Reposted by Sam Weinig
The legal, media, and academic institutions capitulating to an authoritarian ordering payments for favorable treatment are damning themselves to irrelevance. They are destroying their institutions. They will be — and should be — shunned for failing in their most basic purposes for existing.
BREAKING: Northwestern University has agreed to pay the U.S. Treasury $75 million, over the course of three years as part of an agreement with the federal government to restore funding and end investigations into the university
Full statement from NU below:
Full statement from NU below:
November 29, 2025 at 1:37 AM
The legal, media, and academic institutions capitulating to an authoritarian ordering payments for favorable treatment are damning themselves to irrelevance. They are destroying their institutions. They will be — and should be — shunned for failing in their most basic purposes for existing.
Reposted by Sam Weinig
Trump's secret police vandalize houses and cars, assault citizens, fire potential lethal weapons for the hell of it, and assault children, often as sexual predators... and claim impunity for all of this. CATO proposes the fix. In the meantime it's essential to document all these crimes rigorously.
What Good Is a Right Without a Remedy?
Flagrant civil rights abuses are enabled by a legal scheme that makes it all but impossible to sue federal agents for constitutional violations and shields them with immunity should that barrier ever ...
www.cato.org
November 24, 2025 at 3:01 AM
Trump's secret police vandalize houses and cars, assault citizens, fire potential lethal weapons for the hell of it, and assault children, often as sexual predators... and claim impunity for all of this. CATO proposes the fix. In the meantime it's essential to document all these crimes rigorously.
Reposted by Sam Weinig
first and only line of his biography: he dismantled USAID, condemning millions to die www.npr.org/sections/goa...
Study: 14 million lives could be lost due to Trump aid cuts
A new study looks at lives saved by USAID in the past and what the future without the agency will look like.
www.npr.org
November 23, 2025 at 3:13 PM
first and only line of his biography: he dismantled USAID, condemning millions to die www.npr.org/sections/goa...
Reposted by Sam Weinig
a “Space Force”, if you will
November 13, 2025 at 2:27 PM
a “Space Force”, if you will
Reposted by Sam Weinig
seems to me that those democrats inclined not to fight perceive themselves as living through a somewhat ordinary cycle of presidential overreach and backlash and not something much more significant and dangerous
November 10, 2025 at 12:50 PM
seems to me that those democrats inclined not to fight perceive themselves as living through a somewhat ordinary cycle of presidential overreach and backlash and not something much more significant and dangerous
Reposted by Sam Weinig
This how I find out I have a son??
Loving today's news that the mysterious "fedora man" outside the Louvre heist was actually a 15-year-old museum visitor who dresses like a 1940s French detective all the time, just because. apnews.com/article/louv...
Fedora man unmasked: Meet the teen behind the Louvre mystery photo
Fifteen-year-old Pedro Elias Garzon Delvaux has become an internet sensation after an Associated Press photo captured him outside the Louvre on the day of a crown jewels heist.
apnews.com
November 9, 2025 at 5:13 PM
This how I find out I have a son??
Reposted by Sam Weinig
"Beyond being the 24th consecutive grant of emergency relief to the Trump administration, the cryptic ruling in Orr is a reminder of just how bankrupt the Court’s proffered justifications are in these cases—both legally and in other ways, too."
Me on today's ugly #SCOTUS ruling in Trump v. Orr:
Me on today's ugly #SCOTUS ruling in Trump v. Orr:
189. The Breezy Inequity of Trump v. Orr
The Supreme Court's latest grant of emergency relief to the Trump administration illustrates in technicolor the direct (and ugly) consequences of the two different ways it keeps messing up "equity."
www.stevevladeck.com
November 7, 2025 at 2:28 AM
"Beyond being the 24th consecutive grant of emergency relief to the Trump administration, the cryptic ruling in Orr is a reminder of just how bankrupt the Court’s proffered justifications are in these cases—both legally and in other ways, too."
