A beautiful remembrance of a remarkable person

Interesting piece on how Texas megachurch Mercy Culture is leading the way in fusing religion and politics. Its political arm has supported hundreds of candidates into office. www.newyorker.com/magazine/let...

Donald Trump has hollowed out the amendment that prohibited churches from endorsing candidates. A nondenominational evangelical megachurch in Texas has sprung into action. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/3z6Djx

I wrote about the emboldened Christian nationalists who are reshaping politics in Texas and nationwide -- and the cracks that are beginning to show in their political dominance The New Faces of Christian Nationalism www.newyorker.com/magazine/let...

A romping weekend read from @thewesternedge.bsky.social. In the small town of St. Helens, Oregon, where the news media is on life support, corruption thrived. 2,500 pages of new documents have finally revealed the clear story of what happened when Brian Greenway came for Halloweentown.

“Injustice Town” depicts the sexual exploitation practiced by Detective Roger Golubski—who helmed the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department’s homicide unit—as central to his corruption, not a by-product of it. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/lzmmz4

"In the Baltimore study, a number of women said that they were pressured into sex as a way to avoid arrest; forty-four per cent of them were arrested anyway."

Entire article is horrific & there's this too (I didn't know, probably most people did) "In 2023, the Department of Justice established the first nationwide database documenting instances of police misconduct. On the first day of the second Trump Administration, it was eliminated." bit.ly/40fbi83

According to a report by the Associated Press, nearly 1,000 police officers in the U.S. lost their licenses as a result of sexual misconduct between 2009 and 2014—a “sure undercount,” the report noted, since nine states didn’t keep relevant records. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/AbyKqo

I wrote about a horrific police scandal in Kansas City, Kansas -- detailed in Rick Tulsky's new book, Injustice Town -- and the kinds of law enforcement abuse that don't get enough attention, namely police sexual exploitation www.newyorker.com/books/under-...

A new book examines the case of a Kansas City, Kansas, detective who sexually exploited Black women—and the system that enabled him. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/9onIX6

Read this

This headline made me cry.

Evidence that mainstream journalism has adapted to the times, exhibit whatever: An article about TX GOP animus towards Muslims that makes it clear from the top it’s entirely a cynical political project. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/10/u...

If you're in or near College Station today--go to this!

This is a wonderful post if you are a little high

I cannot tell you how much doubt was consistently directed at the Gaza Health Ministry’s casualty numbers and how much pressure was put on news organizations to couch those numbers as unreliable. Biden himself said they were fabricated! www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

"I'm coming to Boston and I'm bringing hell with me." --Homan in February "Do I expect violence to escalate? Absolutely." -- Tom Homan in March "I actually thought about getting up and throwing that man a beating right there in the middle of the room" -- Homan in July, referring to a D congressman

for the weekend crowd: I dug into a new podcast that pins a bunch of notorious murders on a long-dead Jewish man from San Diego. It's the ugliest true crime property in recent memory. [gift link] defector.com/michael-conn...

Immigrant families protest inside Texas facility housing 5-year-old boy, father detained in Minnesota www.texastribune.org/2026/01/24/i...

A few families have been duelling for control of Loving County for decades. Then the followers of a hustle-culture influencer moved in. Rachel Monroe reports on the battle for Texas’s least populated county. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/DU7S14

Thank you @rachelmonroe.bsky.social for writing about one of the weirdest Texas dramas.

In 2024, law enforcement in Loving County began receiving tips about “a guy doing online posts who says he’s going to come in and take over the government.” Rachel Monroe reports on the battle for one of the richest and smallest counties in Texas. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/p0FsHY

Because we could all use a little distraction: I wrote about all the drama that's been brewing in Loving County, a land of oilfields and family feuds and, most recently, a takeover attempt by an outside group www.newyorker.com/news/letter-...

The All-Star Game starters are 20% Ja(y)len, the strategy is correct

NEW: The neo-fascist group Patriot Front is building a network of business in North Texas in an attempt to create a parallel, self-sufficient white nationalist economy. @stevanzetti.bsky.social, @wileydcope.bsky.social and I identified the men behind 4 of these companies.

