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jonathan friedman
@jonathanfriedman.com
1.6K followers 1.2K following 2.2K posts
Media, culture, and news strategist and nerd. Occasional producer. USC Marshall, Semafor, Bad Robot, CAA, Obama White House, The Verge, NYU Gallatin alum. Recovering tweeter @jonfriedman
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jonathan friedman @jonathanfriedman.com · 25d
2025 #GOODTV RANKINGS

1, ANDOR (s2, Disney)

Seemingly impossible feat to turn decades-old action-adventure sci-fi IP into a rich text of protest art, a spy/resistance thriller. But Tony Gilroy and co did it. All hail 🏆
Diego Luna as Cassian Andor Stellar Skarsgård as Luthen Rael Kyle Soller as Syril Karn; Denise Gough as Dedra Meero Genevieve O’Reilly as Senator Mon Mothma
Reposted by jonathan friedman
proptermalone.bsky.social
"passed away"
January 18, 2026 at 3:07 AM
Reposted by jonathan friedman
annabower.bsky.social
DHS getting basic 4th Amendment law wrong on its official Twitter account.

Seems like this post is bound to show up as an exhibit in one of the cases challenging ICE/Border Control enforcement actions.
Homeland Security & @DHSgov X.com Law enforcement uses 'reasonable suspicion' to make arrests, as protected under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court has already vindicated us on this position. A person's immigration status makes them a target for enforcement, not their skin color, race or ethnicity. @TriciaOhio
January 17, 2026 at 6:57 PM
Reposted by jonathan friedman
radleybalko.bsky.social
The more I think about this, the angrier I get. It takes a particularly virulent strain of sociopathy to sit and let hard-working people serve you a meal knowing that you plan to arrest them and send them off for deportation once they're off of work.

Really depraved shit.
radleybalko.bsky.social Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 12h
A few days ago, Fox News was whining about ICE agents getting heckled at a Mexican restaurant in Minneapolis.

Meanwhile, in the town of Willmar, ICE agents had lunch at a Mexican restaurant, waited until it closed, then confronted and arrested three workers as they left.
ICE agents ate at a Minnesota Mexican restaurant before arresting staff
Immigration law enforcement agents reportedly followed employees out of the restaurant after they closed for the evening
www.independent.co.uk
January 18, 2026 at 12:13 AM
Reposted by jonathan friedman
carlquintanilla.bsky.social
“.. The draft appears to suggest Trump himself would control the money, something that would be considered unacceptable to most countries ..” 🤡

@bloomberg.com
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
January 17, 2026 at 11:11 PM
Reposted by jonathan friedman
premthakker.bsky.social
How much more in your face can it be?

"Why are you asking me for my paperwork?"
"Because of your accent."
"You have an accent too."
"Where were you born sir?"
"Where were you born at?"
"Put your hands behind your back."
January 17, 2026 at 9:16 PM
Reposted by jonathan friedman
chasewoodruff.bsky.social
Really too perfect that Dokoupil's smug lecture at the end of this broadcast about trusting audiences to hear the news and decide for themselves was delivered *in the very act* of choosing to cover up a newsworthy legal threat made by the president about the interview the audience had just watched.
@tonydokoupil: You may not agree with everything you hear on our broadcast, but we trust you to hear it, and we trust you to decide for yourselves.
January 17, 2026 at 11:12 PM
jonathanfriedman.com
Thrilled to report the Law & Order / SVU crossover from the other week was very #goodtv and both shows are very watchable rn

Not to spoil but there is a whole subplot loosely based on that Whites Only town in Arkansas… strong shit
January 17, 2026 at 11:41 PM
Reposted by jonathan friedman
adamserwer.bsky.social
Congrats to everyone who voted for Trump to lower prices! You’re now paying more for everything so Trump can feel better about himself bsky.app/profile/twse...
twseal.bsky.social Thomas Seal @twseal.bsky.social · 18h
Trump says he'll impose a 10% tariff (rising to 25% in June) on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Finland, because they've sent people to Greenland, until the US can buy Greenland.
January 17, 2026 at 8:08 PM
Reposted by jonathan friedman
carlquintanilla.bsky.social
Double your pardon. Double your pleasure.

Again. 🤡

@nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/16/u...
January 17, 2026 at 3:28 PM
Reposted by jonathan friedman
scarylawyerguy.bsky.social
Nothing to see here folks, just a sitting president investing in two companies whose merger he claims sole authority to approve or reject. Totally normal! 🙃
January 17, 2026 at 10:57 AM
Reposted by jonathan friedman
samd.bsky.social
the fact that Republican senators like Schmitt can’t even write a fascist screed on their own and instead have to rely on chatGPT perfectly captures the unique combination of evil and stupid that defines the modern Republican Party
Eric Schmitt • @Eric_Schmitt X.com Territorial expansion is a time-honored American tradition—think Louisiana Purchase, Alaska. We're a frontier people—it's in our blood. Acquiring Greenland isn't a silly idea. It makes all the sense in the world. Here's why.
January 17, 2026 at 7:16 PM
Reposted by jonathan friedman
proptermalone.bsky.social
if you're viewing things through the dumb suicidal great powers frame and you're honest, this is such a huge failure by the US that it alone should be sufficient to turn on this administration
mark-carney.bsky.social Mark Carney @mark-carney.bsky.social · 17h
The Canada-China relationship has been distant and uncertain for nearly a decade.

