iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

A free press is a central pillar of democracy, as the Framers profoundly understood. This highlights the nature and effects of current attacks on our free press.

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The United States faces enormous productivity losses from its current policy of international student exclusion. These arise from the consequent loss of STEM workers and the innovation they catalyze. Thank you @iza.org for this nice summary of our research —> www.iza.org/en/news/brai...

BRAIN FREEZE: The economic costs of restricting international STEM students
IZA@LISER Network | September 22, 2026
Proposed policy restrictions on foreign STEM graduates could cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

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This coin is illegal. The laws of our Congress specifically ban coinage depicting a living president (31 U.S. Code § 5112). What better metaphor could there be for the numb shattering of our constitutional order, than a $1 coin being sold to the American people for $10?

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China Still Has What America Needs

This piece by my brilliant @piie.com colleage @adamposen.bsky.social may be the first time you have seen the United States described accurately as what its ruling regime has quickly made it: a "lesser power".

foreignaffairs.com

The Trump-Xi summit gives Washington a chance to buy time.

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Reposted by Michael Clemens

David McKenzie @dmckenzie.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Recently out in World Development, my paper on where & how the World Bank spends and lends money on international migration (www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...). Today's blog summarizes some takeaways, & asks also where you can spend your charity dollars (blogs.worldbank.org/en/impacteva...)

sciencedirect.com

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Reposted by Michael Clemens

Aaron Sojourner @aaronsojourner.org · 07/09/2026

Registration is open, free, limited, & required. Great set of research presentations lined up on education, health, economy, mutual aid & more. Learn about the frontier evidence and connect with those working to generate it. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 22/09/2026

As a US citizen, I protest this filthy, bloodthirsty policy statement in the strongest possible terms. America’s vast influence abroad and at home has depended on our country meaning something other than slobbering brutality. Shattering that harms all Americans, Conservative and Liberal.

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Reposted by Michael Clemens

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

"Republican who oversees South Dakota’s elections endorses a Democrat in the race to succeed her" apnews.com/article/sout...

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Reposted by Michael Clemens

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

FUKUYAMA: “.. Accelerationists tend to be very intelligent people, but that intelligence tends to be narrowly mathematical. We know how to do many things like produce electricity or clean water .. the problem is a failure of implementation.” www.persuasion.community/p/why-i-chan...

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 22/09/2026

“Americans must urgently rescue their democratic experiment. Their ability to do so is critical to reversing the illiberal tide that is rising globally. Only if Americans get their own democratic house in order…will they be able to ensure the arc of history again bends toward more freedom.”

nytimes.com

Opinion | The End of American Exceptionalism? (Gift Article)

Liberal democracy is in worldwide retreat, including in its birthplace — the United States.

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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 20/09/2026

The US President is claiming, and this is real, that the military is demanding he build a massive monument to himself across the river from Washington because they have nowhere else to store ammunition or deploy drones. The site, which I pass often, is just down the road from THE PENTAGON.

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This miracle is the fruit of generations of enormous and bipartisan investments of public research support for our universities. Future versions of this miracle are what we are currently losing, due to the US Administration’s decision to shatter the public’s partnership with our universities.

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Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers

The US President has proclaimed a new $100,000 tax on H-1B visa workers —> www.whitehouse.gov/presidential... He is renewing a $100K tax he proclaimed last year, *which was ruled illegal* in federal court —> www.fragomen.com/insights/uni...

whitehouse.gov

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION On September 19, 2025, Proclamation 10973 (Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Every child deserves a safe and nurturing home w...

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Reposted by Michael Clemens

Greg Folkers @gregfolkers.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

NEJM: The End of the War on Biomedical Science? by David Blumenthal and James A. Morone @davidblumenthal.bsky.social @nejm.org depending on continued activism, perhaps room for optumism bit.ly/4yNxiWZ 💥

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Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Great to see @soumayakeynes.ft.com and @chadpbown.com ‘s brilliant and timely book in the wild 📚

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Reposted by Michael Clemens

Ultimately, this letter from NSF is an announcement that universities will be funded a lot less and politically-connected industry will be funded a lot more. Fancy words around old-fashioned corruption.

nsf.gov

NSF leadership in a new golden age of science

The U.S. National Science Foundation was established in 1950 to keep American discovery at the frontier. That mission has not changed. The science and technology ecosystem around it has...

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This humiliation of our military service members is beyond words.

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Trump Air Force One Photos Fuel Kennedy Center Demolition Speculation

It is illegal for the US President to tear down our beloved Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a national treasure created by our Congress, under law. It is sick and poisonous for any Liberal or Conservative US President to openly conspire to spit on the laws he swore to uphold.

nytimes.com

Images captured through the windows of Air Force One showed President Trump reviewing a poster with the title “Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED.”

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Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.net · 18/09/2026

This is illegal. The president is not the CEO of the country nor the owner of the White House, a great institution owned by the American public. Punishing media for dissent excretes on American values and our Constitution. It sullies all of us, every Conservative and every Liberal.

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Reposted by Michael Clemens

We scraped through the data and found that 50% of all clinical trials are at risk of being cancelled. 1,026 cancer trials 273 pediatric trials 115 heart disease trials 184 diabetes trials This is unacceptable and inhumane.

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Reposted by Michael Clemens

Professa Murray @kalimurray.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

The funny thing before the birthright citizenship debate I had an encountered Ilan as an originalist administrative law scholar and it sounds like the most useful part of this book is grounded in that work. Legal history is a different game, though, and he made some serious errors in method.

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Reposted by Michael Clemens

David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Once upon a time, Congress had its own in-house think tank that would research and suggest remedies for technical problems politicians might not have a handle on. Might be a good resource now, ay? Here's @maxmoranhi.bsky.social on the long-lost Office of Technology Assessment:

prospect.org

What Congress Actually Needs to Do About AI: Staff Up - The American Prospect

In 1995, Newt Gingrich lobotomized Congress’s technical brain trust. It should be rebuilt.

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Spain’s self-inflicted migration crisis

"Spain's self-inflicted migration crisis" by the brilliant and trenchant Hein de Haas A concise and exposition of why border crises, a product of policy, happen and will continue to happen —>

heindehaas.substack.com

What really drives migration from Morocco

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Trump administration has cut or frozen $177 billion in grants across every state, analysis shows

The US Congress has the power of the purse under our Constitution. Expenditures mandated by law are not up to the whims of the Executive branch, which has no such power. That is our money. Mandated by our laws. Shattering our Constitution harms all Conservative & Liberal Americans.

apnews.com

An analysis finds that the Trump administration has cut or frozen up to $177 billion in federal grants since the president took office for his second term.

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