"But in Springfield, the heightened level of fear is so widespread, & the state-imposed terror vs a vulnerable minority so constant, that it is impossible to see this as anything but [Trump's] proof of concept for the president’s militarized vision of what America should be" - @swin24.bsky.social

Inside Trump’s Nightmare for Haitians in Springfield: ‘We’re Following Our Orders’

The most urgent moral test in all of Trump’s America today is happening in a small Ohio city – and we as a country are failing it miserably.

zeteo.com

it was such an honor to join Annika this week for a conversation about The Bachelor and evangelicalism! from the ways the show frames courtship, virginity and marriage to the most successful Christian influencers launched by the show, there was so much to dig into

Annika Brockschmidt@ardenthistorian.bsky.social · 2w ago

I’ve been so excited to share this latest episode of @straightwhitejc.bsky.social with you: I got to talk to the amazing @claireefallon.bsky.social about evangelicalism, purity culture, gender roles and Christian nationalism on the Bachelor and other Reality TV and Dating franchises

I'm really excited for this week's Sunday interview for @straightwhitejc.bsky.social - I talked to @claireefallon.bsky.social about religion, purity culture and performance on Reality TV, from the Bachelor to Love is Blind and various Mormonism-themed shows. Stay tuned- the episode drops on Sunday!

BTW, for folks new here, please check out this incredible anthology I co-edited featuring brilliant talent like: @samanthaallen.bsky.social, @priscadorcas.bsky.social, @jeannakadlec.bsky.social, @emmagray.bsky.social, @claireefallon.bsky.social & more! bookshop.org/a/20948/9781...

Here for All the Reasons: Why We Watch the Bachelor

Why We Watch the Bachelor

bookshop.org

Ilana Masad@ilanaslightly.bsky.social · 3mo ago

HOLY SHIT I WON A LAMBDA

A growing national movement for menstrual equity is calling on prisons to ensure menstrual products are freely available for people who menstruate behind bars. theappeal.org/prison-menst...

Bleeding Behind Bars Is Extra Grim When Prisons Fail to Offer Menstrual Products

Twenty-two states have laws requiring prisons to provide free menstrual products, but not all of them do.

theappeal.org

I returned to Delaney Hall today with Rep. Menendez and Rep. Pallone after disturbing reports that detainees were being beaten. We confirmed that four people were taken to the hospital. The inhumane conditions inside Delaney Hall must end. It is time to shut this facility down.

Just insane. New Jersey Gov Mikie Sherrill says DHS just denied state health inspectors full access to Delaney Hall. She's calling for it to be shut down.

meanwhile, i had to have a VERY difficult conversation about the iran war with my 6-year-old at the playground yesterday, is anyone making sure kids (mine, but, more importantly, kids in iran) don't have to deal with that

Claire Fallon@claireefallon.bsky.social · 6mo ago

hard to imagine fucking your kid up so bad that they need therapy to deal with learning about gay people

hard to imagine fucking your kid up so bad that they need therapy to deal with learning about gay people

Cosmic Marvel@dailycosmicmarvel.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Pixar CCO Pete Docter says they removed gay elements from ‘ELIO’ after finding some parents didn’t want entertainment forcing conversations with their kids they weren’t ready for. “We’re making a movie, not hundreds of millions of dollars of therapy.” (via www.wsj.com/business/med...)

do these people… have kids? before I did, playgrounds were invisible to me. now I spend half of every weekend at a location that looks, literally, exactly like this (give or take some snow). you can go to one right now, they exist.

James Medlock@jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 6mo ago

So much online conservatism these days is just "I miss being a kid"

they tried that back in the day, and unfortunately what they came up with was negging and maybe wearing a silly little hat to happy hour

derek guy@dieworkwear.bsky.social · 7mo ago

seems obvs to me that mamdani gets far because of his charm. why do "male self improvement" types always focus on things like looksmaxxing instead of personalitymaxxing or charmmaxxing?

NEW: Guards have taken away crayons, colored pencils & paper during recent room searches at Dilley, according to detainees and others. After one inspection, the children just “cried and cried and cried,” a mother said. The facility denies the claims. By @mckenziefunk.com @micarosenberg.bsky.social

Seized Art, Eavesdropping Guards: Parents Describe a Clampdown at Dilley Detention Center as Kids Shared Their Stories

Detainees told ProPublica that art supplies have been removed in room searches, immigrants have lost access to Gmail and staff hover within earshot during video calls.

propublica.org

this is absolutely fucking terrifying, on every imaginable level.

Laura Jedeed@laurajedeed.bsky.social · 7mo ago

It seems all Kansas-issued trans drivers' licenses are invalid, effective tomorrow It is now illegal for trans people to drive a car until they surrender their license at a DMV (that most will need to drive to) and have it reissued with the wrong gender marker This was never about woman's sports

every time i see this creep's face lately it's because he said something insanely bigoted in public to prove that he's electable

Ahhhhh@nerdjpg.com · 7mo ago

I’m sorry please correct me if I’m insane and wrong… but is this newsom saying he “fell prey” to not being “culturally normal” because he was supportive of same sex marriage?

you think you can simply ban blippi from the house but then your toddler listens to a sesame street playlist and he hears a blippi/elmo duet of "garbage truck" that he immediately imprints on like a baby duck and everything goes to shit

