Andrea Pitzer

I currently have a newsletter in which I write regularly about how societies devolve into authoritarianism & what that means right now in the US & around the world. It also features essays about my unsettled childhood in West Virginia. Soon, it will also include art, surprises, & links to resources.

With almost no advance warning, DHS has suspended its Acquisition Forecast Planning System tool. Contractors relied on this to see what new contracts the agency would be soliciting — and so did we. Now it looks like no new advanced notice will be given between Oct. 30 and Nov. 5.

HUGE, GOOD NEWS: In total reversal from Friday’s stonewalling, perjury-flirting “status report,” ICE now says it has secured a one-way travel document so Ahmed Soliman can return to the US via a commercial flight. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Just speaking for myself but I was completely fine not knowing what Matt Yglesias thought about basically anything

Cover reveal for ICEBOUND's Spanish edition, coming out November 30 from Capitán Swing Libros!

Ohio next

Serbia and Brazil. Let's keep it going.

Musk said he restricted Starlink in Ukraine- causing fast moving drones to lose connectivity - and that he had every right to do so because of some terms of service or contract that he didn't show us. (He didn't address suddenly doing this with no warning to Kyiv.) www.cnbc.com/2026/10/24/u...

Vote early, people! Out here representing Northern Virginia.

Watched the Musk documentary today, and was not surprised to see @lorak.bsky.social interviewed in it.

Today’s adventure in the dementia ward: one of the few mobile residents, who can still use her feet to push herself around in her wheelchair, swiped a quart box of apple juice off the lunch service trolley and scuttled off cackling and swigging from the box like Rooster Cogburn.

Every single crisis right now—from no-bid ICE detention contracts to AI data centers smuggled into your backyard—is a huge grift. In this Next Comes What, Andrea reminds us that we need an overwhelming anti-corruption movement to defeat fascism. Give us 32 minutes and get some inspiring clarity.

Playing and singing and Linda Thompson's "Night Comes In" on guitar (but only cowboy chords, as I'm incapable of playing like Thompson).

which trump son is driving the truck

The Friday roundup is here, with links to the podcast! I also wrote about the challenge of keeping up with the latest infuriating developments, and why sometimes it's a good idea to step away from the news and do something tangible to make a difference.

Follow @gillianbrockell.com for the latest on this while I’m conferencing. TRO motion: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

“Before July 2025, one of the food bank’s locations served between 20 and 40 families per day, he said. Now, more than 260 families come in daily for help…”

ICYMI: A new meme has popped up during France’s student-led protests that speaks to the disconnect between the state and its young citizens. What is the meaning behind “Bismillah, c’est les ténèbres”?

Saw YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING last night and have thoughts. It was fascinating, yet my sense is that, though Holmes herself is a complicated person, her actual story is far simpler than the one told in the film. She's very much like my mother at that age. I'll write about this at some point.

In which @thenation.com tackles the crisis of corporate interference and union-busting at Scientific American in the Trump era—interference which has deeply damaged the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States.

The Arlington, Virginia County Board has sued the Trump administration to prohibit it from authorizing armed federal agents to be present at polling places.

Great news! The Trump admin went to the Supreme Court looking for permission to forcibly detransition inmates who have been on hormones for decades, deliberately denying them medical care that their doctors prescribed. Thankfully, the Court refused to grant the request. Alito and Thomas would have.

Replace "Boeing 737s" with "empty warehouses" and you've got the same play that DHS under Noem pulled. And a source on background told us in February the sales were meant to help well-connected Trump affiliates offload industrial properties that were liabilities on their books.

This will be the first live event I've run for my newsletter subscribers. They had early access to registration and other perks. Now opening it to you, too! Please considering joining us to talk about The Battle of Algiers. Register here: luma.com/h8fb00s9

I love this

I wrote about how naming and going after corruption is a way to build a national movement in the U.S. that unites people without throwing anyone under the bus.

I'm 1.5k free subscribers away from a huge milestone. If you haven't signed up yet, do it now and help me reach my goal! www.thehandbasket.co/subscribe

Just call me “Exhibit A” 👋

I don't use the term "concentration camps" lightly Everyone should read @andreapitzer.bsky.social's superb book on the history of concentration camps, "One Long Night," which began with the Spanish in Cuba, the US in the Philippines, the English in the Boer War, the Germans in what was "SW Africa"

I was kindly invited to give the final plenary at this year's American Society of Bioethics & Humanities annual meeting—I discussed being a global health professor who engages in advocacy One thing I got asked is: should scientists or healthcare professionals remain politically neutral?

Sad to see this piece today. I first went to Svalbard almost nine years ago and reported for WaPo on the speed of climate change there, and how many aspects of daily life were already changing in profound ways due to it. And now, here's another.

Impressive: VA06 Dem nominee @bethmacy.bsky.social blew much-worse-than-worthless MAGA Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA06) out of the water in 3Q26 fundraising (Macy raised a massive $904k; Cline raised just $395k)! bluevirginia.us/2026/10/frid...

Shooting at a car to stop a shoplifter is not justified. Even if no one was harmed, let alone shooting to death a 1 year-old baby.

"The U.S. military officers who are chosen for the jury should be informed about that unusual aspect of Guantánamo detention, the defense lawyers wrote in a filing last week. 'It runs contrary to how any American would understand any criminal proceeding to occur,' they said."

The 30-year quest to treat the ultrarare disease C3G: How science and its supporters banded together to save lives. I was blessed to work on this story for the last year. Thank you to The Atavist and editor Seyward Darby for bringing it into the world. magazine.atavist.com

A 56-year-old Mexican man held at a federal immigration facility in Laredo was found dead in his cell Saturday morning. His family says the center would not give him medicine for diabetes, high blood pressure and a heart condition. He is the 7th person to die in ICE custody in Texas this year.

1. This (recent) History Thread is about the Anti-Fascist Internationalist Front in Myanmar, founded Oct. 15, 2024 by foreign volunteers who joined Myanmar's anti-coup revolution. Women Internationalists of the Chin Hills is an AIF-associated group. #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar

I've been carrying this book, by @andreapitzer.bsky.social, around with me as I think there's no better explanation of the current moment we're in here in the US It traces the history of concentration camps, started by the Spanish in Cuba in the 1890s followed quickly by the US in the Philippines

The whole family is definitely going to pay money to watch Gibney's Musk documentary in a theater now, even if some of us see it online before then.

Update: about 4 hours later and we still don't have admin access so we still can't post to the No Kings instagram account. This isn't slowing down the the 3,000+ early vote events today. We will drive the biggest early vote in history. But this should be a flashing alarm about what's to come.

Singing “Down by the Riverside” on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.