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...
Words in New Yorker, NY Mag, WIRED, Guardian & more. VICE News alum. Reporting on extremism, disinfo, political violence, subcultures etc. more fun than I sound. send tips/ say hello at tessalexandraowen@gmail.com, IG: tess_owen_, or signal : tessowen.77
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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...
In its alleged fight against antisemitism, the Trump administration has relied on two groups with murky funders—one of which is in Israel. Here's my deep dive @thebaffler.com into Canary Mission and Betar, two extreme Zionist groups at the heart of Trump's crackdown. thebaffler.com/latest/for-b...
They are trying to erase trans people and doing it in the open....
My story for @wired today: The MAGA movement is breaking up families - some have even decided to go “no contact” with their Trump supporting parents. But there’s a few who are trying to re-establish common ground, through “book clubs” www.wired.com/story/people...
This is a really hopeful story. Well done @tessowen.bsky.social
Fascinating story by @tessowen.bsky.social on people trying to reconnect to their MAGA parents via book clubs. One woman promised to attend church if her ailing father reads 3 books. “It would be good to know that when I go one day, I’ll see my daughter again,” he says. www.wired.com/story/people...
ICYMI, CISI Co-Director @bostonjoan.bsky.social was quoted in the @wired.com piece by @tessowen.bsky.social on dog whistles & aesthetic slop as targeted recruitment appeal www.wired.com/story/trump-...
SCOOP The White House said EJ Antoni—Trump's pick to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics—went to the Capitol on Jan 6th after seeing it on the news But a now-deleted Twitter account bearing his name shows someone deeply enmeshed in far-right election conspiracies www.wired.com/story/twitte...
The Independent has identified Eric Lendrum as the DHS PR officer responsible for a relentless flood of social media posts on DHS pages using Nazis memes, slogans and images. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...
I’m still unable to form words about this
An all-time classic....
Of course Christian nationalist militia leaders are using Instagram to recruit — and they are become influencers at the same time. More great reporting from @tessowen.bsky.social www.wired.com/story/christ...
BIG from @spytalker.bsky.social ... The Justice Department has effectively gutted its domestic terror unit. open.substack.com/pub/spytalk/...
I will say that there is no better moment for all the journalists on the extremely niche crossover beat: "antifascism x sandwiches": @andybcampbell.bsky.social and @swordsjew.bsky.social its your time to shine
in today's mad libs news that would have made no fucking sense ten years ago
Attorney General Pam Bondi says that the "Subway Slinger" who chucked a sandwich at a federal agent in DC the other night is actually a DOJ employee. She describes him as an "example of the deep state."
incredible.
Everyone In 200-Member Media Softball League Unemployed
“The guns help push the religion, & the religion helps push the guns,” said @jonlewis27.bsky.social. “You get these networks that are steeped in that kind of rhetoric, & when you combine that with offline mobilization & weapons training, it doesn’t really bode well.” www.wired.com/story/christ...
NEW: There's a new guard of paramilitary activists, whose youthful membership, edgy aesthetics, and overt nods to religion points to a new brand of anti-government Christian nationalist militias -- and they're using Instagram to recruit. always read @tessowen.bsky.social:
“It's basically turning ideology into influencer culture,” said @anthropaulicy.bsky.social of @ttp-updates.bsky.social. “Instagram is the best platform for that. It’s one of the platforms that influencers have broadly flocked to because they can monetize it easily."
Wrote for @wired.com about a new generation of paramilitary activists, whose edgy aesthetics, embrace of Christian nationalism, youthful membership, and use of Instagram to self-promote sets them apart from the traditional militia movement. www.wired.com/story/christ...
‼️‼️ The far-right, Christian Nationalist training camp Patriot Academy is closer than ever to becoming its own city. On Tuesday, Texas county officials allowed for the 200ish residents there to vote on whether to incorporate a 177.6-acre city in November.
Important story here from @wired.com @tessowen.bsky.social on how the Trump administration is meme-ing mass deportations into normalcy: www.wired.com/story/trump-... I wrote about this issue in June: drewharwell.com/stories/depo...
