Shelley Reid

What? No! We Virginians didn’t turn Commonwealth politics upside down on Tuesday because we wanted more compromise with republicans! Please don’t cave on this now.

A Beautiful Day for Saying Nothing That chill in the air isn’t Jimmy Kimmel’s show being suspended. It’s just autumn!

It’s not a chilling effect. It would only be chilling if you had something horrid to say, and you don’t, do you? Certainly nothing critical of the regime, and absolutely no paraphrasing, not of anyone, not at this time!

Release the Minos Korva files.

Booker: He was made to kneel before the authority of the executive… They treated a member of the United States senate violently after he identified himself, dragged him out of a room, threw him upon the ground, and put him in handcuffs

#4C25 What do we stand for? (A different kind of Maker Space.)

These are the senators who collaborated with the GOP.

Schumer
Fetterman
Cortez Masto
Durbin
King
Shaheen
Gillibrand
Schatz
Hassan
Peters

Don’t let them forget it. No peace for them.

Photo of Megan Giddings' novel The Women Could Fly. Main text: Josephine lives in a near-future US in which women over 30 who haven’t married need to register with the state, and risk being persecuted as a witch. Following a cryptic message from her vanished mother, Jo finds her way to a hidden island in Lake Superior where her mother and dozens of other magic women teach her to fly: “Never before had I felt truly capable...a bullet arcing toward a target.” But Jo can’t rest easy, and the world she returns to is too small-minded to let her stay free.

R. Solnit notes about Black history month that “this admin. would like us to forget it, so let's remember it extra hard." So I’m doing a daily-ish post about the Black women writers who have wired my brain the way it is. I invite your comments. Today I celebrate Megan Giddings and Frances Harper.

Picture of Frances Harper's novel Brown Girl, Brownstones. Main text: Published in 1892, Harper’s novel recasts the story of the “fallen woman” who must rebuild her life: Iola is felled by the institution of slavery. When her white father dies, her light-skinned mother tearfully confesses that she was enslaved and reveals that the white heirs have reclaimed the family as property. Iola seeks not only her own freedom, but the uplift of Black Americans: “She [was] looking beyond the present pain to a brighter future for the race with which she was identified.”

R. Solnit notes about Black history month that “this admin. would like us to forget it, so let's remember it extra hard." So I’m doing a daily-ish post about the Black women writers who have wired my brain the way it is. I invite your comments. Today I celebrate Frances Harper and Megan Giddings.

Many are asking: “What can I do now?”

Here’s a revised and expanded list of actions you can take, in rough order of importance. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/more-on-what-you-can-do

Photo of Terry McMillan's book Waiting to Exhale. Main text: Catching up, I’ll do two today: one well known, one less known. If you’re GenX/GenY, you probably know Terry McMillan, from two hit movies featuring superstar Black actors, if not the books. A character like Bernadine, played by Angela Bassett, resonated well in the 1990s: “All she wanted to do was repossess her life.” McMillan’s women reclaim their time from a world where persistent misogyny and racism threaten to squash their confidence and derail their well-earned success.

Photo of A.J. Verdelle's book The Good Negress. Main text: If you’re only going to write one novel, you should make it as lyrical, incisive, and sweet as The Good Negress--and hope for a blurb from Toni Morrison. In a looping narrative that unfolds like a rose blooming, Neesy Palms moves from Virginia with her grandmother to 1960s Detroit with her mother. Facing ridicule for her southern accent, she draws boundaries that help her survive: “There is proper English, and then separate, there is your train of thought....I have to write myself to a future.”

R. Solnit notes about Black history month that “this admin. would like us to forget it, so let's remember it extra hard." So I’m doing a daily post about the Black women writers who have wired my brain the way it is. I invite your additions/comments. Today I celebrate Terry McMillan & AJ Verdelle.

Trump Claims He Can Overrule Constitution With Executive Order Because Of Little-Known ‘No One Will Stop Me’ Loophole WASHINGTON—Saying his latest executive order was legal due to an “underutilized but totally feasible workaround,” President Trump claimed Tuesday that he could overrule the U.S. Constitution by means ...

Trump Claims He Can Overrule Constitution With Executive Order Because Of Little-Known ‘No One Will Stop Me’ Loophole

Photo of BarbaraNeely's book Blanche Cleans Up. Main text: Sometimes you love a book for its sweet prose, and sometimes for an unforgettable character. Blanche White isn’t all-knowing or all-confident; she has bad days, yells at her kids, ogles hunky guys, and solves crimes nonetheless. She doesn’t take crap from anyone: not racism, misogyny, homophobia, or colorism. Agatha-Award-winning Neely makes her very human: “She felt [the grief] in herself too, a kind of opening up on the inside, like moving closer to the people around her without moving at all.”

R. Solnit notes about Black history month that “this administration would like us to forget it, so let's remember it extra hard." So I’m doing a daily post about the Black women writers who have wired my brain the way it is. I invite your additions/comments. Today I celebrate BarbaraNeely.

