iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

We're running a politics Q+A today! Come join us at noon ET with your questions about the rise of the left, affordability politics and more before the midterms in... (oh god *checks notes*)... just under 7 weeks! www.theguardian.com/community/li...

Graphic with Abdul El-Sayed and AOC that says "How united are the Democrats? We answer your questions on candidates and races ahead of the midterms"

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

30 years old today, still have hair despite most men in my family not having any left at this age. Here’s to the next decade! ✌️

Me flashing a peace sign in a very yellow bathroom

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

If the Jersey City arts community wants to be bold, someone needs to stage a public dramatic reading of the emergency financial report put out by James Solomon's office. Absolutely nailing Steve Fulop to a cross of gold and made for accountability and awareness: jcitytimes.com/wp-content/u...

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.

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

Deutsche Welle is also reporting that the party also wants to create a deportation agency modeled after ICE in Saxony-Anhalt, making that an official platform for state elections later this year. Saxony-Anhalt's chief rabbi told me last year that he would quit if they won

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

Sen. Jon Ossoff released a report today citing more than 1,000 incidents of credible human rights violations in immigration detention facilities across the US: www.ossoff.senate.gov/wp-content/u...

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."

"As detailed in Section III, the total number of credible reports of human rights abuses received or identified
between January 20, 2025, and January 12, 2026, includes:
• 44 credible reports of family separation, including mothers reportedly separated from their
breastfeeding infants, in one case “for several months”;
• 206 credible reports of medical neglect that has reportedly led, in some cases, to lifethreatening injuries and complications, including a detainee who reportedly waited seven
hours for urgent medical care after they reportedly drank contaminated tap water at an ICE
facility, suffered an allergic reaction, and lost consciousness;
• 26 credible reports of mistreatment of pregnant women;
• 40 credible reports of mistreatment of children;
• 88 credible reports of physical and sexual abuse;
• 139 credible reports of denial of adequate food or water, including cases that reportedly led
to malnutrition and dehydration;
• 161 credible reports of denial of access to attorneys, including multiple reports from
detainees that ICE officials have told them they are not allowed to meet with their attorneys;
• 181 credible reports of overcrowding and unsanitary conditions;
• 50 credible reports of exposure to extreme temperatures; and
• 102 credible reports of imposed sleep deprivation."

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

"The boy’s fate is unknown, although accompanying narratives suggest he and others in the picture were transported to a Nazi extermination camp. Liam, by contrast, has been taken to a homeland security detention center in San Antonio along with his father." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Liam Ramos, five, detained by ICE in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, outside his home on 20 January 2026.

Photograph: Courtesy of Columbia Heights Public Schools

An unknown boy raises his hands in surrender to Nazi soldiers during the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto in April 1943.

Photo: Yad Vashem

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

Last summer Tablet ran a deeply Islamophobic piece comparing the Perelman Arts Center to the Kaaba because it's cube shaped and near Ground Zero. This sort of thing isn't new for them

Instagram post of Tablet's "American Kaaba" piece randomly bashing the Perelman Arts Center by the World Trade Center

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

I was gifted this beautiful art deco cable scarf, though the wool does not come from a gay German sheep

A teal scarf with cables in a pattern that resembles steel on an art deco skyscraper

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

Now that the holidays are over I can share that I gifted my avid knitter wife a 'sponsorsheep' of one of the gay German sheep — Horny, who apparently is not the devil in disguise

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!"

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 14/12/2025

Ambivalent about the snow today, it seems.

Beagle in red puffer vest looking like he’s enjoying the snow

Beagle in red puffer vest looking like he’s not enjoying the snow

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

Extremely relatable knitter husband image in Ken Burns’ American Revolution documentary

An 18th century painting of a man holding open a skein of yarn while a woman winds it from a distance

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

I will not accept this disrespect of the James Gandolfini Service Area

A sign of James Gandolfini’s face outside an NJ rest stop that says “Jersey strong”

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

Wtf is up with this random bashing of New Jersey by Kathryn Ruemmler in the Epstein email trove that the House released yesterday?

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

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

I’m at Mikie Sherrill’s campaign watch party to talk with supporters as polls close and results come in! Stay tuned and keep a watch on our blog

A press badge for Mikie Sherrill’s campaign

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

A local school board candidate who voted for Ciattarelli told me she’s running for parental rights over school policies that provide guidance for supporting trans students — “in case we don’t have a governor like Jack.”

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”.

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

A retired federal worker in a predominantly Republican town where Trump owns a golf course in NJ (not Bedminster) told me he’s voting for Sherrill because “the Republicans are going to hurt me” because he is gay

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.

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

NJ is already off to a weird morning, with bomb threats called at polling places in 7 counties. I’ll also be supplying our live blog with on the ground updates. Send tips to jake.wasserman@theguardian.com or jwasserman.75 on Signal

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.

