Leah Thompson
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leahvivi.bsky.social
Leah Thompson
@leahvivi.bsky.social
East Hollywood-based documentary filmmaker (previously supported by the NEH). Finally kicking my bad twitter habit.
Reposted by Leah Thompson
The Vanity Fair photographer from the Susie Wiles story.

Holy. Shit.

www.washingtonpost.com/style/power/...
December 17, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Reposted by Leah Thompson
Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol made $95 million last year. His workers are striking for the bare minimum. Glad to be on the right side of the picket line with them.
December 1, 2025 at 11:46 PM
Reposted by Leah Thompson
People will die, and are currently dying, because RFK was granted one of the most powerful megaphones in the country. Two people who could have thrown barriers in front of his climb decided not to; there's a sex scandal here but it is not the biggest scandal.
November 26, 2025 at 11:30 PM
Reposted by Leah Thompson
When Jamal Khashoggi was killed , all the TV networks were chasing me down to have me on to talk about Trump, Mohammed Bin Salman, Saudi Arabia and the murder.

Now that MBS is back in town and being wined and dined by Trump, Musk, Bezos and other tech billionaires?

I have not had one TV invite.
November 20, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Reposted by Leah Thompson
Trump defends Mohammed bin Salman over the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi:

"A lot of people didn't like that gentleman... Things happen... He knew nothing about it."

A US intelligence report concluded that bin Salman personally "approved an operation" to "kill or capture" Khashoggi.
November 18, 2025 at 5:54 PM
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So Harvard is keeping this guy, but Claudine Gay had to step down over ginned up plagiarism accusations and bad-faith accusations of anti-Semitism.

Got it.
Larry Summers tells @theharvardcrimson.bsky.social
he’s stepping back from all public commitments in light of his messages with Epstein, saying he is “deeply ashamed” and hopes “to rebuild trust and repair relationships.”

He will continue teaching.

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
November 18, 2025 at 5:10 AM
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hell yeah, we're doing hopepunk, we're making star wars references, we're cringemaxxing

caring about stuff is so uncool that it's cool again, get ready www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
Resistance Is Cringe—But It’s Also Effective
Dismissing the movement as embarrassing pap ignores what has made it so powerful.
www.theatlantic.com
October 19, 2025 at 4:26 PM
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Things are happening at Portland's ICE facility tonight.

Read more of our protest coverage here: www.oregonlive.com/crime/2025/1...
October 10, 2025 at 3:49 AM
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That is extremely not a denial
NOTABLE -- Pam Bondi refuses to answer direct questions about if the FBI has incriminating photos of Trump with half-naked young women, but instead deflects from them by attacking Sen. Whitehouse
October 7, 2025 at 3:49 PM
Reposted by Leah Thompson
What’s more astonishing: 1) that the president clearly believes, and repeatedly suggests, that asylum seekers are people from mental asylums, or 2) that no journalist has ever challenged him on this and no mainstream media outlets have done any deep dives on this story?
September 20, 2025 at 7:11 PM
Reposted by Leah Thompson
Critical part of the President's new $100,000 charge for H1-B visas: The Administration can also offer a $100,000 discount to any person, company, or industry that it wants. Replacing rules with arbitrary discretion.

Want visas? You know who to call and who to flatter.
September 20, 2025 at 1:40 PM
Reposted by Leah Thompson
currently at record-high search interest for canceling disney plus. pulling kimmel is a bigger deal to the company's bottom line than any of the "woke" scandals of the past 5 years. i think news & entertainment corp execs need put more work into understanding their audience, & get off twitter
September 20, 2025 at 4:12 PM
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Pretty clear illustration of "you may as well stand up for what you believe in, they're coming for you anyway."
So, a university president fired a professor because they taught a course that discussed there being more than two genders, and now the university president is being fired for not having fired the professor quickly enough, is where we're at. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/u...
Texas A&M President to Step Down After Controversy Over ‘Gender Ideology’
www.nytimes.com
September 19, 2025 at 11:26 AM
Reposted by Leah Thompson
Disney/ABC have a responsibility to refuse to participate in corruption.

Kimmel must be reinstated. If Disney/ABC agree to this extortion then perhaps creatives + workers should consider collective action to push back. Same w/buying park + cruise tickets if they bow.

People have power. Ask Target
September 20, 2025 at 1:13 AM
Reposted by Leah Thompson
The last political column I was allowed to write in the @washingtonpost.com was a criticism of Obama.

His people took issue with my piece, but we were respectful.

Now he is tweeting in support of me.

This is how free political speech and respect for debate *actually works*.

Or used to work.
September 18, 2025 at 2:56 PM
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THE HYPOCRISY IS THE POINT!!
September 18, 2025 at 10:35 PM
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A good time to avoid the House of Mouse.
Heard from a friend at Disney+ that there are multiple levels of freakout internally, both from internal dissatisfaction, concerns about subscription cancelations, and of course the big one: concern about a boycott spilling over into parks and cruises.
September 18, 2025 at 4:51 PM
Reposted by Leah Thompson
Hard to think of a more on-the-nose encapsulation of how far the online speech wars have swung in the year of our lord 2025 than major U.S. corporations racing to fire people whose tweets offended Milo Yiannopoulos
September 17, 2025 at 8:12 PM
Reposted by Leah Thompson
i think that if the FCC threatened to revoke ABC’s license unless it replaced Jimmy Kimmel with Kevin Hart to diversify the network, Ilya Shapiro would be able to identify the issue here
This really is the final expression of "libertarianism" as it is practiced in the US today.
September 18, 2025 at 12:45 PM
Reposted by Leah Thompson
I am actually sad to have to say this since I have admired much about Disney CEO Bob Iger over the years, but what a profoundly quisling move this is by someone who knows better. It’s shameful and he has tarnished his once proud reputation.
September 18, 2025 at 4:32 AM
Reposted by Leah Thompson
Jarvis: I hate to say this to my friends here at CNN, mass media is dying, so they're taking the last of these vestiges of institutions that matter and they're trying to turn them into propaganda organs under threat from the head of the FCC
September 18, 2025 at 2:19 AM
Reposted by Leah Thompson
Exactly this
September 18, 2025 at 4:15 AM
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Seems like there’s an opening for a political movement concerned about free speech and cancel culture.
September 15, 2025 at 6:39 PM
Reposted by Leah Thompson
at the center of the efforts to destroy civil society in russia, hungary, georgia and elsewhere is the stigmatization, harassment, & criminalization of NGOs. that's what this is about, a full-on assault on democratic debate & freedoms.

this is not hyperbole. it's right here.
Vance: "There's no unity with people who fund these articles, who pay the salaries of these terrorist sympathizers...Soros' OSF and the Ford Foundation...benefit from generous tax treatment...How do they reward us? By setting fire to the house built by the American family."
September 15, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Reposted by Leah Thompson
I know several people who have covered right-wing folks and white nationalists for years. I cannot emphasize enough how dangerous and hard the work is, how much of a toll it can take on their mental health, and how newsrooms undervalue it even when that expertise is clearly relevant and needed.
September 15, 2025 at 3:07 PM