Kristine

In college, I had to read the Department of Defense’s Law of War manual.

I kid you not when I tell you that firing at the shipwrecked is quite literally provided as an example of an illegal order.

Here’s a Look at the D.C. Shooting Suspect’s C.I.A.-Backed Unit in Afghanistan The units were backed by the C.I.A. and trained to conduct missions in Afghanistan during the U.S. war in the country.

So he was "homegrown" + trained by the CIA, working for the Zero Unit in Afghanistan, which had a reputation for the following:

"The units also had a reputation for ruthlessness, with journalists and human rights groups referring to them as 'death squads.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/27/u...

"Over the past 100 years, Russia has attacked 19 different countries – some of them 3-4 times – and none of these countries, including Ukraine, has ever attacked Russia."

Kaja Kallas
Vice-President of the European Commission
Former PM of Estonia

Good for her.... bring pressure to bear, lower those ticket prices....👇

BREAKING:

Sen. Elissa Slotkin says police responded to her home tonight in response to a bomb threat. Slotkin wasn't at home at the time.

This is two days after Trump said Slotkin and other Democrats committed "seditious conspiracy, punishable by death."

THREAD: Judge Ellis is the first federal judge to review extensive body cam video of DHS's actions in Chicago. She finds that DHS *repeatedly* misled the public and made claims that were disproven by agents' own videos.

I'll go through some of the most egregious ones here.

Epstein survivor Haley Robson refutes Mike Johnson: "The survivors that don't want to be public are Jane Does. They've been protected and their names have been redacted the whole time ... I don't care if my name is redacted is not."

Five corporations control 90% of the US media market.

Airlines merged from 12 major carriers in 1980 to 4 today.

Four giants control 80% of meat processing.

A handful of companies control the pharmaceutical industry.

The evidence of corporate concentration is everywhere.

Texas' abortion ban has killed yet another woman. Here's exactly what the anti-abortion response will be:

They’ll claim doctors were legally allowed to “intervene” or “treat” Tierra Walker with "care." They won't say she could have had an abortion because they don’t believe in life-saving abortions

“ At just 16 years old, she took a job at Mar a Lago, believing she had secured a dream summer position. But that dream quickly morphed into a nightmare when Ghislaine Maxwell preyed upon her…. They trafficked her”

A South Carolina 20-Year-Old Has Been Charged With Attempted Murder Police say she took medication to end her pregnancy

A South Carolina woman who police say tried to end her pregnancy with medication has been arrested and charged with attempted murder and child neglect.

Don't miss this story from @kylietcheung.bsky.social

jessica.substack.com/p/south-caro...

C.D.C. Links Measles Outbreaks in Multiple States for the First Time

"Experts have called the possibility of losing elimination status for measles 'deeply embarrassing' for a wealthy country with the medical resources of the United States..."

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/h...

Medicare for All would save $450B a year.

Every dollar spent on food stamps generates $1.50-$1.80 in economic activity.

Each dollar going to low-wage workers adds $1.20 to the economy overall.

It’s not about what this country can or can’t afford.

It’s about priorities.

I Want You to Understand Chicago Politics Chicago 2025-11-08 I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time. Every day my phone buzzes. It is a neighborhood group: four people were kidnapped at the corner drugstore. A friend a mile away sends a Slack message: she was at the scene when masked men assaulted and abducted two people on the street. A plumber working on my pipes is distraught, and I find out that two of his employees were kidnapped that morning. A week later it happens again. An email arrives. Agents with guns have chased a teacher into the school where she works. They did not have a warrant. They dragged her away, ignoring her and her colleagues’ pleas to show proof of her documentation. That evening I stand a few feet from the parents of Rayito de Sol and listen to them describe, with anguish, how good Ms. Diana was to their children. What it is like to have strangers with guns traumatize your kids. For a teacher to hide a three-year-old child for fear they might be killed. How their relatives will no longer leave the house. I hear the pain and fury in their voices, and I wonder who will be next. Understand what it is to pray in Chicago. On September 19th, Reverend David Black, lead pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, was praying outside the ICE detention center in Broadview when a DHS agent shot him in the head with pepper balls. Pepper balls are never supposed to be fired at the head because they can seriously injure, or even kill. “We could hear them laughing as they were shooting us from the roof,” Black recalled. He is not the only member of the clergy ICE has assaulted. Methodist pastor Hannah Kardon was violently arrested on October 17th, and Baptist pastor Michael Woolf was shot with pepper balls on November 1st. Understand what it is to sleep in Chicago. On the night of September 30th, federal agents rappelled from a Black Hawk helicopter to execute a raid on an apartment building on the South Sho…

