Ava Ayers

Another great book: "Expelling the Poor" by Hidetaka Hirota. Extremely useful history of state and local exclusions and deportations in early America, and how they led to the federalization of exclusion and deportation in the late 19th century.

Reason-giving is a tax on fascism, because fascism 1) requires speed and 2) is an assault on reason

YouTube video by Dan Reeder - Topic bloo you believe in bloo blove

Bloo You Believe in Bloo Blove www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P_G...

I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor or degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes" When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy [sic].

Abraham Lincoln, 1855.
www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/spee...

How the FBI Became the Face of Deprofessionalization What research tells us about national security under authoritarianism

New from me:
Kash Patel is engaged in purges, removal of real accountability, and impunity for loyalists at the FBI.
Researchers told me that these are the exact patterns that create abusive national security organizations under authoritarianism. 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/how-the-fb...

In a fair world, reporters would now ask everyone who voted for it to define socialism, and play their attempts at answers on air

State Challenges to Immigration Enforcement Practices Recent lawsuits in Wisconsin, New York, and California explore questions about the role of state law in federal immigration enforcement.

NEW: I wrote for @statecourtreport.org about the important role *state* law plays in immigration enforcement, and some ongoing litigation in WI, NY, and CA that will shape the relationship between ICE and the states and localities in which it operates. statecourtreport.org/our-work/ana...

On this Trans Day of Remembrance, we remember the bright and courageous trans people whose lives were stolen by hatred. Their absence is felt across our city.

We will honor them by building a New York where every trans person can live safely, fully and freely.

Appellate judges at oral argument:

Sincerity and Authenticity — Harvard University Press “A powerful diagram of the moral life from Shakespeare to the present...a book crowded with insights.”—Geoffrey Hartman, New York TimesOne of the twentieth century’s foremost literary critics traces t...

I think the punks picked up what the Romanticists laid down. I'd love to read a cultural history that started where Trilling left off and traced authenticity through to the punks: www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...

The latest from Torment Nexus 'R' Us!

Is it bad if a sitting federal judge was (allegedly) part of a conspiracy to commit murder? It seems bad ....

I'm with you Kate.

hyphenating phrasal adjectives

I mean it says "FRUIT" right there on the packaging, what do you want

I feel like "Marilynne Robinson" covers it. -- "Sorry Mary Shelley, we're not interested in your followup to 'History of a Six Weeks' Tour through a Part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland: with Letters Descriptive of a Sail round the Lake of Geneva, and of the Glaciers of Chamouni'"

Lisa Moore: "like the medieval monks and nuns who buried precious manuscripts to hide them from the kings who burned their abbeys, we will preserve this knowledge and progress for another time in the future."

I suppose I'll make these a chain. Another great book: "The Daring Life and Dangerous Times of Eve Adams," by Jonathan Ned Katz." Bio of a queer activist in the 1920s, with heartbreaking excerpts from her deportation proceedings, and the sweetly beautiful text of her short book "Lesbian Love."

What's a book by a transfemme author that you've NEVER seen anyone discuss?

And I do mean never. Nobody. I want the books that you're convinced you are the only person who's ever read it.

I'm delighted to report that the scifi writer James Blish (whose game I was not familiar with) pluralized "footnote" as "feetnote."

"Assume the artist knew what they were doing" seems like a good starting place for appreciating anything.

A copy of Camille Walsh's book "Racial Taxation" being sniffed by two rabbits as if it was an irresistible vegetable.

Brilliant book: Camille Walsh, "Schools, Segregation, and Taxpayer Citizenship, 1869-1973." Fantastic exploration of the history of rhetoric about "citizens who pay taxes" and its role in protecting white supremacy. Will change the way you hear arguments about what government owes "the taxpayers."

Does anyone know the source for this picture? I'd like to use it in my Immigration class, but not if I can't credit anyone

A hand holding up the book "Fear City" by Kim Phillips-Fein. In the background there are two rabbits in a little wooden tower.

Brilliant book: "Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics" by Kim Phillips-Fein. How the mid-70s crisis let financial elites use their status as debt-holders to force NYC to end social services. Explains a lot about inequality in today's NYC and austerity everywhere.

I just saw a message in my spam filter whose subject line ended with "I want employed clothed attorneys!" and I feel like someone should try aiming a little higher

I can

I can

Oh that's an excellent idea! Good lord.

A hand holding up Linda Bosniak's book "The Citizen and the Alien: Dilemmas of Contemporary Membership." Next to it are two rabbits snuggled together in a two-story wooden tower. They're very pretty and they're good rabbits although Misty is a bit of an escape artist.

Highly recommended: Linda Bosniak's "The Citizen and the Alien: Dilemmas of Contemporary Membership." Probably if you're interested in citizenship you've already read this, but if not: no matter how you think about citizenship, the first two chapters will likely make you think differently.

Thank you! I'm on an academic sabbatical and it seemed like a good use of social media to share what me and the rabbits have been studying.

It's 2025 and Microsoft Windows still can't change the name of a file while it's open