Free network procedural idea: the judge who is also a close-up magician.

Alaska officials gave false info to American Samoans, telling them they can vote. (They can’t, due to a unique status.) Now, the state is threatening them with years in prison, part of GOP’s voting fraud panic. @burness.bsky.social spent months reporting the story; spend some of your w-e with it.

www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty... The Dean “also clarified that faculty may assign textbooks with chapters that cover transgender identity, so long as they do not talk about the material or include it on assignments or exam questions.” And they call this an education?

I feel like "attention hacking" is most of politics now. The Minnesota aid fraud story is becoming a perfect example. Recap: In 2022, the Biden DOJ filed the first charges against dozens of fraudsters, many of them Somali-American, who'd fleeced a state food aid program. (1/x)

This Danish advent gnome candle really captures the true spirit of the holidays

Is this like when my parents sent our old dog to "a farm in the country"??

Arizona, the model for voucher programs across the country, spent so much money paying private schoolers’ tuition that it faced hundreds of millions in budget cuts to critical state programs and projects last year. (Published July 2024)

NEW: The Trump-Vance White House has falsely accused an ally of Pope Leo — Sr. Norma Pimentel — of illegal activity tied to migrant aid, and cut off all federal funding to Catholic Charities in Texas. Church leaders say it’s a targeted, political reprisal against Pope Leo and the Catholic Church.

“School officials have created a Microsoft Copilot prompt to review course descriptions with an eye toward avoiding ‘advocacy-oriented or prescriptive terms.’” Terms: “dismantling, decolonizing, interrogating, challenging, centering, combating, liberation, resistance, activism, justice oriented”

I‘ve been listening to Sarah Marshall’s The Devil You Know and it’s so great. She knows this stuff inside out and weaves a tale of so many subjects; the satanic panic (duh), evangelicalism, the patriarchy, media, so much more. Highly recommend.

Charlotte Cooley’s patient yet enraging short film, “Last Days on Lake Trinity,” follows three women as they navigate months of uncertainty after the shuttering of a Florida mobile-home park. Watch here. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/TFpKF-

an instrumental country playlist perfect for deep thinking (or just vibes) www.dontrocktheinbox.com/put-a-record...

In March, 2022, the people living in Lakeside Park Estates mobile-home park, in Hollywood, Florida, learned that they were being evicted. A new short film follows three women as they navigate the subsequent months of uncertainty and upheaval. Watch here. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/eD_3OU

Jaw dropped. Trump Administration Removes Report on Missing and Murdered Native Americans, Calling It DEI Content

As Texas welcomes water-thirsty data centers powered by water-thirsty gas, remember that the state's water law follows the "rule of capture," which means that residents "can’t prevent someone next door with a bigger pump and a deeper well from sucking groundwater from underneath their property.”

As Texas’s water supplies dwindle, the state continues to woo thirsty industries. https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-southwest/texas-water-wars

Texas’s economy has boomed for so long that it would be easy to imagine that the growth might go on forever. But, across the state, residents are being confronted with the alarming reality of limited water supplies. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/5PZt9T

This story by @winterjessica.bsky.social is as good as everyone says it is www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

Some states have stepped in to cover SNAP benefits. Texas, which has a multibillion-dollar rainy-day fund, has not. https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/the-human-toll-of-the-suspension-of-snap

Today is the publication day for WITHOUT CONSENT, a book I am so proud to share with the world, and that the New York Times Book Review says "is years — decades — overdue." Read more, and order in your preferred format from your favorite retailer here: www.sarahweinman.com/book/without...

Happy pub day to this wonderful book! bookshop.org/p/books/back...

heartbreaking piece about how SNAP suspension is hurting people in Texas www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

“Where does this end? I don’t think anyone knows right now.” @rachelmonroe.bsky.social weighs in on the Supreme Court temporarily allowing Trump to curtail SNAP funding and how 40 million Americans are navigating it all.

Some states have stepped in to cover SNAP benefits. Texas, which has a multibillion-dollar rainy-day fund, has not. https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/the-human-toll-of-the-suspension-of-snap