If a government tells you that you can’t call it authoritarian, it’s authoritarian.

BREAKING — Notices for the Disney+ price increase went out at noon ET today, confirming my scoop from last night. Details: www.vulture.com/article/disn...

Massachusetts/Boston folks: One week from today, next Tuesday 9/30 at 7 pm, I’ll be at @portersqbooks.bsky.social in Cambridge to talk about how YOU can fight book banning and advocate for the passage of a Freedom to Read bill in MA. Please join us! portersquarebooks.com/event/2025-0...

Excellent choice for this week of all weeks, @thehornbook.bsky.social

#Fiction #HBReviewoftheWeek THIS MOTH SAW BRIGHTNESS by @penguinkids.bsky.social (Dutton/@penguinkids.bsky.social): "Vacharat’s debut is a standout work of speculative fiction and a foreboding social satire about unethical governing and the corrosive values of Big Tech." sbee.link/efn3rwvah4

🧵In my line of work, AI in the workplace is inevitable as far as senior leadership is concerned. Publishing is not unique in this regard. If there's a CEO in America who's on the fence about how AI will change how other people do their jobs, I'd be surprised at this point. 1/12

If we need statues of someone “doing politics right,” this is the obvious moment. That’s the late Melissa Hartman (D) congratulating Lisa Demuth (R) on her election to speaker of the Minnesota House, the role Hortman held previously..

“Texas mural of Charlie Kirk defaced with conservative activists own words.” A man whose entire legacy hinges on a voluminous record of public statements—his “own words”—can somehow be “defaced” by them? What a headline. www.dallasnews.com/news/texas/2...

Ezra Klein’s most recent column gives the game away: he talks about how horrified he was by Kirk’s assassination because he identifies with Kirk. Kirk, like Klein, talked for a living. So even if they had different policy positions, to some degree, Klein sees himself in Kirk. /1

🧵 When a police officer shot and killed Philando Castile a little over nine years ago, I happened to be on the PTO board of the elementary school where Castile worked and where he was a beloved member of the school community. 1/6

Melissa and Mark Hortman.

🧵 ”Bizarre” is not a strong enough word to describe what it’s like to live in Minnesota today, where, only months ago, four people were shot and two were killed—including a senior state elected official—and where, only weeks ago, literal praying children were gunned down in a church. 1/10

Northern Ireland man from Lisburn kidnapped by Trump’s Ice raids because he “looked like a Mexican”. He had the correct visa, all his documents. He’s never been in trouble with police. Held in terrible conditions. A fellow captive couldn’t get his medication and dropped dead of a heart attack

The next target of book banners? Romance books. The where, when, how, and why of romance books being the next step in the process of dismantling literacy and institutions of democracy. bookriot.com/the-next-boo...

Another school district just quietly removing over 500 (FIVE HUNDRED) books in the last year. This stuff is not slowing down

Congratulations to @malindalo.bsky.social @johngreensbluesky.bsky.social @vashtiharrison.bsky.social @matthewacherry.bsky.social @becalzada.bsky.social and all the honorees! Thank you for all you do.

Chronic insufficiency.

A political appointee tries to free an actual violent criminal while masked goons are indiscriminately kidnapping brown people and taking them to concentration camps. There is no law in America.

The Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot Amir Locke during a no-knock raid in 2022 is the instructor responsible for leading the police department’s use-of-force training.

MSP, please come out and register for this great conference next month, featuring none other than the marvelous @kaokaliayang.bsky.social as keynote! 🙌🏽😍 Catch WHERE WE COME FROM authors @sunyungshin.bsky.social @johncoy23.bsky.social and I at a 2:45 pm breakout session. 👍🏽

They want trans kids dead. The intent is horrific and perfectly clear. No science, no medical ethics, no “concern” leads a person to take these steps. You don’t do what this administration is doing to the most vulnerable Americans without murder in your heart. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/10/h...

The Lorde’s-CD-is-too-clear-to-play-in-man-CD-players thing is making me feel impossibly old.

Q&A with Sara Ryan about their new middle grade novel, MOUNTAIN UPSIDE DOWN. tinyurl.com/43dxz3r9 @ryansara.bsky.social

My 13-year-old is currently being radicalized on reproductive justice by binge-watching Call the Midwife. Not a thing I had on my 2025 BINGO card, but it's pretty great. Related: the rest of his media diet has made him rightly suspicious of the S4-6's Patsy-Delia arc. Still mad about that one.

