Sam Russek
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samrussek.bsky.social
Sam Russek
@samrussek.bsky.social
reporter-researcher @newrepublic.com | associate editor @orbooks.bsky.social | also @samrussek on X | “some skeptics,” per the NYT | website: https://samrussek.neocities.org/
ICYMI: There’s an activist in Texas who’s been held in solitary confinement for 23 years. His body is failing. It took a year—and a court order—for him to finally see a *partial* medical diagnosis. He learned that he’d suffered a stroke *and* a heart attack. None of the prison officials had told him
“Xinachtli” Hernandez’s health is failing him. So is the system. trib.al/JumfKSL

His worst fall came in the shower with no rails to hold onto—even though 16% of Texas’s prison population is 55+. When it rains his cell floods. He stores his belongings in jars so the rats don't chew through them.
February 8, 2026 at 4:49 PM
Reposted by Sam Russek
“Xinachtli” Hernandez’s health is failing him. So is the system. trib.al/JumfKSL

His worst fall came in the shower with no rails to hold onto—even though 16% of Texas’s prison population is 55+. When it rains his cell floods. He stores his belongings in jars so the rats don't chew through them.
February 6, 2026 at 9:40 PM
Alvaro Hernandez, AKA Xinachtli, has been held in solitary confinement for 23 years. Now 73, his body's failing him—he can't walk, lost ~100 lbs, & Texas officials have withheld medical diagnoses. His supporters say this is part of a long history of retaliation for his activism
February 6, 2026 at 3:11 PM
Reposted by Sam Russek
NEW: Another DFW-area activist, Lucy Fowlkes, was just arrested by the FBI in connection to the Prairieland ICE Detention Center protest last July, bringing the total to 19 defendants. Fowlkes, like ~1/3 of those charged, wasn't at the protest, but in the DOJ's discovery... (🧵)
January 7, 2026 at 2:40 PM
Since July, Trump’s DOJ has used a protest outside an ICE facility to justify the roundup of leftwing activists, labeling them an “antifa cell.” For @newrepublic.com I gained access to nearly 6 TB of discovery—CCTV, bodycam, warrants. The DOJ’s story doesn’t add up
January 4, 2026 at 2:54 PM
One of those stories where folks I’d never spoken to before have privately reached out to thank me for reporting it out. Happy to be in @texasobserver.org’s top ten this year
#BestOf2025, from @samrussek.bsky.social: It’s worth lingering on Lina Hidalgo’s double-edged legacy: a meteoric rise and a stumbling decline, a wave of Democratic empowerment followed by a striking bout of impotence.
Lina Hidalgo Had a Vision. Harris County Won’t See It.
Her anti-climactic exit from office caps a saga of waning power and growing discord. But what her rise once promised is worth remembering.
www.texasobserver.org
December 28, 2025 at 6:33 PM
Reposted by Sam Russek
“This is New York’s first portfolio-wide union in recent memory, and surely the first to be built at such dizzying scale: In a matter of months, 40 Pinnacle buildings across three boroughs have formed tenant associations.”

mr mayor-elect, sir, please intervene in this bankruptcy auction
Zohran Mamdani’s First Big Housing Test Is Already Here
The mayor-elect is about to inherit a messy bankruptcy affecting thousands of rent-stabilized New Yorkers. He’s also inheriting a growing tenants’ movement ready to fight back.
newrepublic.com
December 11, 2025 at 6:17 PM
Reposted by Sam Russek
"This is New York’s first portfolio-wide union in recent memory, and surely the first to be built at such dizzying scale: In a matter of months, 40 Pinnacle buildings across 3 boroughs have formed tenant associations and joined the union to coordinate their demands."

