Virginia Scharff

GOV. WALZ on Trump’s racist attack on Somali Americans: “Unprecedented. We have kids going to school today and the president called them ‘garbage’ — condemn this attack or you are complicit in it… the only thing hurting this state is Trump himself.”

Our kids are watching.

To all of you readers who submitted noxious nominations for the 17th annual Golden Duke awards, we thank you for your service. Now it’s time to vote! May the sickest sleazebag win.
talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/grift...

RFK’s Anti-Vax Team Readies Its Next Moves “Their game is, let’s really destabilize trust in the vaccine, and make people really anxious about it.”

To be very clear, Kennedy's team is messing with a vaccine which has led to a 99 percent drop in the incidence of hepatitis B, which kills, early and painfully, 25 percent of the people who get it as children. lnk.thebulwark.com/3Xt957M

UPDATE: Trump Jr.-backed startup receives $620 million Pentagon loan In October, Popular Information reported that the Pentagon awarded a contract to Unusual Machines, an obscure drone company that President Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., joined as an advisor in Novemb...

This is a million times worse than anything Hunter Biden was accused of doing in even the most fevered right-wing conspiracy dream

Currently listening to her interview with @timmiller.bsky.social @thebulwark.com . She is, dare I say, a brain worm.

Battle of Fort Pillow - Wikipedia

A good day for a little history brush up

"Surviving members of the garrison said that most of their men surrendered and threw down their arms, only to be shot or bayoneted by the attackers, who repeatedly shouted, "No quarter! No quarter!"

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_...

Graduate students call on WashU to expand support for immigrant students - Student Life In the fall of 2024, Qimeng Duan, a third-year anthropology Ph.D. student, unknowingly reversed into a gate at an autoshop. As an international student, Duan was unfamiliar with U.S. reporting require...

Powerful piece about WashU international student frustrations with the university's lack of support in a time of immense uncertainty and potential danger: www.studlife.com/news/2025/12...

From the “first consolidated World Health Organization report on viral hepatitis epidemiology, service coverage and product access,” “Globally, 115 countries have introduced universal hepatitis B birth-dose vaccination, and 45% of infants received the hepatitis B birth dose within the first 24 hours of birth in 2022. Twenty-three countries have selective programmes with targeted provision of the hepatitis B birth dose (the vaccine is provided to the infants of mothers who are HBsAg positive). Infant immunization schedules in 190 countries include the hepatitis B vaccine. Of the 38 WHO focus countries for the viral hepatitis response, 25 have introduced birth-dose programmes and all provide the hepatitis B vaccine (usually as part of pentavalent vaccines) in their infant vaccination programme. In theory, if these vaccines are included in the national programme, all children should have access; however, in practice, coverage varies widely across regions and countries (Table 3.23 and Fig. 3.32). Chapter 4 presents detailed information for the 38 WHO focus countries for viral hepatitis.” https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240091672

Did you know?

190 countries have infant immunization schedules that include the Hep B vaccine

115 countries recommend a universal birth-dose of the Hep B vaccine, one of the key actions WHO recommends to reduce Hep B prevalence

Read more in the WHO Hep B Report ➡️
iris.who.int/server/api/c...

Not like it would be justified if they were drug smugglers, but I think it hasn't gotten enough focus that a boat with 11 people onboard heading from Venezuela to Trinidad was almost certainly migrants. These were probably, at least for some of them, people fleeing Maduro. That's who they murdered.

(U) We are not making any recommendations in this report related to the Secretary’s use of Signal to send sensitive nonpublic information because it represented only one instance of an identified, DoD-wide issue.

DOD IG: We're not going to refer Whiskey Pete for his FRA violations because in the DOD led by him misuse of Signal is rampant.

1) No "fight" because there is no armed conflict.
2) Even if there were an armed conflict and these men were once lawful targets, per this description the men sound shipwrecked.
3) Vessel was reportedly not headed for US but Trinidad in the first place & moreover had reportedly turned around for VZ.

It's ethnic cleansing, and it has to stop.

I really tried to read this. But it made me so depressed I gave up. And I refuse to give up. @jvl.bsky.social is easily one of the smartest voices in media today. I trust him. But man, this is one huge bummer. We have a huge job ahead.

Jeffery Goldberg on Signalgate, Pete Hegseth, and the risk of WWIII On this week’s “More To The Story,” The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief on what he learned about the Trump administration from “Signalgate” and what really scares him about the future of American democracy...

A new Pentagon report has confirmed what folks like Jeffrey Goldberg already knew: Hegseth's "Signalgate" scandal posed a major threat to our nation's security.

In March, we spoke to Goldberg, the journalist who was added to the infamous chat, about the state of our nation.

Good. Now let's hear from @schumer.senate.gov and @hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social and other Democratic leaders and potential 2028 candidates.

That, they leave to Fox News comedians.

Horrible. I’m really sorry/

It’s cool, Tom. We’ve only just begun.

Terminate? Prosecute.

My Order to Kill Everyone and Everything Was Taken Out of Context “[Secretary of War] Hegseth ordered a lethal attack but not the killing of survivors, officials say… Amid talk of war crimes, the details and preci...

"Can we all calm down for a minute? It appears my command to take no prisoners, exterminate all traces of life, and torch any semblance of international law has been misinterpreted. You shouldn’t rush to conclusions until you have all the facts."

Prosecute Pete.

Pete Hegseth bears responsibility for THIS

(hat tip @natashabertrand.bsky.social)

U.S. Department of Defense's Inspector General's report on the Signalgate saga is now online

media.defense.gov/2025/Dec/04/...

Support Bolts We are a nonprofit publication that covers the nuts and bolts of political change, from the local up, and we need reader support to build our journalism.

You can help Bolts continue to provide crucial coverage of local elections. Here's how:

- Repost this = I donate $1.
- Follow @boltsmag.org = I donate $1.
- Donate (link below) + tell me how much = I match your donation.
(Donate monthly = I match a year's worth)

ICE's messy hiring spree brings in unfit and illiterate recruits ICE recruits with no experience are being fast-tracked into the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia, where instructors are astounded at their incompetence.

must be pretty bad when the Daily Mail is running smashmouth exposes on a GOP admin www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

I'm going to sound like a broken record by the way I keep mentioning how 95% of Somalis in the Twin Cities metro area are US citizens, but very few mainstream outlets are pointing this out.

This should be very basic stuff for any news organization.

wtf? Better watch out for Novichok on the hotel room doorknobs

One of the most striking things about these ICE/BP raids is not that they’re all kitted out for war while going after people who didn’t do anything wrong and don’t pose a threat, but that they always bring a camera crew.

History lesson for today. Thank you.

Every Democrat going on air should take the first question and then say something like “Before I answer that I need to express my outrage and disgust at the president’s bigoted and vulgar insults about the Somali people. There is something seriously wrong with him. He is a sick man.”