We’re changing that, with a new strategic partnership that benefits the people of both our nations.
January 17, 2026 at 4:43 PM
Reposted by jonathan friedman
joeuchill.bsky.social
there’s this weird cycle where people, including from the left, say they want to create these cancel-culture free spaces and then get horrified by them inevitably being co-opted by the worst people in the world.
ositanwanevu.com Osita Nwanevu @ositanwanevu.com · 1d
Apropos of nothing, let's check in with how things are going at Bari Weiss's free speech university. www.politico.com/news/magazin...
Most people didn’t think much of it when the university dean, Ben Crocker, called a student named Dan into his office on Monday, Sept. 9, the first day of classes. But at 7:44 in the evening, they received an email from three administrators saying that Dan had been removed from campus, “transported to his home out of state,” and barred from further access to the university. The nature of the allegations concerned, at their core, a pair of charged statements Dan allegedly made that would be familiar to any Title IX officer. The first was a general statement implying that UATX girls carried themselves physically in a way that invited sexual assault. The second was a suggestion to a specific female student that she had carried herself in a way that invited sexual assault. Dan had already been the subject of some negative attention on campus because of provocative statements he’d made in a UATX-based Discord “introductions” chat. These included a challenge — “If I catch any of you guys in my stuff, I’ll kill you” — which was a reference to the 1981 movie “Stripes” and likely misunderstood by fellow students. In another exchange, a discussion of transgender issues, Dan expressed reservations about hormone treatment and said that he couldn’t wait “to play devil’s advocate for legalizing pedophilia.” Between 8:30 and 9:00 p.m., Crocker visited the dorms, where he hosted a meeting on the roof to discuss the issue with students. Crocker’s message was that Dan’s conduct had been evaluated to be a “credible threat” — a phrase that would be repeated by the administration many times over the following days. Crocker then faced what one student attendee recalled as a “firing squad” of questions. Some students said that Dan had seemed off, but others saw his hasty removal as an example of the very cancel culture to which UATX was supposed to be the antithesis. Several students noted a lack of diversity. Consistent with its emphasis on “merit-based admissions,” UATX doesn’t publish demographic data. The students with whom I spoke said their classmates — and the college’s leadership — were overwhelmingly white, disproportionately came from wealthy families and had an overrepresentation of apparent neurodivergence. They found ideological diversity to be particularly lacking. “I didn’t realize exactly how conservative it would be,” one current student told me. “You know, when I hear free speech and open debate and all that jazz, I assumed that there was going to be a more equal amount of political views, and there wasn’t.” Classes weren’t as innovative as most students expected. “Year one was exceptionally boring,” the student said. “They did great books, they just didn’t do it in a great way,” said another student, who lamented the amount of memorization required. “I thought we were going to be intensely debating,” he said. Several students shared course syllabi with me. Most are easy enough to imagine being offered on any campus — with the notable exception of math and science. “The math classes go over algebra you learned in ninth grade,” a student told me. “There was just nothing there.” He described the offering as “schizophrenic” and described a class he’d taken at University of Texas at Austin as “exponentially more important.” Indeed, the syllabus I reviewed for a class called “Intellectual Foundations of Science II” covered a range of topics unusual for a science class including “The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.” A student who’d taken the course shared a slide with me on “ensoulment” — the principally religious question of when a soul enters the human body — and said that the class had been told that IVF but not abortion could be consistent with the Catholic belief about ensoulment. The poor quality of the science offerings had bothered Heying and Pinker. “Others thought I was the token liberal,” Heying told me, “but I came to understand myself as the token scientist.” In an email, Pinker wrote, “They should have hired a widely esteemed scientist and proven program builder to set up their science division.” Another surprising similarity with other colleges stemmed directly from Dan’s expulsion: The students feared cancellation. “At any moment a frivolous Title IX complaint could be filed against you,” a former student told me. “I’ve never felt my speech was so chilled as it was in the classroom at UATX.” During the many conversations I had reporting this story, two questions came up more than any other. The first: Where was Bari Weiss? Many of the people I interviewed told me about internal conversations and shared internal emails. Weiss, who remains on the board of trustees, was almost never present in the conversations as they were related to me, and while I saw many emails on which Kanelos and Ferguson were copied, I never saw any including Weiss. speaks onstage during an event in New York City, on Nov. 19, 2024. | Noam Galai/Getty Images for The Free Press One person I spoke to, who was present during the early planning stages, told me that Weiss was “very elusive” and almost never present in person. This was ironic since UATX was closely associated with Weiss — a