Sandra Newman
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sannewman.bsky.social
Sandra Newman
@sannewman.bsky.social
14K followers 1.6K following 1.3K posts
Writer (Julia, The Heavens, The Men, How Not to Write a Novel, etc.)

she/they
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sannewman.bsky.social
dras.in/soldiers-for...
The group and its associated operations serve as a major foreign policy tool for the Russian state with the aim of creating African dependencies on Moscow’s security apparatus to access African resources. They operate through a web of shell companies, carrying out a broad spectrum of Kremlin-backed operations across the Middle East and Africa. In return for COIN and security operations, Russia seeks payments in the form of concessions for natural resources, substantial commercial contracts, or access to strategic locations, such as airbases or ports. For instance, Wagner deployed its operatives in Sudan to quell local uprisings against Omar al-Bashir’s government. As payment, a company by the name Meroe Gold was granted exclusive mining rights for gold in Sudan, which is a subsidiary of M-Invest, which itself is a subsidiary of M-Finance, founded by Prigozhin. Bashir was also in talks with Moscow to set up a naval base on the eastern coast of Sudan in 2019, a proposal still being considered by Khartoum (Fasanotti, 2022). In 2015, the group started operating in Syria, alongside the pro-government forces in direct combat as well as defensive operations to secure oilfields. In Libya, the group has been operating since 2016, in support of forces loyal to General Khalifa Haftar. Apart from active combat services, the Wagner Group is also involved in securing mining operations of precious minerals like gold, diamonds, and uranium. The group was invited to the Central African Republic and Sudan to guard diamond and gold mines, respectively. The US treasury department has also alleged that the presence of the group in Africa is a cover to provide protection to Prigozhin’s mining companies, such as M Invest and Lobaye Invest.
February 26, 2025 at 9:34 AM
sannewman.bsky.social
Amazing how these people talk as if X was a struggling business Elon turned around with his tough, smart business tactics, when we all know it was a business he bought for an inflated amount, then ran into the ground so catastrophically it will never be resuscitated.
TEXT: Several sources also pointed out that Musk has operated in a similarly hyper-charged way while dismantling elements of companies after he took charge. At X, formerly known as Twitter, Musk cut 80% of staff before confirming he would try to rehire some back. “What President Trump and Elon Musk and this entire administration is trying to do is make our bloated bureaucracy in Washington run like a profitable business,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News this week.
February 7, 2025 at 1:01 AM
sannewman.bsky.social
I'm not a person to knee-jerk bash the Times, but fucking hell, this is basically "With 'Final Solution,' an Unbound Hitler Pushes an Improbable Idea"
NEW YORK TIMES HEADLINE: "With Gaza Plan, an Unbound Trump Pushes an Improbable Idea"
February 5, 2025 at 11:32 AM
sannewman.bsky.social
Replace all economics textbooks with this
[5-year-old's drawing of a baker's shop with text:] A HAPPY STORY. The baker does not want any money. He is going to give away cake, cookies, and bread. The baker does not like money. The baker was happy to give the stuff he baked away for free.
January 3, 2025 at 1:43 PM
sannewman.bsky.social
That carousel at a local fun fair where, if you get on and they start it up, the skies go dark and all the horses start to mutter in Aramaic, and the next thing you know, you're riding a red steed into the sulphurous valley of the Horned One.
Image of a carousel that looks especially like a scene from a terrifying Ray Bradbury story
December 27, 2024 at 3:31 PM
sannewman.bsky.social
Thank you! This did not disappoint!
October 27, 2024 at 3:26 PM
sannewman.bsky.social
A chilling detail from a 1933 Guardian article about the German elections to the Reichstag, where only Nazis were on the ballot, with a referendum question on whether people agreed with Hitler's plan to leave the League of Nations and the Disarmament Conference.
TEXT: Concentration camps' vote At the concentration camp of Osthofen, near Frankfort, of the 88 inmates entitled to vote 79 voted "Yes" on the referendum question and endorsed the Reichstag list. At the Brandenburg concentration camp out of 1,137 votes in the election 1,006 were for the Nazi party. In the referendum 1,024 inmates voted "Yes" and twelve "No." In the Oranienburg camp 301 prisoners out of 377 voted for the Nazi party, while 330 said "Yes" to the referendum and 33 "No." An amnesty for political prisoners is regarded as probable in view of the "splendid demonstration of faith in Hitler."
September 19, 2024 at 11:17 AM
sannewman.bsky.social
So apparently there's a French prize specifically for American literature in translation, which is interesting in itself, but especially interesting to me because my novel made the longlist.
Image of the French edition of JULIA by Sandra Newman with "Grand Prix de littérature américaine 2024, Première Sélection" under it.
September 16, 2024 at 6:20 PM
sannewman.bsky.social
"If I have to invent blood libels to get the people to blame the Jews for the plague, that's what I'm going to do."
TEXT: Sen. JD Vance in responding to question from CNN this morning about dog and cat eating in Springfield, "If I have to I create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do … "
September 15, 2024 at 3:52 PM
sannewman.bsky.social
the bird-namers were really sick of this bird's shit
picture of a little brown bird on a bamboo plant with the caption "Drab-breasted bamboo tyrant"
September 4, 2024 at 6:07 PM
sannewman.bsky.social
New utopia just dropped
Wikipedia sub-article: Squirrel kings [edit] Main article: Squirrel king Instances of squirrel kings have been reported.