Opinion | The assault on DEI? It’s aimed at resegregation. The GOP leaders attacking inclusion programs want to go back to an era when White men ran everything

Free gift link: wapo.st/4144prC

Senator Schiff (as Dems filibuster the nomination of Project 2025 author Russ Vought): “The moment you say it’s ok to violate the law to shut down USAID you have said it is ok to violate the law and shut down anything.”

Around 35% of SpaceX’s revenue comes directly from the federal govt.

Less than 1% of NPR’s budget comes from the federal govt.

Photograph of Alice Walker's book, The Color Purple. Main text: If you mostly remember the movie, you might not recall that The Color Purple is all letters, in which Celie composes herself via conversations with God, with her sister, and with her lover Shug Avery: “I’m here,” she writes, even when she’s not certain anyone will be reading. Out of the horrors of grief and abuse in her nuclear family, she also composes a chosen family. “Shug say, Us each other’s peoples now, and kiss me.”

R. Solnit notes about Black history month that “this administration would like us to forget it, so let's remember it extra hard." So I’m doing a daily post about the Black women writers who have wired my brain the way it is. I invite your additions/comments. Today I celebrate Alice Walker.

House Democrats made an unsuccessful attempt to subpoena billionaire Elon Musk to testify about his efforts to radically reshape the federal government, only to be blocked by Republicans.

Picture of Nnedi Okorafor's novel Lagoon. Main text: “I feel the vibrations of Lagos... What a story this has been. The sun will soon come up.... The chaos will be on display.” So says Udide, the ancient mythical spider under Lagos, watching as aliens communicate via mass cellphone videos, soldiers try to prevent rioting, citizens flee the city, and Adaora the biology prof comes fully into her witch powers. As usual, Okorafor rewrites boundaries, integrates genres, and tells an impossibly true story.

R. Solnit notes about Black history month that “this administration would like us to forget it, so let's remember it extra hard." So I’m doing a daily post about the Black women writers who have wired my brain the way it is. I invite your additions/comments. Today I celebrate @nnedi.bsky.social.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley: Hands off our bodies. Hands off our data. Hands off our tax refunds. Hands off our Social Security checks. Hands off our Constitution. Hands off our democracy.

I know we can’t run around on fire every time Trump says something but he appears to have just announced the new US policy on Gaza which is to take ownership of it, ethnically cleanse it of the 1.8 million Palestinians there and maintain a long term ownership stake as it’s “developed.”

February 3, 2025 I’m going to start tonight by stating the obvious: the Republicans control both chambers of Congress: the House of Representatives and the Senate.

February 3, 2025

Picture of Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Written By Herself. Text: “No pen can give an adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery.” Yet Jacobs’ story of her enslavement, her 7 years hidden in a tiny attic away from her children, and her escape to New York gives an unsparing, often desperate account. After a century of being dismissed as a fraud, her words now ring clearly and help empower others’ pens.

Rebecca Solnit notes about Black history month that “this administration would like us to forget it, so let's remember it extra hard." So I’m doing a daily post about the Black women writers who have wired my brain the way it is. I invite your additions/comments. Today I celebrate Harriet Jacobs.

2020: “I have a plan for that.” 2025: <crickets>

Post featuring a photo of N. K. Jemisin’s book The Fifth Season and the quotation, “The goal is survival, and sometimes survival requires change.”

Rebecca Solnit notes about Black history month that “this administration would like us to forget it, so let's remember it extra hard." So I’m doing a daily post about the Black women writers who have wired my brain the way it is. I invite your additions/comments. Today it’s @nkjemisin.bsky.social

A few things Trump just made more expensive for you:

Gas
Cars
TVs
iPhones
Xboxes
Avocados
Strawberries
Furniture
Power tools
Modelo
Refrigerators
Microwaves
Clothes
Bananas
Tequila
Maple syrup

Cover of Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye, and my note that Pecola’s heartbreaking aspirations opened the door for me reading Black women’s writing

Rebecca Solnit notes that "Black history month starts [Feb 1] and this administration would like us to forget it, so let's remember it extra hard." So I commit to a daily post about the Black women writers who have wired my brain the way it is, putting my hands on each book and sharing their words.

HIV, transgender care, climate change and other federal websites go dark Several CDC pages were taken down by Friday afternoon. Some redirected users to other sections of the site.

Trump’s blackout is Orwellian, dangerous, and harmful to all Americans who count on this information for critical services.

This censorship is unAmerican.

Musk's Junta Establishes Him as Head of Government Imagining how we'd cover overseas what's happening to the U.S. right now

Having watched with growing alarm the developments of the last 24 and 36 hours in Washington, I thought I’d take a stab at how the US media would cover this story if it was happening in a foreign country. Here’s that story that should be written this weekend: www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/musk-s-jun...