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

I’ll be driving around Middlesex and Monmouth county to talk to voters in NJ today for @us.theguardian.com! Hopefully this sign helps with NJ’s 100 foot electioneering laws…

Sign says “I’m a reporter at The Guardian — talk to me about the governor’s race”

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

The people fighting back against Holocaust distortion and the growth of the right in the former East have seemingly only been able to do that effectively amongst the generation who had Nazi parents. And according to them, the kids are not alright.

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.

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

And though it ended up on the cutting room floor, I want to note that AfD's Jewish caucus chairman thought it was absurd that his views are seen as mainstream in Israel but in Germany, he's thought of as a right-wing extremist.

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.

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

For this story, I spoke with a Jewish man who was charged with "incitement to hatred" — a charge commonly used by Germany against neo-Nazis — for invoking the memory of the Holocaust against the war in Gaza. He told me it was possible our conversation was being surveilled by federal intelligence.

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.”

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

No Kings and the New York Sheep & Wool festival — Rhinebeck, NY

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

Headed home now, but I learned so much this week and am looking forward to writing it all up. Story soon!

A vending machine that says “Goodbye Berlin”

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 21/09/2025

Happened to find the @boell.de HQ while wandering around!

Me, hanging out outside the Heinrich Böll Stiftung

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 21/09/2025

Happened to find the @boell.de HQ while wandering around!

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 20/09/2025

In the square outside of Weimar’s Hauptbahnhof are photos of the survivors of Buchenwald, just a few kilometers away and liberated 80 years ago this past April.

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 20/09/2025

Behind the youth prison lies a courtyard where the Nazis used a guillotine to murder their enemies, Bern tells me.

A view onto a courtyard in Weimar that holds a horrifying past

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 20/09/2025

In Weimar, Alan Bern is building a music school of othered traditions called “Other Music Academy”. Inside the school is a door made out of the wood that the 1919 constitution was signed on. Next door, a former GDR youth prison sits empty, its outer wall covered in graffiti from OMA’s community

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

Headed today to Weimar where I’ll be speaking with folks from the Yiddish world, as well as at the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial. Will be heavy but hoping to learn a lot!

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.”

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

Guten Morgen von Berlin! Excited to speak with lots of different people this week for @forward.com. Thanks again to @boellus.bsky.social for sponsoring this reporting trip.

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

Honored to have won my first-ever Rockower Award (and first place!) from the American Jewish Press Association for this story I wrote last year about the rise of Alternative für Deutschland. Stay tuned for more later this year! forward.com/culture/6673...

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"

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 01/06/2025

Went on a nice walk today after the psychic also said he wanted longer walks

A happy bluetick beagle with his tongue out on the shoreline with the NYC skyline in the background

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

Took my dog to a pet psychic today and they told us that he is an extremist

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Big fan of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s “MerlinID” mobile app. I just went on a walk using it to follow bird sounds and it was fascinating to hear how many types of birds are in my neighborhood

The MerlinID birding mobile app showing a European Starling, and Eastern Kingbird, and a Song Sparrow

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

Pope Leo XIV…welcome to the resistance

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

Been a while since I’ve shown this platform how handsome my dog is

A black beagle stands on a park bench with his head tilted

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 06/04/2025

The Mets won and I had an incredible Jamaican chicken patty sandwich. We’re so back #LGM

A delicious Jamaican chicken patty on a sandwich at Citi Field

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

All murdered after the surrender of Hungary's Jews to the Nazis during the summer of 1944. Officers at Auschwitz celebrated their deaths, as seen here, documented in the Höcker album. Who were my ancestors? What made them laugh? All that I know remains of them are their names in an email.

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.

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

Temporarily dissociating from my life to focus on mastering the Dativ form

A coffee mug that says “Learn German. If you DER.”

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

SCOTUS ruling 9-0 on TikTok v. Garland

Meme of Spongebob and Patrick in a burning Bikini Bottom that says “We did it Patrick! We saved America!”

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

David Lynch gave us the visual, aesthetic, and sonic language to look into the horrifying underbelly of the American dream and gaze with bewilderment at the violence that it does to people, women in particular. RIP to a legend

The convenience store in "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me"

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

From @correctiv.org, AfD members in Karlsruhe are reportedly putting fake airplane "deportation tickets" into the post boxes of people with non-German sounding names. In the late 20s and early 30s, Nazis did the same to Jews with fake train tickets.

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)

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

@freedom.press came out swinging today against the Senate for failing to pass the PRESS Act. "They either didn’t really believe Trump posed the threats they campaigned on, or they don’t care."

"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."

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

Theo had a great year and is trying to stay positive about the next one

A beagle pressing his face into the couch so that it pushes his lips up into a smile

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Jake Wasserman @jacobhwasserman.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

Hanukkah gift to myself added to the reading rotation, Uncle @jeffjarvis.bsky.social’s latest

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