Mary did you know? That God fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty? Mary knew that. Do we? (Art by @benwildflower.com)

So today a local business leader informed one of our clergy that he wanted them to stop being so political. “You have stuff like ‘respect the dignity of every human being’ up on your website. That’s over the line” he said. I hate this timeline so much.

Bear fruit worthy of repentance. What fruit? This sounds complex and out of this world! No. It is quite simple. The fruit of repentance is humble respect for others, it is compassion that gives up on being self-interested & takes up interest in others. ⚓ drewkadel.wordpress.com/2025/12/02/f...

Fruit Worthy of Repentance A sermon for the second Sunday of Advent, December 7, 2025 St. John's Episcopal Church, New City, New York “You brood of vipers! Who told you to flee the wrath to come?” I love John the Baptist. Not because of his haircut and wardrobe. He was known as a prophet, and…

If a Pete Hegseth looking and talking guy showed up at my church and asked to work with youth I would call the police

when Michael Phelps was dominating US swimming there was endless coverage of all his genetic advantages. His wingspan, the way his body processed lactic acid, on and on and on. Nobody, not one person, floated the idea of kicking him out of the sport for genetic advantages

Trump Administration Fires 8 Immigration Judges in New York With tens of thousands of people in immigration detention, Trump has fired about 15% of the nation’s immigration judges. It appears they were fired for being “too lenient” i.e. exercising discretion in granting relief from deportation.

TPUSA have been at this long enough that the default assumption of their involvement in literally anything that has to do with college campuses should be an assumption of bad faith based on a long and well-documented history of bad faith actions

All other things aside, I can't really imagine Trump undergoing the time and inconvenience (and NOISE!) of an MRI, just because they'll do it. I've had MRIs & each was about a specific diagnostic concern, not "preventative."

This year has made it so blindingly obvious that news medias "the presidency is too important to be left in the hands of an elderly elected official" crusade wasnt about any sort of actual merits and was instead entirely about aesthetics and furthering personal vendettas

"If you believe a Palestinian child is equal in dignity and worth to an Israeli or American child, it is no longer possible to support this Israeli government while hiding behind platitudes about peace." www.nytimes.com/2025/12/01/o...

I named my fists Common and Sense because I'm about to bring the Paine

“And, as it also turns out, much of the reality-based press is doing a poor job of even acknowledging that they have a role in saving democracy, much less doing anything about it.” @sulliview.bsky.social brings the receipts. open.substack.com/pub/margaret...

It’s really fun to be a historian. We are fun at parties. We will absolutely not ruin your traditions by explaining the history of them.

Possibly because I was growing up Jewish only ~30 years after the Holocaust, but the evil of “scapegoating” was hammered into me repeatedly. I rarely see the term used, but it’s exactly what Trump, Miller, Noem and the right wing at large do, explicitly, and it should be forcefully condemned.

I don't think that anyone will have enough time to put up a lettuce cam, let alone for Kash to outlast Liz Truss from this point. (He'd better not take any boat trips in the southern Caribbean right now)

Thinking about all the teens over the decades attending “leadership” trainings where it turned out that “leadership” meant “behaving in ways adults approved of,” and maybe that’s one thread of how we got here.

This thread is 💯. Labor precarity in academia means the evisceration of faculty governance and academic freedom, opening the door to administrative purges of the most vulnerable. And faculty-esp tenured faculty and academic leaders-who aren't defending their trans colleagues are enabling it.

Saw one mention of this yesterday, but it really ought to be getting more attention. The Trump regime is hiding the numbers on GDP, jobs, and inflation. And blaming the Democratic Party, of course. h/t @wonkette.bsky.social Tabs newrepublic.com/post/203619/...

The fact that 12% of federal judges are Black shows the corruption of DEI. The fact that 67% of Supreme Court Justices belong to a small legal cult called the Federalist Society shows the power of meritocracy.