September 2, 2024 at 8:58 AM
sannewman.bsky.social
Whenever a Republican has a factual argument that makes their policies sound less purely evil, the "fact" turns out to be a big fat lie.
August 11, 2024 at 9:03 AM
sannewman.bsky.social
HEADLINE WRITER: No, JD Vance did not have sex with a couch

PHOTO EDITOR: Look at this man and tell me he did not just fuck a couch
Image of JD Vance absolutely glowing after having carnal knowledge of a Chesterfield
July 25, 2024 at 7:33 AM
sannewman.bsky.social
also never forget the classic
July 23, 2024 at 7:26 PM
sannewman.bsky.social
Also seems inevitable that our Cultural Revolution would be outsourced to a "behavioral intervention management" company called "Symplicity"
May 14, 2024 at 3:37 PM
sannewman.bsky.social
"INSIDE YOU ARE TWO WOLVES" (image of black squirrel) "this one is a squirrel" (image of white squirrel) "this is also a squirrel" "FEED BOTH. PLENTY OF ROOM FOR TWO SQUIRRELS."
May 4, 2024 at 7:01 PM
sannewman.bsky.social
South Korea's per capita GDP from 1960 to 2024. I think it might have a few years left in it as a country. (For context, South Korea's birth rate dropped below replacement rate 40 years ago.)
May 2, 2024 at 4:03 PM
sannewman.bsky.social
Sad that the best hope left to us is that the Torment Nexus is massively overhyped and turns out to be the same old torturer in a robot suit
January 29, 2024 at 6:56 PM
sannewman.bsky.social
This bill also requires all media outlets to display this disclaimer before each story or throughout any video: “WARNING: THIS ENTITY IS KNOWN TO PROVIDE PROPAGANDA. CONSUMING PROPAGANDA MAY BE DETRIMENTAL TO YOUR HEALTH AND HEALTH OF THE REPUBLIC.”
January 19, 2024 at 11:16 PM
sannewman.bsky.social
This is so dark
TEXT FROM WIKIPEDIA: "Polio vaccination efforts have also faced resistance in another form. The priority placed on vaccination by national authorities has turned it into a bargaining chip, with communities and interest groups resisting vaccination, not due to direct opposition, but to leverage other concessions from governmental authorities. In Nigeria this has taken the form of 'block rejection' of vaccination that is only resolved when state officials agree to repair or improve schools and health-care facilities, pave roads or install electricity. There have been several instances of threatened boycotts by health workers in Pakistan over payment disputes. Some governments have been accused of withholding vaccination or the necessary accompanying infrastructure from regions where opposition to their rule is high."
January 4, 2024 at 12:14 AM
sannewman.bsky.social
They're just wrong about "linger."
December 27, 2023 at 12:21 AM
sannewman.bsky.social
What this headline doesn't make clear is that it's only Bezos who's talking about Mozart, while Musk is peddling Great Replacement Theory at an event in support of fascist Giorgia Meloni. www.euronews.com/next/2023/12...
Headline: "Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk say human population not big enough: 'If we had a trillion humans, we would have at any given time a thousand Mozarts'"
December 18, 2023 at 6:07 PM
sannewman.bsky.social
Here's a good article about murder clearances, with a screenshot of the main takeaway www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...
December 6, 2023 at 3:27 PM
sannewman.bsky.social
Oh, great. I'm fine with not having the right to know if some stoned racist is being allowed to control US military satellites.
December 2, 2023 at 8:53 PM
sannewman.bsky.social
This poem by two eleven-year-olds becomes amazingly great. (Via this wonderful blog: jacket2.org/commentary/t... )
He'd be black. He'd be blue. And I'd ride him to New York, to see snow again, or to Australia, to see all there is to see, everything green and lots of trees and nobody would know, just me and the horse. The horse can find our family a house. He can turn into trees, lakes, pools and camouflage himself from people. He can talk. I'd tell him secrets about love, then have him do my homework. The horse can do the chores. And he could be us! Take over when I get in trouble—when I want to go on a date, the horse stays home looking like me, doing homework. The horse can do everything first then show me how, I'd learn to gallop, to be an animal, a deer, perhaps, and how that felt. I'd live in the forest and drink from the stream and speak to animals that knew how to hibernate, I'd ask about the trouble they'd had and warn them about hunters. And the horse would be at school and come home all sweaty. Over the forest I'd fly, looking for food and love, looking for the falls in the forest, half person, half horse, doing more than we ever do! Till the magic went out. Slowly slowly I am becoming a horse, I will be a horse all my life, I used too much magic, went too many places, did too many things . . . I am becoming a horse, the horse is becoming me, he is forgetting he was the horse. In the little door of his mind he thinks of his past of animals, he feels a little bad, but there's a whole new life ahead for him, and I am becoming a wild horse, running with wild horses, traveling the world.
November 26, 2023 at 6:36 PM