brian nam-sonenstein
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bson.bsky.social
brian nam-sonenstein
@bson.bsky.social
senior editor & researcher @prisonpolicy.org; 1/2 of @beyondprisons.bsky.social; fmr editor and founder shadowproof.com

Nobody is free until everybody is free
Reposted by brian nam-sonenstein
If this database is at all similar to California's, Pritzker is helping the regime prioritize kidnapping victims based on who their cousin is or what color shirt they happened to be wearing when they got pulled over for speeding.
Despite an Illinois law prohibiting data sharing agreements between state law enforcement agencies and federal immigration authorities, Illinois State Police is providing access to gang database info to DHS and has been doing so since 2024

✏️ @blairpaddock.bsky.social
Illinois State Police Keeps Data on Suspected Gang Members. ICE Has Access
According to agreements obtained by WTTW News, the Illinois State Police has shared data with ICE through its statewide computer system since 2008, including criminal history data and its gang member ...
news.wttw.com
November 14, 2025 at 12:17 AM
Medicaid cuts imperil rural hospitals. Over 60% of ppl in prison are in rural areas. Their access to basic medical care is already borderline nonexistent. Putting nearest hospital further out of reach is a recipe for disaster for millions of incarcerated ppl.

www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2025/10...
Almost half of all incarcerated people are in rural jails and prisons and at risk of losing access to hospitals
The Trump administration's One Big Beautiful Bill Act will result in the closure of many rural hospitals, leaving people in the surrounding communities — including ...
www.prisonpolicy.org
November 14, 2025 at 12:13 AM
Reposted by brian nam-sonenstein
Louisiana’s Medicaid program stopped covering trans care. So Trans Income Project stepped in to become the defacto “payer” for that care at one key clinic in the state. Today we hear how and why the project came to be:
In our latest, we speak with the director of Trans Income Project about their work providing material support to trans people in Louisiana and how they’re trying to fill the gaps created by the federal government’s attacks on trans coverage under Medicaid

soundcloud.com/deathpanel/a...
An Oral History of Trans Income Project w/ Natalie Rupp (11/13/25)
To support the show and help make episodes like this one possible, become a patron at www.patreon.com/deathpanelpod Beatrice speaks with Natalie Rupp of Trans Income Project about their work providin
soundcloud.com
November 13, 2025 at 1:13 PM
Vika’s cake from today.
November 13, 2025 at 11:55 PM
Reposted by brian nam-sonenstein
"He fears now not only being deported, but losing a foot."

Prisons, now matter what name they carry, public or private are death zones whether it be quick or slow.
November 13, 2025 at 11:29 PM
Reposted by brian nam-sonenstein
It's been 10 year since Jamar Clark was shot and killed in North Minneapolis. The uprising in 2020 is hard to imagine without the work of activists and people who showed up in 2015 to demand better and we're going to spend years grappling to understand the impacts of summer 2020's reckoning.
November 13, 2025 at 10:54 PM
Reposted by brian nam-sonenstein
Every time you type something bad about MSM, you should donate to independent news!
We have some absolutely w i l d stories in the works at @autonomynews.co. But investigative reporting is time-intensive, and time is money.

Subscribe, tip, buy merch, or make a tax-deductible donation today to keep our work paywall-free for all:
Support Autonomy News
We will never put our reporting or analysis behind a paywall. Your support makes that possible. Here are a few different ways to power our work: Become a member Support our journalism and help comb...
www.autonomynews.co
November 13, 2025 at 10:52 PM
Reposted by brian nam-sonenstein
US executions in 2025 may hit the highest rate since 2010, with Florida leading the nation; Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed 15 death warrants so far, in the state holding America’s second-largest death row population.
US Executions May Reach Their Highest Rate Since 2010. Florida Has Had the Most.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed 15 death warrants this year in the state with the second-largest death row population.
buff.ly
November 13, 2025 at 11:00 PM
Reposted by brian nam-sonenstein
And people who go 'I'm for safe borders and orderly deportations, not violence and racism!' are kidding themselves, that's kind of like going 'I support the war but not the use of military force'
November 13, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Reposted by brian nam-sonenstein
The Trump Admin's shameful attacks on kids with disabilities are happening on every front: legislation (OBBB), regs, and RIFs. The Social Security Administration's new proposed rule to limit SSI eligibility is yet another example. 1/ firstfocus.org/update/recen...
Recent Actions by the Trump Administration Target Children with Disabilities
Proposed rules, reductions in force, threaten roughly 100,000 children who rely on Supplemental Security Income, plus others in need of support and
firstfocus.org
November 13, 2025 at 2:54 PM
Reposted by brian nam-sonenstein
"Three times a day, I see dozens of men race across the compound to the chow hall because not everyone in their unit will get to eat."
Not All Prisoners Get Fed Daily. Here, It Depends on How Fast You Can Run.
Three times a day, I see dozens of men race across the compound to the chow hall because not everyone in their unit will get to eat.
filtermag.org
November 6, 2025 at 3:08 PM
Reposted by brian nam-sonenstein
people have lived and died trying to create law enforcement that will protect them from violence instead of create violence, so i don't want to denigrate the hard work of many people. there is simply no data to suggest that electing Democrat sheriffs substantially changes policing.
November 13, 2025 at 2:53 PM
Reposted by brian nam-sonenstein
one of my pet peeves is people who post about "the MSM stinks" etc but then don't want to be bothered to think about the fact that journalists also need to eat, have health insurance, and even wear shoes.
November 13, 2025 at 3:31 PM
Reposted by brian nam-sonenstein
here at the Paper of Record, when an open white supremacist leaks someone's college application in an attempt to imply he got unfair race-based special treatment, even though he was rejected, we know what to do: publish it immediately prospect.org/2025/07/09/2...
November 13, 2025 at 7:54 PM
Reposted by brian nam-sonenstein
Punished for... having a period?

