“While I am proud to see Mamdani ascend to the ranks of the highest political office in New York City…I am also fearful. I am fearful for his safety in a country that has wielded the force of the state against Black and brown communities, against our leaders, time and time again.”

To put this in scale, Elon Musk's salary from Tesla alone could fund the SNAP program for the entire country into 2034.

We need a new word, kleptocommunism or something.

How do you respond when another person collapses in your presence? (Also, what's with his hands?) Alt text via @secretlynora.bsky.social : The photo shows Trump standing behind his desk, staring into space, while to the side members of his cabinet & his press secretary assist a man in distress.

Mamdani's victory wasn't only a repudiation of an old and exhausted political establishment in the city, it was also a triumph over the framing power of the political press, and none more so than the New York Times, whose coverage and editorials worked relentlessly to dampen his appeal.

Shot.

Great profile of the artist Rama Duwaji (Zohran Mamdani is her husband) in the latest RVA Magazine. Includes many examples of her excellent work. She's a Virginia Commonwealth University Arts grad. Virginia can claim her! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽, VCU. rvamag.com/art/rama-duw...

Worth noting. Virginia has elected its first woman governor, its first Muslim lieutenant governor, & its first Black attorney general. Progressives are rightly hailing Mamdani's win in NYC. But Democratic liberalism is alive & very well in Virginia. www.vpm.org/elections/20...

The view from France. Editorial in Le Monde: "Donald Trump's rough patch." "In this week's elections, Americans consistently voted in favor of the Democrats and their proposals. This was a clear rebuke of the way the US president has wielded power over the past year." www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/a...

Criminal regime commits crimes. www.bbc.com/news/article...

My president is a racist, vindictive mfer. www.bbc.com/news/article...

I also feel that we should reclaim the word "socialist." Unchecked capitalism has clearly run its course.

Cuomo made racist dogshit AI videos of Mamdani in a desperate attempt to pander to the worse in people. Mamdani owes him nothing.

Imagine how many food banks Bloomberg could have funded with that five mil instead of flushing it down the toilet of the Cuomo campaign.

It's run by UVA alums no doubt.

Nov. 5, 1925: A murder trial begins in Detroit for Black physician Ossian Sweet and 10 others for firing a shot that killed a man as a white mob threatened the house. The Sweet family had aroused a racist fury by moving to an all-white neighborhood. The jury is all-white too. 1/2

Reupping for the Wednesday crowd: here’s my @nashvillescene.com interview with Emmylou Harris and Buddy Miller about ‘Spyboy,’ which gets a reissue Friday, and the concert doc ‘Spyboy Live at the Exit/In,’ screening tonight at @belcourttheatre.bsky.social. Plus: the divine, Bob Dylan, and dogs

Damn! This is fun. He's got me genuinely lol'ing at Adams, Cuomo, & Silwa.

It’s true what they say: billionaire tears really do taste like ambrosia. prospect.org/2025/11/04/a...

“Art is often the theory of the impossible, a land to which those who dream of our collective freedom immigrate in order to live and breathe without the burden of what has come before.” …I wrote something reflecting on the promise of the Mamdani mayoralty and the artistic act of creation.

This otherworldly thing is a snowflake under an electron microscope, yes, it is.

Extending last night's happy mood with this l cool new album from the Oná Ensemble, an immensely creative Brazilian-Canadian collab with a great gumbo of sound — samba, jazz, pop, classical. It woks. Really! onaensemble.bandcamp.com/album/sess-e...

In 1870 Joseph H. Rainey was elected to Congress. He worked towards the suppression Klan terrorism. “I could appeal to you, members upon this floor, as husbands & fathers, to picture to yourselves the desolation of your own happy firesides should you be suddenly snatched away from your loved ones.”

Friends— here it is. Updated & expanded thanks to the space afforded to me in the @therumpus.net & the guidance of the brilliant @roxanegay.bsky.social’s edits. The win centers Muslims humanity — but what does that mean in a country that rejects that? therumpus.net/2025/11/05/z...

The more we see of nationwide results, the more yesterday feels like a referendum on Trump. One that he lost, badly.

This piece isn't as absurd as the quote makes it sound. But it badly needs an editor who can ask the authors some pointed questions & get them to rethink & clarify their argument.

Has anyone got the private texts that members of UVA's Board of Visitors were sending each other last night & this morning? I really, really want to read them. 😄

I got curious, so I took a look for some of Rama Duwaji's artwork

Nifty little data point here. Don’t chase the manosphere into hell. Give young men a positive masculinity to aspire to.

So much good news this morning.

My brother-in-law lives in Brooklyn and is always quick to point this out. The DSA in NYC has been effectively organizing and getting people elected for a decade. Mamdani is a generational talent and the DSA infrastructure positioned him to succeed.

Big winners in yesterday's elections? The students, teachers, & staff in Charlottesville's public schools. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

Big winners in yesterday's elections? The students, faculty, & staff at Virginia's public universities, who now have powerful allies in their fight to keep their schools' boards (appointed by our MAGA governor) from dragging the universities back to Jim Crow days.

Honestly, this was my favorite news of the night.

Mississippi Democrats look set to flip a third seat in the Legislature in tonight's special elections. With 95% of the vote in, Democrat Justin Crosby leads Republican incumbent Sen. Jon Lancaster for House District 22 by a 53%-47% margin.

No question in Mississippi. Said this for decades now. Call it bigotry of low expectations.

BREAKING: Colorado voters approved a ballot measure that would raise state income taxes on higher-earning households to fund free meals for all public school students. Follow AP for live updates.

I love that Zohran did not praise Cuomo in his speech. You absolutely do not have to say nice things about bad people. We should normalize that in “polite” politics: Praising bad people is not actually “civility.”

Watching Mamdani's victory speech, I'm struck by his—and his campaign's—unabashed vision of the US as an immigrant society, a culture built from the ground up from diversity. It is a complete rejection and reversal of the search for a white-washed homogeneity that the political right projects.

this sounds made up but i checked my phone in a parking lot in chattanooga and shouted "HE WON!!!" and several women screamed like their bff just got engaged. just a little anecdote for when they start telling us candidates like mamdani could never win anywhere else

Pitch perfect every time

Along the way, Virginia's voters have made it a lot harder for the boards appointed by Virginia's MAGA governor to succeed in taking the state's public universities back to the Jim Crow era. Thank you.

This goes out to Andrew Cuomo and his supporters who threatened to flee NYC if he lost: youtu.be/CyVuYAHiZb8?...

I'm writing a letter of recommendation for someone who's applying for a prestigious fellowship. Just produced a killer first paragraph -- smart, witty, provocative, informative, & not a cliche in sight. Too bad only 7 or 8 people (at most) will ever read the damn thing. 😄

Evergreen.

“His jaunty videos and online savvy have so effectively helped him build an army of supporters that his opponents began trying to copy the style of his videos. Less remarked upon, though, is the fact that he has no other choice than to be good at new media. The old media hates him.”

Washington “was an enslaver right to the very end. And yet, he also regularly spoke about how much he wanted to see an end to the institution of slavery.…This wasn’t a story of Washington gradually coming to see the evil of slavery, either; he held many of these positions at the same time.”

The regime delights in screwing as many people as possible, especially the working & middle classes.

Daily Maverick launched its Johannesburg bureau on 3 November, led by award-winning journalist and author Ferial Haffajee, to provide sustained, localised accountability reporting for South Africa’s largest city – covering both its deepening service delivery and infrastructure failures as well as...

😄 (And not just fiction writers. Any serious writer.) lithub.com/yes-you-are-...