Ron Charles

I’ve Been Laid Off. I’m Not Done. After 20 years at The Washington Post, I’m suddenly on my own — and still writing about books.

After 20 years, I've been laid off at The Washington Post.
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Homeland Security is targeting Americans with this secretive legal weapon Under Trump, the Department of Homeland Security has weaponized administrative subpoenas to attack free speech, according to privacy and civil rights groups.

Terrifying story about how the Trump administration is ramping up efforts to spy on and intimidate anyone who questions its actions:
www.washingtonpost.com/investigatio...

Now I can buy my 15th house!

“If we get one person a little bit wrong” = Shooting a mother in the head and calling her a “fucking bitch.”
So unfair how the media overreacts….

“All the hoopla” = Killing two Americans.

I still miss you in The Post!

Live updates: Man fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis believed to be U.S. citizen Police did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the incident, and Gov. Tim Walz provided few details.

Good Lord…..
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R), the highest-ranking Minnesotan in Congress, said,” We are grateful no Border Patrol officers were harmed.”
www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2026/...

Opinion | Lawfare for Dummies, Monetary Edition DOJ’s criminal subpoena to Fed Chair Jerome Powell is a self-defeating fiasco.

"In the annals of political lawfare there’s dumb, and then there’s the criminal subpoena federal prosecutors delivered Friday to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell."
www.wsj.com/opinion/jero...

So hard to decide... Should I work with Copilot for eight minutes to craft an inane reply that sounds like it came from the Borg Queen's middle school son or just write the reply myself?

This week, JD Vance lost the 2028 Republican primary for president. No one comes back from shocking the nation’s conscience this deeply.

Apple CEO Tim Cook’s Pay Falls Slightly to $74.3 Million in 2025 The executive's future at the company has been in question in recent months amid retirement rumors.

These days, we’re all suffering.
www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/dig...

Jan. 6, 2021: A visual archive of the Capitol attack NPR’s Jan. 6 archive brings together reporting, video, documents and testimony to show what really happened during the Capitol riot. Explore the timeline, cases and evidence behind the attack.

Striking one of his most Orwellian and anti-American poses, Trump called the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol "a day of love."
NPR is keeping the history and the truth alive.
apps.npr.org/jan-6-archive/

"Households in the bottom 10% income bracket are expected to see $2,160 less annually as a result of those policies, or about 5.6% of their average income, starting in 2026. The top 10% is set to see a net benefit of $9,670."

The Winners and Losers From 2026’s Mix of Tax and Benefit Cuts The tax cuts should help some people, but changes to programs such as food stamps will hurt low-income consumers.

Least surprising news of the day:
Trump's "tariffs and provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill will have a net negative impact for all income groups except the highest 30% of earners. The lower the income bracket, the worse the impact."
www.wsj.com/economy/cons...

Curious to see how these wondrous hallucination machines will revolutionize education....
(AI bubble, anyone?)

Then Perplexity directed me to Omari Douglas Nelson’s “The Heir of Wuthering Heights,” which does not exist. (Except in this version spun up for me by ChatGPT.)

Perplexity then insisted that Lily Tuck wrote, “Sanctuary: A Tale of Life and Death in Wuthering Heights.” (She did not, though ChatGPT was happy to create a book cover for me.)

Tonight, Perplexity insisted that Lily Tuck never wrote “Heathcliff Redux.” (There’s a copy right here on my desk.)

Students beware....

"No Way To Prevent This," Says Company Spending Billions Of Dollars To Encourage This

Classic description of the Great Depression: “In about four months you'll see something really dramatic happen and the prices will come down.”

🙃

This is genuinely horrifying. Fact-free far-right agitprop given accolades by credible media across the political spectrum.

Donate to A Reading and Writing Group for Inmates, organized by Scott Wilson For the past 18 months, I have met weekly with a group of inmates at the Santa Ba… Scott Wilson needs your support for A Reading and Writing Group for Inmates

Journalist Scott Wilson is so close to meeting his goal for the reading group in the Santa Barbara County Jail.
Help him out!
gofund.me/6a54276ae

I figure, why not? I could use a miracle.

A publicist who has confused me with the Reverend Doctor Ron Charles — the one who thinks he may have found Noah’s Ark — claims he has the insight and skill to fix my online “keyword gaps, metadata mismatches, category alignment issues, and discoverability obstacles."

Sure…

Opinion | No wonder Trump is outraged by warnings about illegal orders There’s a reason lawmakers worry about the military being told to ignore the law.

"The Defense Department’s Law of War Manual specifies: 'Orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal.' These are actions that you would expect from the Islamic State or the Russian army — not from the armed forces of a democracy."
Until now.....
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Trump EPA to abandon air pollution rule that would prevent thousands of U.S. deaths The Environmental Protection Agency will no longer defend Biden-era limits on fine-particle pollution, which causes heart and lung disease.

Sure, the rule would have prevented 4,500 premature deaths, but that second yacht isn't gonna pay for itself! #Priorities
www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

Read Freely Alabama Read Freely Alabama is a volunteer group of concerned citizens who oppose censorship in our local libraries. As the scale of censorship efforts and attacks on libraries have expanded across the state,...

For ways to support the freedom to read in Alabama, check out @readfreelyal.bsky.social's website: www.readfreelyalabama.org

Book Club: A provocative bestseller wins the National Book Award for nonfiction

It rhymes with creepy: Jeffrey Epstein helped fund "Poetry in America."
That and more in this week's Book Club newsletter:
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