Lydia Polgreen

I spent a week in Delhi, watching an extraordinary protest movement unfold. Here's what I saw, and what I think it means for India, and the world. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/26/o...

I can’t imagine being this kind of loser, on purpose and in full view of others.

Fascinating that as even as other Republicans who long ago sold their souls to MAGA still have enough baseline political acumen to see how poisonous this is, Vance is completely oblivious. It isn't just that he has no principles, decency, or moral compass, he's also really fucking bad at politics.

New: We found cops who kept using Flock to spy on women after they left the force. One used it for five years after retirement, tracking his wife during a custody battle. Another ran searches while he was suspended (and later fired) after killing a 15-year-old boy. Free to read: wapo.st/3UEwWU7

the second el-sayed chose to treat tommy as an equal and not a nuisance, tommy was cooked

Everyone citing Janet Malcolm's The Journalist and the Murderer is thinking of the wrong Malcolm text re: "You Can See Everything." Real ones know it is The Impossible Profession that truly applies to Fielder's masterpiece.

Rahul Gandhi, the head of India's largest opposition party, has had difficulty being seen as more than just the descendant of three prime ministers. But a surge of student protests could give him a springboard to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Fuck this. I don’t know what else to say. Prison kills. mississippitoday.org/2026/10/07/c...

a man who's run out of road standing on the edge of a cliff

"Here’s one way to think of Paxton — he possesses all of Donald Trump’s corruption and none of Trump’s charisma." My dispatch from the most important Senate race in America: www.nytimes.com/2026/10/04/o...

the idea that rufo has, at any point in his public career, been a sincere advocate for “colorblind meritocracy” is brain dead

Labor's share of income just hit an all-time low. That means for every dollar a company brings in, workers are taking home smaller and smaller slices. Income keeps shifting to the owners. With @svaneksmith .bsky.social https://newsletter.platypuseconomics.com/p/why-is-concentrated-wealth-a-problem

@rikiwilchins.bsky.social 2026 Oct In one of the tidal wave of Rep attack ads targeting OH Dem Senate candidate Sherrod Brown, a presumably trans woman accuses him of pushing surgery on minors "like her." The only problem? She had surgery as an adult, not a minor. And she's from Texas, not Ohio.

I wrote about @mayor.nyc.gov and how cities can restore our faith in democracy, one pothole at a time. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/03/o...

not that you should expect anything more than rank idiocy from this pair of racists, but the idea that whiteness means a "high trust" society of "social cohesion" is some of the stupidest shit i have ever heard. these people live in a fantasy land that you could dispel by simply opening a book.

This is *the* piece. Kate Manne, professor of philosophy at Cornell, speaks truth to the totality of failures at the university — and why students protesting the war in Gaza have faced far harsher consequences than any of the Cornell 7: www.thecut.com/article/what...

There Is a Word So Powerful It Need Be Spoken Only Once www.nytimes.com/2026/09/28/o...

this is legitimately very funny

clicked to read about political ad spends on anti-trans shit, ended up reading something quickly beautiful/profound about hope seemingly against all odds lol, by @katelynburns.com www.burnsnotice.com/we-may-have-...

I gasped! The Mighty Sparrow has left us. One of the most important and popular Calypsonians to ever do it! Songs filled political fire, irreverence, humor, naughty (very, very naughty) banter, and beats that make you wind your waist! Rest in Power, Sparrow. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/27/a...

@aoc.bsky.social: The best thing that we can do to rein in runaway costs at private institutions is by having tuition free public colleges and universities. “For anyone who wants to say that that’s pie in the sky and unrealistic… this is literally what baby boomers gave themselves.”

Note to @saturdaynightlive.bsky.social producers: please write Natalie Harp into sketches as often as possible because Ashley Padilla plays her brilliantly, and please cast someone other than Ramy Youssef as Zohran Mamdani.

Primetime was ok - Pattinson's campy performance is creepy fun, the script felt a little muddled to me. Merritt Wever, however, gave an otherworldly performance that felt transported from a far better movie.

Rough day for Susan Collins in the local Maine press, where ProPublica's bombshell story is the lead story.

NYT has now independently corroborated all the major allegations against Susan Collins in the ProPublica report, including that investigators were prepared to move against her and then Trump intervened to shut it down. This put Trump in a position of exceptional and extortionate leverage over her.

Everything's falling into place

Elon Musk: 20+ years here, hates American culture and most Americans, constantly undermines our multi-racial democracy as part of his obsession to restore the Apartheid of his foreign youth, says non-white people can't assimilate Malala Yousafzai: visits Philly once, instantly adopts local customs

Supreme Court Rejects Trump’s Effort to Break Vote By Mail Before Midterms talkingpointsmemo.com/news/supreme...

JUST IN: Mitch McConnell says he'll be back in the Senate today and will cast his first vote since June.

Here's a gift link to my 9/11 essay in the NYT. Civil libertarians long warned that before giving government new powers, we should consider how an administration with authoritarian ambition might abuse them. We were told that America was too exceptional to elect such a person. Well here we are.

Amy Acton, Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate, was attacked at a campaign event; multiple people reportedly injured

NEW: An armed individual lunged at Democratic candidate for Ohio governor Dr. Amy Acton while she was at the Canfield Fair in Mahoning County, resulting in the injuries of multiple people who were nearby. A suspect is in custody. www.wlwt.com/article/amy-...

‘By July, our tent had become almost impossible to live in. As soon as the sun rose, the fabric trapped the heat, turning the small space into an oven. We decided to get a new tent.’ Hassan Ayman Herzallah reports from Gaza: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/se...

I love the dedication in My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinhem

What Pablo Torre did was ridiculously impressive. Uncovered a conspiracy between rich guys, withstood a propaganda campaign by one of the richest guys in the world with a pretty good reputation, didn't buckle or panic, and just kept reporting. That's some Pulitzerin' right there.

One thing i can’t help but notice is none of the supposedly anti-Semitic left has rallied to John Galliano’s defense. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/02/s...

newrepublic.com/article/2150...

Milo hasn’t changed his mind about anything. His position has always been: I will say and do whatever it takes for you to talk about me.

"It is difficult to overstate the failure of the transphobic strategy." (from December 2025) www.liberalcurrents.com/trans-panic-...

“Carl Ruby, a Springfield pastor, said he was struggling to make sense of Bel’s untimely death. ‘I know that I’m a pastor and I’m supposed to be forgiving,’ he said. ‘But right now as I sit with a broken family, I’m crying out to God for righteous judgment in those who made this happen.’”

the fact that the papers of supreme court justices are treated as their personal property is outrageous www.nytimes.com/2026/09/01/u...

the retconning is to support the argument that "trump won in 2024 because of anti-woke." but other than some nebulous "vibe shift" and the prominence of a few podcasters, there is vanishingly little hard evidence for this claim.