benmauk.bsky.social
Ben Mauk
@benmauk.bsky.social
820 followers 220 following 150 posts
Writer, journalist. Cleveland/Berlin. http://www.ben-mauk.com http://benmauk.substack.com
www.ben-mauk.com
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benmauk.bsky.social
Ben Mauk @benmauk.bsky.social · Nov 16
For two years, Nyrola Elimä and I have been investigating a mass exodus of Uyghur asylum seekers from China.

Our reporting, published earlier this week in the New York Times Magazine, shows in unprecedented detail the extent of China’s pursuit of Uyghurs beyond its borders.
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benmauk.bsky.social
Ben Mauk @benmauk.bsky.social · 1d
Recommended if like me you are a cult fan of Rivka Galchen's Atmospheric Disturbances, or if you like Perec, Pynchon, Tawada, or Shusaku Endo (whose book THE SEA AND POISON Beilin brilliantly remixes).
benmauk.bsky.social
Ben Mauk @benmauk.bsky.social · 1d
My friend and colleague Caren Beilin's new novel SEA, POISON is out with New Directions. I may be biased but it's the best new novel I've read in a long time. A paranoid comic body horror thriller by way of Oulipo, it's enormously fun, smart, and disturbing.

www.ndbooks.com/book/sea-poi...
Sea, Poison
Cumin Baleen is a forty-one-year-old writer living in Philadelphia—this city of hospitals—who works at the upscale grocery Sea & Poison and is navigating the onset of an autoimmune condition. To start...
www.ndbooks.com
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reichlinmelnick.bsky.social
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · Mar 6
Last November, the New York Times had a searing exposé on the treatment of Uyghurs trapped in Thailand during a migration crackdown. Worth your time if you want to learn more about what was happening here. www.nytimes.com/2024/11/10/m...
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benmauk.bsky.social
Ben Mauk @benmauk.bsky.social · 22d
bidoun.org/articles/hou...
House Arab
I was working at the magazine as a fact-checker and my parents no longer considered me a failure, not because they read or admired it, but because when they said its name to friends and relatives it s...
bidoun.org
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benmauk.bsky.social
Ben Mauk @benmauk.bsky.social · Sep 5
"I don’t even know a single person in the movement who hasn’t been physically assaulted in some way by the cops. Punched, choked, shoved, slapped, kicked – I am at a loss for words to describe how bad the police abuse situation here is.”

www.irishtimes.com/world/europe...
Irish protester Kitty O’Brien accuses Berlin police of widespread violence
Investigation under way into assault on O’Brien who claims police brutality expected in pro-Palestine demonstrations
www.irishtimes.com
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benmauk.bsky.social
Ben Mauk @benmauk.bsky.social · Sep 3
The biggest problem in America is a right-wing disinformation machine that has waged a decades-long war on public attention, conquered the media landscape, and entirely reshaped civic society.

Every other problem, including higher ed, is downstream.

benmauk.substack.com/p/the-crisis...
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benmauk.bsky.social
Ben Mauk @benmauk.bsky.social · Sep 1
"I don’t write to convey a message, and I don’t write stories to achieve any particular purpose. I don’t write stories to persuade a reader of something I believe, though I have many, many beliefs."

Lydia Davis in Harper's

harpers.org/archive/2025...
Demanding Pleasures, by Lydia Davis
On the art of observation
harpers.org
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brian-goldstone.bsky.social
Brian Goldstone @brian-goldstone.bsky.social · Sep 1
A Labor Day reminder: today there isn't a single city, metro area, or state in the U.S. where a full-time minimum-wage worker can afford a modest 2-bedroom apartment.

Millions of people with jobs—even multiple jobs—aren't safe from homelessness in this country.
Opinion | America Is Pushing Its Workers Into Homelessness
www.nytimes.com
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benmauk.bsky.social
Ben Mauk @benmauk.bsky.social · Sep 1
Phenomenal piece of criticism

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Jenny Turner · Something Is Surviving: Olga Tokarczuk’s Mycophilia
Mushrooms,​ trees, turf, twigs, bushes, moss-covered stones: nature is a force in Olga Tokarczuk’s Empusium,...
www.lrb.co.uk
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mclem.org
Michael Clemens @mclem.org · Aug 28
This is a real photograph of Washington, DC this week, where the United States president has ordered military occupation in peacetime, and ordered the display of colossal portraits of himself.

www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
Washington, DC under military occupation in last August 2025, with banners proclaiming the absolute power of the primus inter pares
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benmauk.bsky.social
Ben Mauk @benmauk.bsky.social · Aug 8
I just got it to replicate the error, although inconsistently. It seems more likely to happen if it is an initial query rather than part of a longer thread.

bsky.app/profile/benm...
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pilgerschloss.bsky.social
Evan Romero @pilgerschloss.bsky.social · Aug 8
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olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · Aug 6
"Days after rejecting the claim that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the liberal Zionist advocacy and lobby group J Street, has said he has been “persuaded” that he was wrong."