Ben Rosen@benrosen.bsky.social · 7mo ago

elmo should not be collaborating with blippi. it’s like when they make paul mccartney perform with jelly roll at the grammys. this is beneath you elmo

first date was boring (got drinks at a dive bar) second date was nye, so it involved accidentally spending hundreds of dollars on a prix fixe menu, then meeting a bunch of his friends and spilling a margarita on one of their loafers

Popehat@kenwhite.bsky.social · 7mo ago

This is an unapologetically sappy feel-good subject (at least, I guess, for people in a happy relationship”). So, to prepare for Valentine’s Day, what did you and your partner do for a first date? My wife and I went to tea at Huntington Gardens and walked around.

being in local FB mom groups, I routinely see women asking for advice on getting floofy exemptions to their children's vaccines and it is basically impossible to get them to admit that this might have any effect on their own or other people's children

Jillian C. York@jillian.bsky.social · 7mo ago

My most authoritarian opinion is that the MMR vaccine should be mandatory, with only medical (not religious or floofy) exemptions allowed. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

"Maybe all we do is frustrate," Star said. "Give someone one more day with their daughter or their dad. "But if you lost your dad, or you lost your daughter, you would give anything to have one more day with them. And that’s what we can do.” My latest for Slate

Activists Are Fighting ICE Even Though It Could Get Them Killed. Here’s Why.

ICE is still trying to subjugate Minneapolis. It's still failing.

slate.com

correct, which is why we never fly anywhere. much easier to secure a 100-car caravan to ensure you always have the essentials (water wipes, a booster seat they refuse to sit in, 500 pounds of fig bars) on hand

Ygrene@ygrene.bsky.social · 7mo ago

i am not a parent but i imagine that this type of preparation is what goes into taking a toddler anywhere

the only reason to join ICE is because you want to be able to beat up and/or shoot brown people and get away with it, exhibit 47392874

Nathan Kalman-Lamb@nkalamb.bsky.social · 7mo ago

ICE told nurses this Minneapolis man “purposefully ran headfirst into a brick wall.” What actually happened is that they pulled him from a car, beat him so viciously with a steel baton that he had 8 skull fractures, 5 life-threatening brain hemorrhages, and couldn’t remember he had a daughter.

it’s been funny watching reality franchises trying to pivot right to catch the Trump vibe shift, only for it to already be, essentially, over

Alex Shephard@alexshephard.bsky.social · 7mo ago

A year ago, the right had real cultural dominance for the first time in decades. I wrote about how they squandered it newrepublic.com/article/2062...

Traitors recap! after a wild episode 8, we broke down the internecine violence in the turret, the unlikely murder, and Rob's terrifying allure with @notalawyer.bsky.social -- plus, we close-read the casting announcement for Chris Harrison's new trad dating show

Chris Harrison’s Creepy New Dating Show & ‘The Traitors’ S4 E8 w/Peter Shamshiri

Podcast Episode · Love to See It with Emma and Claire · 02/06/2026 · 1h 55m

podcasts.apple.com

even as so many books desks have been wound down over the years (i was basically the whole books dept at huffpost when i got laid off in 2021), i really never dreamed it would happen at wapo. devastating.

Alex Shephard@alexshephard.bsky.social · 7mo ago

there isn’t a better Books desk in the country than the one at the Washington Post. I’m not really sure there’s anything else to say

Georgia Fort's is chilling, and it's being overshadowed by the equally chilling arrest of Don Lemon. A GoFundMe is being set up for Fort. In the meantime, you can support her work directly – without paying massive fundraising platform fees – through her website: www.georgiafort.com/support

Support Independent Journalism | GF

georgiafort.com

disgusting.

Taniel@taniel.bsky.social · 7mo ago

In Maine, masked federal agents stopped a car that contained a baby, and smashed a window. "Glass sprayed over the baby’s car seat." They took the baby's father who was driving, leaving the mother who does not have a driver's license alone in the car with the baby. On video:

this man was perplexed by the political rage of women in his life in *2020*, two entire years after at least, off the top of my head, two major nonfiction books specifically explaining the rise of female rage were published

hannah gais@hannahgais.bsky.social · 7mo ago

I don't know, Heritage Foundation-tied publication, maybe white liberal women are mad because a federal immigration official shot and killed one of them. And then called her a "bitch"? You know, on camera? www.dailysignal.com/2026/01/27/w...

so, uh, "abolish ice" does NOT mean "add more, mostly redundant, regulations that ice will continue to ignore." just... to clarify

Sahil Kapur@sahilkapur.bsky.social · 7mo ago

SCHUMER says Democrats are “united” behind three DHS reforms 1/ End roving patrols; tighten the rules on warrants and require ICE to coordinate with local authorities. 2/ Enforce accountability; a uniform code of conduct. 3/ Require masks off, body cameras on, agents carry ID.

People are right to be incensed, but there are more names to uplift. ICE killed an immigrant man named Silverio Villegas González in Chicagoland. He had children. Victor Manuel Diaz was kidnapped in Minneapolis and died in ICE custody on January 14. Their names deserve to be repeated, too.

i had to explain what was happening in Minneapolis to my 6-year-old today. he was so scared and confused. it completely shatters my heart to think of the kids his age who have been snatched off the street, seen their parents kidnapped, and how helpless they and their parents must feel.