Jeff Sharlet
@jeffsharlet.bsky.social
I wrote a book about now, THE UNDERTOW: Scenes from a Slow Civil War, & 2 about how we got here, THE FAMILY & C ST, also a Netflix series. Also THIS BRILLIANT DARKNESS & SWEET HEAVEN WHEN I DIE. Professing @ Dartmouth. That's not my cat.
This drives me nuts: people saying we don't need to worry about Trump seizing ballots because it won't be close enough to matter. What timeline do these folks live in? Not just the last ten years, but the many times elections have turned out closer than expected? But yes, *the last 10 years.*
February 9, 2026 at 11:03 PM
This drives me nuts: people saying we don't need to worry about Trump seizing ballots because it won't be close enough to matter. What timeline do these folks live in? Not just the last ten years, but the many times elections have turned out closer than expected? But yes, *the last 10 years.*
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
ICE has now spent over half a BILLION dollars just on purchasing warehouses around the country to convert into detention camps.
If these mega-camps are utilized to the full capacity ICE intends, they'll be the largest prisons in the country, with little real oversight. www.ajc.com/politics/202...
If these mega-camps are utilized to the full capacity ICE intends, they'll be the largest prisons in the country, with little real oversight. www.ajc.com/politics/202...
ICE to begin detaining immigrants inside Social Circle warehouse in April
Homeland Security plans to build warehouse detention facilities in other cities being met with opposition.
www.ajc.com
February 9, 2026 at 5:56 PM
ICE has now spent over half a BILLION dollars just on purchasing warehouses around the country to convert into detention camps.
If these mega-camps are utilized to the full capacity ICE intends, they'll be the largest prisons in the country, with little real oversight. www.ajc.com/politics/202...
If these mega-camps are utilized to the full capacity ICE intends, they'll be the largest prisons in the country, with little real oversight. www.ajc.com/politics/202...
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
This is 18-mo-old Amalia waving to me when she was detained.
She was hospitalized with a respiratory infection while at ICE’s Dilley facility for immigrant families.
She’s one of dozens of detainees who I spoke to via video and phone calls, letters and an in-person visit. 🧵1/
She was hospitalized with a respiratory infection while at ICE’s Dilley facility for immigrant families.
She’s one of dozens of detainees who I spoke to via video and phone calls, letters and an in-person visit. 🧵1/
February 9, 2026 at 11:21 AM
This is 18-mo-old Amalia waving to me when she was detained.
She was hospitalized with a respiratory infection while at ICE’s Dilley facility for immigrant families.
She’s one of dozens of detainees who I spoke to via video and phone calls, letters and an in-person visit. 🧵1/
She was hospitalized with a respiratory infection while at ICE’s Dilley facility for immigrant families.
She’s one of dozens of detainees who I spoke to via video and phone calls, letters and an in-person visit. 🧵1/
Something I'm learning from Epstein files is how often rich & powerful people who don't really know each other as much beyond status markers tell each other "I miss you."
February 9, 2026 at 1:56 PM
Something I'm learning from Epstein files is how often rich & powerful people who don't really know each other as much beyond status markers tell each other "I miss you."
I'm re-reading The Bathysphere Book: Effects of the Luminous Ocean Depths, by Brad Fox, to teach tomorrow. It belongs in a tiny canon of the brilliantly odd literary nonfiction of things found and assembled, w/ Svetlana Alexievich's Voices from Chernobyl and Lauren Redniss' Radioactive.
February 9, 2026 at 1:51 PM
I'm re-reading The Bathysphere Book: Effects of the Luminous Ocean Depths, by Brad Fox, to teach tomorrow. It belongs in a tiny canon of the brilliantly odd literary nonfiction of things found and assembled, w/ Svetlana Alexievich's Voices from Chernobyl and Lauren Redniss' Radioactive.
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
1/ ProPublica collected handwritten letters in mid-January from children held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the same facility where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was taken.
Hundreds of kids are still detained.
We’ll let the children’s words speak for themselves. 🧵
Hundreds of kids are still detained.
We’ll let the children’s words speak for themselves. 🧵
February 9, 2026 at 12:25 PM
1/ ProPublica collected handwritten letters in mid-January from children held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the same facility where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was taken.
Hundreds of kids are still detained.
We’ll let the children’s words speak for themselves. 🧵
Hundreds of kids are still detained.
We’ll let the children’s words speak for themselves. 🧵
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
The best bit in 1984 about the novel-writing machines: Julia (who works in the Fiction Department) "could describe the whole process of composing a novel, from the general directive issued by the Planning Committee down to the final touching-up by the Rewrite Squad."
