Happy New Years Eve sisters and brothers. A bit of Rainer Maria Rilke: "And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been." Wishing you each more light and love, and may the endings of 2025 highlight for each of us that new beginnings are ahead.

"They believed Ukraine was on the verge of failing. The fact that empirical evidence indicated the opposite didn’t bother them; if anything, they seemed to think they should help Ukraine fail faster to get it over with.” www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/12/30/world/europe/ukraine-war-us-russia.html

Internal documents and former company executives revealed how Cigna doctors rejected patients’ claims without opening their files. “We literally click and submit,” one former company doctor said. (Published March 2023 w/ @capitolforum.bsky.social)

One of the unacknowledged advantages of this awful era is that it's revealing for all to see the putrid connections between great wealth and great power. The intentions of the oligarchs are fully exposed and more blatant than ever. But remember: We outnumber the oligarchs.

Democratic candidate Renee Hardman has won her Iowa State Senate race thus effectively blocking fascist republicans from obtaining a supermajority. Another win for democracy. 💙👊

A federal judge has ordered the fascist MAGA regime to continue funding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or risk violating an order. Another huge loss for the criminally corrupt gang of crooks.

He was supposed to serve 10 years and pay $36 million in restitution for defrauding investors. Never served a day. Not Somali.

How much time does it take a corrupt DoJ to redact Trump's name from 5.2 million pages of Epstein documents? www.nytimes.com/2025/12/30/u...

December 30, 2025

The last five decades have been marked by an explosion in wealth inequality and a growing distrust of America’s institutions. Many Americans believe that the system as a whole is rigged against them. They're right.

Not Somali.

I am writing about how useless Big Law has become in the fight for democracy and I came across this from 2021. It was bullshit then -- the SWAT teams never existed. But it's notable that firms like Paul Weiss felt the need to act like they cared. Now, they don't even need to pretend.

The unfounded idea that chlorine dioxide can be a miracle cure began to spread about 20 years ago when a gold prospector wrote a book claiming his team in Guyana fell ill with malaria and recovered after drinking safe amounts of chlorine dioxide.

"Belief in a cruel god makes a cruel man." Thomas Paine

BOSTON (AP) — Environmental journalist Tatiana Schlossberg, granddaughter of late President John F. Kennedy, has died, family says.

probably not a great sign that Trump's assistant AG for civil rights uses a slur for people with disabilities

In less than 48 hours, the health care tax credits expire. We will keep fighting to lower health care costs, but Republicans in Congress have blocked every attempt to extend these credits, which means health insurance premiums will double for tens of millions of Americans.

Glad she’s fighting back but it’s still ridiculous that she’s in this situation at all. Universities can’t give a heckler’s veto to its dumbest and laziest students.

Other outlets will offer criticism of the most reckless, destructive Supreme Court in American history, but the bootlickers at the Bari Weiss News Network say it’s the critics who are dangerous

How the Washington Post began the year. How Democracy Docket is ending it. Support independent media. hubs.ly/Q03CbHTt0

Project Esther is the GOP plan to silence and criminalize political dissent and criticism of TACO and Israel. It is diabolical and already at work. The sheer amount of damage that is happening to American democracy is causing me to just dread 2026.

@normeisen.bsky.social Can we sue for breach of service?

Perhaps the Trump Kennedy Center can book a troupe of 79 year old men interpretive dancing to the Village People. That’ll get the butts in the marble armrested seats.

The “fun” thing about the kennedy center freakout is that conservatives have been carving out “creative” exceptions to anti discrimination laws so they can be bigots to ordinary people just trying to make a purchase, but if actual artists don’t want to perform for the god king they must be punished

I needed to see something good right now. ❤️ Maybe you do too.

NEW: Stories by Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica identified bottlenecks that have stalled green energy projects in Oregon. The governor aims to accelerate efforts through a series of mandates. Here's where they stand.

5 yrs ago next Tuesday, an American president who lost an election but refused to accept the loss incited a violent attempt to overthrow the election. Instead of being treated like a pariah, that president was actually voted back into the White House, a much bigger condemnation of us than him.

Bill Barr had the reporter who broke the Epstein story surveilled. Nothing to see here, folks.

Thank you to all the performers who are canceling their events at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Millions of workers are toiling away from their families over the holidays. So thank the workers who serve you. Appreciate the workers who care for you. Respect the workers who pick up your trash. Salute the workers who get you your mail. Pay all workers a living wage.

December 29, 2025

Trump has made the Kennedy Center into the moral equivalent of playing Sun City during apartheid.

Please consider posting our boycott guide on here and other platforms. I’m only on here and substack for mass posting so posting on other major platforms helps us get it to fresh eyes.

Truth.

My weekly email to my congressman…I got a little ragey at the end.

It appears the whole Putin “Ukraine tried to kill me with 91 drones last night” was entirely made up. And of course Trump repeated it and said he was mad at Ukraine. Nightly Russia launched drones and missiles at innocent people. And tried to Kill Zelensky every day Spare me the gaslight

This is the 7th person whose sentence was commuted by Trump that has been rearrested on new charges. And don't pretend Trump cares about fraud in MN. This guy bilked over a $1 billion and Trump let him go.

If Marjorie Taylor Greene *really* cared about the Epstein victims, she would read the names of the perpetrators on the House floor (where she would have immunity) before she leaves office.

Trump will believe any lie if he wants it to be true.

Both hands are now rotting

When and if sane and honest people ever again control the U.S. government, one of the first things they should do is enact a tax on large accumulations of wealth. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/if-the-market-were-working-well-we

It's a good commentary on 2025 that the US President announces a major military attack on a foreign country and even the straightest arrows think, 50% chance it's an attack, 50% chance president is on another cognition bender.

👀

Trump and his billionaire buddies running this country are hoping that the rest of us will just give up and quit fighting. But our country, our chance to build a future for our kids and grandkids is too precious. We stay in the fight because it's a righteous one.

"Trump will live forever, but only as a cautionary tale, one we tell successive generations to demonstrate that sustaining a democracy against the corrupt and the malevolent requires vigilance and determination." — @paulwaldman.bsky.social

If people admire you, they put your name on buildings. If you have to do it yourself, well… that’s different.

I want you to meet some of the residents of the farm sanctuary where I work. It is a wonderful place and we have a really important opportunity right now to raise $25,000! donorbox.org/end-of-year-...

This is not how a normal Justice Department talks about an ongoing investigation—or about putative targets and their uncharged conduct.

Trump’s Takeover of Education Is Taking A Page From the Confederacy talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-e...