My friend and colleague Caren Beilin's new novel SEA, POISON is out with New Directions. I may be biased but it's the best new novel I've read in a long time. A paranoid comic body horror thriller by way of Oulipo, it's enormously fun, smart, and disturbing. www.ndbooks.com/book/sea-poi...

Last November, the New York Times had a searing exposé on the treatment of Uyghurs trapped in Thailand during a migration crackdown. Worth your time if you want to learn more about what was happening here. www.nytimes.com/2024/11/10/m...

"I don’t even know a single person in the movement who hasn’t been physically assaulted in some way by the cops. Punched, choked, shoved, slapped, kicked – I am at a loss for words to describe how bad the police abuse situation here is.” www.irishtimes.com/world/europe...

The biggest problem in America is a right-wing disinformation machine that has waged a decades-long war on public attention, conquered the media landscape, and entirely reshaped civic society. Every other problem, including higher ed, is downstream. benmauk.substack.com/p/the-crisis...

"I don’t write to convey a message, and I don’t write stories to achieve any particular purpose. I don’t write stories to persuade a reader of something I believe, though I have many, many beliefs." Lydia Davis in Harper's harpers.org/archive/2025...

A Labor Day reminder: today there isn't a single city, metro area, or state in the U.S. where a full-time minimum-wage worker can afford a modest 2-bedroom apartment. Millions of people with jobs—even multiple jobs—aren't safe from homelessness in this country.

Phenomenal piece of criticism www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

This is a real photograph of Washington, DC this week, where the United States president has ordered military occupation in peacetime, and ordered the display of colossal portraits of himself. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

"Days after rejecting the claim that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the liberal Zionist advocacy and lobby group J Street, has said he has been “persuaded” that he was wrong." admitting you were wrong is good www.timesofisrael.com/j-street-hea...

Border Patrol at a Home Depot in Los Angeles days after the 9th circuit affirmed a court order that purports to block this exact behavior. They don't even know who they're chasing! This is insane. Send them all to jail.

“Joseph Pilates was by most accounts neither socially graceful nor articulate. He was possessed, though, of a lifelong boundless faith in himself and in [his] machines.” —Alma Guillermoprieto

Just to reiterate: What this administration is doing right now is orders of magnitude more dangerous for academic freedom and free speech than anything the right has spent the last 30 years complaining about.

“‘This is an unprecedented situation where hundreds of detainees are held incommunicado, with no ability to access the courts, under legal authority that has never been explained and may not exist,’ they argued.” www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

Flieger gestartet: Merz-Regierung schiebt trotz Taliban-Herrschaft nach Afghanistan ab Trotz der verheerenden Menschenrechtssituation in Afghanistan schiebt die Bundesregierung Dutzende Personen dorthin ab. Asyl-Organisationen schlagen Alarm. www.fr.de/politik/merz...

In @theintercept.com, Debbie Nathan reports on ICE lawyers refusing to give their names in court - and immigration judges going along with it. theintercept.com/2025/07/15/i...

Law is fake, power is real.

An Israeli airstrike just killed 10 people—six of them kids—as they stood in line for water. Yesterday 31 more Palestinians were shot dead while trying to reach an aid distribution site. This is what our tax dollars continue to fund. And most of the country couldn't care less.

Another ICE "assault" case unravels. Border Patrol and ICE are arresting US citizens and then after they find out that they are US citizens, they are charging them with "assault" to justify their actions. This is clearly DHS policy at this point. We've seen it repeatedly now.

NEW: The contractors working at Alligator Alcatraz are illegally covering up the USDOT numbers on their trucks.

Pulitzer Prize-winning Palestinian writer Mosab Abu Toha says he’s been suspended from Substack, a platform where white supremacists publish without issue. I can’t recall this happening to any prominent writers in the past.

Boston Consulting Group is consulting on how to ethnically cleanse hundreds of millions of Palestinians. Genocide is done through consulting firms now.