newrepublic.com/article/2042...
Zohran Mamdani’s First Big Housing Test Is Already Here
The mayor-elect is about to inherit a messy bankruptcy affecting thousands of rent-stabilized New Yorkers. He’s also inheriting a growing tenants’ movement ready to fight back.
newrepublic.com
December 11, 2025 at 9:48 PM
Reposted by Sam Russek
The Pinnacle bankruptcy has upended the lives of thousands of NYers in rent-stabilized units, a constituency to which Mamdani has pledged himself. But as Sam Russek reports, a fast-growing tenants' union is forming in advance of the change at Gracie Mansion

newrepublic.com/article/2042...
Zohran Mamdani’s First Big Housing Test Is Already Here
The mayor-elect is about to inherit a messy bankruptcy affecting thousands of rent-stabilized New Yorkers. He’s also inheriting a growing tenants’ movement ready to fight back.
newrepublic.com
December 11, 2025 at 10:05 PM
Reposted by Sam Russek
Our top story, @samrussek.bsky.social: As a Latina immigrant elected in her mid-twenties, Lina Hidalgo faced unique headwinds that can’t be ignored when reckoning with her time in office, yet what she did with the power she won must still be judged on its own merits.
Lina Hidalgo Had a Vision. Harris County Won’t See It.
Her anti-climactic exit from office caps a saga of waning power and growing discord. But what her rise once promised is worth remembering.
www.texasobserver.org
December 11, 2025 at 3:12 PM
What was Lina Hidalgo? When was Lina Hidalgo? Why was Lina Hidalgo? For @texasobserver.org, I appraised Democrats' erstwhile shining star—a beacon of Texas progressivism under Trump 1.0—whose second term will soon end in disappointment.

www.texasobserver.org/lina-hidalgo...
Lina Hidalgo Had a Vision. Harris County Won’t See It.
Her anti-climactic exit from office caps a saga of waning power and growing discord. But what her rise once promised is worth remembering.
www.texasobserver.org
December 9, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Reposted by Sam Russek
New from @samrussek.bsky.social: While some local Democratic party chapters speak effusively of their partnerships with Texas Majority PAC, others liken it to a bait-and-switch operation that commandeers the grassroots manpower of established county parties & fails to deliver on its lofty promises.
Inside the Rift Between Texas Dems and a Soros-Backed PAC
The Texas Majority PAC is the latest deep-pocketed initiative meant to turn Texas blue. But have its dollars just brought more discord?
www.texasobserver.org
October 8, 2025 at 3:38 PM
SCOOP: A Soros-backed PAC in Texas expects a massive budget—$20 million a year, each year, until 2032—but the group has been roiled by territorial disputes and allegations of "data falsification" & "systemic" voter outreach fraud. And here come the midterms. In @texasobserver.org: bit.ly/3IYSfdc
Inside the Rift Between Texas Dems and a Soros-Backed PAC
The Texas Majority PAC is the latest deep-pocketed initiative meant to turn Texas blue. But have its dollars just brought more discord?
bit.ly
October 8, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Update: Franklin Pena's defense in the Jocelyn Nungaray case just asked the DA's office to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Ogg for misuse of official information, and both the DA and defense are planning to file bar complaints against her.
Explosive motion just filed in Harris County: DA Sean Teare has asked for the court to revise its rules on extrajudicial statements after his predecessor Kim Ogg went on the local Fox affiliate to leak new info on the Jocelyn Nungaray case. The order doesn't mince words:
June 2, 2025 at 3:37 PM
Explosive motion just filed in Harris County: DA Sean Teare has asked for the court to revise its rules on extrajudicial statements after his predecessor Kim Ogg went on the local Fox affiliate to leak new info on the Jocelyn Nungaray case. The order doesn't mince words:
June 2, 2025 at 3:30 PM
ICYMI: A little-known Republican's entry into the race to replace Lina Hidalgo was unremarkable save for one detail: Her campaign's ties to a '24 SuperPAC that used antisemitic tropes to undercut Harris's appeal with Muslims in Michigan.

In @newrepublic.com: bit.ly/3SiSWzc
The Texas Judge Race That Republicans Are Suddenly Eyeing
Why is a little-known GOP candidate getting such big-name support in her effort to unseat Harris County’s Lina Hidalgo? It could be a dry run for the party’s next wave of messaging.
bit.ly
May 27, 2025 at 2:10 PM