chalked it up as a cost of doing business with this administration."
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/u...
Reposted by David Shumway
AI generated content of any kind undermines the credibility of whatever is being communicated
I don’t know if anyone else notices or cares, but when I see a presentation in which the speaker uses obviously generated-AI images to illustrate their slides, it makes me immediately less confident in whatever other content they’re presenting.
November 28, 2025 at 5:48 PM
AI generated content of any kind undermines the credibility of whatever is being communicated
Reposted by David Shumway
one of the coolest things about ChatGPT is how you can actually just never use it. you can fill your whole entire life with simply not once using it. it's incredible.
November 25, 2025 at 4:15 PM
one of the coolest things about ChatGPT is how you can actually just never use it. you can fill your whole entire life with simply not once using it. it's incredible.
Reposted by David Shumway
Before the midterms of 1866, President Andrew Johnson called his congressional opponents traitors and said they should be hanged.
Voters were so profoundly moved by his words... that they gave his opponents a supermajority in Congress, and the nation got the Fourteenth Amendment.
Voters were so profoundly moved by his words... that they gave his opponents a supermajority in Congress, and the nation got the Fourteenth Amendment.
November 20, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Before the midterms of 1866, President Andrew Johnson called his congressional opponents traitors and said they should be hanged.
Voters were so profoundly moved by his words... that they gave his opponents a supermajority in Congress, and the nation got the Fourteenth Amendment.
Voters were so profoundly moved by his words... that they gave his opponents a supermajority in Congress, and the nation got the Fourteenth Amendment.
Reposted by David Shumway
Reposted by David Shumway
The Kremlin disguised a nearly $100 mn payment to Trump in the form of a brokered real estate deal... and both Jeffrey Epstein and William Pulte were involved in the deal. That's very interesting.
November 12, 2025 at 9:56 PM
The Kremlin disguised a nearly $100 mn payment to Trump in the form of a brokered real estate deal... and both Jeffrey Epstein and William Pulte were involved in the deal. That's very interesting.
Reposted by David Shumway
all six D's who voted for this god awful thing including the corrupt give away to senators need to be primaried
November 13, 2025 at 1:42 AM
all six D's who voted for this god awful thing including the corrupt give away to senators need to be primaried
Reposted by David Shumway
This isn't "internal recriminations." It's voters expressing overwhelming opposition to what the people they elected to represent them are doing, and anyone--either in journalism or politics--who characterizes it as infighting is either not seeing and hearing what's right in front of them or lying.
The sooner we get past internal recriminations and back to fighting united, the better off we all are — the likelier our victory next November.
November 10, 2025 at 11:14 PM
This isn't "internal recriminations." It's voters expressing overwhelming opposition to what the people they elected to represent them are doing, and anyone--either in journalism or politics--who characterizes it as infighting is either not seeing and hearing what's right in front of them or lying.
Reposted by David Shumway
Time for change in some high places in the Democratic Party if we are to meet the greater challenges of the moment in this country. My latest. www.thedailybeast.com/why-these-vi...
Why These Vichy Dems and Their Spineless Boss Need to Go Now
We need courage and clarity from our leaders. Schumer and these eight in the Senate have shown they have failed that test. Time to turn the page.
www.thedailybeast.com
November 10, 2025 at 6:50 PM
Time for change in some high places in the Democratic Party if we are to meet the greater challenges of the moment in this country. My latest. www.thedailybeast.com/why-these-vi...
Reposted by David Shumway
Chuck Schumer Helps Pull Democrats Back From Brink Of Courage
November 10, 2025 at 5:02 AM
Chuck Schumer Helps Pull Democrats Back From Brink Of Courage
Reposted by David Shumway
American politics makes a lot more sense when you realize that the GOP is afraid of pissing off the GOP base, and the Dems are afraid of pissing off the GOP base, but neither party is afraid of pissing off the Dem base.
March 14, 2025 at 10:24 PM
American politics makes a lot more sense when you realize that the GOP is afraid of pissing off the GOP base, and the Dems are afraid of pissing off the GOP base, but neither party is afraid of pissing off the Dem base.
Democrats trounce GOP, but it’s Schumer who concedes.
November 7, 2025 at 10:50 PM
Democrats trounce GOP, but it’s Schumer who concedes.
Reposted by David Shumway
I fully believe in the corporate death penalty and believe we would be a better world if OpenAI lost its corporate charter and was forcibly dissolved.
www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...
www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...
ChatGPT encouraged college graduate to commit suicide, family claims in lawsuit against OpenAI | CNN
A 23-year-old man killed himself in Texas after ChatGPT ‘goaded’ him to commit suicide, his family says in a lawsuit.
www.cnn.com
November 7, 2025 at 1:12 AM
I fully believe in the corporate death penalty and believe we would be a better world if OpenAI lost its corporate charter and was forcibly dissolved.
www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...
www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...
Reposted by David Shumway
I’m just a small-town political scientist, & it’s still relatively early, but it appears that The Actual Democrats did not Need To Do any of the Things or Learn any of the Obvious Lessons that Ezra Douthglesias said they Must Do & Learn.
November 5, 2025 at 2:08 AM
I’m just a small-town political scientist, & it’s still relatively early, but it appears that The Actual Democrats did not Need To Do any of the Things or Learn any of the Obvious Lessons that Ezra Douthglesias said they Must Do & Learn.
Reposted by David Shumway
Eagerly awaiting tomorrow's New York Times headlines explaining why this wave of victories is actually bad for the Democrats
November 5, 2025 at 3:04 AM
Eagerly awaiting tomorrow's New York Times headlines explaining why this wave of victories is actually bad for the Democrats
Reposted by David Shumway
Politicians should probably get on Bluesky to get better in touch with the American electorate.
November 5, 2025 at 2:42 AM
Politicians should probably get on Bluesky to get better in touch with the American electorate.
Despite your best efforts.
November 5, 2025 at 3:11 AM
Despite your best efforts.
Reposted by David Shumway
Looks like the Dems will pick up 12 seats in the VA House of Delegates, which will go from 51-49 to 63-37 D-R. That's an honestly shocking result.
November 5, 2025 at 1:45 AM
Looks like the Dems will pick up 12 seats in the VA House of Delegates, which will go from 51-49 to 63-37 D-R. That's an honestly shocking result.
Reposted by David Shumway
Important to compare and contrast the behavior of a Schumer with that of a Raskin— another Jewish Democrat who is obviously quite pro Israel but who has, interestingly, not made his support of other members of the party contingent upon them internalizing his particular preferences.
November 5, 2025 at 1:16 AM
Important to compare and contrast the behavior of a Schumer with that of a Raskin— another Jewish Democrat who is obviously quite pro Israel but who has, interestingly, not made his support of other members of the party contingent upon them internalizing his particular preferences.
Reposted by David Shumway
Kevin Roberts' defense of Nick Fuentes is a watershed moment: the right has officially declared open, unabashed Hitlerism to be an acceptable position in their coalition
www.vox.com/politics/466...
www.vox.com/politics/466...
The GOP’s top think tank just defended an open Nazi
Reasonable people can disagree about whether Hitler was good, says the Heritage Foundation.
www.vox.com
October 31, 2025 at 6:02 PM
Kevin Roberts' defense of Nick Fuentes is a watershed moment: the right has officially declared open, unabashed Hitlerism to be an acceptable position in their coalition
www.vox.com/politics/466...
www.vox.com/politics/466...