Laila Lalami
Author of five books, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist THE MOOR’S ACCOUNT. Reader. Mutant. linktr.ee/lalami
- Reposted by Laila LalamiBREAKING: A federal judge has ordered Trump to restore $500 million in frozen UCLA NIH grants. The same judge, Rita F. Lin, previously ordered all UCLA NSF grants reinstated. Lin has now nearly entirely reversed Trump's July de-funding of UCLA research: www.latimes.com/california/s...
- Wonderful news!
- It's a simple equation: it was costlier for the company to lose subscriptions/theme-park/ad revenue than to kowtow to Trump, so it made the decision to bring him back.
- Jimmy Kimmel will return to ABC's airwaves on Tuesday night, per parent company Disney. Kimmel was taken off air for "ill-timed and thus insensitive" comments about the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's shooting, the company said. My latest in @washingtonpost.com:
- Reposted by Laila LalamiHoman would be such a easy target for an actual opposition party—the architect of a deeply unpopular program who is also cartoonishly corrupt.
- And of course the headline downplays what happened. Tom Homan walked into a meeting with undercover FBI agents posing as business executives and accepted $50,000 in exchange for giving them contracts. www.msnbc.com/msnbc/news/t...
- You’re telling me that a man whom the FBI has on tape accepting a 50k bribe was not only not prosecuted, but promoted so he could send masked agents to kidnap day laborers on minimum wage. I feel like I’m going insane.
- This is exactly it. Too many people in the Democratic Party are invested in earning the respect of the other side, rather than their own.
- Please stop posting pictures of your kids on Instagram. Just stop.
- Next weekend!
- While we're on the subject of free speech, note that Israel bombed a newspaper complex in Yemen, killing 31 journalists. The pundits who've spent the last few days commenting on political violence will have nothing to say about the wholesale murder of thirty-one of their colleagues.
- "But in danger and despair you acquire a faith in miracles; without it you would go under." - Erich Maria Remarque
- Reposted by Laila LalamiTexas Man Indicted Over Series of Violent Threats to Mamdani Jeremy Fistel said Mamdani should "return to Uganda" before someone shoots him in the head. And, wished his wife and kids killed in front of him. Investigators tracked the calls to his personal cell and messages to his email account.
- Caving in to censorship will only beget more censorship.
- The right-wing is treating Kirk's murder like it's 9/11, and proceeding with the same censorship and purge that they used to silence war critics.
- I can’t believe I have to defend Jimmy the Sport Guy. (IYKYK)
- Reposted by Laila LalamiWe don't know what's going to happen so might as well fight for better. That's really my basic political orientation.
- Reposted by Laila LalamiToday, the UN officially designated Israel’s assault on Gaza as a genocide. As a party to the Genocide Convention, the U.S. has a legal obligation to obey our own laws, stop weapons sales to Israel, and demand a permanent ceasefire. End the genocide. Ceasefire now.
- “Thirty-one Democrats joined Republicans in voting to restrict judges from having discretion to dole out lighter sentences to young people. Eight voted alongside Republicans to allow 14-year-olds to be charged as adults.”
- No 14-year-old should be tried as an adult. None. www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...
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- Congratulations to the winners of this year's American Book Awards! 🎉 🎉 🎉 www.beforecolumbusfoundation.com
- Next up! If you find yourself in Winston-Salem, come on out to the Bookmarks Festival, where I'll be appearing alongside Deborah Jackson Taffa to discuss 'Dystopian Realities' on Saturday, September 27, 12.15 pm!
- Here is what the Trump administration has asked of UCLA. None of this has anything to do with combating antisemitism. It is all about control of the campus and capture of its culture. www.kqed.org/news/1205611...
- I've been on the UC faculty for 18 years and can't recall a time when our campuses were under graver threat than now. I'm happy that our faculty associations (across all ten campuses) joined in this suit.
- Facing a proposed $1.2-billion fine and severe medical research grant cuts at UCLA, the University of California has not gone head-to-head with Trump in court. So on Tuesday, groups representing more than 100,000 of its employees did. www.latimes.com/california/s...
- If you find yourself in Twentynine Palms this Saturday (9/13), come listen to me talk about The Dream Hotel at Desert General. Details here: www.29pbf.com/events/event...
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- Infuriating that for 48 hours much of the media went with narratives that had no relationship to facts and now that the facts are starting to trickle in, there’s zero retraction or reflection.
- Reposted by Laila LalamiAn antisemite shot two kids in Colorado, at least one of whom is Jewish. The White House “fighting antisemitism” doesn’t care, because the shooter was a student radicalized online into far right beliefs, which the regime is cool with, rather than a student verbally criticizing Israeli govt policy.
- So much needless suffering, and for what? So that a bunch of companies can profit from caging, surveilling, and processing them.
- Things are moving fast.
- Remember: the suspect has not been identified, let alone his motives, but the threats against black folks have already started.
- At least seven historically Black colleges and universities across the South received threats Thursday that caused lockdowns and closures. via @wwno.org
- Reposted by Laila LalamiIt’s a very hard thing to read, but I recommend people read “I Saw Death Coming” by Kidada E. Williams for an in-depth exploration of first-hand accounts from people who suffered from attacks like those propagated by the Klan here in the US, to have a full understanding of how disrespectful this is.
