We need libraries for so many reasons. www.11alive.com/article/news...

Pope Leo absolutely cooking

Honestly no need to wait until March, just give Jessie Buckley the Oscar now

NEW: The first two years of Massachusetts' millionaire tax has raised $3 billion more than expected. And rather than driving the rich away, IPS researchers found that the number of millionaires has *increased.* Tax the rich. Greg Ryan in @bloomberg.com:

Today is a good day to remember, and to say, that the #MeToo movement was right, and was righteous, and has been vindicated over and over again. There was no overreach. There was no excess. There was no they-went-too-far. So much work remains to be done.

One analytical model shows that, as of November 5th, the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. has already caused the deaths of 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/jUzNSc

Midwest excellence

Amazon is helping fund a $300 million build of a ballroom for the White House. Independent bookstores are donating to food banks and organizations that help with food insecurity. They are not the same.

Bryce Underwood hits the Paul Bunyan pose

A Naperville man was hauled away by federal immigration agents Thursday morning as his two sons watched, the older boy begging them not to hurt his father and tearfully asking for a chance to speak to him before they left.

Last week, the Indiana University administration asked their student newspaper not to print any news stories in the Homecoming edition. When the faculty advisor refused, IU fired him and ended paper printing. So students at the Purdue paper printed the IU edition and drove it down to Bloomington!

Had the pleasure of speaking to National Book Award finalist @meghamaj.bsky.social about "A Guardian and a Thief" for @electricliterature.com recently. It's a remarkable novel, and this interview helped me think through how to be a moral person living through a time of crisis. tinyurl.com/5cehc298

On the inexorable tension between individualism and collectivism, the usefulness of the label “climate fiction,” the role of art in times of crisis, and Megha Majumdar’s sophomore novel, “A Guardian and a Thief.” (@marisa-wright.com)

Had the pleasure of speaking to National Book Award finalist @meghamaj.bsky.social about "A Guardian and a Thief" for @electricliterature.com recently. It's a remarkable novel, and this interview helped me think through how to be a moral person living through a time of crisis. tinyurl.com/5cehc298

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court appeared likely to further restrict the power of the Voting Rights Act to remedy discrimination — but a majority also appeared unwilling to declare all “race-based redistricting” unconstitutional, as Louisiana had asked the court to do.

If it's a Tuesday, some great books are being published. Buy or borrow a good book today.

Me and @markkrotov.bsky.social wrote about Laszlo Krasznahorkai and the Nobel Prize in Literature newrepublic.com/article/2015...

The AADL continues to be one of the best to ever do it

SCOTUS: considering race as one factor in a college applicant's file is blatantly unconstitutional ALSO SCOTUS: considering race as one factor in targeting whom to detain and deport is cool cool cool

What a profoundly stupid way to start the NFL season

LEAD BLOCKER BRYCE UNDERWOOD

Against all odds, a good thing happened in Tallahassee??

College football isn’t for being a fan of a team, it’s for hating several teams for inscrutable reasons

It’s good to signal virtue, actually. It encourages others to do the same in support of people with less power. Also, the alternative is signaling vice.

There are no words for this kind of depravity. www.propublica.org/article/doge...

Also, I did not know Justice Sotomayor was using court staff to promote her book! Completely inappropriate!

As a civil rights lawyer and freelance book critic, I wholeheartedly agree with @maris.bsky.social: “Sitting politicians shouldn’t be shilling books when they have a country to run, and if that’s true for the rest of the government it is doubly so for the Supreme Court.” lithub.com/why-the-supr...

Washington DC has 702,000 people, is 45% Black and has 0 senators Wyoming has 590,000 people, is 86% white and has 2 senators DC needs a state with proper representation, not a military takeover

It's profoundly saddening to read that AP will no longer be assigning or running book reviews because readers don't engage with them enough and they take too much effort to plan and assign. People complain about critics as gatekeepers; wait until all that's left is marketing.

60 years ago today, the Voting Rights Act became a landmark law against racial discrimination in elections. My latest @npr.org story is about the new threats facing the law’s remaining protections for minority voters

Best movie I’ve seen all year. The Saturday matinee crowd couldn’t stop laughing. Just incredible work by Eva Victor.

Amy Sherald says the Smithsonian suggested removing a painting of a transgender woman as the Statue of Liberty from her upcoming show at the National Portrait Gallery “to avoid provoking President Trump.” Sherald: “I cannot in good conscience comply with a culture of censorship”

We need to retire the tired phrase “X is a threat to the rule of law.” And start saying “X is evidence we do not have rule of law.”

Marisa Wright (@marisa-wright.com) interviews Kashana Cauley (@Kashana.bsky.social) about her novel “The Payback,” in which minimum wage workers scheme to erase their student loans and exact revenge on the institutions that trapped them. electricliterature.com/the-payback-...

"Sometimes when you’re laughing, you pay more attention. And so I guess I would like to trick people." My interview with @kashana.bsky.social about her new book on student debt, retail work, and the importance of collective action is up on @electricliterature.com today! tinyurl.com/4fra2kwh

Never have an existential crisis more than unpacking and organizing all of my books after moving. On the one hand, I obviously cannot get rid of any of them, and on the other, I simply do not have enough shelf space.

Everything is dispiriting, but this year’s summer blockbuster season has been fun

What makes this kind of thing crazy is not just using AI with the risk of fake citations but also that you’re not having your paralegals cite check things you submit to the court???

Truly a terrible outcome. They reargued Citizens United to expand it to a case about all of money in politics. I worry that this reargument will be about whether Section 2 of the VRA can ever be constitutional, given the racial gerrymandering doctrine. Thomas' dissent specifies as much. Dark.

Absolutely. In the birthright citizenship opinion, Barret literally wrote, "No one disputes that the Executive has a duty to follow the law. But the Judiciary does not have unbridled authority to enforce this obligation."

If the Supreme Court thinks universal injunctions are unconstitutional, to wait until *now* to say that, in this of all cases, with this of all presidents, is a devastating indictment of both its impartiality and its prudence.

Plessy v. Ferguson for trans people

This week at the movies

It was a delight to review Robert P. Baird's debut—a philosophical campus novel set on Chicago's south side that questions the very nature of truth and faith—for @chicagorevbooks.bsky.social. chireviewofbooks.com/2025/06/10/o...

"In his smart, smooth debut, Baird delivers a tragicomedy that examines the nature of belief...and the limits of human perception." @marisa-wright.com 's review of “The Nimbus” by Robert P. Baird (@henryholtbooks.bsky.social) is out now. chireviewofbooks.com/2025/06/10/o...

It was a delight to review Robert P. Baird's debut—a philosophical campus novel set on Chicago's south side that questions the very nature of truth and faith—for @chicagorevbooks.bsky.social. chireviewofbooks.com/2025/06/10/o...

one reason for this is how few US newsrooms are willing to interview and hire immigrant and international journalists due to legal costs for work visas, and how often non-white immigrant perspectives are considered 'bias' instead of expertise

This weekend’s stack

One of Braun’s replacement picks is Jim Bopp, who has a solid argument for being among the top few lawyers who have done the most damage to American democracy and the rule of law.