Brian Lyman
@brianlyman.bsky.social
Editor, Alabama Reflector. Podcaster, Becoming Lincoln. 2024 Pulitzer finalist. Past: MGM Advertiser; Press-Register; The Anniston Star; Norwich Bulletin; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Politics, history, science, horrific puns.
Pinned
Brian Lyman
@brianlyman.bsky.social
· Nov 12
Alabama Reflector: Covering the pain and promise of our home • Alabama Reflector
Laws are made in the State House. Alabama is made outside it. Alabama Reflector will cover these dynamics that shape our home.
alabamareflector.com
Here’s our mission statement at @alreflector.bsky.social. From my first column on launch day in February 2023.
Reposted by Brian Lyman
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alabamareflector.com
February 15, 2026 at 4:25 PM
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This was a concern cited by Justice Anthony Kennedy in Kennedy v Louisiana in 2008, which declared the death penalty in these cases unconstitutional. There’s also the fear this will make it more likely for a victim to be killed by their abuser.
As a child protection professional, I can tell you the death penalty is NOT an awesome solution to child sexual abuse. Most children are abused by family members; they will not report if their family members will die as a result.
February 15, 2026 at 4:01 PM
This was a concern cited by Justice Anthony Kennedy in Kennedy v Louisiana in 2008, which declared the death penalty in these cases unconstitutional. There’s also the fear this will make it more likely for a victim to be killed by their abuser.
The palatial plantation house is *itself* largely a myth. A handful of elites had homes like these, but the vast majority of slaveholders, even prosperous ones, lived in dirty, grubby log cabins. There was little to no refinement to be found there. Just greed and violence.
"Against the plantation’s cinematic monumentality–columns, costumes and spectacle–Herbert proposes another kind of monument: living witnesses whose presence refuses fantasy’s comfort and insists on history’s weight through the labor of speaking truth to power one tour at a time." 🗃️ bit.ly/4rYxmQp
Plantation weddings and pre-civil war fashion: the film that critiques the historical fantasy of Natchez
A documentary about Mississippi examines competing forces: the nostalgic celebration of the old south and the refusal to sanitize the brutal history of enslavement
bit.ly
February 15, 2026 at 3:42 PM
The palatial plantation house is *itself* largely a myth. A handful of elites had homes like these, but the vast majority of slaveholders, even prosperous ones, lived in dirty, grubby log cabins. There was little to no refinement to be found there. Just greed and violence.
More Brezhnev than Stalin TBH
Trump’s Relentless Self-Promotion Fosters an American Cult of Personality
www.nytimes.com
February 15, 2026 at 3:32 PM
More Brezhnev than Stalin TBH
I don’t mean to complicate the lives of our comedians, but has anyone else noticed the source of this story is a single anonymous athlete?
Love in a cold climate: Winter Olympic village runs out of condoms after three days
Free condoms for competitors at the Winter Olympics have run out within a record-breaking three days
www.theguardian.com
February 15, 2026 at 3:14 PM
I don’t mean to complicate the lives of our comedians, but has anyone else noticed the source of this story is a single anonymous athlete?
Reposted by Brian Lyman
Via @elishabrown.bsky.social: Republican-majority legislatures have continued to focus on abortion medication by proposing legislation to further restrict mifepristone and misoprostol.
Bipartisan efforts to boost birth control access emerge as GOP keeps pushing abortion pill bills | Alabama Reflector
Republican-majority legislatures have continued to focus on abortion medication by proposing legislation to further restrict mifepristone and misoprostol.
alabamareflector.com
February 15, 2026 at 1:57 PM
Via @elishabrown.bsky.social: Republican-majority legislatures have continued to focus on abortion medication by proposing legislation to further restrict mifepristone and misoprostol.
Lydia Polgreen hits on a dynamic I’ve noticed: That as news organizations grew more skeptical and more questioning of government over the last decades of the 20th century, audiences liked them less.
Opinion | Why Did I Trust Jeff Bezos?
www.nytimes.com
February 14, 2026 at 3:43 PM
Lydia Polgreen hits on a dynamic I’ve noticed: That as news organizations grew more skeptical and more questioning of government over the last decades of the 20th century, audiences liked them less.
My long-held, maybe-unprovable hypothesis is that immigration restriction is an issue a loud but small core of right-wing voters want, helped by a pundit class that agrees with it or is helplessly hooked on dumb balance.
Remarkable: Majority of working class voters oppose deportations of undocumented immigrants with jobs/no criminal records, per new Marquette data.
Remember how pundits said 2024 meant Dems must become restrictionist to win back working class? I challenge that here:
newrepublic.com/article/2059...
Remember how pundits said 2024 meant Dems must become restrictionist to win back working class? I challenge that here:
newrepublic.com/article/2059...
