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Listened to this book and found it very helpful, in case you need grounding and support now bookshop.org/p/books/we-w...

"These are the times to grow our souls. Each of us is called upon to embrace the conviction that despite the powers and principalities bent on commodifying all our human relationships, we have the power within us to create the world anew." --Grace Lee Boggs

Super Bowl viewers Sunday speculated that 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos appeared in the halftime show. In fact, he has been in hiding with his family. “He can’t sleep well at night. He wakes up three or four times a night screaming, ‘Daddy, Daddy,’” Liam's father Adrian Conejo Arias, said.

“We are chastised in moments of democratic advance for wanting too much, for trying to do too many things too fast. It’s usually more the case that we didn’t go far enough to secure these democratic changes.“ @brianjoneseducator.bsky.social

When he gave the Grammy to that young boy who made everyone think of Liam…even if that wasn’t actually Liam, it was just the perfect way of cutting through all the bullshit. Every kid impacted by this administration’s cruelty is another Liam.

That critique of the government extracting resources from PR. The power poles.

WOKE 2 IS HERE

"God Bless America:" then he lists most of the countries in the hemisphere starting with Chile I think? this rules

Wait these mini lecterns at Mayor Mamdani’s press conference are so cute. (Video via Josie Stratman)

I tell someone new about this every few days. Everyone needs to understand that the utility commissioner in Arizona got up there and said "it's not my job to keep you alive" on X. Well, what if it was? That's what the future of the electricity system is. It's public power. It's universal service.

I have a deep aversion to local TV news, but now I am ON it because last year, the power company Arizona Public Service cut off electricity to my mother’s house outside of Phoenix, killing her.

Reading this book now, and it is a respite

“In my profession, I have seen many people break down in grief, but that image of Elizabeth’s father will stay with me forever,” she said. “I watched him sit in his car, bury his head in his hands, and cry uncontrollably. Those are images you do not forget.”

We have a Boston Review Forum out today on the Democratic Party in a time of authoritarianism www.bostonreview.net/forum/how-no...

About activism, June Jordan said, “You do something, rather than nothing… You do whatever you can. You reach beyond yourself in your imagination, and in your wish for understanding, and for change. You admit the limitations of individual perspectives. You trust somebody else. You do not turn away.”

"When in doubt, draw a distinction." Not sure where he got it, but in grad school one of my teachers taught me that. This (long) thread is about the key distinctions I rely on as a critic. There's a Twitter version from 2021. This one builds on that one. I will post them one at a time. Ready?

Thread

“There’s no single answer that will solve all our future problems. There’s no magic bullet. Instead there are thousands of answers—at least. You can be one of them if you choose to be.” ― Octavia E. Butler, A Few Rules for Predicting the Future: An Essay

George Washington University, 1970 student protest against the shootings at Kent State and Jackson State.

If you have a middle grade kid in your life who is trying to understand/process what they see about deportation, I read this with mine and it’s incredibly moving. No happy ending, but people figuring out how to keep going 🧡

Thousands of people filled the streets of downtown Minneapolis in protest of federal immigration enforcement for the second consecutive Friday. 📷️: Aaron Lavinsky

We are many, they are few

Speaking of:

This is a horrendous, racist agency and sending them back to the border just returns the horrors. prospect.org/2026/01/30/b...

The memories of Alex Pretti and Renee Good deserve to be uplifted. So does Keith Porter and all the Black, Latino and Asian people dead at the hands of ICE/CBP. Naomi Bethune writes about these differences in attention. prospect.org/2026/01/30/i...

Everyone knew and seemingly no one important cared, til Dan worked his particular magic and it all changed. longreads.com/2019/06/06/h...

Scrolling through Twitter, finding the ancient texts, discovered a quintessential Dan tweet.

what an immeasurable loss 💔💔💔

A lot of people gathered tonight outside the Department of Veterans Affairs in D.C. for a vigil memorializing Alex Pretti, who worked as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital.

Page after page of DHS agents too ashamed to be pictured doing their job isn’t actually sending the power signal Pam Bondi thinks it is.

"I find myself wondering if I still have a home here in Minnesota, in America, in the world of the people who get to decide who is valuable and who is not, who belongs and who does not, who lives and who dies." - Kao Kalia Yang, one of the best writers in MN and in the rest of the universe

California's proposed wealth tax is a good idea, but a better one is not structuring the market to give the rich all the money in the first place deanbaker22.substack.com/p/all-in-on-...

At the Lowell National Historical Site, workers can no longer show films about the grueling conditions in 19th century mills (which led to historic strikes by the Lowell 'mill girls'). Films are *implicit critiques* of the Gilded Age, of which the boss is a fan www.nytimes.com/2026/01/23/c...

Subscribe to The Prospect if you want more of this impeccable work.

Sesame Street is now offering tips for parents on post-trauma comfort because the federal government is physically and mentally abusing our country's children.

I've been noting that Stephen Miller is significantly (entirely?) responsible for the rules of engagement that keeps leading to experienced goons murdering bystanders. www.emptywheel.net/2026/01/07/t...

Calvary by Marie Howe from her book Magdalene

One thing I found deeply moving about resistance in the Twin Cities was the universalism of loving your neighbor, the philosophy driving the opposition to the ICE/BP invasion. I couldn't help but notice the contrast with the blood and soil-ism of Miller and Vance. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

DIY * @justseeds.bsky.social * docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Stop what you’re doing and read this piece, which is as powerful as you’d expect from @adamserwer.bsky.social witnessing the events of last week on the ground in Minnesota. “The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they’re the ones who are alone.”

Every inch won should lead you to demand more.

FOLKS

seriously

Three free (and very relevant) e-books available from @haymarketbooks.org right now "Unbuild Walls" by @silkys13.bsky.social "Border and Rule" by @harshawalia.bsky.social and my "The Case for Open Borders" www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/525-fr...

Ta-Nehisi Coates: With the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, "Trump has clarified an inconvenient fact—the culture war is an actual war"

Photo by me

The beauty of this is that Guttenfelder is covering these men the way they have always wanted: dripping in tacticool gear, in action, looking down their sites at an enemy which surrounds them. In doing so, he reveals who they are. They imagine themselves heroes; he shows they are villains.

Thank you to the synagogues of Minneapolis for leading us in a beautiful Havdalah service tonight, full of heartbreak & healing & hope. And for the “Summons” to join the 10,000 grandmothers in Aurora Levins Morales poem, calling us all to this moment. ayinpress.org/summons/

God, this is brave