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Mark Rice

@markricehistory.bsky.social
1.6K followers 574 following 862 posts

Associate professor of history at Baruch College and the CUNY Graduate Center. Author of Making Machu Picchu/Destino Machu Picchu. Fulbright scholar. Department chair. blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/markrice1

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Reposted by Mark Rice
Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 14h
Updated this piece about abuses in grants/contracts: Noem gave $900 million in no-bid contracts to the company of a donor, Salus, which in turn was telling other contractors they had to pay her boyfriend tens of millions if they wanted to get govt contracts. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/governing-...
donmoynihan.substack.com
Governing without Accountability
Trump only wants to be President of some of America, not all of America
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Bill @bill-of-lefts.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
The loss of living memory of the Second World War is absolutely catastrophic
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lauren @lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · 15h
you'd like to schedule a doctor's appointment? have you logged into MyHealthChart yet? Remember that MyHealthChart used to be Healbe. If you migrated your chart from Healbe Now or Healbe Epic, you are not eligible to make an account. Please make note Healbe Epic is formerly MyHealthChartRX.
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Jenn Budd @jennbudd.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
DHS is simply buying local cops’ support with our tax dollars. Like I’ve been saying, they own a lot of these cops. www.wsj.com/us-news/immi...
Even if Boring's deputies don't take any others into custody, his department is eligible for a payment equal to more than a quarter of its annual budget. Those are the terms of a Department of Homeland Security task force program that enlists local police as paid partners in the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.
Jurisdictions similar to Doddridge County-sparsely populated with few immigrants-make up the majority of new recruits to the
DHS task force program, which has become a cash cow for state and local law enforcement agencies nationwide. After turning over a single deportable immigrant, departments qualify to receive $60,000 a year for each deputized officer, regardless of additional arrests.The Venice Police Department in Venice, Fla., tallied one federal immigration detention in September 2025 and has since requested a total of $895,000. The department can continue collecting funds every quarter as long as it remains on the task force.
The program is most profitable for large departments. The Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office in Florida signed up more than 970 deputies, making it eligible for roughly $14.5 million in DHS funds from April to June, state records show. That pencils out to more than $2 million for each of its seven immigration arrests in that quarter.
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Coach Finstock @coachfinstock.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Exactly. This is such a lie. Email had a purpose. The internet had a purpose. Search had a purpose. Everybody loved Silicon Valley in the 90s because they made shit that did what it promised. Now 3 guys who never made SHIT have ALL the money in SV. They're scam artists. Not engineers.
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Schooley @schooley.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Sometimes I think about how the last ten years started as a publicity stunt for a fading reality show that went sideways.
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Mr. Dan Zak @mrdanzak.com · 04/10/2026
A Haitian man legally immigrated to Ohio, then was given an ankle monitor bc Trump withdrew his status. He threw himself in front of truck. The trucker, who voted for Trump, is haunted. “Pierre was doing what he was supposed to do. We did not do right by him.” www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
theatlantic.com
A Reckoning in Springfield
A truck driver out on his route confronts what the country has become.
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jess m. ☕🍂 @jametc.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Something AI is responsible for that doesn't get enough talk: How, when it scrapes a website to illegally steal everything on it, it uses up a ton of its bandwidth allotment, crashing it or racking up massive fees for site owners.
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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Best part of this muddled article by one of Bloomberg's money guys is that two of the charts make a compelling case that knee-jerk opposition to AI is wholly justified because technological progress doesn't increase productivity, it just enables greater income extraction by capital. Oops!
Productivity Growth Has Been Stuck Below Its Postwar Pace for 50 YearsWorkers’ Slice Shrinks, Profits’ Slice Grows
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I don't really know what to do with these pieces, because: 1. They refuse to used "illegal" & "unconstitutional" & "corruption" in the heds, deks, ledes, or body text 2. They disappear from the front page/headlines within 36 hours & never become THE NARRATIVE, contra EMAILS & BIDEN IS OLD, etc.
