Esther Kaplan

@estherbrooklyn

Journo. Oaklandside & Cityside, formerly Business Insider, Reveal, Type Investigations, The Nation.

587 Folgt1.234 Follower247 Posts

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Esther Kaplan@estherbrooklyn· May 20

AI is smart enough, I guess, but have you ever tried putting a small seed in some soil, adding water, and then a few days later it somehow becomes a seedling?

Esther Kaplan@estherbrooklyn· May 3

“What we’ve seen in the last year is the military repeatedly carrying out illegal orders. The attacks on the alleged drug boats in the Pacific, the raid to seize Maduro in Venezuela, the war on Iran, have all been illegal – yet the military carried them all out.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Esther Kaplan@estherbrooklyn· Mar 12

This is so telling. It’s not that insurance isn’t available. It’s that the lives of crew are at risk, a calculus that didn’t even register with Team Trump.

Insurance for ships in the region is readily available, with offers being made but not taken up, according to brokers. “Lloyd’s is open for business,” said Marcus Baker, global head of marine and cargo at insurance broker Marsh.

Esther Kaplan@estherbrooklyn· Feb 6

So at almost 9pm some lowly White House staffer took over Trump’s Truth Social account to post a racist meme? www.latimes.com/politics/sto...

“A White House staffer erroneously made the post. It has been taken down,” a White House official said in a statement.

Esther Kaplan@estherbrooklyn· Feb 4

Oh man, the lead to this story www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/u...

The morning her father called to say that he had been detained on a snowy Minneapolis road, Xochitl Soberanes was seized by an urgent and inescapable feeling. At 16 years old and the eldest of four, she would suddenly have to become the backbone of the family.

Their mother had died of pneumonia less than a year ago, so it was Xochitl who convinced her 4-year-old brother that their father was working late as they packed up belongings to go stay with a nearby aunt. That January night, a cousin found all four siblings curled up asleep in the same queen bed — cradled by Xochitl, who lay on the edge.

“We just wanted to be close together,” she said.

Esther Kaplan@estherbrooklyn· Feb 2

Statement from 45 news organizations, including Cityside, on the unconstitutional Don Lemon and Georgia Fort arrests media.freedom.press/media/docume...

Lemon and Fort were arrested after covering a January 18 protest at a
church in Minneapolis. They were conducting the constitutionally
protected activities of a working journalist: observing, recording and
documenting a newsworthy event and attempting to obtain quotes
from participants.

Their arrest on charges of allegedly obstructing a place of worship,
and even worse, under federal conspiracy law, alarm all of us who
believe in the First Amendment and seek to do our jobs without fear of
obstruction by law enforcement or retaliation by agents of the
government.

Esther Kaplan@estherbrooklyn· Jan 28

So Dan and Jane, suburban white grandparents in Minnesota, now see ICE as "the Proud Boys, the Boogaloo boys. They've given them uniforms and let them run wild."

I met a couple in their 70s who told me they had never considered joining a political protest until ICE came to town, and they realized that their granddaughter was at risk of witnessing a violent immigration raid just by going to school. Dan and Jane (like many others, they asked that I shield their full names) live in a large house in a comfortable suburb, where they welcomed me with tea and cookies.

“When a child witnesses violence or crime, it’s profoundly different from adults,” Dan said. “It leaves scars.”

Dan and Jane resisted the idea that they had become political. A better word, Jane said, was humanist. Their anger was unmistakable as they told me that the Trump administration was violating basic Christian principles. “It became clear very quickly that ICE is the Proud Boys, the Boogaloo boys. They’ve given them uniforms and let them run wild,” Dan said. He attended a legal-observer training—which happened to have been on the day Good was killed—and now the couple delivers groceries regularly to immigrant families in Minneapolis. This past Friday, Dan joined thousands of others at a protest in Minneapolis, where his fingers were frostbitten in the –9 degrees Fahrenheit weather.

Esther Kaplan@estherbrooklyn· Jan 25

Quite the little aside in this NYT story about eugenicists stealing NIH data to create pseudoscience about race

Esther Kaplan@estherbrooklyn· Sep 19

Anna Gomez, hero. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/u...

Esther Kaplan@estherbrooklyn· Sep 6

Really striking how views of Israel’s war on Gaza that are considered controversial in the US are widely shared in Europe (survey obtained by dropsitenews.com). Genocide, check. War crimes, check. ia601004.us.archive.org/7/items/key-...

Esther Kaplan@estherbrooklyn· Jul 22

Here's a recent post from the World Food Programme: "Since the limited resumption of humanitarian assistance into Gaza on 19 May, the World Food Programme has only been able to bring in small amounts of life-saving food and aid."

Esther Kaplan@estherbrooklyn· Jul 22

Here is a post from yesterday from the World Food Kitchen, which when it's up and running, can provide nearly 100,000 meals a day in Gaza. "We served 80,000 meals yesterday, emptying the last of our replenished stocks while aid trucks remain stuck at the border."

Esther Kaplan@estherbrooklyn· Jul 22

Today the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention issued this urgent call: "No more discussions, meetings, reports, sessions, summits. GET FOOD AND WATER INTO GAZA NOW." Aid is simply not being allowed in. 1/

Esther Kaplan@estherbrooklyn· Jul 19

So @juddlegum.bsky.social has found that Elon Musk, the world's wealthiest man, falsely certified his $9 billion neurotech co. Neuralink as a "small disadvantaged business" on a federal filing, which qualifies the company for preferential treatment. This happened in April, not when Musk was a teen.

Esther Kaplan@estherbrooklyn· Mar 24

That jeffreygoldberg.bsky.social story is truly incredible. Highly recommend taking a moment to read every word. Sharing a gift link here: www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Esther Kaplan@estherbrooklyn· Feb 24

So we now have a boxed warning on an EPA page dedicated to calculating the environmental impact of toxic chemicals — lead, asbestos, mercury, PFAS, etc. — that any information related to "gender ideology" is "extremely inaccurate and disconnected from immutable biological reality."