Me on today's ugly #SCOTUS ruling in Trump v. Orr:
Me on today's ugly #SCOTUS ruling in Trump v. Orr:
Reposted by Sam Weinig
One analytical model shows that, as of November 5th, the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. has already caused the deaths of 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/jUzNSc
The Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of Thousands
The short documentary “Rovina’s Choice” tells the story of what goes when aid goes.
newyorkermag.visitlink.me
November 6, 2025 at 9:00 PM
One analytical model shows that, as of November 5th, the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. has already caused the deaths of 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/jUzNSc
Reposted by Sam Weinig
Honestly one of the worst, most disturbing paragraphs — on the basis of process, substance, and effect — I’ve read in a Supreme Court order or opinion in a very long time.
![Displaying passport holders' sex at birth no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth—in both cases, the Government is merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment. And on this record, respondents have failed to establish that the Government's choice to display biological sex "lack[s] any purpose other than a bare ... desire to harm a politically unpopular group." Trump v. Hawaii, 585
U. S. 667, 705 (2018) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Nor are respondents likely to prevail in arguing that the State Department acted arbitrarily and capriciously by declining to depart from Presidential rules that Congress expressly required it to follow. See 22 U. S. C. §211a.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:36eqtmzysqf7wsslczw4uxcd/bafkreigev37etpfwfdxjlnt3pz5qyueldxo3k6rfxw5ip477gp7inlrctq@jpeg)
November 7, 2025 at 12:55 AM
Honestly one of the worst, most disturbing paragraphs — on the basis of process, substance, and effect — I’ve read in a Supreme Court order or opinion in a very long time.
Reposted by Sam Weinig
Reposted by Sam Weinig
it's time for journos to start asking Johnson meta questions
"Speaker, on 5 occasions last week you said 'I haven't seen it' when asked about news events w/big implications for public policy. Do you ever read the news, and do you agree it's problematic for the Speaker to be so woefully uninformed?"
"Speaker, on 5 occasions last week you said 'I haven't seen it' when asked about news events w/big implications for public policy. Do you ever read the news, and do you agree it's problematic for the Speaker to be so woefully uninformed?"
November 3, 2025 at 3:36 PM
it's time for journos to start asking Johnson meta questions
"Speaker, on 5 occasions last week you said 'I haven't seen it' when asked about news events w/big implications for public policy. Do you ever read the news, and do you agree it's problematic for the Speaker to be so woefully uninformed?"
"Speaker, on 5 occasions last week you said 'I haven't seen it' when asked about news events w/big implications for public policy. Do you ever read the news, and do you agree it's problematic for the Speaker to be so woefully uninformed?"
Reposted by Sam Weinig
[an awkward minute passes as Death struggles to pick up change from the countertop]
Death: (embarrassed) ha ha slippery coins
Drugstore Clerk: nah man it’s cuz you got them bone hands
Death: (embarrassed) ha ha slippery coins
Drugstore Clerk: nah man it’s cuz you got them bone hands
September 17, 2023 at 2:53 PM
[an awkward minute passes as Death struggles to pick up change from the countertop]
Death: (embarrassed) ha ha slippery coins
Drugstore Clerk: nah man it’s cuz you got them bone hands
Death: (embarrassed) ha ha slippery coins
Drugstore Clerk: nah man it’s cuz you got them bone hands
Reposted by Sam Weinig
October 25, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Reposted by Sam Weinig
For Tolkien fans, a timely passage for No Kings Eve, from WH Auden’s review of Lord of the Rings.
October 18, 2025 at 4:13 AM
For Tolkien fans, a timely passage for No Kings Eve, from WH Auden’s review of Lord of the Rings.
Reposted by Sam Weinig
Just walked past a neighbor sitting on their stoop with a miniature picnic table, attempting to coax a squirrel to come eat a nut at the table. So, you know, some kings.
October 18, 2025 at 2:26 PM
Just walked past a neighbor sitting on their stoop with a miniature picnic table, attempting to coax a squirrel to come eat a nut at the table. So, you know, some kings.
Reposted by Sam Weinig
Unless and until some kind of compelling legal and moral argument is presented as to why this is a legitimate use of deadly force, this is just…mass murder.
The military has now killed 27 people as if they were enemy soldiers in a war zone and not criminal suspects. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/u...