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Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
This isn’t fair but the difference is Biden is the kind of senile where he asks where his glasses are and u say on his head and he looks sheepish & apologizes and says oh yea, Trump is the kind of senile where that happens & he yells at your he’s never worn glasses. In fact glasses don’t exist. &…
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Mark Rice @markricehistory.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
In an alternate universe, he’s just a guy in a bar in Maspeth, Queens rambling this to another drunk cradling his shot of Canadian Club. In our cursed universe, he’s the president.
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 04/10/2026
a very weird thing about Trump that I have NEVER seen the media comment on is that he thinks "mutilization" is a word and uses it multiple times during every public appearance
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Alan Fisher @amfisher.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I had not seen this analogy before, but I fear it is dead on.
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Mark Rice @markricehistory.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Claro, los Chicago White Sox juegan bien, pero creeré en el poder del papa León cuando Juan Aurich regrese a primera división.
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Mark Rice @markricehistory.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Sure, these White Sox look good, but I'll believe in the power of Pope Leo's divine intervention when Juan Aurich gets promoted into Peru's Primera Division.
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Hupple’s Cat @hupplescat.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
When NFL teams wear throwback uniforms for games, the coaching staff should have to wear suits and fedoras on the sidelines.
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Joshua Foust 🪖🎮 @joshuafoust.com · 03/10/2026
It’s weird to see so many higher education leaders beat their chests about “the decline of trust” from the public while refusing to acknowledge the conservative movement organizing to destroy it. Imagine someone stabbing you repeatedly while you complain about not having enough blood to bleed out.
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T.J. Stiles @tj-stiles.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
That whopping 1.9% of GDP is even starker when compared to what's going on elsewhere in the economy. Here's a chart from that WSJ piece. Note the timeline. Trump took office in late January 2025. 3/
A chart showing that data center construction spending has grown steadily since December 2023, while private construction in all other areas has plunged since Trump took office.
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
~Approximately no one in the general public knows because the leaders of the R1 research universities - whose budgets, programs, & personnel are entirely or significantly dependent on federal funding - have been totally absent from the public square in explaining & collectively protesting this.
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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 03/10/2026
Killed. NSF’s SBE was killed, in violation of law. The President does not have the power to choose to kill programs at a whim by defunding them. The imperial presidency was a mistake and we are in a separation of powers constitutional crisis.
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Mark Rice @markricehistory.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Yup. I would add to this that any professor who scolds others for using traditional grading, having assignment deadlines, etc. also has to provide info on their avg class enrollment and number of TAs.
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I don’t think everyone realizes how bad things are for US science: For the fiscal year that just ended, the Trump regime withheld $1.4 billion from the National Science Foundation’s research budget, which is about 1/5 of its primary research budget.
nytimes.com
National Science Foundation Diverted $1.4 Billion in Science Funds Mandated by Congress (Gift Article)
The move, affecting about one-fifth of the National Science Foundation’s primary research budget, is the latest sign of how the White House is asserting more control over grants.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Notice how they also brag about the number of naturalizations having plummeted; a sign of how much they detest legal immigration. /also, the removals number is largely fake. The actual number is 650-700k.
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Eric Rauchway @rauchway.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
If our times have told us nothing else, it’s that the inability to understand a text is diagnostic of something
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Rare you get live visuals of state capture.
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Mark Rice @markricehistory.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
It's hard to explain how frustrating it is to be a football fan living in NYC this year (especially if you're not a Giants or Jets fan). While the rest of the nation gets to watch good games, you're stuck in a media market that forces to watch two terrible teams over and over and over...
Map of 1pm Sunday CBS game. Most of the US gets to watch Buffalo vs. New England while only the NYC metro area and Arizona have the Arizona vs. Giants game.
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Mark Rice @markricehistory.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
It’s royalty check day from @uncpress.bsky.social! I know it’s a bit crass to celebrate, but it’s actually really heartwarming as a historian to know that people are still reading Making Machu Picchu and using it in their classes. Thanks so much!
