Benjamin Hart

How Tom Lehrer Escaped the Transience of Satire The late songwriter’s targets are mostly forgotten—so why do new generations keep discovering him?

Excellent Tom Lehrer appreciation from Adam Gopnik. www.newyorker.com/culture/post...

Venezuelan men tell NBC News they experienced physical and psychological torture, including one man’s allegation that he was sexually assaulted, after the Trump administration sent them to a notorious prison in El Salvador. NBC News’ Didi Martinez reports.

The fact that literally zero outlets ever cover crime decline as a story is a huge reason. (And before you yell at me, we do!)

the one thing i genuinely did not anticipate from this administration was its vicious, know nothing hostility to any and everything that might even be adjacent to science and scientific research. they genuinely one to destroy the entirety of the nation’s research capacity. and for what, exactly?

Wernher Von Braun, Gustav Mahler, Alma Mahler-Werfel, the Elements, Hubert Humphrey, George Murphy, Oedipus Rex, Lena Horne, Vatican Two, Sexually-Transmitted Infections and masochism — just a few things I learned about obsessively listening to Tom Leher albums starting when I was 10.

Photo of Tom Lehrer

My last living musical hero is still my hero but unfortunately no longer living. RIP to the great, great Mr. Tom Lehrer.

Beyond helping to shape my entire sensibility, he wrote songs so funny and catchy that they made me invested in minor political dramas of 1965.

Tom Lehrer, Musical Satirist With a Dark Streak, Dies at 97

One of my all-time heroes. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/a...

Deaf, mute and terrified: ICE arrests DACA recipient and ships him to Texas Javier Diaz Santana, who is deaf and mute, was swept up in a federal immigration raid at his job in Temple City, unable to communicate in handcuffs. His attorney says U.S. agents "don’t care whether y...

ICE is sweeping up people with disabilities now, making no accommodations for them.

www.latimes.com/california/s...

Requesting a moratorium on the phrase "what are we even doing here?"

WILD story. An 82-year-old from Chile lost his green card. In June, he went to pick up a new one at a USCIS office. While there, he was handcuffed and detained by ICE.

An unknown caller claiming to be a lawyer told family she could help. Later, she said he’d died. Now he’s turned up — in Guatemala!

US has wasted hundreds of thousands of vaccines meant for Africa, health officials there say The expiration of shots the Biden administration promised to send comes after President Donald Trump cut deeply into foreign aid.

Evil! www.politico.com/news/2025/07...

Prospect Park just chock full and shimmering with fireflies right now. Worth getting out in the evening this week if you live nearby.

Evil

In 2017, Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee publicly backed a man credibly accused of molesting a 14 year old and a 16 year old for Senate and all of these hogs and grifters supported it. What are they hoping to find in these files? A brain? A soul?

Clipse: Tiny Desk Concert The hip-hop duo delivers its best live performance ever recorded and one of the hardest Tiny Desks of all time.

This is just fantastic. www.npr.org/2025/07/11/g...

Where are our university presidents? They are totally silent, completely absent from the public square as this existential crisis is about to break the entire business model of American higher education & scientific research 🤷‍♂️

bsky.app/profile/mcop...

According to this op-ed in the gulag newspaper, Trump is actually a very weak president.

one of the stranger phenomena in American life is that hate is supposed to flow in one direction (rural people get to hate urban people, Republicans get to hate Democrats) and if the hate goes the other way people pretend as if this is very upsetting.

So glad we’re getting serious about combating antisemitism

I'm starting to think the voters may have made a small mistake last November.

He’s trying to distract us!
This is not normal!
Someone needs to stop him!

- me at a magic show

Every one of these deaths is on the hands of Elon Musk and Marco Rubio. History should never forget.

The people who did this are pure evil. What more is there to say? bsky.app/profile/ddia...

In Sudan, where children clung to life, doctors say USAID cuts have been fatal The Trump administration’s cuts to USAID had an immediate and deadly impact in war-ravaged Sudan, according to civilians, doctors and aid officials.

Please read this @khoureld.bsky.social story about the consequences of USAID cuts.

Children are dying from starvation on the streets of Sudan — and the food that could save them, already paid for by our government, is languishing in U.S. warehouses.

(No paywall)

The parliamentarian has ruled that Margin Call must be included in the 100 best movies of the 21st century.

"GOOD FUCKING RIDDANCE"

I'd rather be Mamdani than Cuomo right now.