I got the BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT, you guys. The very best. I love those crunchy tinned butter cookies that you hope aren't sewing supplies, but my gluten sensitivity and PCOS does not. ChocZero makes a gluten free keto version! In a blue tin and everything!

There’s a betting market on whether JD Vance will be excommunicated from the Catholic Church during Trump’s term.

Putin, again dressed in military uniform, said he plans to continue the war because “the heads of the Ukraine regime are not in a hurry to solve this conflict with peaceful means."

This dramatically enhanced pressure on Europe/Denmark and the new outrageous sanctions on info researchers coming at a time when Putin is escalating his physical attacks on Ukraine suggests that the US is now *coordinating* with Russia to weaken Europe and Ukraine. bsky.app/profile/donm...

Can't believe I have to say this, but it's 2025 still and apparently this is how this year has gone: IF YOU HAVE MEASLES PLEASE DON'T GET ON A PLANE. patch.com/new-jersey/n...

🇨🇦 🇺🇦Canada will provide Ukraine 2.5 billion Canadian dollars - funds intended to unlock financing from the IMF, World Bank, and EBRD to begin the reconstruction process. This was announced by Prime Minister Carney. He also condemned Russia’s overnight attack on Kyiv. Thank you Canada ❤️

So not a meeting. A spectacle.

That’s where the culture wars come in handy. Distract people with fear so that they tolerate the money grab from tax policies that favor the wealthy and deregulation of consumer protections.

Me too. Finns had picnics overlooking the ship and went to wave goodbye when it left… it was live-streamed… Good old times 3 years ago

I don't think most Americans have any idea how dangerous it is for a president to declare an entire ethnic group to be "garbage." This is how the worst atrocities in human history have begun.

They’re not sending their best.

Until Trump began conspiracies about mail voting, Republicans were fully on board with GRACE PERIODS for ballots to arrive as long as postmarked by Election Day. They passed it overwhelmingly in KS, OH, & elsewhere. But now Trump hates it. So 4 red states—KS, OH, ND, UT—all banned it this year.

Seems there is yet another app using the ICEBlock logo and charging people for access. It’s called ICEBlocker and it is not us. DO NOT DOWNLOAD or pay. Best we can tell is it’s Russian. We would never ask for money.

Shattered Trust open.substack.com/pub/steadyst... "It’s true...that Trump has achieved a historic national security turnaround, and oh-so-quickly. The problem...is that the factual record shows that Trump has shattered, not restored, the world’s trust in America’s essential decency."

I think this is called a robbery.

*nudge* this is a really bad week and January could be horrible. Thanks to all my readers, more writing soon!

People like this can’t be reintegrated into society and need to be identified, isolated, punished, and ostracized.

unironically a good idea

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Today's blocked LinkedIn users (6) think we should "move on" from the Epstein files & "refocus on what's important" call me kooky but I think the ruling oligarchy being comprised of rapists & pedophilia & the structures that sustain their power is a crucial foundation to restoring a democracy

shel silverstein was a prophet

"we're trying to shut down science that produces results we don't like, it's a very worrisome trend. And we have seen this other times in history, and it never really ended well."

From the NYT today, 2 charts on the brokenness of American politics:

My column this week. Tommy Tuberville has repeatedly shown contempt for vast swathes of the state he wants to govern. And Alabama voters can’t dismiss his recent threats against Muslims as performative. Making him governor will allow him to harass innocent people over the way they worship God.

Scientific American @sciam.bsky.social articles in the December and January issues: Here are people doing cool science that will cure disease or help us understand the natural world. It is being defunded by the Trump administration.

U.S. measles cases hit a 30-year high, according to CDC data.

NEW: Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov reiterated that the Kremlin will not sign any peace agreements to end the war in Ukraine “right now.” 🧵(1/12) Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December 26, 2025: isw.pub/UkrWar122625

Trump will push crime as an election issue in 2026. Read about what the most recent statistics *actually* show & the gap between reported patterns & perceptions. In a truth-free presidency, knowing the facts matters more than ever. open.substack.com/pub/joycevan... open.substack.com/pub/joycevan...

