“Members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe are United States citizens,” Star Comes Out said. “We are the first Americans. We are not undocumented immigrants, and we are not subject to unlawful immigration enforcement actions by ICE or Homeland Security.” wapo.st/49Wv1Pt

Joni: And I dreamed I saw the bombers Riding shotgun in the sky And they were turning into butterflies Above our nation Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Make it so. Prospero: We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. Ella:

Rest in peace, Renee Nicole Good. You will not be forgotten. “now i can’t believe— that the bible and qur’an and bhagavad gita are sliding long hairs behind my ear like mom used to & exhaling from their mouths ‘make room for wonder’—” poets.org/2020-on-lear...

Members of Congress, a word: @housedemocrats.bsky.social @senatedemocrats.bsky.social

2025 has been a nightmare. May the new year wake us up.

And how many children, like the of four children of Alejandro Carranza, have lost their fathers to this Caribbean killing spree? www.npr.org/2025/12/04/g...

A warning from Senator Murphy that illuminates the cruel absurdity of this moment: “Anybody who has a voice or a soapbox in this country needs to draw a line in the sand and say that it is not acceptable for the President of the United States to call on the murder of his political opposition.”

“In collaboration with the Virginia Museum of History & Culture, Firehouse Theatre is staging a new original play centered on the story of John Mitchell Jr., a pioneering Black newspaper editor, politician, banker, and civil rights activist known as ‘the fighting editor.’”

I read the 12 pages. If Adam Serwer is right that “the cruelty is the point,” their obscene attack on Jim Ryan makes perfect sense. He was the golden retriever of college presidents. youtube.com/shorts/4jGXa...

If your spirits could use a lift, watch the rousing speech Representative Adelita S. Grijalva just gave at her long overdue 4pm swearing-in ceremony. www.c-span.org/event/public...

Every single day, a new horrific story. “We deserve to have 1-year-olds not be pepper-sprayed when they are trying to go shopping. What the president of this country is doing is terrorism. We have to call it what it is.” — Illinois State Senator Celina Villanueva

(Asking for a friend—actually, 42 million friends.)

Can We the People sue the executive branch for breach of contract in a class action lawsuit where the class is all American citizens who pay taxes? We paid for a system funded by laws passed by our Congress and we are not getting what we paid for. (gift article) www.nytimes.com/live/2025/11...

Wow—incisive, thought provoking statement! Pondering which specific norms that sustain democracy are being disregarded now. I had to look up “undemocratic institutions.” This helped: youtu.be/XOuZO2sGxzw?...

I got a little choked up when I came on Bluesky this morning and saw photos of #NoKings protests (with a few frogs!) in Berlin, Bremen, Seville, Tokyo, London, Amsterdam, Florence, Paris, Stockholm . . . 🌎

@danielbachman.bsky.social I think you might really like the first two minutes of this video. “You can listen to the life of trees just as you can listen to your own life.” youtu.be/HeYHtMkLl30?...

“Civility is wielded as a cudgel to further clarify the differences between ‘us’ and ‘them.’ It is the demand of people with thin skin who don’t want their delicate egos and impoverished ideas challenged.” 🎁 link: www.nytimes.com/2025/09/24/o...

“Whose forest was this? Why is it empty . . .” Tom Paxton wrote this song 55 years ago for the first Earth Day. It hits different now. “Tell me again, I need to know— The forests had trees, the meadows were green, The oceans were blue and birds really flew— Can you swear that was true?”

“There'll be love and laughter And peace ever after Tomorrow When the world is free . . .”

AP live feed of the CDC walkout in Atlanta. www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ7Q...

“. . .considering recommendations to redesign it to enhance safety, reduce pedestrian and vehicle conflicts, improve signal operations, and support better connectivity to downtown destinations, such as the Downtown Mall.”

The housing crisis is cruel and unfair. My friend, 82, is a veteran, born here, a sober churchgoer who’s worked hard all her life. The rent went up on her apartment and she couldn’t afford to renew the contract. She can’t find an apartment and there are long waiting lists for subsidized housing.

