Following the Nazi playbook right down to the letter. www.smithsonianmag.com/history/new-...

This follows reporting by Ken Klippenstein that the FBI will label trans people as domestic terrorists. www.kenklippenstein.com/p/fbi-readie...

Heritage Foundation has released an absolutely insane policy proposal to label all trans people as domestic terrorists. It uses completely made up instances of terrorism and made up statistics but facts don't matter to them. They want us all eradicated.

The Trump admin is going to do what Russia and Hungary have done, dismantle liberal civil society to ensure that the only power centers that remain are either the autocrat himself or those aligned with him. It's about eliminating independent centers of political power from academia to the media.

This isn't about antifa, this is about the NGO's. The goal here is to eliminate philanthropic support to major liberal groups through intimidation. They're going to starve liberal groups of funding while hitting them with millions in legal fees from investigations. www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

The antifa thing is a smoke screen. There is no "central antifa leadership." JD Vance gave the game away last week when he said this was about George Soros and Ford Foundation. The far right influencers will simply fill the narrative vacuum with propaganda and lies to justify the crackdown.

Trump's "anti-Antifa" EO is far more problematic than a lot of pundits are claiming, as I outline in my latest piece (which also includes #FOIA litigation material on Secret Service Antifa investigations not previously released).

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...

Genuinely a very culturally competent, thoughtfully and sincerely spoken ad, which is more than I can say for a lot of gentile politicians who post those weird Happy Rosh Hashanah messages with challah and gelt and menorahs

Shanah Tovah, New York City. Here's to a sweet and hopeful New Year.

With Rosh Hashanah beginning at sundown, America’s unions wish our Jewish union siblings a good and sweet new year. Shana Tova!

Shana tova! 🍎 🍯

I've got a story up at @bloomberg.com on rennovations to Columbus, Indiana's era-defining set of Modernist public schools. Here are some of my photos of these absolute gems, starting with John Johansen's Smith Elementary, 1969. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

On Monday, Peter Thiel begins a secret four-part Antichrist lecture series in San Francisco. What the hell is going on? Why all this bible doom talk? I talked to an Antichrist historian & a theologian about this outbreak of tech apocalypse hype: www.thenerdreich.com/peter-thiel-...

The hypocrisy never ends, but be advised that MAGA world is going after people who dare to express their contempt for Charlie Kirk, a supposed champion of free speech, in the wake of his assassination.

The main historical significance of 9/11 is that it served as a pretext for a stepwise escalation in US fascist narratives & policies, as part of the right's decades-long project to remake the country as a blood-and-soil homeland. It was one more piece of the permission structure.

I'm sorry, PR people, but "company X got a funding round" simply isn't, and never will be, "exciting news."

If there's one thing I wish I could get every earnest liberal to understand, it's that, from the point of view of an authoritarian psychology, efforts to persuade, to "reach out" & "find common ground," are *viewed as evidence of weakness*.

Wild. The political murders of legislators in Minnesota were “killings.” The shooting of Kirk which cause is unknown is an “assassination.” They bend the knee without even being asked.

Throughout this debacle let's not let Jerry Seinfeld's truly vile comments about the anti-Palestinian genocide movement slide on by. variety.com/2025/tv/news...

Which work? Calling for gay people to be stoned to death? Blaming airplane crashes on black pilots? Anti-vax bullshit? Election denialism? Pushing Great Replacement Theory? Kirk’s murder is awful and ominous for this country. But no, we don’t need to honor him or “continue his work.”

I think many people might not get what a big deal Charlie Kirk was in RW America. At a young age he helped push many of the far-right figures we know today into the mainstream. 1000's of teens were drawn into the RW world because of TPUSA. Part One of Two. open.substack.com/pub/visunews...

Kirk called on the attacker of Paul Pelosi to be released, making fun of it all Kirk brought people to the rally on J6th, continually spreading election lies. Kirk spread covid disinformation spewing hate towards doctors. Klein thinks that this is politics the “right way.”

Either Gov Shapiro, like Gov Newsom is a supporter of Kirk’s racist transphobic rhetoric or this is yet another bullshit centrist move to win over christian fascists. Those are the two options. www.pa.gov/governor/new...

Many news reports are nodding to the fact that Charlie Kirk was “controversial“ but not getting specific about his hateful comments about women, Black people and immigrants. Such rhetoric must be allowed in a free country, and his murder is an outrage. But it Is no reason for whitewashing.