“We live during a time where all the institutions and corporations I worked for—or leaders I looked up to—they caved or remained silent, so we are now finding hope in everyday people…” www.thebulwark.com/p/defiance-i...

Lily pads in Apalachicola forest #bwfri #coloraday #scape #forestfriday #eastcoastkin

“Donald Trump’s top 25 lies of 2025” by Daniel Dale www.cnn.com/2025/12/27/p...

Kennedy Center threatens musician with lawsuit over Trump name protest

The only way Russia can win in Ukraine is if they destroy the will of the population to live or defend. This is why it deploys millions of bots and thousands of propagandists across every nation and language. They lie to create despair, disillusionment, and turn populations against Ukraine.

"Jabo is not known for terrorist activity and that local Christians coexist peacefully with the Muslim majority" edition.cnn.com/2025/12/26/a...

Russia is preparing an information attack against Ukraine's future elections, Zelenskyy said. Intelligence reports Russia is promoting the idea of voting for Ukrainians in Russia and occupied territories to later claim the elections are "illegitimate."

Ukraine is not somewhere far away. It is here,nearby,in Europe The war continues.Russia is terrorizing peaceful cities in Europe. #Kyiv is a multi-million city. About 4-5 million people live here, including internally displaced persons.Together with the suburbs, the population is around 7 million⤵️

The New Deal and Civil Rights - two pillars of American society that I grew up with. Our national moral code that defined where we were always headed, even if we disagreed on how to get there. No more.

Are we really surprised that they are threatening to sue? That is, after all, Trump’s modus operandi. No performer with any self respect is going to appear here.

I wanna a continuously updated list of all that Trump has named after himself. And I want it to be called the Turkmenbashi Tracker. www.theguardian.com/world/2006/d...

An engineering student has reverse-engineered the Tesla Robotaxi app to track the service's availability. The tracker details 32 Tesla Model Ys used in the Robotaxi network in Austin, which is far from Musk's earlier claims of having 1000 Robotaxis in Austin.

Great points in this thread: We don't usually think of 1965 immigration act as on par w/New Deal and Civil Rights, but it was a major liberal achievement and Miller's real project is to undo it. As @larryglickman.bsky.social says this connects w/goal of undoing other great 20th century achievements:

And I'm going to have to keep passing the tip jar, linked in this post, because we're getting to the end of the year and January will be a disaster if we don't catch up. Bills, municipal taxes, the works. Thank you to all my readers, more writing soon! www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

Immigration and Customs Enforcement was created in 2003, but if it had existed in the 1920s they wouldn’t have left Italians alone. Dino may well have come home from elementary school one day to find the house had been raided.. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

She named the first one a pretty name she loved that began with S, not thinking about the fact that she was Suzanne and her husband was Stephen. That was when everybody started calling them “the S family..." www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

To believe in the Incarnation is to believe that the God Who created all things descended to be part of creation. That Someone Who is beyond time, descended to be a person who lived in a certain time. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

I’m not asking if confession is really a sacrament. I’m asking what confession would look like, if priests were who they ought to be. In fact, I’d like to know what the Church would look like, if everyone in it was who we ought to be. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

I wanted to somehow be alive and conscious and not suffering, in space, unhampered by a clumsy astronaut’s suit, swimming among the stars. I longed to walk around on Mars with a good winter coat and smell the air to see if it smelled like rust. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

"Christ has gotten us the victory, Alleluia! Jericho must fall!” and we’d all raise our hands and feel the spirit. Not the Holy Spirit, it turns out, but some spirit that was fun to feel. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...

There are four women named in Matthew’s genealogy of Christ, and they are all a certain kind of woman. The women mentioned in this genealogy are all women who did something scandalous, or had something scandalous done to them. www.patheos.com/blogs/steelm...