bust of whom now resides in the school library. Weiss, meanwhile, has only risen further during the Trump 2.0 era and is now editor-in-chief of CBS News, where she has been criticized as genuflecting to the Trump administration. A spokesperson for CBS News did not respond to a request for comment from Weiss. One former member of the development team told me that they would routinely ask prospective donors how they got to know UATX. “Eighty percent of the time, the answer was Bari Weiss,” they said. “It was very often referred to as Bari Weiss’ University, or Bari Weiss’ University Project, or Bari Weiss’ University of Austin.” For several people, this was a source of resentment. “I don’t care whether she wants to pretend this is all gone now — she is the reason that this place exists. She was huge, she was held in such high regard, she had such an enormous impact,” the former staffer said. “I want her to be held to account,” she added. “I’m pissed.”
January 17, 2026 at 12:07 AM
Reposted by jonathan friedman
peterbakernyt.bsky.social
Trump escalates his attack on Minnesota Democrats as Justice Department launches a criminal investigation into Gov Walz and Mayor Frey apparently on the theory that their objections to ICE amount to illegal interference, sources tell @perrystein.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...
Justice Dept. launches criminal investigation of Minnesota governor
The Justice Department has issued subpoenas for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey as part of an investigation into impeding law enforcement.
www.washingtonpost.com
January 16, 2026 at 11:28 PM
Reposted by jonathan friedman
sahilkapur.bsky.social
NY Times: “Trump pardons a convicted fraudster for the second time.” www.nytimes.com/2026/01/16/u...
Trump Sets Fraudster Free From Prison for a Second Time
www.nytimes.com
January 16, 2026 at 6:58 PM
Reposted by jonathan friedman
chrisgeidner.bsky.social
Here is the NYT breakdown Ryan is referencing: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/v...
January 16, 2026 at 8:21 PM
Reposted by jonathan friedman
dodgerfanla.bsky.social
He really thinks he can control culture. Dude your going to be a villain for eternity. People will hate your face. People will piss on your grave.
drewharwell.com Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · 2d
Stephen Miller is upset about Star Trek, one of the most socially progressive franchises in TV history
Tragic. But it’s not too late for @paramountplus to save the franchise. Step 1: Reconcile with @WilliamShatner and give him total creative control.
January 16, 2026 at 4:49 AM
Reposted by jonathan friedman
sarahellison.bsky.social
The FBI's raid of @hannahnatanson.bsky.social's home and seizure of her electronic devices is unprecedented, according to Gabe Rottman, an attorney and VP of policy for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Our latest here on the implications: www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
Journalists confront new reality in reporting after FBI raid
Many saw the FBI search of a Washington Post reporter’s home as a jarring new step aimed at limiting their ability to gather information.
www.washingtonpost.com
January 15, 2026 at 5:38 PM
Reposted by jonathan friedman
sheeraf.bsky.social
Inside the fight to keep Iran online: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/t...
Inside the Fight to Keep Iran Online
www.nytimes.com
January 15, 2026 at 10:30 PM
Reposted by jonathan friedman
samrlevine.bsky.social
A must read story by my colleague Ed Pilkington on the children and families affected by Trump’s cuts to cancer research www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...
Kids with brain cancer were already in a life and death struggle. Then came Trump
The US president vowed to ‘end childhood cancer’. But his administration is dismantling the search for a cure and sending families scrambling for treatment
www.theguardian.com
January 16, 2026 at 12:48 AM
Reposted by jonathan friedman
larrythek.bsky.social
The 101 best Los Angeles movies, ranked www.latimes.com/entertainmen...
January 16, 2026 at 2:12 AM
Reposted by jonathan friedman
jsgatnyt.bsky.social
Couple Says ICE Agents Gassed Them as They Drove With 6 Children www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/u...
Couple Says ICE Agents Gassed Them as They Drove With 6 Children
www.nytimes.com
January 16, 2026 at 7:34 AM
Reposted by jonathan friedman
gelliottmorris.com
New party identification polling from Gallup this week shows Americans are moving against Trump faster than they did in his first term. Adults were R+4 in 2024, now D+8. That 12-pt drop is 3x the change in the first year of his first term.
www.gelliottmorris.com/p/backlash-t...
Backlash to Trump has been higher in his second term
Gallup's latest data shows Republican party identification down 6 points in Trump's second term — three times the decline in 2017
www.gelliottmorris.com
January 16, 2026 at 1:01 PM
Reposted by jonathan friedman
aaronsojourner.org
They have quite an operation going.
www.mprnews.org/episode/2026...
Minneapolis church has delivered more than 12,000 boxes of groceries to families in hiding
DHH church has hundreds of volunteers packing and delivering groceries to families who have been too scared to leave their homes during the immigration operation.
www.mprnews.org
January 16, 2026 at 1:02 PM
Reposted by jonathan friedman
newsguy.bsky.social
The BBC is preparing to make original shows for YouTube. deadline.com/2026/01/bbc-yout...
BBC Close To Agreeing Landmark Deal To Produce Shows For YouTube
The BBC is set to produce content for YouTube under a landmark deal with the Google-owned platform.
deadline.com
January 16, 2026 at 11:59 AM