Copy of the book, Making Machu Picchu: The Politics of Tourism in Twentieth-Century Peru, alongside a royalty check report from UNC Press.
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Angry @angrystaffer.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
You really can’t make this shit up.
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Albert Pinto @70sbachchan.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
"Brazilians' living standards have improved considerably under Lula's 3rd term, with strong job growth, rising real wages,& substantial declines in poverty and food insecurity. But high interest rates set by the country's Central Bank have limited the reach of those gains" cepr.net/publications...
cepr.net
The Social and Economic Record of Lula da Silva’s Third Term
Brazil saw strong growth, rising wages, lower unemployment, and less poverty under Lula, while high interest rates constrained households and public finances.
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
For a long time I've wanted a sense of how trump has or hasn't interacted with chatbots (we know he posts a lot of slop sure). And this TIME anecdote about Grok arguably leading Trump into war is just extremely bracing
Since returning to office, Trump has marveled at AI’s capabilities. He is increasingly in thrall to the tech executives courting him. In December 2025, Elon Musk returned to the Oval Office for a clandestine meeting. Trump spent hours asking Grok, Musk’s AI chatbot, questions about his presidency and legacy, according to an official present. At the time, Trump was ordering missile strikes against Venezuelan boats he alleged were smuggling drugs into the U.S. He asked Grok how Venezuelans would react if the U.S. captured Maduro. According to the official present, the chatbot responded that Maduro was a repressive and deeply unpopular dictator and that many Venezuelans would likely celebrate his downfall. After Trump ordered the mission to seize Maduro, the following month, celebrations broke out in the streets. Trump, according to officials, came away thinking Grok was ingenious.
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Mark Rice @markricehistory.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Colleagues: “why don’t you work from home more?” The reality of work from home:
Large cat lying across my computer keyboard and a chapter draft.
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melanie newport @melanienewport.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
On a kind of cranky war path this week but there is a real gulf in universities between the load-bearing faculty in the institution and those who ungratefully coast without acknowledgement of that labor
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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Four-byline alert: “.. Meta claimed that $4.1 billion of stock options exercised by Mr. Zuckerberg counted as a research expense ..” @nytimes.com $META www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/t...
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Cethan Leahy @cethanleahy.com · 30/09/2026
I think we underrate that JCO came up in 20th century New York literary circles where everyone said five most devastating insults before breakfast and as one of the last one standing, her competition is guys who get sad if their chatbot isn't sufficiently nice to them.
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Sanho Tree @sanho.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Google and Apple immediately update their maps.
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DBdant @dbdant.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This tidbit was in the article. 🎈💥 ? "Goldman Sachs warned Friday that AI hyperscalers, including Meta, need to generate roughly $300 billion a year in AI services revenue just to break even on their capital spending—and $1 trillion annually to earn meaningful profits—spooking investors."
finance.yahoo.com
Mark Zuckerberg Loses $9 Billion In A Day As Goldman Sachs Pours Cold Water On Meta Stock Rally
Zuckerberg’s $9 billion loss was the biggest single-day drop among any billionaire Friday.
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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Whenever you see a pollster or consultant give a take like this, it’s always worth following the money. In this case, Emanuel has paid Anzalone’s firm nearly $300k (maybe more but that’s what I found so far). A consultant class is devouring the Dem Party www.elections.il.gov/CampaignDisc...
John Anzalone &
@JohnAnzo
X.com
Underestimate @RahmEmanuel at your own risk.
He knows how to win. He knows how to fight.
And he knows how to message.
And no one will out work him. Regardless of whether he wins the Democratic nomination in 2028 he will make an impact on the race. You can be sure of that. Don't take your eyes off of him. At the minimum, learn from him.
Rahm Emanuel Makes His 2026 Play
Rahm Emanuel Makes His 2026 Play
From nytimes.com
6:47 AM • 9/26/26 • 274K Views
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Thoreau Away @thoreauaway.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
In 2012, Harry Reid lied on the Senate floor and said Mitt Romney hadn’t paid taxes in a decade. Mitt Romney published his tax returns, proving that he *had* always paid taxes, thank you very much. No matter how little. Romney lost that election and Reid said “I’d do it again.”