October 29, 2025 at 3:02 PM
The best bit in 1984 about the novel-writing machines: Julia (who works in the Fiction Department) "could describe the whole process of composing a novel, from the general directive issued by the Planning Committee down to the final touching-up by the Rewrite Squad."
1984.
Julia worked on the "novel-writing machines"
February 8, 2026 at 9:17 PM
1984.
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
Republicans have weaponized the non-sequitur.
February 8, 2026 at 9:09 PM
Republicans have weaponized the non-sequitur.
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
Often forgotten is the detail in 1984 of a song writing machine that cranked out slop for the proles. Cranking out romance novels seems to be in the same vein.
February 8, 2026 at 7:53 PM
Often forgotten is the detail in 1984 of a song writing machine that cranked out slop for the proles. Cranking out romance novels seems to be in the same vein.
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
Buried in this piece is a throwaway line about how actually her real hustle is selling online courses to aspiring AI hacks, marking an extraordinary symbiosis of my two most hated internet poisons
“If I can generate a book in a day, and you need six months to write a book, who’s going to win the race?” God this is bleak
The New Fabio Is Claude
www.nytimes.com
February 8, 2026 at 5:51 PM
Buried in this piece is a throwaway line about how actually her real hustle is selling online courses to aspiring AI hacks, marking an extraordinary symbiosis of my two most hated internet poisons
Good point. I forgot the 47th amendment, "one in, one out"--if you let in ONE five-year-old, you'd have to kick another out. I mean, how many five-year-olds can fit in this thing? (America, that is.)
Gonzales on Liam Ramos and his family: "They're not gonna qualify for asylum. So what do you do with all the people that go through the process and do not qualify for asylum? You deport them. I understand that 5-year-old and it breaks my heart. I also think, what about that 5-year-old US citizen?"
February 8, 2026 at 7:47 PM
Good point. I forgot the 47th amendment, "one in, one out"--if you let in ONE five-year-old, you'd have to kick another out. I mean, how many five-year-olds can fit in this thing? (America, that is.)
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
This is Tom Homan's actual goal and why he is focused on law enforcement cooperation.
wrt to some of the replies to this post, part of why the media has “moved on” is because it has become extraordinarily difficult to document ICE activity on the ground, outside of them arresting citizens.
A desperate plea sent to me by a Minneapolis resident who's been on the front lines since the beginning of the ICE occupation:
February 8, 2026 at 7:32 PM
This is Tom Homan's actual goal and why he is focused on law enforcement cooperation.
It's a war on creativity, which can be made formulaic, commodified, deployed for propaganda, used for evil ends, but ultimately contains within it an unpredictability, a core of unriggability, that fascism hates and capitalism seeks to subdue.
The point of the AI project is to provoke despair in creative people. They haven’t produced profits or anything anyone wants, just a steady stream of articles about how us artistic types can’t do the thing we’re already doing, making art. Jokes on them, we’re even better at despair than they are.
February 8, 2026 at 7:41 PM
It's a war on creativity, which can be made formulaic, commodified, deployed for propaganda, used for evil ends, but ultimately contains within it an unpredictability, a core of unriggability, that fascism hates and capitalism seeks to subdue.
"With the *help* of AI." Emphasis mine. What rank bullshittery, in which, yes, sad to say, 50,000 readers were made unwitting accomplices.
February 8, 2026 at 7:39 PM
"With the *help* of AI." Emphasis mine. What rank bullshittery, in which, yes, sad to say, 50,000 readers were made unwitting accomplices.
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
Park Service employees are being bombarded with guidance telling them to promote Freedom 250, the Trump-run org, in place of America250, the statutorily-bipartisan congressional commission. They were even urged to add the Freedom 250 logo to email signatures. www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...
February 8, 2026 at 7:35 PM
Park Service employees are being bombarded with guidance telling them to promote Freedom 250, the Trump-run org, in place of America250, the statutorily-bipartisan congressional commission. They were even urged to add the Freedom 250 logo to email signatures. www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
@apnews.com:
Hard Hats and Dummy Plates: Reports of ICE Ruses Add to Fears in Minnesota
By Jake Offenhartz
"Legal observers and officials say they have received a growing number of reports of federal agents impersonating construction workers, delivery drivers and in some cases anti-ICE activists."
Hard Hats and Dummy Plates: Reports of ICE Ruses Add to Fears in Minnesota
By Jake Offenhartz
"Legal observers and officials say they have received a growing number of reports of federal agents impersonating construction workers, delivery drivers and in some cases anti-ICE activists."