Das unlängst vom Antisemitismus-Fonds des Berliner Senats geförderte Georg-Kolbe-Museum zeigt eine Skulptur, die die Nazis einst dem jüdischen Ehepaar Heinrich und Jenny Stahl geraubt haben – nur eben ohne Hinweis auf NS-Raubkunst. Keine Pointe. www.faz.net/aktuell/feui...

“Whomever got a bag of flour, got shot in the head. The bags of flour were all over the ground. Covered in blood,” said a #MSF worker, who survived latest Israeli massacre at aid site in Khan Younis aje.io/xoi4su?updat...

"I still hear the gunshots in my head. I still see Ahmad's face before he fell." "But hunger doesn't care — it comes back every morning." "I was caught between two impossible choices: slow death from hunger, or gambling my life for the chance of survival." #Gaza #Palestine #Israel #USA #Genocide

"This is the worst stage of the genocide in Gaza." "We have run out of energy, food, and basic necessities." "The massacres are relentless and nonstop. Emotionally and materially, we are unable to go on." #Gaza #Palestine #Israel #Genocide

rare W for COINTELPRO from a legendary conversation between Bhakti Shringarpure and Mahmood Mamdani (h/t Silke-Marie Weineck)

He's as bad as Biden! time.com/3394403/shyl...

Trump refers to bankers as "shylocks"

Does the NYT routinely describe China and the US as enemies (as opposed to "adversaries," "rivals," etc.)? China is the USA's third-largest trading partner and the countries are not at war. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/04/w...

The Joint Committee on Taxation is up late and busts out this striking distributional analysis of the Senate bill on taxes:

"Air strikes left 30 dead at a seaside cafe and gunfire killed 23 others as Palestinians tried to get desperately-needed food, witnesses and health officials said." www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-4...

It's so bizarre to see the Times describe Zohran as "far left" when they would never use "far right" to describe Trump and his MAGA goons, even as the latter are currently destroying the political structures and assumptions that have anchored America for nearly a century

first we take Manhattan and then we take Berlin

Remember, this new normal -- in which gangs of masked armed gunmen are causing chaos in the streets, pulling weapons and assaulting innocent people, and no one can say if they're crooks or cops -- was all sold to Americans as a way to make us feel safer.

When my friends abroad ask how the US funds the arts, I like to give a fun set of numbers for comparison: Last year the NYPD paid $305m in legal settlements. The budget for the entire National Endowment for the Arts was $205m. One police department in a single major city paid 50% more in legal fees.

Jeff Bezos: "We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets." Today's Washington Post opinion page:

Super weird article. It (rightly) questions the cohesion of the so-called Axis of Upheaval and notes that China could “gain if the United States gets roped into a prolonged war” but leaves that thought unexamined www.nytimes.com/2025/06/20/w...

"In its annihilative force and ambition, the Israeli campaign is unique among modern conflicts. In fact, the term 'war crime' is not even adequate for what's happening in Gaza." A searing, essential piece by Suzy Hansen:

Democratic politicians & consultants should spend less time yapping about the effect of random leftist social media posts on their branding, and more time dealing with the Democratic Senator taking a pro-Trump position with a mere 16% popular support then adding, for flair, the language of genocide.

"[P]olice departments and sheriff offices around the country have repeatedly tapped into the cameras inside California [.] on behalf of [ICE], digitally reaching into the sanctuary state in a data sharing practice that experts say is illegal." #California #USA #Policing #Deportation #EthnicCleansing

I still can't get past the idea that people in America are now supposed to accept that this is a valid form of law enforcement and just assume it's fine when random dudes in groups with face-coverings, no ID, no warrant, & no uniform grab people off the street and force them into unmarked vehicles

RIP William Langewiesche, an incomparable master of control and information. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/16/b...

Anyway

This analysis -- and much of the Times' front-page coverage this week -- seems to be salivating at the thought of escalating Israel's war. Feels like 2003 all over again. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/16/u...

Calls are now open for this year's annual Bertha Challenge fellowship; please do apply!!!! berthafoundation.org/story/bertha...

Las Vegas police immediately arrest two livestreamers when one of them insults an officer after an anti-ICE protest ("honor your oath, bitch"). "You need to learn there's rules: don't run your mouth at me."