admitting you were wrong is good

www.timesofisrael.com/j-street-hea...
J Street head says he’s now convinced Israel committing genocide in Gaza
Jeremy Ben-Ami explains he has been 'persuaded rationally' by legal and scholarly arguments, stresses that though he won't use term himself, he won't argue against it either
www.timesofisrael.com
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davidjbier.bsky.social
David Bier @davidjbier.bsky.social · Aug 6
Border Patrol at a Home Depot in Los Angeles days after the 9th circuit affirmed a court order that purports to block this exact behavior. They don't even know who they're chasing! This is insane. Send them all to jail.
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nybooks.com
The New York Review of Books @nybooks.com · Aug 6
“Joseph Pilates was by most accounts neither socially graceful nor articulate. He was possessed, though, of a lifelong boundless faith in himself and in [his] machines.” —Alma Guillermoprieto
Bodies by Joe | Alma Guillermoprieto
With his strange machines and an uncanny, intuitive understanding of muscles, Joseph Pilates created a new technique for improving strength and movement.
buff.ly
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radleybalko.bsky.social
Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · Jul 29
Just to reiterate: What this administration is doing right now is orders of magnitude more dangerous for academic freedom and free speech than anything the right has spent the last 30 years complaining about.
donmoyn.bsky.social
Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · Jul 29
Faculty who wrote to defend their president and object to a DOJ investigation of their university...are now being investigated by the DOJ.
The most banal defense of free speech and academic freedom will trigger the full wrath of the US government now.
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/u...
Faculty Support of George Mason’s President Draws Federal Investigation
www.nytimes.com
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reichlinmelnick.bsky.social
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · Jul 28
“‘This is an unprecedented situation where hundreds of detainees are held incommunicado, with no ability to access the courts, under legal authority that has never been explained and may not exist,’ they argued.”

www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...
Lawyers question legality of Alligator Alcatraz, ask federal judge to intervene
“This is an unprecedented situation where hundreds of detainees are held incommunicado, with no ability to access the courts, under legal authority that has never been explained and may not exist,” pl...
www.miamiherald.com
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nmschuessler.bsky.social
Norbert Maria Schüssler @nmschuessler.bsky.social · Jul 18
Flieger gestartet: Merz-Regierung schiebt trotz Taliban-Herrschaft nach Afghanistan ab
Trotz der verheerenden Menschenrechtssituation in Afghanistan schiebt die Bundesregierung Dutzende Personen dorthin ab. Asyl-Organisationen schlagen Alarm.
www.fr.de/politik/merz...
Flieger gestartet: Merz-Regierung schiebt trotz Taliban-Herrschaft nach Afghanistan ab
Trotz der verheerenden Menschenrechtssituation in Afghanistan schiebt die Bundesregierung Dutzende Personen dorthin ab. Asyl-Organisationen schlagen Alarm.
www.fr.de
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benmauk.bsky.social
Ben Mauk @benmauk.bsky.social · Jul 18
👌
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drberger.bsky.social
Zackary Berger שלום בערגער @drberger.bsky.social · Jul 15
In @theintercept.com, Debbie Nathan reports on ICE lawyers refusing to give their names in court - and immigration judges going along with it.

theintercept.com/2025/07/15/i...
ICE Lawyers Are Hiding Their Names in Immigration Court
ICE attorneys fighting to deport immigrants are able to obscure their identities — no masks required.
theintercept.com
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maxkennerly.bsky.social
Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · Jul 14
Law is fake, power is real.
stevevladeck.bsky.social
Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · Jul 14
Since April 4, #SCOTUS has issued 15 rulings on 17 emergency applications filed by Trump (three birthright citizenship apps were consolidated).

It has granted relief to Trump ... in all 15 rulings.

It has written majority opinions in only 3.

Today's order is the 7th with no explanation *at all.*
stevevladeck.bsky.social
Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · Jul 14
Here we go again: Over an acerbic dissenting opinion by Justice Sotomayor (joined in full by Justices Kagan and Jackson), #SCOTUS, with no explanation, grants a stay in the Department of Education RIFs case—effectively clearing the way for the Trump administration to dismantle much of the agency:
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brian-goldstone.bsky.social
Brian Goldstone @brian-goldstone.bsky.social · Jul 13
An Israeli airstrike just killed 10 people—six of them kids—as they stood in line for water. Yesterday 31 more Palestinians were shot dead while trying to reach an aid distribution site.

This is what our tax dollars continue to fund. And most of the country couldn't care less.
Israeli airstrike kills at least 10, including six children, at Gaza water station, say health officials
Nine killed in separate bombing of a home on Sunday and 31 others shot dead near aid distribution site on Saturday
www.theguardian.com
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davidjbier.bsky.social
David Bier @davidjbier.bsky.social · Jul 12
Another ICE "assault" case unravels. Border Patrol and ICE are arresting US citizens and then after they find out that they are US citizens, they are charging them with "assault" to justify their actions. This is clearly DHS policy at this point. We've seen it repeatedly now.
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