BENNY JOHNSON: Will the president consider giving the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Big Balls? LEAVITT: Perhaps it's something he would consider
so bleak
The Trump admin is mocking mass deportation with memes, TikTok jams, and Christian nationalist propaganda — making brutality look like a joke to recruit thousands of ICE agents. This isn’t just cruel, it’s a dangerous normalization of hate and violence. Read more from @tessowen.bsky.social:
www.wired.com/story/myster... White power and white supremacist groups have stolen tons (literal tons) of military weapons and equipment from US armories, posts, and bases. The Pentagon has known about these thefts since at least the early 1980s. (1)
"While WIRED runs cover for criminal illegal aliens, we won’t apologize for posting banger memes." Yes, this is an official statement from a White House spokesperson. www.wired.com/story/trump-...
DHS is recruiting using a not-so-subtle reference to a 1978 book from white nationalist William Gayley Simpson, Which Way Western Man? Simpson's book was released under an imprint associated with the National Alliance, founded by Turner Diaries author William Luther Pierce.
When I reached out to DHS for comment, they remarked "what a silly little story." The White House, in their response, said they wouldn't apologize for "posting banger memes"
The level of cruelty on display by the Trump administration's use of memes to make fun of ICE arrests and mass deportation is horrible to watch. Great reporting from @tessowen.bsky.social www.wired.com/story/trump-...
The Trump administration has been using memes and catchy TikTok tunes to turn mass deportation into a big joke -- Experts say it’s intentional: The memes these accounts share are core to the Trump administration’s propaganda strategy. an expert analysis from @tessowen.bsky.social:
For @wired.com I wrote about the Trump admin's latest propaganda strategy: incorporating the casual nihilism and cruelty of the highly online far-right into memes about deportation www.wired.com/story/trump-...
Gang of youths?! A wheelie?! I hope everyone survived this harrowing experience.
Here’s a video from the last trip I took to DC in June. Middle of a Saturday. It was terrifying, they were doing some king of Satanic ritual in DuPont Circle
terrible face blindness except for kim davis
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reposted a video that featured Doug Wilson, a self-described Christian nationalist pastor whose church promotes male-led households and does not believe women should be allowed to vote.
Starmer is “gravely concerned.” Gravely concerned??? This is appalling. UN condemns targeted Israeli attack that killed five Al Jazeera journalists www.bbc.com/news/article...
“not with a bang but a whimper”
this dc situation looks pretty horrible. i wish i had more to say except that autocracy is always mundane and petty and vicious and encourages you to look away and be safe. and you can live quite normally under it until you're a direct target
A teenage 4channer was beat up by two 15 year olds in DC, which was spotted and quickly stopped by nearby police. He told his friends, the richest man in the world and the Vice President of the United States, that he was pummeled by a dozen adult Romanians. A week later, Trump federalized DC police.
this also part of an ongoing pattern of the trump admin punishing and sidelining leaders in blue jurisdictions around the country through the deployment of federal forces
plus a handful of high-profile but isolated violent incidents. Violent crime in DC has been trending downwards since 2023 www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...
how much is the federal takeover of DC about "reducing crime" and how much is it about asserting dominance over a city that repudiated Trump and his allies in the aftermath of J6?
thank you! :)
Our baby likes to shit himself in his bouncer somewhere between “tiny snack” and “nap”, which im sure isn’t too different from the hustle culture guys’ routine either
It’s about fairness in women’s sports.
The “satanic panic” is back and even dumber than before.
we are lucky that our baby is a pretty good sleeper! we like to think of it as a gift from the universe to make up for the traumatic birth
some days feel like my head is full of sticky cotton candy and im over it
mums of Bluesky: when does this wretched baby brain fog go away
Really interesting piece about the information war in Israel amid growing acknowledgement from pro-Israeli media outlets of the famine in Gaza apple.news/AX5vqgJ1SR9q...
media literacy skills in action
fool me twice …
this is true
I may end up eating my hat for this post if / when her collection of nazi germany memorabilia is discovered in her garage. But for now just feels like a silly distraction
I personally think that labeling this post from a nebraska GOP comms director as a nazi salute (it’s all over my TL on X) is a bit of a reach. It feels like there is more than enough overt and covert fascism happening that ought to be troubling us more than this
The account was created one day after Cuomo announced he would run as an independent. Perhaps a coincidence! Or perhaps not.