February 14, 2026 at 3:01 PM
My long-held, maybe-unprovable hypothesis is that immigration restriction is an issue a loud but small core of right-wing voters want, helped by a pundit class that agrees with it or is helplessly hooked on dumb balance.
My column from Monday. The Alabama government’s ceaseless panic over DEI and Black history reminds us that the fundamental principle of state government over the last 200 years is silencing Black voices and pushing Black Alabamians out of public life.
How Alabama gives us a never-ending lesson in Black history | Alabama Reflector
By pushing their voices off campuses and out of classrooms, leaders remind us that controlling Black Alabamians has always been this state's priority.
alabamareflector.com
February 14, 2026 at 2:46 PM
My column from Monday. The Alabama government’s ceaseless panic over DEI and Black history reminds us that the fundamental principle of state government over the last 200 years is silencing Black voices and pushing Black Alabamians out of public life.
Slavery continues to have impacts on everything from where people live to the South’s high poverty rates to public health among Black Americans (Alabama’s high and racially disparate infant mortality rates are a direct consequence of slavery) and it’s critical to understand that.
Physically incapable of analyzing politics outside of this insipid frame.
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
February 14, 2026 at 1:26 PM
Slavery continues to have impacts on everything from where people live to the South’s high poverty rates to public health among Black Americans (Alabama’s high and racially disparate infant mortality rates are a direct consequence of slavery) and it’s critical to understand that.
Reposted by Brian Lyman
Via @nhassanein.bsky.social and @stateline.org: More states are requiring their Medicaid programs and health insurance companies to cover non-opioid pain medications as an alternative to opioids, which can be cheaper for insurers but also more addictive for patients.
More states are requiring insurers to cover non-opioid pain meds | Alabama Reflector
More states are requiring their Medicaid programs and health insurance companies to cover non-opioid pain medications as an alternative to opioids, which can be cheaper for insurers but also more addi...
alabamareflector.com
February 14, 2026 at 1:08 PM
Via @nhassanein.bsky.social and @stateline.org: More states are requiring their Medicaid programs and health insurance companies to cover non-opioid pain medications as an alternative to opioids, which can be cheaper for insurers but also more addictive for patients.
Reposted by Brian Lyman
is this about that episode of top gear
February 14, 2026 at 12:56 PM
is this about that episode of top gear
Which would have zero force in law.
Trump threatens to present an executive order on voter ID if it can’t pass Congress
February 13, 2026 at 10:41 PM
Which would have zero force in law.
Reposted by Brian Lyman
Via @arianalfigueroa.bsky.social: The second partial government shutdown in 2026 was set to begin at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, after lawmakers left the nation’s capital without reaching a deal on changes to immigration enforcement tactics at the Department of Homeland Security.
Clock ticks toward Department of Homeland Security shutdown after midnight deadline | Alabama Reflector
The department’s shutdown is also likely to go on for some time. With Congress out next week for the Presidents Day recess, lawmakers are not expected back on Capitol Hill for votes until Feb. 23.
alabamareflector.com
February 13, 2026 at 8:59 PM
Via @arianalfigueroa.bsky.social: The second partial government shutdown in 2026 was set to begin at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, after lawmakers left the nation’s capital without reaching a deal on changes to immigration enforcement tactics at the Department of Homeland Security.
They read 'em so you don't have to.
Via @annabjournalist.bsky.social, @rchapoco.bsky.social and @andreadotweb.bsky.social: Here's our weekly round-up of the bills that passed the Alabama Legislature.
What passed in the Alabama Legislature: Feb. 10-12, 2026 | Alabama Reflector
Here is a list of bills that passed the Alabama Legislature from Feb. 10 to Feb. 12, the fifth week of the 2026 regular session.
alabamareflector.com
February 13, 2026 at 5:50 PM
They read 'em so you don't have to.
The American right, famously pro-woman before 2026
February 13, 2026 at 3:21 PM
The American right, famously pro-woman before 2026
Reposted by Brian Lyman
Via @annabjournalist.bsky.social: The Alabama Senate passed a bill Thursday changing the qualifications for a grant program for adult learners. ow.ly/oeIb50YeEVk
Alabama Senate passes financial aid bills for adult learners, teachers | Alabama Reflector
The Alabama Senate passed a bill Thursday changing the qualifications for a grant program for adult learners.
ow.ly
February 13, 2026 at 2:12 PM
Via @annabjournalist.bsky.social: The Alabama Senate passed a bill Thursday changing the qualifications for a grant program for adult learners. ow.ly/oeIb50YeEVk
Good essay. Jim Crow regimes, from the 1870s onward, used violence against Black Americans and economic and social coercion against whites who may have objected. Rev. Robert Graetz was the only local white clergyman to support the Montgomery Bus Boycott; he and his family were bombed twice.
