A lot more than will ever admit it!

Historian of medicine here. Yes. Yes, they did.

i wasn’t sure if they did this because she’s female or brown or progressive and then i realized the answer is “yes”

I don’t know who needs to hear Jesse Jackson leading the kids on Sesame Street in this beautiful call-and-response reminding them that every child is somebody, but here it is

RIP Rev. Jesse Jackson.

If you think harassing library workers is a good use of your time in this all-too-brief life, then I genuinely feel sorry for you. I'd also invite you to fuck off because we have enough to do without your nonsense.

During a new moon in Aquarius during an Aquarius month, and an eclipse? It's beyond spooky - it's transformational. Set your intentions carefully.

How about no one talks about whether they would or wouldn't vote for Newsom at all and no one asks people if they would or wouldn't vote for Newsom at all and we talk about what we DO want in a next Democratic nominee and work to get it?

So last year, school picture day was on Rosh Hashanah. Apparently this year, it is Worcester Pride. Folks I just don't understand if you are planning an event in September or October just check the calendar for high holidays. If you're planning a major event check for conflicting holidays in general

Excellent piece by Luke O'Neil. The only note I have is one thing not mentioned by Etel Haxhiaj: the community responded quickly because ICE had been quietly disappearing ppl here for months before this incident.

I am Graham Platner's age. I too was in the post 9/11 military. I also grew up in a small town in the Northeast US. I am also a college dropout with PTSD. And I am telling you: anyone from my demographic who had a Nazi tattoo for 15 years is either a Nazi or too dumb to be an effective US senator.

What’s so weird about men in power is how when they face scandal and should step down the world acts like no one else can do their jobs. Bottstein, Wasserman, these aren’t irreplaceable men! Stop with this delusion.

The Northwestern DA’s office successfully convicted Etel Haxhiaj, a rapid responder to a Worcester ICE raid, of assault on a police officer. Haxhiaj declined a plea offer that would have required her to sign an apology letter. “I chose the truth,” she said. @billshaner.bsky.social reports:

Y’all need to read this

WPD’s position is they don’t collaborate with ICE. 👇

But tell us again that voter suppression has nothing to do with race. NB: I get that the intertwining of partisan electoral politics and race is a complex subject, except it's really not. The end goal is always to keep rich 🐻‍❄️ men in power.

The company is facing a lawsuit from three detainees who allege guards beat and sexually assaulted them, then covered it up. Never forget who is profiting from this cruelty. https://prospect.org/2026/02/12/ice-immigration-prison-geo-group-trump/

Our children deserve better than school committee members who can't be bothered to treat parents and students with the barest modicum of respect.

I need folks to understand this. The idea that local police forces will intervene at scale against ICE is a utopian fantasy totally disconnected from how policing has always worked

For local elected officials who are trying to understand how this trial connects to the national issues- this statement from the Trump administration makes it pretty clear that they know the actions of the WPD and silence of city leaders aids their work.

i think nominating Gavin Newsom will lose the White House again for Democrats. The party's left flank will stay home again because he's an empty corporate shell. The age of Democrats punching left to appeal to the center is over and it's now a matter of if the party as a whole realizes that or not.

If a law-enforcement agency does not adhere to the law, then it ceases to be a law-enforcement agency, right?

The DHS assistant secretary has apparently forgotten that the woman they were attempting to abduct was legally present, not a criminal, and not violent. In fact, that characterization was based on lies DHS inserted into their own public statement, released days before WPD addressed the issue.

This bill mirrors the federal attempts to eliminate the Community Eligibility Provision, which allows schools to provide school meals for all based on the % of students who qualify for SNAP. CEP cuts costly, time consuming red tape, allowing school nutrition offices to focus on feeding kids.

This is the way. When they come at us, we come back at them twofold. Raise that Pride flag every time they take it down. If they prevent that, surround the park with Pride flags. Ruin their petty little lives until they shit rainbows. Never stop. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/n...

Not a single police officer was assaulted on Eureka St Meanwhile, the police collaborated with fascist scum to abduct people and used a child as bait to do so And now we've got this precedent that only aids in collaborator 'peacekeeping'

@etelhaxhiaj.bsky.social is the conscience of a community. She has been vilified and targeted and ultimately failed by this city, but she remains committed to justice, not for herself, but for our black and brown and homeless and trans neighbors. She is the best of us.

Giving community college dropout instagram influencers the power of government and a few billion dollars each, what could possibly go wrong

This administration is a joke. The effects of their actions, though, are no laughing matter.

These court and Congressional wins feel good, but will they be enforced - and by whom?

I've watched other city councilors, including and especially the mayor, use that condescending tone when speaking to Etel on the Council floor, but this take by the ADA was next level. They should all be taking lessons in effective leadership and true community service from Etel.

Couple this with news that the administration is buying up vacant warehouses around the country - enough to house hundreds of thousands of people - ostensibly to temporarily house detainees. Who do you think will be filling those?

You know what chatbots are great for? We can now retroactively have blog posts that no person ever actually wrote, about problems that were solved prior to 2023. And you know what? That's not nothing. But also ... don't fire all the bloggers (and journalists, and comms people ...). 7/?

HEGSETH GAVE THE GUYS SHOOTING CITIZENS IN THE STREET AND BREAKING DOWN DOORS AN ANTI-AIRCRAFT LASER. Sorry for shouting I just can’t hear my thoughts over the ringing in my ears.

This. The media's myopic focus on one big story in one location obscures the fact that all of this is probably happening in a city near you. If you're feeling hopeless, find your people.

Good breakdown of the trial and some of the inconsistencies that Worcester residents deserve answers for.

Huge thanks to @andrewqmr.bsky.social for his detailed live blogging over the past few days.

"We will always choose love."

Worth noting that by the admission of multiple officers on the stand, the duty that they were there doing was one the city has expressly prohibited them from doing.

The real kicker is that had McGuirk done that, the outcome might have been substantially different. But she could never.

Is there anyone in the community who makes more positive contributions than Etel?

To be clear, THIS is the "assault and battery" standard Gagne laid out for the jurors in his closing. The judge sentenced her to 6 months probation and 40 hours community service for allegedly touching McGuirk on the shoulder.

How the FUCK. Etel is the only public employee who was assaulted.

This is an absolutely ludicrous outcome. The burden of proof was absolutely not met. And it's exactly the kind of dangerous signal of impunity that they were hoping to send.

As @billshaner.bsky.social writes, this city punishes you for caring, and few people have been punished more than @etelhaxhiaj.bsky.social . Make no mistake, it's to send a message to the rest of us that make their callousness clear with our caring. I, for one, am not going to stop.

If your de-escalation training actually took, you would have stopped and listened to the response, then stepped back to give Etel time and room to calm the teenager and walk her away from the van.

Read that again: The lawyer commends the officer for violently throwing a teen girl, who had just watched her mother stolen by ICE, to the ground and arresting her. What a system.

Gagne's closing argument starts here. Apparently, he's going with the "all sensible people agree" framing, tacitly reading the jurors into the elevated circle of "sensible people".

@etelhaxhiaj.bsky.social never said she was above the law. She said she didn't assault anyone.