Kyle Kingsbury is not a journalist. He is not an op-ed writer.

He is a computer safety researcher.

And he has written one of the most compelling, comprehensive accounts of the ongoing hell in Chicago that you could possibly imagine.

In under 1600 words.

aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...

Senate reaches deal on ending the shutdown Democrats are coalescing around a bipartisan agreement to fund the government.

This is not a deal — it's an empty promise.

Trump and his Republican Congress are making healthcare more expensive for the middle class and ending it for working families.

Time for Democrats to stand tall for affordable healthcare. www.politico.com/news/2025/11...

i think this is key. taking the deal would amount to taking the blame. it would turn a clear political victory into an unambiguous defeat.

👇👇

In U.S. first, New Mexico launches free child care for all Under the program, families, regardless of income, can receive state vouchers to cover public and private child care fees.

New Mexico becomes the first U.S. state to offer free child care to all residents in a bid to boost its economy and lift education and child welfare levels ranked the worst in the country.

Pennsylvania has an important Supreme Court race coming up on Tuesday, November 4. If you live in the Keystone State, or know someone who does, vote YES to retain three justices who will protect your fundamental rights and freedoms.

Screenshot of a New York Times webpage. The headline reads: “Supreme Court Live Updates: Justices Seem Set to Rule Against Colorado’s Ban on Conversion Therapy Torture.” The words “Conversion Therapy” are shown with red strikethroughs. A smaller subheading below explains: “Colorado and over 20 other states have banned the practice aimed at changing the sexual orientation or gender identity of young people.” The page header includes links like “Birthright Citizenship,” “L.A. Immigration Stops,” “Unsigned Orders in Trump’s Favor,” and “Florida Immigration.” Would you like me to also provide a shorter, accessibility-friendly version of the alt text (like what a screen reader would ideally read aloud), or keep this more detailed one?

Fixed.

A new White House memo says that furloughed federal workers aren't entitled to back pay.

This is clearly against the law, which guarantees furloughed federal employees back pay for the duration of a government shutdown.

We can fund health care and keep the government running, or we can shut everything down to raise prices on people.

To me, that’s a pretty easy choice.

What is with two hours (and going) of helicopters circling Columbia Heights??? #DC #FreeDC

The Price of Remission: This Cancer Drug Saves Lives — but Costs a Fortune. I Wanted to Know Why. When I was diagnosed with cancer, I set out to understand why a single pill of Revlimid cost the same as a new iPhone. I’ve covered high drug prices as a reporter for years. What I discovered shocked ...

Revlimid has its origin in a pill that cost patients $7.50 each.

Decades later, the cancer drug costs more than $18,000 for a month’s supply — even though it still only costs about 25 cents to manufacture.

Read @davidarmstrongx.bsky.social's award-winning investigation:

Co-signed by a lot of people out here.

Cats in pairs. That third cat will be the odd cat out without its own friend.

“I’m all for unifying. I’m all for bridging gaps. But not at the expense of my neighbor’s humanity.”

- Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ezra Klein is Wrong About Abortion Abortion *is* a big tent issue

@jessicavalenti.bsky.social is very right that Ezra Klein is very wrong, both morally and strategically, with this argument that throwing half the population under the bus (the half that already leans more Democratic).

Bravo to New Mexico on two fronts:

📌 Universal Childcare for every family

📌 Special Session next week to address Medicaid cuts and exploding insurance premiums caused by Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill and to take on the corporate hospital crisis

This should be nationwide!