I realize the National Review is not a serious publication and we should absolutely dunk on it, but I'm old enough to remember Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings so I'm also going to have to puke when I'm done laughing.

Nobody tell the National Review about the whole cakes we used to swipe from Mrs. E's back in 1999, okay?

This is why relying on charity to fund essential services is a truly wild policy choice.

The woman in a very Minnesota boomer straight married couple is trying to edit a Reel and her phone keeps blasting “Pink Pony Club.” Utterly delightful.

Tim Walz marching in Minneapolis #Pride in a Melissa Hortman T-shirt. 🌈❤️

Everyone who went to school between Sandy Hook and today gets a free pass. No one over forty gets to tell you a damn thing about “back in my day.” Adults spent over two decades “protecting” you from books and did less than dick to protect you from getting shot. Have all the middle fingers.

Mahmoud v. Taylor is a lethal blow to inclusive, equitable, secular public education. SCOTUS has handed religious bigots a near perfect weapon for gutting an institution they already despise. Book bans are quaint compared to the destructive potential of this ruling.

In a lot places, it’s going to be easier to have a gun in a classroom than a book with queer characters.

The Christian website that accidentally recommended The Story of Owen to their teen members in 2014 was appalled by a lot of things in that book, but one of the biggest things that "could upset or confuse" children? That Hannah and Lottie were happy, and everyone liked them.

Today marks the 10 year anniversary of Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark decision that gave gay and lesbian couples the right to marry. Jim Obergefell fought for years to make the government recognize his marriage to his late husband. He won, and he brought millions of couples along with him.

Update to this post–now a manager has been fired over this. The library closed for a few days to handle the staff disruption. What an absolutely unnecessary mess, all facilitated by a handful of local bigots. www.theblacksheartimes.com/article/6692...

Republicans overturned Roe v. Wade 3 years ago and it's been chaos ever since. Women should not have to plead to get the medical care they need, and they should not be denied life-saving care just because a guy in a suit thinks it's wrong. Abortion bans kill women.

This fellow is a Moms for Liberty legislator of the year in a state with some of the most sweeping book bans in the entire country. scdailygazette.com/2025/06/12/s...

Are we experiencing a very large scale ISP outage?

I do wish my books didn't always feel so goddamn timely.

Today and every day, Trans Kids Are Our Kids. Discover books that center trans stories and voices that we are proud to publish (link below). Every reader deserves to see themselves in a book. 📚 penguinschoollibrary.com/TransBooklist

Puberty blockers and hormones for cis kids: fine Mastectomies for cis boys: fine Puberty blockers for trans kids: ILLEGAL Mastectomies for trans boys: ILLEGAL

Oh my god, shut the FUCK UP Steve Martin. It must be so goddamn nice to be a straight white dude getting your book banned because I can tell you I haven't seen a goddamn increase in sales for my books being banned and neither have MOST OTHERS. I hate this so much. www.cracked.com/article_4701...

FLORIDA! Your state board of education is escalating their book banning without any process. If you are a FL resident please contact your reps about this situation going on right now:

“I thought he was just collecting them for self-defense.” No. Just no to all of this. In 2025, being shocked that an American Christian who is vocally anti-abortion and owns lots of guns has killed people is a dangerous absurdity. www.mprnews.org/story/2025/0...

I assume that anyone who is talking about Joe Biden in June of 2025 is so terrified of actual reality that they’ve dissociated completely. It’s pure flight response.

In the space of a few days, we have had Democratic elected officials murdered by a man impersonating a police officer and a Democratic elected official forcibly detained by police refusing to identify themselves in any visible way. The scale of this lawlessness is staggering.

/2 The hidden premise of the question seems to be there is some hidden cheat code that lawyers know that will solve this. But there’s no cheat code for fascism. You submit to the masked armed thugs or you get brutalized and/or prosecuted. There’s no win scenario…

What a coincidence, this neo-Nazi had the same phrase written on his gun that the Secretary of Defense has tattooed on his arm.

It is still January 6, 2021. It will be January 6, 2021 in the USA for the foreseeable future.