Thomas Birmingham

Y23 | Someone once said I’m naturally anti-dogmatic. Housing is a human right. Research Fellow @InTheseTimesMag. Investigations in @thenation, @theappeal, etc.

[Thomas Birmingham @thomasbirm]

BREAKING: In solidarity with Columbia, hundreds of Yale students have just constructed an encampment of tents outside a Board of Trustees meeting.

Organizers say they won’t leave until Yale divests from all military weapons manufacturing.

FREE PALESTINE!

[matt bernstein @mattxiv]

just a few miles from here, queer palestinians in the west bank are blackmailed by israeli intelligence officers into working as informants.

the zone of interest but make it 🏳️‍🌈 proud 🏳️‍🌈

[Nader Hashemi @naderalihashemi]

Chicago professor suspended after assignment mentions Palestinians

https://t.co/CqxBA9Jnlg

@AAUP @ACLU @DannyPostel

[Thomas Birmingham @thomasbirm]

Is Bari Weiss/the Ellisons/Jeff Bezos' campaign to destroy journalism making you feel insane? Are you a cool person in the Chicago area?

Luckily for you, @inthesetimesmag is hosting the incredible event seen below. There's never been a better time to support independent media!

[Adam Johnson @adamjohnsonCHI]

This level of racism and cruelty is completely sociopathic and we have to live with this well funded regime of hate everyday and it solicits almost no media coverage and certainly not any sustained moral outrage or “Islamophobia crisis” narrative we are told we need to address.

[Adam Johnson @adamjohnsonCHI]

Setting aside the gross normalizing and casual way this piece describes a blatantly racist attack on Tlaib, check out this brilliant geopolitical observation from @aaronpellish

[Adam Johnson @adamjohnsonCHI]

for anyone curious about this dynamic, it's very much a quantitative phenomena. Post Oct 7, despite university and nonprofits finding roughly equal instances of antisemitism and anti-Muslim racism, the former was covered 9X-31X more in US media, depending on how it was measrured

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

⭕️ NYT Called Every Major Gaza City a “Hamas Stronghold,” New Book Documents

A new book by media critic Adam Johnson, How to Sell a Genocide: The Media’s Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza, documents how the New York Times used the term “Hamas stronghold” 154 times between October 2023 and October 2024, almost always while reporting on war crimes or pending war crimes.

Johnson shows the paper applied the label to all five of Gaza’s most populated cities, including refugee camps like Jabaliya, where an Israeli strike killed upwards of 120 people in an October 2023 attack. The NYT headline read: “Israel Strike Targets Hamas Stronghold in Dense Gaza Area.”

The book argues the framing militarized civilian areas in the public imagination to justify their destruction.

[lulu ⋆˚꩜｡ | CV REMAKE @p1astr1es]

the reason why Palestine isn’t being seen anymore because there’s barely any journalists left. 20% of Lebanon is now under Israeli occupation. 12 million people have been displaced in Sudan. Over 25 million people are facing acute hunger in Congo. Don’t stop talking.

[Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan]

I wonder which reporter bylines this piece. I wonder…

[night jar @nocturnalbottle]

Left press must ask the Mamdani admin about the choice not to arrest Smotrich.

[Dan Sheehan @danpjsheehan]

Today, New York’s governer, attorney general, police commissioner, and senior senator marched alongside an ICC-wanted war criminal in a parade celebrating an apartheid ethnostate that stands accused (by every major human rights org in the world) of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

[Domhnall (Cogito) @CogitoEdu]

Reading How To Sell A Genocide, the NYT called every major population centre in the Gaza Strip a "Hamas stronghold" at some point.

They actively worked to militarise civilians in Gaza to justify genocide

[David Klion @DavidKlion]

The messier Platner turns out to be, the more I hope he wins—not because I like or respect him more, but because Susan Collins, one of the most evil people in public life, deserves to be humiliated as much as possible.

[Vic Vaiana @vicvaiana]

All this in just 4 years.

Remember when they insisted it was impossible to build green infrastructure quickly enough

[Adam Johnson @adamjohnsonCHI]

fun fact: the NYT hasn't had a breaking news headline about a bombing in Gaza (~1000 killed by US/Israel since Oct 2025) or Lebanon (3,400+ killed by US/Israel since Oct 2025) since Oct 2025.

[jasper nathaniel @infinite_jaz]

A historically shameful day for New York City. Hope to hear from @NYCMayor soon.

[jasper nathaniel @infinite_jaz]

Unbelievable that Mamdani has gotten flak for skipping a parade that Smotrich—who is proudly overseeing the West Bank’s ethnic cleansing and annexation—and Eliyahu—who suggested nuking Gaza and bombing humanitarian aid—are marching in.

[Melat Kiros for Congress, CO-1 @MelatKirosCO]

With our democracy on the line, we have to elect leaders who will pass Medicare for All, break up big medicine, and cancel all medical debt.

[Acyn @Acyn]

Mamdani: My dream is not that we hold every bad landlord accountable. My dream is that we don’t have to. My dream is that every landlord is responsive to their tenants and that every landlord is following housing code. And I know that there are many landlords who are like that.

The issue, however, is that there are a number of bad landlords who have been able to operate with impunity, with no consequences for their actions. And part of what this housing plan puts forward is specifically funding to ensure that we can hold these kinds of landlords accountable, and especially the top 10 worst landlords in New York City, so that we can actually start to explore all of the tools we need to transfer ownership of those properties to people who will actually steward them safely, whether they’re a nonprofit, a community land trust, or the tenants themselves.

That is how we are looking at this because, frankly, this is the law, and for too long housing code has been treated like a suggestion, not a requirement.

[Dissent Magazine @DissentMag]

Mamdani’s first mission with Organize NYC will be to turn out thousands of New Yorkers to testify at the public hearings of the Rent Guidelines Board ahead of its June meeting to vote on whether or not to increase the cost of rent-stabilized apartments.

https://t.co/MFSD0OPttQ