Jake Wasserman

@jacobhwasserman.bsky.social

912 Followers 375 Following

Audience editor / skweeting for @us.theguardian.com, formerly @forward.com, sometimes reporter, always a union guy. jake.wasserman@theguardian.com Signal: jwasserman.75

Lane Pryce on Mad Men: "I don't know if you're aware but England won the World Cup" Roger Sterling: "Cup of what?"
Me flashing a peace sign in a very yellow bathroom
Roger Sterling talking to executives at Honda Motors in Mad Men
His mismanagement was so severe, the city once overpaid state and federal taxes by $3.1 million. The IRS let the City know shortly thereafter, but the City failed to request a refund before the deadline - costing the City the full amount. This is not money we can get back. It is gone. The hard-working people of Jersey City labor every day to balance their personal budgets, and they understand the consequences of overspending. Unlike our residents, former Mayor Fulop chose easy ways out of the budget mess of his own creation.
From Deutsche Welle's Berlin Briefing newsletter: "Meanwhile, the far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has been celebrating a new closeness with the US Republican Party, also by echoing its policies. This week, AfD politicians in Germany's southern state of Bavaria suggested setting up an Abschiebe-Sondereinheit — a special unit to handle deportations modeled on ICE in the US. And in the small eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, which will hold a regional election later this year and sees the AfD polling at 40%, the party has published a draft election platform that proposes a deportation offensive modeled on the US agency."
Cover: "Senator Ossoff’s investigation has received or identified over a thousand credible reports of human rights abuses within U.S. immigration detention since January 20, 2025, which reveal an undeniable pattern. Senator Ossoff has released two previous reports in his investigation that uncovered credible reports of mistreatment of pregnant women and children in immigration detention, and a second report, which found medical neglect and denial of adequate food or water."
Liam Ramos, five, detained by ICE in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, outside his home on 20 January 2026. Photograph: Courtesy of Columbia Heights Public Schools
1984 Minute of Hate
Instagram post of Tablet's "American Kaaba" piece randomly bashing the Perelman Arts Center by the World Trade Center
A teal scarf with cables in a pattern that resembles steel on an art deco skyscraper
A certificate thanking us for supporting Horny, a German Grey Heath sheep with a black face, white fleece, and long ram horns. It says: "Your contribution saves gay sheep and supports the queer community. Thank you!"
Beagle in red puffer vest looking like he’s enjoying the snow
An 18th century painting of a man holding open a skein of yarn while a woman winds it from a distance
A sign of James Gandolfini’s face outside an NJ rest stop that says “Jersey strong”
In a separate exchange, Ruemmler shared her apparent disdain for the people of New Jersey during an email about a planned road trip to New York. “Think I am going to drive,” she wrote. “I will then stop to pee and get gas at a rest stop on the New Jersey turnpike, will observe all of the people there who are at least 100 pounds overweight, will have a mild panic attack as a result of the observation, and will then decide that I am not eating another bite of food for the rest of my life out of fear that I will end up like one of these people.” Screenshot via POLITICO
Beagle laying his face on couch while standing and wearing striped sweater
A press badge for Mikie Sherrill’s campaign
At the Sayreville Senior Citizen Center in New Jersey, Jessica Vant, 44, stood outside handing out pamphlets about the local school board election with her husband Eddie, 48. They both voted for Jack Ciattarelli for governor. Vant, a realtor and substitute teacher, is running for the board in the Middlesex County town, and said her number one issue in the election concerns Policy 5756 - a statewide school policy to provide guidance on supporting transgender students - which she described was “erroneously” marked as mandatory when it was rolled out in 2017. Parents have been challenging the policy both in court and in their own districts ever since, but Vant said that she’s running “in case we don’t have a governor like Jack.” At an August rally with the parental rights group Moms for Liberty in Jersey City, Hudson County view reported that Ciattarelli blasted the policy as “immoral,” “indecent,” “wrong,” and “dangerous”.
