My office has been in contact with the woman who recorded this video of an ICE agent drawing a gun on her. She is a Northern Virginia native and a mother.

Aaron Fritschner@fritschner.bsky.social · 12h ago

Video of an ICE agent pulling a gun on a wife and mother, who is a US citizen born and raised in the area, near Bailey's Crossroads in Northern Virginia yesterday. Chillingly, they claimed she “almost ran them over” until she told them she had video proving that was a lie.

This weirdness reminds me of Ernst Hanfstaengl, known as Hitler's piano player. www.theguardian.com/books/2005/m...

Observer review: Hitler's Piano Player by Peter Conradi

Peter Conradi's life of Ernst Hanfstaengl, Hitler's Piano Player, is hilarious and chilling by turns, says Peter Preston.

theguardian.com

Kevin M. Kruse@kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 18h ago

There's so much psychotic shit in this story about Max Miller, but this part of his origin story might be the weirdest

“Tuberculosis, a bacterial disease that spreads through the air, is considered such a serious public health risk that there are state laws specifically related to controlling it. The law makes clear that 'investigation is not optional'...” coloradosun.com/2026/08/07/a...

NEW FROM ME: The Great Delegalization. There are now (almost certainly far more than) 1M immigrants who were protected from deportation on Jan 20, 2025, and no longer are. It’s the result of a problem that’s been building for 30 years—& now only Congress can fix. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

These Immigrants Lived in the U.S. Legally. Now Trump Is Changing Their Status.

More than a million immigrants are seeing protections that granted them safe lives in the U.S. suddenly swept away.

newyorker.com

This cruelty has no need but cruelty. Haiti remains deeply dangerous; a country in the throes of anarchy. Hundreds of thousands of people are SAFE. They are safe. They are safe here and the nation has decided to make them unsafe. We are embarking on a tragedy and we cannot look away. We cannot.

Yael Schacher@yaelschacher.bsky.social · 2d ago

So many immigrants I've interviewed break down about this. "Monsanto Maler was one of several Haitian immigrants who traveled from Springfield for a check in...after an ankle monitor was attached to him, Maler was seen collapsing to the ground and crying." www.springfieldnewssun.com/local/hundre...

If any of my followers happen to be High Arctic jellyfish experts (or even jellyfish experts at all!) please DM me, if you have a sec. I took a photo of a creature I'm looking to identify.

I wrote a book that’s part bio of the troupe behind this photo, part Germany’s history fr above, part reflection on how we relate to risk & ruin. Preorder now from the wonderful @cabinetmagazine.bsky.social & support small publishers that give it their all secure.cabinetmagazine.org/store/produc...

The Friday roundup is here, with links to the podcast! Also, I wrote about how Trump's attempts to dismantle birthright citizenship and his treatment of Haitians in the U.S. echo the piecemeal disenfranchisement of the Rohingya in Myanmar that took decades to accomplish.

August 7 Friday roundup

With links to the podcast! Also, how do you prove you belong?

degenerateart.beehiiv.com

An anonymous person is on their 11th day of hunger strike in the notorious Tacoma, Washington ICE concentration camp, according to a new press release from @laresistencianw.bsky.social. The camp is run by GEO Group and the hunger striker has missed 33 meals. Their only demand is to be deported.

It’s front-yard fig season, motherfuckers.

The Friday roundup is here, with links to the podcast! Also, I wrote about how Trump's attempts to dismantle birthright citizenship and his treatment of Haitians in the U.S. echo the piecemeal disenfranchisement of the Rohingya in Myanmar that took decades to accomplish.

August 7 Friday roundup

With links to the podcast! Also, how do you prove you belong?

degenerateart.beehiiv.com

If it wasn’t so corrosive, it’s kind of funny how Trump does the greatest hits every few months. Almost time to want to invade Greenland again! Then it’ll be indicting Letitia James season again…

The New York Times@nytimes.com · 5d ago

Breaking News: The White House is again considering firing the Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook after the Supreme Court blocked an earlier attempt.

ICE has paid an additional $24.2M to GEO Group to continue operating the Northwest ICE Detention Center in Tacoma, WA through October 2026.

The Third-Country Removal Tracker has been updated. I've also added new info from an activist in contact with last week's Ghana group. They believe approximately 40 people were in this group. If true, it would be more than twice as many as previous groups. gillianbrockell.com/tracking-all...

Tracking All of Trump’s Known Third-Country Removals

Trump's ICE has expelled an estimated 22,000 people to countries where they have no ties. Find out where they are going, what happens to them, and who profits.

gillianbrockell.com

The glamorous life of a writer: I noticed some accounts in Cyrillic name the captain of a ship Sahkarov while others call him Zakharov. I spent an inordinate amount of time examining which narratives use each name, to figure out which one more reliable chroniclers adopted (and maybe why). [1/2]

"The entire system of immigrant detention is in the process of being de-legitimized."

