Anna Merlan
@annamerlan
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Senior reporter at Mother Jones, covering disinformation, tech and extremism. Author of REPUBLIC OF LIES. Tips: [email protected]. DM for Signal.
Bluesky:annamerlan.bsky.social
Joined February 2010
Delighted to share that this is my first day at Mother Jones, covering disinformation, tech, extremism and the nightmare intersection of the three that we’re all currently inhabiting. Send tips and screeds to amerlan@motherjones.com.
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If a pro-life politician crowing about today’s decision ever paid for your abortion and it feels like the right time to talk about it, my email is Anna.merlan@vice.com.
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It’s funny how much the national vibe right now is exactly like working at a company where you know they’re about to lay everyone off.
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These two buskers are playing together from opposite sides of the G, fuck, ugh, my heart
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Girl on the street, mid-sentence: “And fuck Woody Allen! I don’t give a shit about him! I hope he dies!”.Her boyfriend: “Come ON. He did make good movies. You have to admit it.”.Me, walking by: “Absolutely fuck that guy. Fuck him forever.”.Her: “THANK YOU.” [tandem glare].
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I look at this person and know with absolute certainty that I am gazing upon someone with the most unhinged internet presence you can imagine.
#FBIWFO released photos of this woman who allegedly participated in the U.S. Capitol riots on January 6, 2021. If you recognize her, call 1-800-225-5324 or visit to submit a tip. Refer to photo 537 in your tip.
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I know a lot is bad in the world, but I have just learned that when Dolly Parton visits the Madonna Inn, she gets a double order of garlic bread, a large steak, has “magnificent,” ever-changing hair, and is faultlessly sweet to the waitstaff, who she of course calls by name.
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Why do you have these two photos saved to your phone, Jake.
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There’s already a stunning amount of ludicrous shit happening here today, but please also make room for this, the worst fork
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Exclusive: we obtained unaired footage from Tucker Carlson's interview with Ye, in which the artist makes numerous inflammatory comments about Jews and describes a bizarre claim that "fake children" were planted in his home to manipulate his own kids.
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Just a super quick reminder that Trump's evangelical supporters want him to declare Jerusalem the capital because they believe it well help advance THE LITERAL APOCALYPSE AND THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.
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I could literally never write something as funny as CPAC did so effortlessly here
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Can’t believe we forgot to stock up on a functioning social safety net.
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In general, I want to emphasize that you are legally allowed to speak truthfully about your own experience and experienced reporters can work with you to protect your privacy and safety if that is a concern.
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So it turns out for the last four months I’ve been popping silica gel packets into my mouth, assuming they were a delicious candy treat. In my defense, the “do not eat” is in quotations and it appeared to be sarcastic
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I promise they will tell this story to each other for at least 20 years and laugh hysterically every time. You bobbing by in your running shorts, etc.
Today on my run up through Central Park in Harlem I saw four teenagers smoking weed. As I passed them I shouted in a firm but friendly voice: "Smells like failure!" and kept going. I said it as an act of love, honestly. I hope that at some point one of them might think about it.
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Isn’t “never take a picture with the body” in the family crest somewhere.
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“Gang-like cliques” differ from gangs how.
An anticipated study found that hundreds of L.A. County Sheriff’s deputies said they have been recruited to join secretive, sometimes gang-like cliques that operate within department stations
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Tucker deleting his Twitter bio but not issuing any kind of statement indicates to me that he is red and mad.
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@crulge I do this too and I can’t figure out why. My shoe repair guy keeps asking me increasingly horrified questions but it remains unsolved.
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He thinks a DNA kit is like a rape kit. That’s the joke.
Trump suggests he would like to test Elizabeth Warren for Native American heritage, "but we have to do it gently because we're in the MeToo generation."
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Apparently, for the last two years, whenever we drive anywhere, my boyfriend has been carefully detouring around a certain block in downtown LA. He wanted to avoid me seeing the GIGANTIC CANDY WAREHOUSE that’s open to the public. Today…. his luck ran out.
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The Ohio State Medical Board just approved the indefinite suspension Dr. Sherri Tenpenny's medical license, an osteopathic physician and longtime figure in the anti-vaccine movement. The board got around 350 complaints into her behavior, but that's not why she's being suspended.
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Please god I’m desperate to understand why they used his full name so many times in the statement
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Horrified and very nervous to learn that pregnancy is contagious.
Evidently we're going to have a debate about vaccine mandates and abortion at the same time--that is, both culture war tribes are simultaneously going to take both positions on the rights to medical privacy and "my body my choice" autonomy.
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Bernie Sanders' spokesperson reportedly told CNN "We have nothing polite to say right now.".
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Oh hell yeah baby nailed it again.
It's probably foolish to think a NYC mayor will successfully translate into being a national political figure, but I still think Eric Adams would be in my top 5 for "who will be the next Democratic presidential nominee after Joe Biden?".
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It’s me, Amanda Palmer. Please behold my ten-part play about a trio of French mimes having a mournful orgy inside a rusty harmonium. If you do not cover this you’re an enemy of women.
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That’s because anyone can edit this site you smooth-brained dinguses. You’re showing screenshots that have an edit button in them. It’s the pencil icon. Christ, man.
BREAKING: The El Paso shooter was a left-wing extremist and a registered Democrat. At 2:50pm shortly after the shooting, his Democrat political affiliation was scrubbed from the web and replaced with Republican. At 2:52pm, it was changed again to say he is a "qanon" member.
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Every year I wonder if the FBI will just sit this one out, and every year I immediately receive my answer.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’” This #MLKDay2022 and every day, the #FBI remains dedicated to service and committed to protecting our communities.
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I don’t care how long we’re in here, I’m not learning to fold a fitted sheet.
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Bari was best-known in college for crusading to have professors she saw as unccepably pro-Palestine punished. She's literally the campus culture warrior she's trying to deride here.
I've been mocked by many people over the past few years for writing about the campus culture wars. They told me it was a sideshow. But this was always why it mattered: The people who graduated from those campuses would rise to power inside key institutions and transform them.
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Black Americans are executed without consequence by the cops while alt-right nerds feel victimized by Shakespeare
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I love being back in Brooklyn, overhearing a cell phone conversation that begins "YO YOU PIECE A SHIT WHAT HAPPENED" and realizing this gentleman is congraulating his friend on having a baby since they've last spoken.
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That Nazi wasn't using his real name in his interview with the Times, and some other things @_grendan and I dug up about him
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Instead of tweeting about RBG "entering the pearly gates" or some other treacly vision of the afterlife she did not believe, you can ask the closest Jewish person about our mourning traditions. They are focused on acts of service to the living, not canonizing the dead.
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I actually think a good business model would be to not lay off rounds of highly skilled and sought-after journalists every six months.
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It bears repeating: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a legitimately fantastic blogger
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I don’t care if someone is taking longer than me to “go back to normal” after being vaccinated. It doesn’t matter! Let people return to stuff on their own timelines after a year of global trauma rewired their brains, you tiresome dorks! Worry about policy, not random people!.
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Uh @VICE not to edit-shame you or anything but the author of this article put herself in the article as a subject
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Trafficking survivors told me they're being harassed and insulted by fans of "Sound of Freedom," who are calling them "groomers" and "pedophiles" for criticizing the movie. SOF fans, they say, are missing real and tangible things they could do to help.
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Bankston just referred to Jones' "intimate messages to Roger Stone," which first, ew, and secondly, I think I hear the January 6 committee having a party from here.
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please stop saying "canceled" when you mean "credibly accused of sexual abuse." If you don't understand a word, don't put it in a headline.
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Just to be clear, Ye described the so-called "fake" child he thought had been planted in his home in great detail, including the child's name and a parent's name; we're not reproducing that clip to protect the family's privacy.
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Carlson and Ye together outlined some of Fox's favorite boogeymen: the Clintons, COVID restrictions, cancel culture, the liberal elites; but what Fox left on the cutting room floor is just as revealing.
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Whenever these guys aren’t getting enough attention, they start doing weird shit about leggings, specifically. I swear this is a pattern. Gonna start keeping them in a thread here for my own amusement
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Someone has commandeered the PA on this 1 train and is calling for justice for Meek Mill. Conductor is pretending like nothing is weird.
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Just dump the man who somehow still wants to fight about Woody Allen in this year of our Lord!!!.
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Today is yet another really rough day in media; dozens of my Vice colleagues are being laid off globally and we just got news that Jezebel, where I worked for years, is being shut down.
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Dog Refuses To Be Cop
Lulu wasn’t interested in searching for explosives. Even when motivated w food & play, she was clearly no longer enjoying herself.
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Two attentive young people in the LA metro just zoomed over to extract me when they noticed an extremely intoxicated dude getting in my personal space. Neither of them were older than like 23. Both knew the trick of treating me like an old friend. Excellent looking out, youths.
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I can’t overstate this: Lol.
Milo Yiannopoulos, now more than $2 million in debt, has resorted to auctioning stuff on Instagram.
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Demonstrator in DTLA made a cordon blocking the road out of Bird scooters
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Good morning. Jury deliberations today for Alex Jones and Infowars’ first (only their first!!) damages trial. Here’s my thread in case anything occurs.
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The highest degree of cross-cultural and religious agreement I’ve ever seen on this website is the entire world getting together to heckle Sweden for this.
Not here to judge but I don’t understand this. How’re you going to eat without inviting your friend?
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a new Gallup poll confirms that I am so fucking tired, dear God
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Bankston says he has requests from "various law enforcement agencies" to provide Alex Jones' phone data and he intends to do it immediately.
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Reporters from competing outlets famously love to work together on stories
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Gamble denies the motion to have Bankston throw Jones' phone copy into the sea or whatever and everyone is excused. I'm this meme.
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A good editor will save you from putting takes like “making fun of me is exactly the same as a pogrom” into the world.
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Is someone gently holding Scaramucci's ex by the shoulders because a week postpartum is a tough time to laugh so hard.
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the way he's holding the reins is legitimately bizarre and that horse is confused as fuck
Roy Moore rides away on his horse after voting in the Alabama Senate election. Here's what to watch in today's hotly contested race: #alsen
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Say what you will about Russell Brand, but he absolutely owns a thesaurus and does not know how to use it.
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If I was being really obnoxious I'd point out that treating your endorsement process like a reality show bears a striking resemblance to the current guy in office.
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They can’t mention it to you because they’re dead, Dave.
I know a lot of people who regret getting the vaccine. Don’t know anyone who regrets not getting it.
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My new feature today is about a group of women who came together over a shared mystery: who is the man who they say has been harassing and terrorizing them online over the past 19 years?
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[touches earpiece] I'm getting word that all of them are bad.
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Tradcaths have, far and away, the most coked out tweets on this cursed site
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Good morning! Let's check in with how the ivermectin guys are doing, shall we
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Court clerk reads the verdict. Jury rules that Alex Jones and Infowars must pay total damages of $120 million to Robbie Parker.
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If you’re one of these six women and want to talk about what’s going on here, my email is Anna.merlan@vice.com.
Earlier today, Pastor Greg Locke threatened to expose the six witches who are members of his church.
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I’m the guy trolling women’s Instagram photos during a pandemic telling them masks are Not Hot
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Some real interesting responses on Depp’s statement on Instagram, like this one from Ryan Adams, previously accused of sexual misconduct by seven women
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We're now able to report that Tim Ballard's departure from Operation Underground Railroad followed a sexual misconduct investigation. This news was first broken by Utah journalist Lynn Packer.
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Your "Has the MeToo movement gone TOO FAR?" take is so crucial and brave and stunningly heterodox and totally unlike the 8,000 other "Has the MeToo movement gone TOO FAR?" takes written in the last year, no one has ever been such a good thinker as you.
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I’m an economist and I’ve calculated that if every trust fund-backed columnist who slid into their position on an immense oil slick of unpaid internships and nepotism just cried a little harder about student loan forgiveness we could avert a recession, actually.
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@ReaganWorld Michael, I'm so glad you tweeted this and I'm looking forward to the feedback you'll receive from the people who use this website.
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Gamble saying phone data should have been disclosed "a year or so ago or longer and then there would have been plenty of time" to review it. Again, we're here because Jones lost by default after failing to respond meaningfully to discovery so the irony here is weapons grade.
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Two of the people quoted in the story have literally reported from war zones.
Wonder what would happen to them if they had to report from war zones or stand down authoritarian governments trying to imprison them?. Also wonder if they ever take a few seconds to compare their "trauma" to Julian Assange's?.
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Bankston accuses Reynal of using a "fig leaf" over his own "malpractice" or maybe he said misconduct, I apologize I didn't hear the exact word he used because i'm busy dying of secondhand embarassment.
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I have a hardwood flooring company emailing to call me a pedophile. And while this is, in itself, sort of funny, the “thank you” in here really sent me
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Like I haven't regularly ridden a horse since childhood but, at minimum: reins gathered in one hand, lean forward, don't stick your legs out like you're on a goddamn carousel.
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