In Colts Neck, a bucolic town near the Jersey shore that voted for Jack Ciattarelli in 2021 (when he first ran for governor) and Donald Trump in 2024, at least one voter is bucking his community’s support for Republican candidates. Two miles from a golf course owned by the president, retired federal worker John Stolz, 74, said he was voting for Mikie Sherrill for governor because, as a gay man, “the Republicans are going to hurt me”. In October, Politico reported that a Ciattarelli campaign ally advocated for a ban on same-sex marriage in the Garden State. Ciattarelli reaffirmed his support for marriage equality, but did not condemn the comments. As a state assemblyman in 2012, Ciattarelli voted against a state bill legalizing same-sex marriage. Marriage equality was legalized in New Jersey by a court ruling in 2013, and was later codified into law in 2022 by Governor Phil Murphy.
Voters in New Jersey are starting their election day with a notice posted by the state’s attorney general Matt Platkin about bomb threats in seven counties. There is now a razor thin margin in the race between congresswoman Mikie Sherrill and businessman Jack Ciattarelli in the closely watched gubernatorial race, and disruptions to normal voting procedures could prove consequential. Law enforcement is currently investigating and counties have already reopened some locations, while relocating others.
Sign says “I’m a reporter at The Guardian — talk to me about the governor’s race”
While waiting at the bus stop to head back from Buchenwald, I found myself unexpectedly sandwiched in the middle of a high school tour group as they posed for a class photo. After we all boarded the bus, about half of them sat quietly — maybe contemplating the horrors they’d just seen, maybe dozing off. But as we drove down the hill toward Weimar, the bus also filled with the sound of laughter.
Like the party’s leaders, the JAfD believes, according to its website, that “the greatest threat to Europe in the 21st century is the growth of the Muslim population” and adds that “the rise of political Islam is also primarily a threat to Jews.” While party leaders’ statements contradict AfD’s official support for Israel, the JAfD is strongly and unequivocally pro-Israel. In January 2024, the German investigative newsroom Correctiv reported that AfD members secretly met with neo-Nazis and wealthy businessmen to plan the mass deportation of immigrants from Germany in a plot called “remigration.” The news brought hundreds of thousands of Germans into the streets in protest. AfD initially disputed what was discussed at the meeting, though eventually party leader Alice Weidel embraced remigration as the official party platform. Though the party is once again trying to distance itself from the controversial remigration concept to create a broader appeal among the mainstream electorate, JAfD still believes that the plan is essential. Abramovych himself is an immigrant — from Ukraine — but claimed that immigration is threatening German society due to Muslim fertility rates.
The next month, Hoban gave a speech where he said, “Germany can’t wash away its Holocaust guilt with the blood of Palestinians.” Afterwards, he was taken aside by police and charged on suspicion of Volksverhetzung — “incitement to hatred” — a charge that has been used by the German government to prosecute neo-Nazis and far-right extremists, and carries a sentence of up to five years in prison. In Hoban’s view, memory culture had extended past its logical limits to charge him, a Jew, with a violation of the German criminal code for invoking his own history. “They explained to me that I had mentioned the Holocaust and that in Germany, they take the Holocaust very seriously,” Hoban said. “This was a bit surreal.”
Warning signs of fascism sign
A vending machine that says “Goodbye Berlin”
Me, hanging out outside the Heinrich Böll Stiftung
Me, hanging out outside the Heinrich Böll Stiftung
A view onto a courtyard in Weimar that holds a horrifying past
Alan Bern in Weimar
A GDR-era survey from an exhibition at the former SS headquarters in Berlin that suggests visiting concentration camp memorials has a waning effect on changing the minds of students. Translation: “How are young people affected by a visit to a memorial? An educational study in the GDR showed that impressions fade after a few weeks. Glorifying communist inmates as heroes of the resistance tended to elicit a defensive response. Young people learned little about the ‘completely normal people’ who suffered as prisoners in the camps.”
Berliner Fernsehturm above the M5 tram
A screen that shows a First Place award from the American Jewish Press Association for my story "What American Jews need to know about Germany's growing far-right antisemitism"
A happy bluetick beagle with his tongue out on the shoreline with the NYC skyline in the background
My dog, the extremist
The MerlinID birding mobile app showing a European Starling, and Eastern Kingbird, and a Song Sparrow
Laura Loomer tweeting about the Pope
Profile of a black beagle with a graying muzzle
A delicious Jamaican chicken patty on a sandwich at Citi Field
A photo of SS officers at Auschwitz celebrating the murder of the Jews of Hungary in July 1944, as documented in the Höcker album at the United States Holocaust Memorial and Museum.