Noticed this AI-powered verified account putting out anti-Mamdani / pro-Cuomo content on X
Go for it. I don't even care any more.
Lana del Rey literally made a whole song about it www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...
the editors note at the top of my story does make for interesting reading though.
(side note but vice links look like absolute trash now, so many pop ups and ads)
I wrote my own version of this back in late 2023. Noah's story makes it clear that the crisis has only intensified since then. www.vice.com/en/article/a...
Really good deep reporting by @noahshachtman.bsky.social (plus some jaw-dropping anecdotes) in this story about the growing internal crisis at the ADL nymag.com/intelligence...
“This is unprecedented. We have not ever seen a situation where hundreds of people are held without charge ... under legal authority that has not been explained," ACLU attorney Eunice Cho said on Monday.
Oh good, Joe Kent—whose ties to extremists include palling around with Joey Gibson and hiring a Proud Boy as a consultant —will lead center for counterterrorism www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
doing some soul searching after falling for the AI bear on a trampoline and the AI bunnies on a trampoline
Curious if anyone figured out the type of surveillance system that the MCC uses, and if indeed the system does reset on a nightly basis (which Bondi initially said explained the infamous "missing minute") www.thedailybeast.com/the-fbi-has-...
ofc it’s entirely possible musk was just being a troll and making an educated guess , but the timing is interesting
What I want to know is how Musk found out Trump was in the Epstein files. Per WSJ, Patel told govt officials in May. The Trump-Musk blow up was very early June.
whoops. kash patel, first and foremost, a huge gossip
So this is a crazy story: 55yo Long Island guy made a load of bombs. Last month, he planted 5 around Soho and left one on the Williamsburg bridge www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/n...
👀
I'm stunned. ICE attorneys not identifying themselves in COURT?
One agent said the "request he received regarding Ozturk was so unusual that he contacted a Homeland Security lawyer to confirm its legality."
The Trump admin / MAGA fallout over the Epstein files is a leopards-eating-faces crisis of its own making www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
The conspiracy-soaked culture that propelled President Donald Trump to political power is now coming for him. My newest column for CNN >>> www.cnn.com/2025/07/14/m...
This is the sort of smoking gun connection between a decision and outcome that gets people fired in a normal government
*also i meant "civilians" not "citizens". apologies.
bellingcat was great and i know they have their database of LA-area raids. i was hoping to find videos from around the country, if such a collection exists.
Anyone know of any orgs collecting and compiling videos that citizens have taken of masked ICE agents? If so, hit me up
That’s the headline, folks www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...
good work here per usual from @bellingcat.com, analyzing 100 incidents of ICE raids in the LA area since June 6 www.bellingcat.com/news/2025/07...
we saw a massive uptick of the presence of firearms at contentious demonstrations in 2020. there have been only a small handful of occasions where members of the Proud Boys and leftists have drawn guns during a confrontation. www.rawstory.com/raw-investig...
which seems to be illegal, though it's complicated:
People are saying:
“Attempts to hold Canary Mission liable for defamation have mostly failed, in part because would-be plaintiffs cannot say conclusively whether it is housed in the United States.” @motherjones.com
Exhibit 500 of when these people tell you what theyre going to do, believe them www.nytimes.com/2025/07/09/u...
bonkers.
New from 404 Media: ICE is searching a massive insurance and medical bill database to find deportation targets, according to internal ICE material. The database is all encompassing, contains details on 1.8 billion insurance claims and 58 million medical bills www.404media.co/ice-is-searc...
It wasn’t a beat at all until probably 2017/2018, & even then there weren’t really many of us on it. But at some point many stories increasingly became both politics & extremism. And it’s confusing now because I’m not sourced like a typical political reporter
anonymous agents kidnapping brown ppl off the streets and shipping them to detention sites in secret to be deported who-knows-where without any due process is the whole reality that extremists have spent decades pining for, so yeah...
truly I don’t even know if “extremism” is a real beat anymore, since extremism has bled into all facets of mainstream society.
as a matter of fact, no i have not been in a coma since 2008 bsky.app/profile/tess...
remember 2019 when Steve King's flirtation with european right-wing extremists, & comments about whether white supremacy was a big deal, was a national story & eventually led to his removal from committee assignments? can you imagine trying to hold lawmakers to that same standard now?
Luke Baumgartner 