“Charlie Kirk, the far-right commentator and ally of Donald Trump, was killed on Wednesday doing what he was known for throughout his career – making incendiary and often racist and sexist comments to large audiences.”

i just sent this email to @ezraklein.bsky.social

an astonishing amount of weird and gross media mourning and valorizing charlie kirk without regard for what he stood for, at a moment in history when it's never been easier to do one google and learn what he is about www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/o...

The TV networks seem determined to sanitize Charlie Kirk's long record of hate speech. MSNBC guest John Nichols just praised Kirk as "nuanced" and "quite thoughtful," and Katy Tur did a dramatic reading from Ezra Klein's NYT essay headlined "Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way."

More than any violent rhetoric, it's the guns that bring death. All denunciations of "political violence" committed with a gun should denounce *the availability of guns.* Regarding Kirk's death, every condemnation should include his position on gun regulation. That is not callous. It's true.

Just watch. The whole system is swinging into action, using Kirk's killing to advance the power & interests of the right. The crucial thing to notice is that *the process wouldn't work without the complicity & assistance of the mainstream elite establishment*. Every time.

California lawmakers must soon decide on two bills on PFAS, known as “forever chemicals," before the end of the legislative session. State lobbyists are getting paid by the petrochemical industry that opposes a ban on PFAS in consumer products—as well as by its supporters.

The American Chemistry Council (ACC) spends big on lobbying in California, and hires lobbyists who are also working for water utilities trying to remove PFAS. That must be nice, hiring petrochemical influence professionals with such an inside view.

readsludge.com/2025/09/10/l... "California residents are footing the bill for their water agencies to fight PFAS contamination, but some of that money is going to lobbyists who also represent the companies responsible for the pollution and are working to block efforts to regulate it."

www.levernews.com/double-agent... "Major [California] lobbying firms operating as double agents in California are raking in millions while playing both sides of the debate on PFAS, also known as 'forever chemicals.'"

(2) An email from the mercenary private security firm TigerSwan showing that they were helping the law firm Gibson Dunn build a RICO case about Standing Rock way back in 2017. www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

(I wrote about the experience of reporting on this dude in the most recent issue of my newsletter, Eco Files) alleenbrown.ghost.io/who-is-envel...

(This document relates to a strange character we dubbed Envelope Man. Who is Envelope Man? Check out Episode 1) drilled.media/podcasts/dri...

When I started reporting out a podcast on the Energy Transfer v. Greenpeace trial, accusing GP of fueling the Standing Rock movement, I had no idea the twists & turns the reporting would take. Here are some key documents I uncovered as I worked on SLAPP'd (THREAD) drilled.media/investigatio...

(More on GAIN and its predecessor MAIN from @desmog.com and @steveahorn.bsky.social ) www.desmog.com/grow-america... www.desmog.com/2016/09/15/d...

Immediately adding this into my lexicon.

Been awhile ya'll! I'm back & will be active on here again. Also on the jobs market, so if you hear about opportunities that use the combination of research and communications (could do either one, but the combo is my sweet spot) in the climate, democracy, or corporate accountability spaces (1/2)

NEW: Important Context spoke with a dozen people working at NIH about Director Jay Bhattacharya. The descriptions were universally unflattering, painting the health economist as ineffectual, dishonest, ideological, arrogant, and uncommitted to science. www.importantcontext.news/p/out-of-his...

Under its new leadership — who spread misinformation throughout the pandemic — the FDA announced it will limit all Covid vaccines to adults over 65 and those with certain medical conditions. Covid continues to spread and cause harm. This an anti-science move that will kill more Americans.

“Habeas corpus is the legal principle that requires the government to provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people. If not for that protection, the government could simply arrest people, including American citizens, and hold them indefinitely for no reason.”

New paper concludes: “Continued mass loss from ice sheets poses an existential threat to the world’s coastal populations.”

Word on the street is Fridays are a perfect day to talk with your coworkers about organizing a union for respect and dignity at work 🤔

Happy May Day! On May 1st, and everyday, we celebrate worker power and honor those who came before us and fought for workers' rights. Today, we keep up that fight.

This seems like a huge deal. F.B.I. Director Kash Patel said on Friday that agents had arrested a county judge in Milwaukee on charges of obstructing immigration enforcement.

Don’t shame people for not immediately reading all the books they buy. Some books aren’t made to be ready right away, okay? Some books need time to mature. Some books need to cure for a while. Some books are prosciutto, and don’t you forget it.