One of the biggest opponents of air conditioning in Texas prisons, as I wrote a few years ago, is now the Mayor of Houston: www.chron.com/culture/arti...

How Houston Mayor John Whitmire kept Texas prisons hot as 'living hell'

"The real solution is don't commit a crime, and you stay at home and be cool."

chron.com

Slate@slate.com · 5d ago

13 percent of deaths in un-air-conditioned Texas prisons between 2001 and 2019, roughly 271 people, were attributable to extreme heat, an average of 14 a year. slate.trib.al/q1sSHua

An absolute hero when it comes to fighting government secrecy and bringing to public one of the most important archives in the history of policing.

Old New York Police Surveillance Is Found, Forcing Big Brother Out of Hiding (Published 2016)

Boxes found in a Queens warehouse contain files about the Black Panthers, the Nation of Islam and the Young Lords.

nytimes.com

Simon Balto@simonbalto.bsky.social · 5d ago

Devastated to hear of Dr. Johanna Fernandez’s passing. I’ve had the privilege of sharing some spaces with her, and she always kept the main thing the main thing. Power, in/justice, organizing — these weren’t abstractions to study but forces to confront and possibilities to engage. Rest in power.

This is horrible news. Dr. Fernandez was a brilliant and determined scholar who not only wrote & taught about struggles for racial and economic justice but understood how historians could serve those movements themselves. Her book on the Young Lords is simply elite. She’ll be so deeply missed. RIP

Simon Balto@simonbalto.bsky.social · 5d ago

Devastated to hear of Dr. Johanna Fernandez’s passing. I’ve had the privilege of sharing some spaces with her, and she always kept the main thing the main thing. Power, in/justice, organizing — these weren’t abstractions to study but forces to confront and possibilities to engage. Rest in power.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

‘We just want to be treated like humans’: how a Latino neighborhood is rallying after an ICE shooting

The murder of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo shook Houston’s Magnolia Park but strengthened bonds in a barrio grappling with gentrification and history of police violence

theguardian.com

After anti-ICE protesters were hit with sentences ranging from 30 to 50 years, the administration is now targeting Cop City demonstrators in Atlanta. trib.al/CALJ0Uw

The Trump Administration’s War on Dissent Has a New Target

After anti-ICE protesters were hit with sentences ranging from 30 to 50 years, the administration is now targeting Cop City demonstrators in Atlanta.

trib.al

This terrifying story is not getting nearly enough attention @theguardian.com

‘This is injustice’: how leftist zines were used to sentence anti-ICE protesters to decades in prison

Advocates sound alarm after zines were used as evidence to convict protesters of terrorism charges tied to 2025 protest at Texas ICE facility

theguardian.com

It's possible to build better things in the world. Collectively, we can accomplish a lot.

Every year, the remembrance around George Floyd's murder grows quieter and right-wing attempts to retcon the meaning and significance of those massive protests grows louder. Apparently we've now reached the racist joke stage of that process. It's v grim.

Many thanks to @adriawalkr.bsky.social for her reporting in @us.theguardian.com and spreading the word about the HBCU Radio Preservation Project’s mission to help safeguard and communicate Black history on radio. www.theguardian.com/culture/2026...

In the 60s and 70s, Black students demanded a voice on radio. A new project ensures that history isn’t lost

The HBCU Radio Preservation Project celebrates stations that were an outgrowth of the civil rights movement, to help people understand their importance

theguardian.com

people think abolishing the police is crazy but these clowns are out here abolishing the Voting Rights Act right now

Something that more people need to embrace about the importance of public library organizing is that it's a good foundation to organize for other public goods. We need to explicitly connect library organizing with parks organizing as just one example and so on and so forth...

Pleased to share the HBCU Radio Preservation Project’s new website, hbcuradiopreservation.org I’m hoping we've built a communal space that reflects the culture and spirit of our team while honoring the rich histories of the stations we’re preserving alongside.

“There is power in grief, because grief draws us together in moments when our enemies would tear us apart.”

Puff the Magic Hater@mskellymhayes.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Tonight, I was one of more than 200 people who gathered on Chicago’s North Side to mourn Renee Nicole Good. Several people asked me to publish my remarks from the vigil, so I’m sharing them here.

Again it’s not good that the most prominent leaders of the party keep insisting it’s a trap to talk about “identity” when the Trump administration is pushing white supremacy.

Texas Tribune@texastribune.org · 9mo ago

Speaking at a Texas Tribune Festival on Friday, former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg criticized the Democratic Party for failing to reach everyday Americans, arguing that it “got sucked in” to a conversation about identity. #TribFest25

Tomorrow. D.C. The National Mall. Sunup to sundown.

PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD!! The University of Texas-Austin is beginning a process to eliminate the Black Studies, Latino Studies, and Gender Studies departments in the College of Liberal Arts. This is a grave threat to the educational liberty of students, faculty, staff, and the people of Texas. 1/

This is structurally similar to the critique of Zionism as “a machine for the conversion of grief into power.” This is why you see ethnonationalist regimes instantly exploit martyrs to erode norms and increase their power. Victims “on their side” aren’t tragedies—they are fuel.

On Mourning and Statehood: A Response to Joshua Leifer - Dissent Magazine

How to grieve, what meaning to give those tears, is cruelly a political question whether we like it or not.

dissentmagazine.org

I said something last week that is more broadly applicable today: Calling for empathy is not neutral or apolitical when only one group of people have been socialized and brutalized into having empathy.

“Kirk & I were on different sides of most political arguments. We were on the same side of the continued possibility of American politics.” So it’s personal? B/c if you were a Black woman or transgender, Kirk would not imagine you having any role in the future of American politics.

Some of us have studied and understand regeneration through violence as a real rich historical phenomenon; its roots, which run deep and wide, are integral to US national identity, ideology, and mythology.

Which work? Calling for gay people to be stoned to death? Blaming airplane crashes on black pilots? Anti-vax bullshit? Election denialism? Pushing Great Replacement Theory? Kirk’s murder is awful and ominous for this country. But no, we don’t need to honor him or “continue his work.”

Dems don't want a platform, they want a vocabulary, and that is the fundamental problem

glen helen nature preserve

"We’re creating something even more dangerous to the country: A masked monster of a law enforcement agency, one uniquely unsuited for its new power, authority, reach, and funding levels."

Spending $200 billion on ICE is a terrible idea

I've covered federal law enforcement for two decades. Here are the things that worry me most.

motherjones.com

It's a weird day for those of us who were only allowed to watch PBS as kids.

It's really weird to demand accountability from a NYC mayoral candidate for a deadly NYC shooting rather than the current NYC mayor, an ex-cop who campaigned on a "tough on crime" platform and promptly got indicted for crimes

For the second year in a row, Houston Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair is wearing cleats in solidarity Palestine. My coworker @michaelshapiro.bsky.social talked to Azeez last year about them: "The biggest thing I can attest to is just being steadfast in my beliefs." www.chron.com/sports/texan...

Texans star uses 'Free Palestine' cleats to support voiceless

Houston's linebacker is taking a stand.

chron.com

One fascinating thing about the most self-serious newspaper in America with its staff of the winning journalistic meritocrats is that it routinely, institutionally publishes completely made-up bullshit speculation about pure abstractions, based on zero reporting, written as if it were plain facts