Andrea Pitzer@andreapitzer.bsky.social · last wk.

I put together a timeline of the major Trump initiatives on the immigration/concentration camp front since January 2025—including many of the ways those plans have been thwarted—and looked ahead at what to expect in the coming months.

There may well be active duty troops in the Middle East right now who have family members locked in ICE jails. Congress authorized Military Parole-in-Place specifically to avoid this situation. But the Trump admin has shown little care to families caught in this situation.

AILA@aila.org · 7d ago

"President Donald Trump’s administration has detained dozens of parents and spouses of active-duty U.S. troops as it rolls back immigration protections for military families to pursue its mass deportation agenda." https://bit.ly/4br4M4m

FYI Science Policy News: More U.S.-trained physicists are leaving the country, an exodus that adds to fears of a U.S. "brain drain" www.aip.org/fyi/physics-... a near-doubling of non-US citizens left the US after receiving their PhD, around 29%, in 2025 @aip.bsky.social

Physics PhDs Are Leaving the US at a Record-high Rate

The exodus of non-US citizens has “certainly” been influenced by science funding and visa policy changes under Trump, a new AIP report says.

aip.org

This apparently happened underneath (and maybe because of of) a sign she had hung on her house that said: "National Guard Stop Being So Embarrassing."

Kathleen Bachynski@bachynski.bsky.social · last wk.

"Get away from me right now," King, a retired U.S. Army captain who served in Iraq and earned both a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star, can be heard telling the three male guard members in the video as they approach her on the bench. "You have absolutely no authority to detain me."

I put together a timeline of the major Trump initiatives on the immigration/concentration camp front since January 2025—including many of the ways those plans have been thwarted—and looked ahead at what to expect in the coming months.

Breaking ICE

A timeline of Trump's war on immigrants, and what lies ahead.

degenerateart.beehiiv.com

When I was running a record store in DC, I had a friend who ran one in Philly and was also in a band. They were great live and got signed to a label on Caroline Records. Even then, pre-collapse of record sales, it was hard to break through. They just didn't make it. Here's remembering The Low Road.

The Low Road - Hallelujah, She's Gone (April 1994 at Liberty Lunch in Austin, TX)

YouTube video by markydare

youtube.com

The billionaire class is both a threat and an embarrassment to humanity.

This is like when I was a kid and my stepfather ruined his credit, so then my mom stepped up to ruin hers on his behalf, because no one would give him the benefit of the doubt anymore.

Kevin Elliott@kjephd.bsky.social · last wk.

Trump's about used up his power to shift markets with his lies, so now Bessant's relatively fresh reputation is on tap for strip mining

This is utterly appalling

The New Republic@newrepublic.com · last wk.

President Trump is banning students majoring in degrees that don’t make enough money from taking out college loans. Degrees for social work, art, religious studies, teaching aides, and music will be hit the hardest. trib.al/aaAEu6v

Underneath solar panels, plants grew much more and used less water, "Chiltepin pepper plants produced three times as much fruit as those grown in full sun. Jalapenos matched their usual harvest while using 65 percent less water. Tomatoes grown under the array came in at twice the normal yield."

hoergen@hoergen.bsky.social · last wk.

*American farmers slid solar panels over 62,000 acres of farmland, and the biggest payoff had almost nothing to do with electricity* #Erneuerbare #Renewable #Solar #Photovoltaik energiesmedia.com/solar-panels…

Prepared to donate to candidates whose platform includes opposing genitalia inspectors for little girls.

Gillian Branstetter@gbbranstetter.bsky.social · last wk.

An initiative on the ballot in Washington state in November would require all athletes seeking to play girl's sports from kindergarten to high school to undergo "genetic screening, a testosterone-levels test, or an examination of their reproductive anatomy" before they can play

Through generous machinations by people I’ve never met, this is where I find myself tonight…

I first got 1000+ pages of court documents from Miller & Moreno's custody case. Anybody can request these from Cuyahoga County. I reviewed those by myself, one by one—no AI involved!—and the filings pointed to police reports. I then sought those out separately and spent days combing through them.

Regarding the Max Miller horrors: I worked with survivors of sexual assault for most of a decade. Many who experience partner violence are desperate to normalize relations with their abuser to avoid further harm to themselves, and are far more likely to do so if their child is also being assaulted.

"Cunningham needed the culture war to get on the map, needing it as much as it needed her. ... The result is a star, the latest participant in an old game no more complicated than checkers but far less interesting."

David Ambaras@borderlander62.bsky.social · last wk.

www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/a...