The Transformative Power of the White ‘Race Traitor’
www.nytimes.com
February 13, 2026 at 1:40 PM
Good essay. Jim Crow regimes, from the 1870s onward, used violence against Black Americans and economic and social coercion against whites who may have objected. Rev. Robert Graetz was the only local white clergyman to support the Montgomery Bus Boycott; he and his family were bombed twice.
I’m torn. I agree with this but I also know, with a lot of frustration, the limits of reporting. I’ve written about and published stories about Alabama’s prison crisis for 20 years, and it feels next to impossible to get people to care about the horrific violence happening in their names.
Really don’t need everyone to publicly self-flagellate but Bret is right that the only hope we have is for media to realize that ONGOING coverage of things is the only way to penetrate into the realm of low/no info voters
February 13, 2026 at 12:43 PM
I’m torn. I agree with this but I also know, with a lot of frustration, the limits of reporting. I’ve written about and published stories about Alabama’s prison crisis for 20 years, and it feels next to impossible to get people to care about the horrific violence happening in their names.
Ah, the full Alabama
Florida's opening argument in their appeal of the ruling that they cannot ban books from schools is that the government doesn't owe students public school library books at all.
February 13, 2026 at 12:20 PM
Ah, the full Alabama
Reposted by Brian Lyman
Via @andreadotweb.bsky.social: Speaking in Montgomery Thursday before a crowd of 1,000 people, former Vice President Kamala Harris criticized President Donald Trump and urged people not feel nostalgic for times when “for a lot of people, what was in place before wasn’t working either.”
Former Vice President Kamala Harris: 'We cannot normalize' Donald Trump's behaviors | Alabama Reflector
Former Vice President Kamala Harris visited Montgomery Thursday night as a part of her "A Conversation with Kamala Harris" tour.
alabamareflector.com
February 13, 2026 at 12:09 PM
Via @andreadotweb.bsky.social: Speaking in Montgomery Thursday before a crowd of 1,000 people, former Vice President Kamala Harris criticized President Donald Trump and urged people not feel nostalgic for times when “for a lot of people, what was in place before wasn’t working either.”
Reposted by Brian Lyman
Via @ashleymurray.bsky.social and Shauneen Miranda: The Department of Homeland Security is headed for a shutdown as lawmakers on Capitol Hill remained stuck Thursday over bans on face masks and other immigration tactics.
Department of Homeland Security shutdown nears, as US Senate remains stuck on funding | Alabama Reflector
A procedural vote to advance a funding bill failed in the Senate, 52-47, with Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., the only Democrat to join Republicans on the measure.
alabamareflector.com
February 12, 2026 at 11:29 PM
Via @ashleymurray.bsky.social and Shauneen Miranda: The Department of Homeland Security is headed for a shutdown as lawmakers on Capitol Hill remained stuck Thursday over bans on face masks and other immigration tactics.
Not at all unusual for historians to stumble on records that were last touched the day they were filed/stored/boxed. I’m not a historian, but when I was researching a story about lynching I stumbled across a typewritten transcript of a 1901 lynching trial, forgotten in the corner of a box.
Right, another key thing that historians do is working with important records that have not been digitized.
And the vast majority of the world’s records *have not been digitized* and thus do not exist in any format that LLMs/AI can work with.
And the vast majority of the world’s records *have not been digitized* and thus do not exist in any format that LLMs/AI can work with.
it's literally impossible for an LLM to do a historian's job
it's not even LLMs sucking it's that they need data input to do anything and where's that data supposed to be coming from without historians
never met a computer that can dig through a thousand year old book in a library
it's not even LLMs sucking it's that they need data input to do anything and where's that data supposed to be coming from without historians
never met a computer that can dig through a thousand year old book in a library
February 12, 2026 at 9:06 PM
Not at all unusual for historians to stumble on records that were last touched the day they were filed/stored/boxed. I’m not a historian, but when I was researching a story about lynching I stumbled across a typewritten transcript of a 1901 lynching trial, forgotten in the corner of a box.
Reposted by Brian Lyman
Via @rchapoco.bsky.social: The Alabama House of Representatives approved legislation on Thursday increasing criminal penalties for those who physically injure or kill people while driving under the influence.
Alabama House approves harsher punishments for driving under the influence | Alabama Reflector
The legislation upgrades the criminal penalty so that someone who drives under the influence could spend 20 years in prison.
alabamareflector.com
February 12, 2026 at 7:39 PM
Via @rchapoco.bsky.social: The Alabama House of Representatives approved legislation on Thursday increasing criminal penalties for those who physically injure or kill people while driving under the influence.