A coffee mug that says “Learn German. If you DER.”
Meme of Spongebob and Patrick in a burning Bikini Bottom that says “We did it Patrick! We saved America!”
The convenience store in "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me"
A graphic showing the history of the "Abshiebeticket", with AfD's ticket in 2025, an NPD/Die Heimat ticket from 2011-13, and a Nazi-era ticket aimed at Jewish people from before the Holocaust. (Image by Correctiv)
"Democrats spent election season fundraising by warning America that a second Trump term would kickstart America’s descent into fascism. It’d be logical to assume, then, that after Trump won, they’d do everything in their power to restrain his anti-democratic impulses. You’d think that even before he won, the mere prospect would spur some urgency to check his potential powers. But they either didn’t really believe Trump posed the threats they campaigned on, or they don’t care. That’s evident because, despite Trump escalating his threats to retaliate against the media to unprecedented levels in the closing weeks of 2024, Senate leadership gave up on the PRESS Act — the bipartisan “shield” bill to protect journalist-source confidentiality. There are no excuses for their failure. The bill passed the House unanimously and had bipartisan support in the Senate, which Democrats controlled. Sure, it didn’t help that Trump called on Republicans to kill the bill, or that Sen. Tom Cotton gave an irrational floor speech opposing it. But those obstacles only arose because Senate Democrats waited 11 months to act, after the House passed the bill last January. And there were still opportunities in the closing days of the session, even if Sen. Schumer would’ve had to shorten senators’ holiday break. Bottom line, if leadership saw the bill as a higher priority, it would be the law of the land today. The bill’s lead sponsors — Jamie Raskin and Kevin Kiley in the House and Ron Wyden and Mike Lee in the Senate — deserve credit for their diligent efforts. So do the newspapers that endorsed the bill, even though they should’ve done so sooner. But others — particularly those in leadership positions who could’ve done more — should be ashamed. If Trump follows through on his threats against the press they will share a significant portion of the blame."
A beagle pressing his face into the couch so that it pushes his lips up into a smile
“The Web We Weave” by Jeff Jarvis
A menorah in a window on the second night of Hanukkah
Me with hat of my dog embroidered on it
The new value statement of Enron where R stands for “repentant”
Me on a Berlin rooftop drinking a cup of coffee with the Fernsehturm in the background
A calm boy laying down
Laura Palmer saying “Gobble, gobble, gobble”
"First: We will outlive them. Second: Most people are not malicious. Most people are ignorant. That is an opportunity. Most people (Americans at least) are not on board with supporting hate groups, and are not on board with supporting federally designated terrorist organizations. People can be told that that is what they are doing. Third: You are way more powerful than you think you are. You say you are younger and more scared and less experienced. I will tell you that I am still terrified every time I publish something, and if I'm terrified of doing this, that's saying a lot, because I'm old and experienced and don't need anyone to like me. But here's what you aren't realizing as a young person: You aren't thinking long-term enough. Whoever you're scared of- that boss or classmate or peer or online rando who's going to fire you or doxx you or otherwise ruin your life if you dare to push back? That person is going to be in your life for another few months or another few years. The person you're going to spend the rest of your life with is yourself. You won't like this, but yes: it will absolutely cost you to speak up. That is real. That is no joke. The cost could be incredibly high. But what you will get in exchange is the only thing worth having, which is a life of actual integrity. And there's a bonus: When you finally speak up against this stuff, you suddenly discover what I've discovered, which is all the many grateful people who it turned out were sitting around silently waiting around for someone to say something. Those people are waiting for YOU. I often speak of this as the Queen Esther moment. Queen Esther is terrified of going to the king to defend her people, because yes, she could be killed for going to the king uninvited. But it turns out the king is on her side. Most people aren't Haman. Most people are Achashverosh. Everyone is waiting for YOU to rise to the occasion. You might discover a lot of people waiting for you to take the lead."
Six stills of insanity from House (1977)
A beagle who really wants a second dinner
Data from the Civic Information Index about the civic health of Hudson County, New Jersey
A passage about exhumation from Alexa Hagerty’s “Still Life With Bones”
Baby goslings in a nest along the Hudson