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 31/01/2026
straight up Gestapo shit
DHS: Want affordable housing? Help report illegal aliens in your area. Call 866-DHS-2-ICE.

If you are an illegal alien, you can take control of your departure using DHS.GOV/CBPHOME.
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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The GOP cut funding to the IRS because *audits work* and they fundamentally don't believe rich people should have to play by the rules.
Line chart titled "Revenue per audit," subtitled "In-person audits, 2010-2014." It plots average revenue and average cost per audit by taxpayer income percentile, poorer to richer, from the 0–5th percentile to the top 0.1%. Source: Boning et al. 2023, "A Welfare Analysis of Tax Audits Across the Income Distribution."

Across the bottom half of the income distribution, revenue and cost track closely, both around $3,000–$6,000 per audit. Above the median, revenue pulls ahead of cost: about $10,000 vs. $5,000 near the 90th percentile, and about $17,000 vs. $8,000 at the 95th–99th. At the top, revenue jumps to about $31,000 for the 99–99.9th percentile and about $90,000 for the top 0.1%.
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Mike Elk @mikeelk.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
X is blocking the Brazilian Catholic Bishops' Conference account as polling shows Catholics backing Lula. The Church has denounced outside interference in the election
paydayreport.com
X Blocks Account of National Conference of Bishops of Brasil As Catholics Back Lula
Polls show Catholics backing Lula as the church denounces foreign interference.
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Patrick Osgood @patrickosgood.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Nitpicking, but this is heavy fuel oil, a byproduct of refining - not crude oil. Iraq needs to get this out by whatever means (trucking w Hormuz closed-ish) to sustain refining at capacity, otherwise the lights go out and there are fuel riots. The difference is interesting albeit one for the nerds..
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Jared Yates Sexton @jysexton.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Just helping with editing here. These bots aren’t sentient. They’re doing what they’re programmed to do. OpenAI, a private company supposedly bound by laws, committed federal crimes.
Screenshot of BBC article: OpenAI bots (struck through) meddled with multiple US government agency sites
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Mark Rice @markricehistory.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Am I the type of sicko who stands out in a nor’easter just to watch pilots make difficult landings? Why yes. Yes I am. (Good job, pilots!)
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Chris Conaton @conatonc.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
A familiar story for anyone who follows @volts.wtf. “The Chronicle spoke to more than half a dozen grid experts…to try to understand why Texas’s notoriously unreliable grid had a remarkably reliable summer. The answer was unanimous: solar panels and batteries.”
houstonchronicle.com
Texas shattered energy demand records this summer. Here's why the grid held up.
Texas repeatedly broke electricity demand records this summer, but ERCOT avoided emergencies as booming solar and battery capacity helped keep the grid stable.
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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 14/09/2026
Trump's foreign policy is not isolationist. On the contrary, his ideologues want to build an international empire run by far-right political movements who serve American crypto, mineral and tech companies, many with links to the president. Read more here: www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
theatlantic.com
Empire of Grift
Far-right ideologues have transformed American foreign policy into a tool of private gain and antidemocratic reaction.
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Maryn McKenna @marynmck.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Fake. USDA. Seals. Used by an NC meat processing plant on 83.5 TONS of meat. Produced entirely outside the federal inspection system, according to news reports. We are pretty close to The Jungle (second ed.) now, no? www.scrippsnews.com/life/recalls...
scrippsnews.com
Interactive: Meat recall linked to fake USDA labels
Pork, beef and goat products are being recalled after a company allegedly used fake USDA inspection labels. Explore our interactive guide to see which products are affected and what to look for.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Once again, the Supreme Court prioritizes imaginary harms done to Trump by not allowing him to indulge in his conspiracy theories, as opposed to the very real harm done to citizens who may lose the ability to vote in this case.
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