Note: Just like Mohsen Mahdawi, ICE snatched Leqaa at what she thought was a routine immigration check-in, after she protested Israel’s genocide of Gaza. They then took her from New Jersey to Texas—where she’s been detained for nearly a year. Now she’s hospitalized and her whereabouts are unknown.

A desperate plea sent to me by a Minneapolis resident who's been on the front lines since the beginning of the ICE occupation:

“The claim that Republican anti-trans ads and rhetoric are winning over Democratic and independent voters is simply not true. Moreover, the assumption that abandoning trans rights will have no negative ramifications for Democrats is mistaken.” @juliaserano.bsky.social

The project to distance Epstein’s associates and collaborators from his abuse, a project which has been taken on by the likes of Ezra Klein and people at the elite institutions that enabled Epstein, is a project to prevent fully understanding why abusers get away with it and how they can be stopped

“bari weiss’s wife in the epstein files” is simply too perfect

this handful of independent journalists (my former colleagues at Motherboard) do more impactful journalism than 75% of the corporate tech press on a fraction of the budget

so bari definitely got the heads up that noem is being shitcanned, right?

"ICE will leave Minnesota if you hand over your voter rolls" tells you everything you need to know. This was never about immigration or fraud. It was always about rigging elections.

I was a sensitive kid. I loved cats. I had OCD, undiagnosed. When I was 9, a fraternity brother tortured a cat to death in my hometown. The details even now are beyond imagination. archive.is/xdmUL I was traumatized for years from reading the news story. The torturer? Now the head of the NRA.

Note to self: When purchasing tickets online for chamber music concerts in Scandinavian countries with high percentages of tall blonde people, double check for raked seating.

I've talked to people on the ground about the strike here tomorrow, and the single thing everyone brings up is just how shockingly wide the support for the strike is. Businesses that no one would have expected to support it are doing so.

I've been thinking about this a lot, for months: Gaza was a breaking point between verifiable reality and liberal governance. "AI" sparks fears ppl will believe things that aren't true, but Gaza SHOWED things that WERE true—& western governments, universities & news outlets pretened they were not.

Trump posting the texts of European leaders groveling is funny ngl. They are all a bunch of worms “thanks for the the intervention you’re doing in the global south. Please don’t touch Greenland. Let’s be best friends”

The NFL has fined Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair $11,593 for wearing eye black that called to "stop the genocide" during a playoff match last week. The message referenced the genocide in Gaza & was visible also during his post-game TV interview on ESPN. The league says this violated its...

Excited to share, well, not sure i can yet call them *thoughts* exactly, but if you happen to be near Cambridge next week, please come by - www.film.cam.ac.uk/events/himes...

Can you imagine if the media reported everything else the way they do the ongoing genocide, like "Man Liquidates Family Amid Ongoing Restraining Order Tensions"?

A lovely appreciation of the late great Amos Poe's work. I'll only add that on top of all else, Amos was also a very kind soul. www.screenslate.com/articles/amo...

Texas A&M philosophy professor Martin Peterson, who was told by the university to remove readings by Plato & others from his moral problems course, is replacing them with a news article about the university's censorship and violation of academic freedom. See Update 3 at dailynous.com/2026/01/06/t...

I know they’re trying to turn this shooting into Dealey Plaza with their desperate camera angles and excuses for the murderous ICE officer but how do they explain the subsequent refusal to allow a doctor to reach the car? And lying that they already had medics there? All on tape.

Problem is - the chuds banning Plato's Symposium because it advances Gender Ideology they'd be uncomfortable with is probably the hardest I have ever felt this meme in my life

Fuck Bari Weiss, fuck bootlicking regime propaganda

Texas A&M actually tells a philosophy professor he may not teach Plato.

It's 2026 and Schumer is publicly admitting he continues to take Trump at his word

Expect to see a lot of this classic Onion headline, from 23 years ago, over the coming weeks.

It's the third "totally" that indicates they really grasp the gravity of this situation.

I found an old blog post in drafts that I decided to modify somewhat and put out - my own little plea for humanism, why I self-describe and generally consider myself a humanist. Not sure if anyone else will care, but fwiw here it is. sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-...

Two weeks ago I spent the whole day at the Museum of the Moving Image to listen to New Yorkers. This is what Liam shared with me.

A story about the great Rob Reiner. I grew up adjacent to but a world away from Hollywood. But for a brief period of time in the early 1970s Rob Reiner and Penny Marshall lived in a rather modest home just a few blocks away from where I grew up in North Hollywood. Years later, I met him, and…

If you have a bank account in your country or use U.S. technology, as most of us do, this will 100% affect you and your loved ones now and well into the foreseeable future. And this is why #Digitalsovereignty should be a goal for every democratic government if they are serious about freedom.

Two immediate takeaways: 1) yes, the level of repression at Columbia is extraordinary, and these stories are only the tip of the iceberg; and 2) we are blessed to have students such as the journalists who are covering this and those who continue to organize www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2025/12...

Very excited and honored to be returning to the Göteborg Film Festival next month; it's a very special gathering. goteborgfilmfestival.se/en/james-sch...

AP reports that nearly 100 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since the war began, amid widespread torture and medical neglect documented across multiple facilities. A former guard at Sde Teiman says prisoners were routinely chained, beaten, and left to die in the yard.🧵

Former president of UVA talks about the process of his forced resignation. The DOJ, governor youngkin, and everyone who colluded with them sound like thugs. www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

Seriously, what is wrong with these people?

NYMag blew up its story about ICE's increased presence at 26 Federal Plaza, and pasted it on a wall a few blocks away on Broadway

People fucking hate this guy. They fucking hate ICE. They fucking hate how much power he has. He is at 63% overall disapproval to 37% approval. That's lower than their poll after January 6th. And this poll was done before he started intentionally starving people. I wish our media would reflect this.

TRUMP ADMIN: IT IS FORBIDDEN TO PROVIDE ANY DISCOUNT WHATSOEVER TO SNAP RECIPIENTS TO WHOM WE HAVE DENIED FOOD

This puts the current (known) total at more than 7,500 people, which is FAR more than I had thought

Pure, if banal, evil. www.cnet.com/news/politic...

Reality. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Slavery has always been the goal.

This was just posted by a CBS News producer on their Instagram stories.

THIS is how you reject a faulty premise. Don’t rush past the facts to argue with a straw man. Remind everyone of the facts first!

It’s real playbill.com/article/ang-...

Why Genocide Enablers Like Bret Stephens Frighten Jews Like Me

Why Genocide Enablers Like Bret Stephens Frighten Jews Like Me

So who’s the hater and who’s the waiter?