They demonstrated pretty conclusively that they understand how to cover pardons as if they are huge scandals when they ran multiple days of banner headlines and scolding op-eds and follow ups when Biden pardoned Hunter exactly one year ago. They just choose not to for trump because they like him

Them: You know the Olympic torch relay just began. Me: Yeah, the flame is ancient but the relay itself was invented by Hitler to connect Ancient Greece to Germany for the Berlin Olympics Them: Always a ray of sunshine <laughs> Me: <sends link to my article> www.forbes.com/sites/drsara...

conservatives basically want to implement the caricature of affirmative action for conservative students. acceptance without meeting qualifications, good grades and degrees without having to do the work.

Pope to bishops, priests, consecrated religious and pastoral workers in Lebanon: “The fragrance of Christ is not an expensive product reserved for a chosen few, but the aroma wafting from an abundant table laden with different courses, where all are called to partake.” www.vatican.va/content/leo-...

And this is so obnoxious because actual-politics is kind of a fucking layup right now. Your opponents are running a historically corrupt government. Be anti-corruption. Run on fixing the shit they broke, holding assholes accountable, and improving people’s lives. Duh.

Turns out personalist rule is geopolitically erratic and consequential! It’s much easier to find a Wilhelm II than a Napoleon. open.substack.com/pub/deadcarl...

"Pete Hagueseth" Didn't notice that the first two times I saw it.

That's me. I'm acataleptic.

The diehards are starting to decide after much prayerful consideration with their beautiful brides that being in the minority next year sounds like a shit sandwich.

Someone tell him if he backs down from this threat he can count it as another war he ended

Like 30% of the country is absolutely enraged because they thought they were going to be able to be utter shitbirds without anyone being allowed to call them shitbirds, but here we are, calling them shitbirds.

Old man cardigans are the best thing ever. I shamelessly wear mine all the time during the winter.

Right. This is normally a prelude to imminent war. But no one knows if the us president is serious or had a bad breakfast or is making an insane joke or had a stroke or whatever.

My reach on socials doesn't = Ryan's, but I feel need to continue drumbeat. THESE WERE ALREADY ILLEGAL strikes. The doubletap makes it MORE OBVIOUS, not MORE ILLEGAL. (ok. it's a bit more illegal; since it opens a whole new category of illegal). (we tried people at Nuremburg for crimes like this).

Yes, the inventive bullshitters and mansplainers out there can talk about air drops blah blah blah. But what comes out has to be more valuable than what it costs to produce it. 4/4

This is genuinely big news. Shldnt be but is. Republicans are challenging Trump now because he seems weak. No one wantst to back a weak horse. Trump looks like the weak horse.

When an Indiana Republican calls redistricting “the president trying to save his own skin ..” 👀 @dailyjournal.bsky.social dailyjournal.net/2025/11/26/s...

“why the fuck are we invading Venezuela” should really be on at least a couple of chyrons

I’m not crying, you’re crying. www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news...

I hope it’s now (even more) obvious that having military in our streets, with instructions to ignore “stupid rules of engagement,” is not in any way intended to protect us or make us safer

Like The Mueller Report was a real and damning thing and the entire press allowed Trump to just say “Russia Russia Russia” like Beetlejuice and make it go away. The foreign interference in the election was clearly laid out whether or not it met the bar of outright collusion.

The Trump administration’s decision to apply pressure to the most amoral cowardly members of American society, big law firm partners and college administrators, is paying big dividends.

Courage in the streets. Capitulation among the elites.

BREAKING: Northwestern University

Harvard Law School’s Jack Goldsmith: “In short, if the Post’s facts are correct, it appears that Special Operations Forces committed murder when the ‘two men were blown apart in the water, as the Post put it.’” open.substack.com/pub/executiv...

Worth watching this whole clip. Indistinguishable from Nazi leaders talking about Jews in the 1930s.

the fact that dealing with rampant lying and its much worse downstream consequences involves cultivating values rather than just imposing formal frameworks or rules (legal or otherwise) is a tough pill to swallow for some. but it is indeed medicine

This morning I am envisioning a kinder and happier world 💛 💜

The reality, of course, is that Miller and a significant portion of Trump’s base are the ones who failed to assimilate to America’s post-WWII culture of multi-racial democracy & religious pluralism…and they are now using their power to destroy that once dominant (and still popular) American culture.

An American Jew pushing a fun house mirror of Hitler’s mythical Aryanism all the way to the White House is a twist too sick for even Philip Roth.