U.S. Military Kills Another 6 People in 5th Caribbean Strike, Trump Says
www.nytimes.com
October 14, 2025 at 7:47 PM
Unless and until some kind of compelling legal and moral argument is presented as to why this is a legitimate use of deadly force, this is just…mass murder.
Reposted by Sam Weinig
Truly abhorrent and a mockery of the rule of law that Emil Bove is a federal judge.
JUST IN: The 3rd Circuit *denies* a push by national GOP to reconsider ruling on misdated mail ballots in Pa.
Judge Emil Bove may have cast his first vote here in dissent of the decision -- and plans to write about it later. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Judge Emil Bove may have cast his first vote here in dissent of the decision -- and plans to write about it later. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
October 14, 2025 at 3:58 PM
Truly abhorrent and a mockery of the rule of law that Emil Bove is a federal judge.
Reposted by Sam Weinig
It’s pronounced cyclist.
October 11, 2025 at 10:21 PM
It’s pronounced cyclist.
Reposted by Sam Weinig
One of very few actors where I suddenly just crave *them* and will watch whatever I can find that they star in.
October 11, 2025 at 8:27 PM
One of very few actors where I suddenly just crave *them* and will watch whatever I can find that they star in.
Reposted by Sam Weinig
This is it. Very glad to see this full-throated welcome to queer people — and recognition of trans people’s history — from Zohran Mamdani in the closing month of his campaign and on National Coming Out Day.
UNTIL IT’S DONE, Ep. 4: Sylvia Rivera
In the 1970s, queer New Yorkers had been pushed to the margins of NYC. Our trans neighbors faced immense cruelty. But in Sylvia Rivera, they found a champion.
As we combat Trump’s politics of darkness, her legacy can light the path forward.
In the 1970s, queer New Yorkers had been pushed to the margins of NYC. Our trans neighbors faced immense cruelty. But in Sylvia Rivera, they found a champion.
As we combat Trump’s politics of darkness, her legacy can light the path forward.
October 11, 2025 at 3:50 PM
This is it. Very glad to see this full-throated welcome to queer people — and recognition of trans people’s history — from Zohran Mamdani in the closing month of his campaign and on National Coming Out Day.
Reposted by Sam Weinig
Free Greta Thunberg and the rest of the illegally detained flotilla activists.
October 4, 2025 at 10:12 PM
Free Greta Thunberg and the rest of the illegally detained flotilla activists.
Reposted by Sam Weinig
can't get over how masked gangs of government thugs are kidnapping innocents off the street and the official democratic party response is "we need to ignore that and focus on health care premiums"
October 4, 2025 at 7:05 AM
can't get over how masked gangs of government thugs are kidnapping innocents off the street and the official democratic party response is "we need to ignore that and focus on health care premiums"
Reposted by Sam Weinig
One of my favorite anecdotes from THE PREHISTORY OF THE FAR SIDE: "That doesn't sound like the Jane Goodall we know."
October 1, 2025 at 6:13 PM
One of my favorite anecdotes from THE PREHISTORY OF THE FAR SIDE: "That doesn't sound like the Jane Goodall we know."
Reposted by Sam Weinig
Most of the power authoritarians have is freely given. We should not comply with them in advance.
Trump is far weaker than he looks. So is the GOP. We should draw them out, drain them at every opportunity, and fight for people’s wellbeing at every turn.
We have been sent here to fight for people.
Trump is far weaker than he looks. So is the GOP. We should draw them out, drain them at every opportunity, and fight for people’s wellbeing at every turn.
We have been sent here to fight for people.
AOC: I think there's two things that are happening at once: One, there absolutely is an unprecedented abuse of power, destruction of norms, erosion of our government and our democracy in order to prop up an authoritarian style of governance
However, they are weaker than they look…
However, they are weaker than they look…
October 1, 2025 at 3:10 AM
Most of the power authoritarians have is freely given. We should not comply with them in advance.
Trump is far weaker than he looks. So is the GOP. We should draw them out, drain them at every opportunity, and fight for people’s wellbeing at every turn.
We have been sent here to fight for people.
Trump is far weaker than he looks. So is the GOP. We should draw them out, drain them at every opportunity, and fight for people’s wellbeing at every turn.
We have been sent here to fight for people.