Cynthia Ragona

The Collapse of Presidential Rhetoric From Lincoln’s eloquence to Trump’s 108-minute harangue

“Are we willing to hold our leaders to higher standards, or are we so compromised by partisanship and cynicism that we demand little and accept even less?” roncharles.substack.com/p/the-collap...

Every time I read the abbreviation SOTU, my brain instead sees the letters STFU. At this time, perhaps there is more reason than letter similarity for that.

- The National ArchivesAsset – The National Archives Papers Nos. 201(40) - 339(40)

See also Churchill. (We don't have time for this.) images.nationalarchives.gov.uk/asset/51340/

We are about to go from micro services running on the cloud to monoliths running on the desktop.

Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren, and other New England politicians need to quit X - The Boston Globe Elected officials should not be lending legitimacy to Elon Musk’s toxic social media site.

IDEAS | @phileil.bsky.social: Elected officials should not be lending legitimacy to Elon Musk’s toxic social media site.

Why is the date of this court document February 31, 2026?

The crisis is real, and this is part of our effort at new approaches to supporting scholars and advancing scholarship in the (vast!) early Americas.

Sharing again and would appreciate your sharing, too. More info in the thread. 🧵⬇️

When I said I wanted to catastrophize less in 2026, i did not mean i wanted all the bad things in my head to become real, to be clear

They want us to feel hopeless. Fuck them.

The whole 🧵, folks

Call Trump's power grab in Venezuela what it is Corporate media must recognize they're being openly lied to—and report accordingly.

New — I wrote about how corporate media is immediately siding with power in the wake of Trump attacking Venezuela and capturing Maduro, and how journalists need to treat the administration as a hostile entity that’s openly lying to them.

Rumors and misinformation during Brown shooting investigation disrupted law enforcement’s work - The Boston Globe In some ways, this is our new reality. But we have the tools to fight back, writes Rhode Island’s secretary of state.

Commentary by @risecstate.bsky.social: Misinformation during Brown University investigation disrupted law enforcement’s work
www.bostonglobe.com/2026/01/01/m...

I read 72 books this year (probably more, as I don't log rereads). I'm stingy w/ my 5-star ratings. I gave them to:

The Everlasting by Alix H. Harrow
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
The Antidote by Karen Russell
Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Torzs

YouTube video by WPRI Video Now: RI Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse addresses Brown U. shooting social media misinformation

youtu.be/1uYoQ4hvK_w?...

This describes the feeling here perfectly.

Brown University shooting investigation reignites criticisms of FBI’s Kash Patel - The Boston Globe Democrats have been critical of Patel since before he was nominated, but his handling of the Brown University investigation has inflamed the long-simmering frustration with his tenure.

Brown University shooting investigation reignites criticisms of FBI’s Kash Patel www.bostonglobe.com/2025/12/16/n...

One thing that would reduce the anxiety in the neighborhood around Brown University is if the news helicopters would stop circling overhead.

Following last night’s tragedy in our city, the RI Blood Center is in urgent need of donors.

If you have the capacity and are eligible, please consider donating blood. The RI Blood Center’s Providence location (405 Promenade Street) will be open until 7pm tonight.

Take care neighbors ❤️

Nice work Rhode Island and @conormcdonough.com for the footage!

Wishing I could have been there. Great perspective on this image!

Winner of mRNA Nobel Prize says ACIP member’s claim that Covid vaccines persist is “absolutely impossible” In a Q&A with STAT, Nobel winner Drew Weissman addressed concerns raised about Covid shots at a recent meeting of federal vaccine advisers.

www.statnews.com/2025/09/20/d...

Shocked by Epstein’s birthday book? That culture was everywhere before feminism | Rebecca Solnit Feminism exposed the ubiquity of child abuse, rape, sexual harassment and domestic violence – and helped fight that culture

I wrote a thing. As someone who survived the 1970s and kept the receipts.

Firing and demoralizing feminized jobs as enemies of the state while brazenly bribing men with violent jobs that almost instantly puts them into the middle of middle class is very basic gendered warfare. Fulfilling the manosphere’s promise.

What is the Freedom to Read Act recently signed into law in R.I.? - The Boston Globe “In Rhode Island, we see censorship for what it is: a way to limit what we can learn about the world – and about each other," said Governor Dan McKee.

What is the Freedom to Read Act recently signed into law in R.I.?

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/08/13/m...

The newspaper that told the truth about Watergate and the Pentagon Papers will now “communicate with optimism about this country” in its time of rising fascism

Gov. McKee signs Freedom to Read Act into law • Rhode Island Current Rhode Island joined at least eight other blue states that have taken steps against school library censorship after Gov. Dan McKee signed the Freedom to Read Act into law Wednesday.

Proud of my state and all those who worked to get the Freedom to Read bill made law. rhodeislandcurrent.com/briefs/gov-m... Gov. McKee signs Freedom to Read Act into law • Rhode Island Current

The result will be chaos for this Nation’s public schools. Requiring schools to provide advance notice and the chance to opt out of every lesson plan or story time that might implicate a parent’s religious beliefs will impose impossible administrative burdens on schools. The harm will not be borne by educators alone: Children will suffer too. Classroom disruptions and absences may well inflict long-lasting harm on students’ learning and development. Worse yet, the majority closes its eyes to the inevitable chilling effects of its ruling. Many school districts, and particularly the most resource strapped, cannot afford to engage in costly litigation over opt-out rights or to divert resources to tracking and managing student absences. Schools may instead censor their curricula, stripping material that risks generating religious objections. The Court’s ruling, in effect, thus hands a subset of parents the right to veto curricular choices long left to locally elected school boards. Because I cannot countenance the Court’s contortion of our precedent and the untold harms that will follow, I dissent.

Sotomayor, in dissent, correctly says that today's decision in Mahmoud will lead public schools to simply censor books featuring LGBTQ characters and themes, creating "chaos" and stigmatizing children with LGBTQ families. This decision will lead to book bans.
www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24p...

Although Alito frames the remedy here as "notice and opt-out," the reality is that school districts cannot manage such a sweeping opt-out system. They are far more likely to simply pull books with LGBTQ characters off classroom shelves altogether rather than face a ruinous, high-profile lawsuit.

OLC Raises Alarm Over State Budget Cuts and Provision Segregating Materials The Ohio Library Council (OLC), representing Ohio’s 251 public library systems, is sounding the alarm over provisions in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2026-2027 state budget (House Bill 96) that threaten both ...

Call to Action for Ohio! A provision in House Bill 96 requires libraries to segregate materials related to sexual orientation or gender identity or expression, guaranteeing they are not visible to anyone under 18. Demand the Governor veto it.

It feels so good to see a W.