- "Big Tech’s ambition is to create an archive of everything we do and everything we are—an aspiration that is unprecedented in human history. The only thing that comes close can be found in religion." I wrote about Vauhini Vara's Searches @thenation.com (free link!) www.thenation.com/article/soci...
- So Trump allowed Israel to attack Qatar, an ally of the U.S. and a home to its own military bases, once again showing that he is loyal to no one but himself. It's wild to witness the world slowly reorganizing along totally different axes.
- And not the first time the Court has been sympathetic to racial profiling of Latinos. In my book Conditional Citizens, I discuss U.S. v. Martinez-Fuerte, a 1976 case that made permanent Border Patrol checkpoints legal and allowed the use of 'Mexican ancestry' as a criterion for stopping drivers.
- Good news department: a school district in Kentucky banned cell phones during classes and over lunch. Less than a month later, students began checking out library books at record rates. www.wave3.com/2025/09/02/s...
- I believe this what the lawyers call "consciousness of guilt."
- A German teen told Meta's child safety researchers his under-10 little brother had been sexually propositioned multiple times on its VR platform. Meta deleted the evidence. New internal whistleblower docs indicate that was part of a broader cover-up: www.washingtonpost.com/investigatio...
- Reposted by Laila Lalami"The Lovers,” by Riza-yi ‘Abbasi (Iranian, ca. 1565–d. 1635), dated 1039 AH/ 1630 CE, Isfahan. Metropolitan Museum of Art. dlvr.it/TMxQY0
- And it’s not even correct. It was the Umayyad general Tariq ibn Ziyad who famously burned his boats, on landing in Spain in 711. And Cortes scuttled his ships in 1520 when he landed in Mexico.
- This is from Justice Barrett’s new book. I’ll just observe that it‘s a very strange metaphor to use to describe the decision to move to Washington D.C. to become a Supreme Court Justice. www.cbsnews.com/news/book-ex...
- In Washington, DC for the National Book Festival and heard about the protest against the occupation, so we went! Great signs, great atmosphere!
- Hivemind: Any suggestions for short stories that are based on real events or feature a character swept up in historical incidents? (e.g. Jhumpa Lahiri's "When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine.")
- Aid convoys attempting to enter al Fashir have come under fire by the RSF since last year. "There is no aid entering al Fashir. All of this points towards a full-blown famine."
- 900,000 people live in Al Fashir - it is one of the largest towns in Sudan. And they are starving because of the siege. news.sky.com/story/it-is-...
- Indistinguishable from an SNL sketch.
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- Authoritarianism begins with "launching assaults on universities"... says the guy who spearheaded the assault on Claudine Gay at Harvard.
- Another ICE deportation attempt of a legal permanent resident that hinges on minor marijuana possession... from 30 years ago. And since this poor guy can't return to Iran, the Trump administration wants to send him to Romania or Australia. www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...
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- Reposted by Laila LalamiBig night for @cortezmasto.senate.gov She voted for another Trump nominee. Got into a fight with Cory Booker - and Emil Bove will get confirmed to the Third Circuit seat that should belong to Adeel Mangi til she launched her islamophobic attack on him
- Reposted by Laila LalamiA woman with a 20-year psychiatric history began taking an immunosuppressant. Suddenly, her seeming schizophrenia vanished.
- If you live in CA-36 (Westside L.A. and South Bay), please tune in to Ted Lieu's telephone town hall this Wednesday 7/30 at 6pm and let him know what you think about his cowardly silence on the genocide in Gaza. Sign up here: lieu.house.gov/townhall
- This is so moving. The sender apologizes for sending so little, and the recipient is thanking him for what he/she sent. 💔
- Paging @padilla.senate.gov and @schiff.senate.gov, who are quiet as church mice while Palestinians starve before our eyes.
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- Reposted by Laila LalamiTell the State Department to free Chris Smalls and other US citizens on board the Handala which was on a mission of mercy to Gaza. X: @StateDept and @SecRubio FB: @U.S. Department of State Instagram: @statedept @secrubio
- Reposted by Laila LalamiTomorrow’s Guardian front page
- My husband made our daughter work at Dunkin one summer and it was a bigger teaching experience than when I had her read The Communist Manifesto.
- “I no longer have the strength to work for the media. My body is thin and I can’t work anymore.” The last journalists remaining in Gaza are near death from forced starvation. There is enough food at the border to feed the entire population for 3 months. This is genocide.
- A horrifying statement published today by the Editorial Committee of the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency. "Without immediate intervention, the last reporters in Gaza will die" Translation from French to English by @cnorristrent.bsky.social:
- Reposted by Laila LalamiIn THE DREAM HOTEL by @lailalalami.com, a woman is detained for a crime she hasn’t committed yet—predicted by an algorithm. A chilling, urgent read about surveillance, autonomy, and resistance. Out now 🌟 penguinrandomhouse.com/books/717465...
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- Reposted by Laila LalamiAbout 1 in 4 U.S. adults worry they or someone close to them could be deported. pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/06…
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