A writer must be hard to live with: when not working he is miserable, and when he is working he is obsessed. Or so it is with me. .... I hate commitments, obligations and working under pressure. But I like getting paid in advance and I only work under pressure. - Edward Abbey 🥹

This is a two way race.

Coons: "Right now, the clearest winner from this war in Iran is Russia. It's stunning that President Trump is on the phone with Vladimir Putin and spending more time consulting with him than he is with Congress and the American people."

As millions of Americans were losing their SNAP benefits the Pentagon spent: 🔹️$6.9 million worth of lobster tails🦞 🔹️$15.1 million for ribeye steak 🥩 🔹️$2 million for Alaskan king crab 🦀 🔹️ and even $98,329 on a Steinway & Sons grand piano ✏️ by @newrepublic.com

In a five-part series, "Sick in a Hospital Town," @ProPublica examined this nationwide health care crisis and Albany’s epic fight to get quality care at an affordable price from a hospital system focused on profits over preventive care. projects.propublica.org/albany-georg... 5/7

“I noticed there wasn’t a single bird in the sky and you know what they say? When the birds abandon you, you are truly on your own. We have so many cats ... If these attacks continue, whoever rules here next, they will rule over a democracy of cats. But then even cats have only nine lives.”

The U.S. economy lost 92,000 jobs in February. A record number of Americans are withdrawing from their 401ks to cover expenses. Americans owe $18.5 trillion in debt — an historic high. Meanwhile, the wealth of America's 935 billionaires soared by $1.5 trillion in 2025. “Golden Age” for whom?

The Center on Conscience & War provides assistance to Conscientious Objectors. US service members can call for free, professional advice at 1-800-379-2679. X suspended their account for telling soldiers about their rights as Trump prepares for boots on the ground. This was their last post:

It appears we may have replaced Ayatollah Khamenei with Ayatollah Khamenei

See you soon!

At some point you wonder not just if insiders using information to place bets, but maybe also reshaping their advice to make those bets profitable.

Each one of those three missiles costs 33% more than the annual budget of the national park where I work.

With all apologies to Woolf and all the casualties of both world wars, “I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times”

The actual reason for the illegal assault on Iran by the US and Israel is the simple fact that they feel entitled to engage in genocide, imperialism, and apartheid with impunity. They cannot countenance any authentic threat to that project, which is what Iran—not international law—represents.

I can't fucking believe we're doing this again.

He's a monster assembling his own axis of evil who want to kill babies in their quest for wars of real estate. He needs to be impeached the second you can do it.

A friend and spokesman for the family has set up a go fund me to help with their material needs: www.gofundme.com/f/standing-w...

Something I think has yet to be fully unpacked is the way RFK Jr reportedly relies on abusive tactics in both his personal relationships as well as with his huge group of followers to manipulate them into helping him completely undo our public health system

People are always like what’s something you miss from the past and one of mine is antitrust laws

When you put it like this, a $75 million bribe to Melania and gutting the Washington Post seems like a small price to pay.

Baltimore/AWP Offsite Reading Saturday, March 7, 5:00 PM The Metro / 1700 North Charles Street Readings from: Joe Sacksteder David Leo Rice Rachel Zavecz Suzanne Gold Tracy Dimond Robert Kloss Whitney Koo MC Hyland Erica Stern Kate Wyer Jen Dary w/performance by Luna Honey

Jeffery Epstein was invited to a Hakeem Jeffries fundraiser in 2017

It is, and this is why @katmabu.bsky.social has my vote

Like I’m sorry, but it’s not difficult in the slightest to stand for something. Be proud of what you believe or don’t pretend that you believe it. bsky.app/profile/katm...

We actually have a good amount of supporters who disagree with me on a number of key issues. Every single one of them says they’re voting for me because they know where I stand and I won’t lie to them. The bar is in hell.

CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS.

Let me show you a wardrobe you can build with $1,700 🧵

Read this sentence slowly: “Gov. Gavin Newsom, crypto executives and business leaders are ramping up efforts this week to stop the proposed wealth tax...” gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/17/u...

Concerned about ICE's $45 billion plan to convert warehouses into immigration detention centers? This is what they'll look like inside. From ICE's plan for the Social Circle, GA facility. Each little dot: a person. www.socialcirclega.gov/home/showpub...

Michael Silverblatt was a great reader, a great talker, and a great champion of so many Dalkey Archive Press authors. We’ll be posting some of our favorite interviews all week. Tonight, listen to his conversation with William H. Gass about “The Tunnel”: www.kcrw.com/shows/bookwo...

The Trump administration has paid $128.5 mn for a warehouse in Social Circle, GA, which it now proposes to convert into a concentration camp. Only 2 yers ago, the facility was acquired for $29 mn by a Moscow-based real estate company, PNK.

read that first paragraph if nothing else:

Discovering Michael Silverblatt’s Bookworm was like happening upon a portal to significant books, writers, literary conversations and style. We are bereft, though in this moment especially I’m so grateful that @davidnaimon.bsky.social continues this important work

there's fierce competition, but this is one of the most stomach-turning things I've read in some time

INBOX: Rep. Thomas Massie, who has enraged Trump for his insistence on blocking tariffs and releasing the Epstein files according to the law, just issued what is widely known among Chinese dissidents as "a declaration of no suicidal intent" (不自殺聲明), a sign of extreme distress.

Every single time a story like this is reported, we must assume that there are many many more that do not.

When we get out the other side of this, we should think seriously about making signs like this permanent, like the plaques in Paris that tell you that you're standing on the exact spot where a resistance fighter was shot down by the Nazis in 1944.

This isn’t a setback. This is deliberately thwarting the research and development of safe and effective medicine.

This is why domestic "shuffle" flights between ICE detention centers have skyrocketed, much moreso than ICE deportation flights. When you are moved to a different jurisdiction, you have to refile your habeas petition all over again. They want to wear people down so they'll give up on their cases.

The states, all led by Democrats, used the grants to support a wide variety of functions, including H.I.V. prevention and surveillance. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/h...

Discord Alternatives: -Paper and pen. -Trained pigeons. -Semaphore. -Fire beacons in stone towers.

explaining my dream to my shrink

One demonstrator said they attended the phallic protest, at which people pelted federal agents' vehicles with sex toys, "because "ICE likes to bend over for Daddy Trump."

This chart. Wow. reportearth.substack.com/p/the-washin... via @chriscmooney.bsky.social

We've all heard "no one is free until everyone is free" etc but I really do think the example of the abolitionists is instructive: they knew that tyranny is rapacious and insatiable, that it spreads, and that violence visited on one group serves to demean and terrorize everyone else.

Epstein class gets every benefit of every shadow of a doubt, the rest of us look at an ICE agent funny and we get pepper spray and a cracked skull

truth 🙏🏼 @jonathanjackson.house.gov

Nothing says prayer breakfast like concentration camps

After a month and a half break from print, the Reader makes its debut as a monthly. Thank you to everyone who supported the paper last year when we were scraping by week to week, and all the ups and downs before then. Thank you to everyone who picks up a new issue, it means the world.