I was browsing the Caturday posts for the lolz when this popped up. 🧵1/3

“I charge you to drop every paltry and insignificant thought for any man’s success. It is nothing; I am nothing . . . But do not destroy that immortal emblem of Humanity - the Declaration of American Independence.” —Abraham Lincoln, 1858 Brilliant thread. 👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

🥰 the 8-year-old’s take the tour: “‘It kind of made me feel sad, because Black people really did not deserve that . . . I'm also thankful for the people who helped so today that we can have a good life,’ she said. Malia added that she particularly enjoyed the popsicle break.”

“. . . I see you’re consulting the Parliamentarian . . . I’m thankful that my grandmother saw fit to have her grandson educated.” We are too, Leader Jeffries. We are too.

Martin Hardware is a local treasure. We had a leaky kitchen faucet Saturday and could find no brand name or id# on it. We took the old broken faucet cartridge to MH. The man took one look at it, nodded, walked over to an entire wall of cartridges, and plucked out the exact right one. Awesome!

I love Joanna Newsom’s unusual singing style, her extremes, her fierce, insistent howl, her tender wistfulness. These lines from “Inflammatory Writ” enchant me: While outside, the wild boars root without bending a bough underfoot- O it breaks my heart; I don't know how they do't.

No bottom.

I called Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s Washington office and told the nice staffer who took my call that Republican Senators need to stand up and do the right thing right now. I told him that watching the Noem/Padilla videos left me crying and sick to my stomach. www.thune.senate.gov

“All the news of home you read just gives you the blues . . .”

Poet Gwendolyn Brooks was born June 7, 1917. In “The Second Sermon on the Warpland” she wrote: Big Bessie's feet hurt like nobody's business, but she stands—bigly—under the unruly scrutiny, stands in the wild weed. In the wild weed she is a citizen, and is a moment of highest quality; admirable.

I’ve been grieving because I haven’t heard my wood thrush this spring and I know his numbers have declined 50% since 1966. He’s finally back tonight and I am rejoicing. “Listen how the birds sing in the evening . . . Are they rejoicing, or are they grieving?”

Tomorrow at 2 pm the Preservers of the Daughters of Zion Cemetery will honor the ancestors with laying of flowers on their annual Decoration Day at Charlottesville’s historic African American cemetery located at the corner of Oak and First Street South. daughtersofzioncemetery.org/our-history/

How did they come to such a horrendous decision? I keep praying for Wisdom and Courage to visit every judge in this country because it looks like what little hope we have now depends on the judicial branch.

💡 CIVIL CONTEMPT “a legal debt from the moment it is issued . . . threatens to destroy creditworthiness and supports the seizure or retitling of property to be sold in satisfaction of the judgment. If the marshals won’t do it, courts can appoint an executor who will.” 👀 (GIFT ARTICLE)

Save Our Souls.

“Kempa’s “violin of hope,” as it has come to be called, is the only known instrument actually built inside the camp.”

Rachel Maddow @maddow.msnbc.com Thank you for your good work covering Charlottesville’s troubles this week. The two brave young women standing up to the masked men in the video you showed Friday are now under fire: dailyprogress.com/news/local/c...

How could anyone watch the video of that arrest and not feel enormous respect for those two conscientious and brave young women? Is ICE trying to stir up a hornet’s nest?

Robert Garcia, Hakeem Jeffries, ACLU, thank you. The time has come to cry out. We must all raise our voices to condemn the insane cruelty, the escalating evil, the fiendish maneuvers. bsky.app/profile/madd...

I apologize for posting so much today. I am feeling overwhelmed. I am going to stop now and walk away from the computer. Where is the prize, Bruce? Which way should we look? www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd6J...

This hurts my heart. I’ve seen this word used a lot lately (with good reason) but I’ve got to use it again: This is UNCONSCIONABLE.

Can the Republicans in Congress read? They could stop this. What are they thinking?

“Because the Albemarle County Courthouse is a public building, [Albemarle County Sheriff] Bryant said that the only people who can prohibit entry are the judges within, and no such court order appears to have been produced.” dailyprogress.com/news/local/c...