Opinion column in The Guardian US: Jeffrey Epstein’s emails reveal a disdain for morality among the elite. By Moira Donegan. Epstein presents Trump as someone he knew intimately. But the documents also reveal how many powerful men confided in him.

I wrote about the indignity of being ruled over by these people. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

LUCE Immigrant Justice Network of MA

Anyway, this is a great time to consider getting involved with LUCE.

www.lucemass.org

Ah, yes, it's not a recession. It's a "timeout" for the economy.

It's so enraging that -- given how little our Legislature does -- *this* is something the House wants to move forward.

bush v gore is the hinge upon which basically everything awful from the last quarter century swings on

The toxic refusal to train is starting to seep into white collar industries, too. Student loans have propped a lot of them longer than they would otherwise survive, but it's just a reallocation of the problem. If you don't hire and train juniors your pyramid will collapse from the bottom up lmao

As we all watch Ken Burn’s American Revolution on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) this evening, remember that federal funding for this public programming has been cut by a president who aspires to be like the king patriots separated from nearly 250 years ago.

The great challenging of telling this story is to resist the sense of inevitability or the idea that there is a proto nation in waiting. Neither John Adams, Phillis Wheatley, or Joseph Brandt knew the future, all they could do was deal with the present & wonder how the past had led them to it. #HATM

As I like to joke, the irony is the lanterns really didn’t matter in the actual events that evening.

The British East India Company was too big to fail. #HATM

Also the whole gunpowder thing.

Serena Zabin's book about the Boston Massacre is a must read on the massacre and the broader British occupation of Boston. #KenBurns #HATM

The Founders were so concerned about bribery that the Constitution forbids it three separate times. Two emoluments clauses ban officials—unambiguously including the president—from accepting things of value, plus bribery is the only named impeachable offense besides treason.

Unprecedentedly corrupt.

Most Americans don't realize damn near the reason there IS a country (molasses tax, meaning rum tax, meaning angry "founding fathers") then almost immediately NOT a country (Western PA rye whiskey rebellion) is big sugar.

And chattel slavery was why there was rum.

If a candidate is running away from an endgame solution (“I’m for Medicare for all who want it because we need to get there but not yet), they won’t fight for you.

I’m telling you now. They won’t fight. Candidates telling voters to wait longer for shit we needed a decade ago aren’t going to fight.

This is could well be a historic midterm for Democrats.

Don’t waste it on centrists who won’t come through when it matters. Run vocal progressives.

You won’t end Trumpism without anti-corruption crusaders and warriors for social and economic justice who believe in taxes & big, universal programs.

Sharon Camp, Mother of the ‘Plan B’ Contraceptive Pill, Dies at 81

Anyone who’s ever used emergency contraception or gains peace of mind by even having it on hand owes Dr Camp a debt of gratitude. What a force.

(Also, I just learned one reason the FDA rejected it at first was that they said the name Plan B was too glib!)

Great obit—no paywall.

'The public needs to wake up': Rhode Island mom detained at Logan for more than a week The woman, a legal permanent resident for 40 years, is being denied access to a lawyer while being held by federal officials at Logan.

‘The public needs to wake up’: Rhode Island mom detained at Logan for more than a week

The woman, a legal permanent resident for 40 years, is being denied access to a lawyer while being held by Customs and Border Protection
www.boston.com/news/local-n...

[Enter two other Senators with a Messenger.]

THIRD SENATOR
Thou hast painfully discover’d; are his files
As full as thy report?

We look so hard for ordinary people! Keep a diary! And write down everything you take for granted in it, please!

When It Happens It’s been so long, you sometimes forget that eventually, IT will HAPPEN. It’s impossible to say when IT will HAPPEN. But it can’t be too long until...

"Of course, it doesn’t feel right to want IT to HAPPEN. And it’s obviously not okay to try to make IT HAPPEN. That’s not what this is ABOUT, just to make things CLEAR LEGALLY as far as VARIOUS AGENCIES are concerned."
www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/whe...

Every single one of these particular and nuanced policies that made people's lives just a tiny bit more manageable were the result of sometimes decades of advocacy from every day people. Hours of testimonies, calls, pleas. And all are being wiped away en masse because the cruelty is the point.

I think the "you can't deliver the Eucharist to people in detention" is what caused this unity. Not even the most conservative American clerics can swallow that affront to God.

More than four out of five Americans, 83%, said they were concerned about the cost of groceries, with 46% saying they were very concerned. Some 47% said they were worried about being able to pay their rent or mortgage, 64% said they were worried about affording an unexpected medical expense. About 48% said they believed they would have trouble affording an unexpected $500 bill without borrowing. One in four said it would be "very difficult" A quarter of those surveyed said they spent at least three hours a day worrying about their finances and ability to afford basic necessities. Another 25% of respondents said they or someone in their household had skipped meals in the past year in order to make ends meet, and 26% said they had fallen behind on their monthly bills over the past year.

Fuck the stock market reports, this is what real life is like

Here’s a gift link (no paywall) to the article, “Catholic bishops condemn ‘indiscriminate mass deportation’ in rare statement”:

wapo.st/448fDw6

Starbucks Workers Tell Bosses: No Contract, No Coffee - The American Prospect Starbucks baristas didn’t want to go on strike. But after four years of waiting for a contract at any of their hundreds of unionized stores, 12,000 workers at one of the world’s biggest fast-food comp...

"There is no financial reason holding Starbucks back from finishing the contract. After all, the company paid its new chief executive, Brian Niccol, $95 million in compensation last year, about 6,666 times the compensation of average workers." prospect.org/2025/11/13/s...

New York Times social media guidelines prohibit expression suggesting partiality on things like ICE, execution of foreigners in fishing boats, or whether law is a thing.

However, tipping off notorious serial pedophiles about other reporters is absolutely fine.

Blues Brother? No, Blues Father.

If nothing else comes out of the backlash to Trumpism, let it be a renewed commitment to small-r republicanism. This should be embarrassing. It should be shameful. You are a free citizen of a free republic, act like one for God's sake.