Yes, you read that right – behind bars, menstruation is treated like misconduct. Here's how prisons punish people for a bodily function they have no control over 🧵
Menstruation as misconduct: How prisons punish people for having their periods
Our analysis of prison rules and sanctions across all fifty states and the federal system — as well as accounts of incarcerated people — reveal ...
www.prisonpolicy.org
November 13, 2025 at 8:32 PM
Reposted by brian nam-sonenstein
In JeffCo/2021 they brought in this woman in distress over having been assaulted by officers. She kept screaming she needed a shower bc she was bleeding everywhere—& they not only denied her access, but they cut off the water to her cage/refused to give her menstrual products, in violation of CO law
Punished for... having a period?

Yes, you read that right – behind bars, menstruation is treated like misconduct. Here's how prisons punish people for a bodily function they have no control over 🧵
Menstruation as misconduct: How prisons punish people for having their periods
Our analysis of prison rules and sanctions across all fifty states and the federal system — as well as accounts of incarcerated people — reveal ...
www.prisonpolicy.org
November 13, 2025 at 9:09 PM
Reposted by brian nam-sonenstein
"Ping-ponging", "Diesel therapy",
PPI on the realities and brutalities of of prison transfer.

“You want to be in the hell you already know”
www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2025/06...
“You want to be in the hell you already know”: How prison transfers regularly upend incarcerated people’s lives
Moving people between prisons can improve their access to treatment, programs, and visitation — but transfers can also be deeply traumatizing, disruptive, and destabilizing. In ...
www.prisonpolicy.org
November 12, 2025 at 11:40 PM
Reposted by brian nam-sonenstein
A number of local Chicago reporters/journalists have truly distinguished themselves over the past few weeks and I am so very grateful. It also shows that reporting is a public service when done well. Thank you all.
November 13, 2025 at 8:10 PM
November 13, 2025 at 8:20 PM
Reposted by brian nam-sonenstein
Don't wanna pile on. But. To the general public it will just be implausible to suggest that journalistic standards meant a lead suggesting a Trump-Epstein link wasn't worth pursuing when the NYT did run with "Mamdani said he was African American in an application to a college he didn't get into".
November 13, 2025 at 7:57 PM
Reposted by brian nam-sonenstein
Weird thing about this is Angus King caved from basically the beginning: He's one of the three (including Fetterman) who voted to capitulate a full month ago. (tinyurl.com/3y7v89zx)

So the idea that he 'got what we wanted' or there was some sophisticated calculus at work makes no sense. #MEpolitics
November 13, 2025 at 5:55 PM
Reposted by brian nam-sonenstein
i remain steadfast in my belief that the most parsimonious explanation for their decisions is they simply did not want to imprison donald trump. it was something they wanted to avoid more than just about anything else. it scared the shit out of them and led them to delay and ignore him far too long
November 13, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Reposted by brian nam-sonenstein
Everyone getting mad at the New York Times for sitting on or suppressing mountains of evidence about Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump need to realize that they had a lot on their plate with trying to keep the country afraid of trans kids and Palestinians
November 13, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Reposted by brian nam-sonenstein
Portland Press Herald opinion section today. Totally normal stuff. #MEpolitics
November 13, 2025 at 5:12 PM
Reposted by brian nam-sonenstein
in online corners like these I think people largely recognize how credulous, unprincipled opposition to "wokeness" functioned as lightly papered over defenses of impunity, but it's one of those drums people should probably start beating for normies
Something absolutely perfect about Larry Summers riffing about the scourge of woke cancel culture being unfair to predatory men in a friendly email to his pal JEFFREY EPSTEIN.
November 13, 2025 at 2:13 PM