Hard hats and dummy plates: Reports of ICE ruses add to fears in Minnesota
Legal observers and officials say they have received a growing number of reports of federal agents impersonating construction workers, delivery drivers and in some cases anti-ICE activists in Minnesot...
apnews.com
February 8, 2026 at 5:48 PM
@apnews.com:
Hard Hats and Dummy Plates: Reports of ICE Ruses Add to Fears in Minnesota
By Jake Offenhartz
"Legal observers and officials say they have received a growing number of reports of federal agents impersonating construction workers, delivery drivers and in some cases anti-ICE activists."
Hard Hats and Dummy Plates: Reports of ICE Ruses Add to Fears in Minnesota
By Jake Offenhartz
"Legal observers and officials say they have received a growing number of reports of federal agents impersonating construction workers, delivery drivers and in some cases anti-ICE activists."
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
Vasily Shulzhenko, 'Chick' (2011)
February 7, 2026 at 7:51 PM
Vasily Shulzhenko, 'Chick' (2011)
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
For #SuperbOwl Sunday, a thread of superb owls by artist Morris Graves. First up: Morris Graves, "Owl on a Stone," 1968
February 8, 2026 at 1:30 PM
For #SuperbOwl Sunday, a thread of superb owls by artist Morris Graves. First up: Morris Graves, "Owl on a Stone," 1968
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
“For 280 days we haven’t eaten a single piece of fruit, banana, apple, orange, or anything fresh. We are all in one big room with no doors or windows. We can’t see any grass or trees. We are all constantly sick.”
Conditions in a San Diego concentration camp, via message hurled out in a bottle.
Conditions in a San Diego concentration camp, via message hurled out in a bottle.
![“Good afternoon. My name is [redacted] and my wife and I have been at OMDC since April 15 2025,” reads a handwritten note, wrapped around a lotion bottle that was thrown by a man held captive inside the Otay Mesa Detention Center (OMDC) on Sunday.
“It’s cold here all the time and the food is poor,” the missive continues. “For 280 days we haven’t eaten a single piece of fruit, banana, apple, orange, or anything fresh. We are all in one big room with no doors or windows. We can’t see any grass or trees. We are all constantly sick.”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:tgw3d4hvw3x5ijrxax7lg26u/bafkreiet46krrk7ovnqxsd6vr7ogw2lgame43jsqw25u2ygi5el5i5toom@jpeg)
February 8, 2026 at 1:29 PM
“For 280 days we haven’t eaten a single piece of fruit, banana, apple, orange, or anything fresh. We are all in one big room with no doors or windows. We can’t see any grass or trees. We are all constantly sick.”
Conditions in a San Diego concentration camp, via message hurled out in a bottle.
Conditions in a San Diego concentration camp, via message hurled out in a bottle.
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
FAMU can't use the word Black on anything posted around campus related to Black History Month, to stay in compliance with Florida state laws against DEI. Black students can't use the word Black at their Historically Black College during Black History Month.
February 8, 2026 at 2:28 PM
FAMU can't use the word Black on anything posted around campus related to Black History Month, to stay in compliance with Florida state laws against DEI. Black students can't use the word Black at their Historically Black College during Black History Month.
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
Jeff Bezos makes enough money to fully fund this literally every two minutes.
Former Washington Post journalists have launched a GoFundMe to help repatriate fired staff members who are effectively stranded in foreign countries.
One of the richest men in the world fired them from the paper and didn’t even pay to ensure they got home.
Abolish the billionaire class:
One of the richest men in the world fired them from the paper and didn’t even pay to ensure they got home.
Abolish the billionaire class:
Donate to Support for Washington Post international employees, organized by Michelle Lee
Among the hundreds of journalists laid off by The Washington Post on … Michelle Lee needs your support for Support for Washington Post international employees
www.gofundme.com
February 8, 2026 at 5:13 AM
Jeff Bezos makes enough money to fully fund this literally every two minutes.
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
Any time I look to see what the Labour government is up to in the UK it turns out to be things like making posters that Alfonso Cuarón put in the background of the long tracking shot that opens “Children of Men”.
February 8, 2026 at 12:12 PM
Any time I look to see what the Labour government is up to in the UK it turns out to be things like making posters that Alfonso Cuarón put in the background of the long tracking shot that opens “Children of Men”.
Reposted by Jeff Sharlet
A desperate plea sent to me by a Minneapolis resident who's been on the front lines since the beginning of the ICE occupation:
February 8, 2026 at 5:06 AM
A desperate plea sent to me by a Minneapolis resident who's been on the front lines since the beginning of the ICE occupation: