Do something kind today.

If the National Governors Association chooses to remain silent, Illinois will have no choice but to withdraw from the organization.

We should be standing as one against the idea that Donald Trump can call up the National Guard against our will.

Indeed. I keep marveling at how 47's administration comprises all the worst people, people who seem to have gotten bent wrong early in life and just kept bending further toward viciousness and blight.

Damn. I was curious about the purported Trump-Hegseth exchange circa 2000 so I looked up where the latter was then. He was at Princeton, not yet old enough to legally drink.

www.newyorker.com/news/news-de...

Yeah, I did know some of that. People find lotsa ways to justify
the doubling down, for sure.

I'd never gotten into Chappelle but you're dead on about Louis C.K. I truly thought he might have it in him to come back and do comedy that looked unflinchingly at his own sex-pest history and didn't excuse it. Instead he doubled down on being awful; his playing Riyadh surprised no one.

Here's an excerpt -- I hope you'll take a few moments to read the whole column and tell me what you think

Hundreds of Alligator Alcatraz detainees drop off the grid after leaving site As of the end of August, the whereabouts of two-thirds of more than 1,800 men detained at Alligator Alcatraz during the month of July could not be determined by the Miami Herald.

More than 1800 detainees who were interned in Trump's shuttered Alligator Alcatraz concentration camp have now disappeared without a trace. Their families and lawyers can’t find them and they’ve vanished from the ICE database. www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

Thank you for posting this. I'm glad you saw that girl, even if she's not being seen enough by the people raising her.

Live your life such that Stephen Fucking Miller isn’t invited to speak at your memorial

Every time Van Hollen makes me proud as a Marylander, Olszewski makes me eyeroll as a Baltimore County resident.

Spouse and I were just talking about a similar past couple of weeks. My read for myself is that it's not amid the horrors, but because of them--even if you're not as directly affected as some, it's hard right now just being a decent empathetic human who's paying attention. The horrors seep in.

A series of four images with black text on a white background, containing a long reflective passage about how authoritarianism and oppression gradually take hold unnoticed. First image: The text explains how small, seemingly inconsequential steps—each justified or regretted—prevent people from recognizing the larger process until it’s too late, comparing it to a farmer not noticing corn growing until it towers overhead.

Second image: A colleague explains how each act is only slightly worse than the last, leading people to wait for a shocking turning point that never comes. Fear, uncertainty, and the desire not to stand alone stop people from resisting. Outsiders seem content, and those who sense danger are dismissed as alarmists.

Third image: The text describes how, eventually, a small personal incident shatters self-deception, revealing that everything has changed—society, spirit, and morality. People accept things once unthinkable. Life feels normal on the surface, but principles have eroded. When realization comes, it’s too late—people are compromised by inaction.

Fourth image: The writer notes how friends drift away, meetings shrink, and isolation grows, weakening resistance further. The long-awaited great occasion for mass opposition never arrives. Instead, oppression progresses step by step, each act numbing people to the next. The example is given of Nazi Germany, where atrocities escalated gradually, making it harder to resist at each stage.

From Milton Mayer's "They Thought They Were Free"

I first read it in November and I'm rereading it now. It crushing feeling the exact same things as this academic did. It's the same process.

Instead of the angry finger-pointing, can we just for one day agree that it is horrible and monstrous to shoot another human? On behalf of my family, we send love to the Kirks and to all the children, parents and innocents who fall victim to senseless gun violence.

And I hope he gets therapy, she gets a job and some financial independence again when the time is right, and she gets out if he doesn't get help. 4/4

... from inside the one arbitrary life she didn't choose to be born in, and instead of asking her for anything he needs, he's just resenting her; I wouldn't be surprised if he's twisting her good qualities to work against her in other ways day to day. I'm glad she understands why that's not OK. 3/4

... who also has zero claim to struggle, I try to practice those same habits of mind and perspective, and to make them count in the world by giving money or activism or just 1:1 kind interaction where I can. I don't do any of that perfectly but I try. She's trying too, to be a good person... 2/4

Wow. I don't have this problem but could otherwise relate to this woman, because in her voice I hear her consciously practicing gratitude for her good fortune in life, recognition of how her experience is atypical, and empathy for her husband and others who have had it harder. As someone ... 1/4

Reporters on the ground in Chicago are screaming to be heard over the false narrative that Pritzker defeated Trump there. PLEASE listen to them.

If you want a glimpse into some recent reporting we did that kinda fucked me up, read to the end of the piece, where “I want daddy” comes up

Thank you for the work you're doing. I can only imagine how difficult it is to look at this up close.

I truly don't know.

Thank you for what you are doing. Be safe.

YEP.

But one drop of poison, I know, but I see it a lot and--ugh. Thank you for your attention to this matter. 3/3

One can allude to his being a cruel, stupid, narcissistic, venal, vain, lying, irrational, spiritually impoverished, all-out miserable son of a bitch and grossly blighted human without mindlessly throwing in "fat." One of those descriptors is not like the others. 2/3

It is but one drop of poison in our ocean of poison discourse, I know, but for the love of the cleaner ocean we could have, maybe don't reflexively include "fat" in a string of other, usually negative adjectives describing 47. It's irrelevant to who he is and what he's doing to the U.S. 1/3

Yeah--I'm in MD too and Van Hollen has been a bright spot among so much bleakness. (And a reminder to hold Alsobrooks and Olszewski to a higher standard than they sometimes seem inclined to hold themselves.)

We're close to reaching a chilling moment; the first time in history where the single largest group of people arrested by ICE in the interior and held in detention are people with no criminal record. The gap is now down to fewer than 300 people.

Abolish ICE.