Alabama Legislature is meeting on redistricting; we are under a tornado watch, and it’s flooding in the building. These metaphors are too on the nose.

I do frequently wonder what the average citizen of the U.S. knows about Reconstruction. As Du Bois would later point out, the backlash of lost cause propaganda didn’t just create mass disinformation about the civil war itself, but about the opening for actual democracy that briefly came after it.

Michael Harriot is among the most gifted and insightful writers on US politics. This piece is another example. If you don't follow him, now's your chance.

"When men no longer feel honored" THIS IS THE ATTITUDE OF A FUCKING CHILD.

The urban backyard warbler draft is underway. First round pick this year...Pine Warbler.

Fortunately, we can dial back our fertilizer use in much of the world -- without compromising crop yields or food production. This helps curb N2O emissions *and* lowers water pollution from nitrate runoff. Win-win! Here's more on these solutions: drawdown.org/explorer/imp...

Once-Adventurous Salmon Can’t Believe She Ended Up Moving Back To Birthplace, Having A Bunch Of Kids https://theonion.com/once-adventurous-salmon-can-t-believe-she-ended-up-movi-1825827223/

The Oracle at Delphi told the King Croesus of Lydia that if he invaded Persia he would destroy a great empire. Croesus invaded. Croesus lost battle after battle, with the final loss being the siege of the Lydian capital, Sardis. The King destroyed a empire--his own. So hey--be careful out there!

John Dewey pushed back. He agreed with Lippmann's diagnosis, the world is too complex for individuals to grasp alone. But he rejected the technocratic cure. Democracy couldn't be saved by bypassing the public.

What will happen to the 82 USFS experimental forests around the country? Many sites have decades-long experiments that are tracking how forests are changed by timber harvesting practices and climate change. As I say here, “you can't just pick up an experimental forest site and move it to SLC.”

Just so you understand, this is as if you prepared for argument in front of a panel that included Cookie Monster, and Cookie Monster asked you a question about cookies, and you had not thought about cookies in advance.

I hate to be a downer on a lovely Friday, but I'm following the actuaries. Lloyd’s of London and the international insurance market have withdrawn standard hull and machinery coverage for Hormuz transits. War-risk policies now carry premiums of up to 5 percent of vessel value 1/3

The hacks working furiously to rationalize Trump’s desire to end birthright citizenship serve very much the same function in law that the Discovery Institute does in biology: To create the illusion of a scholarly debate that in fact does not exist.

Good policy can produce good news

When a federal judge (finally) put ICE officers under oath, they admitted that they are given daily detention quotas and rely heavily on a Palantir-supplied AI tool to select targets, without warrants and without enough evidence to obtain one. They simply go into neighborhoods and round people up.

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The spring 2026 Weather101 season kicks off THIS WEEK! 18 topics. 36 online classes. All taught by #NWS mets LIVE! There will be Q&A about each topic at the end and classes run only 1 hour or less. The best part? They are FREE! Get signed up here: weather.gov/ohx/weather101

Well this is freaking cool!

NEW “We’re celebrating a tradition that is at its core about resisting occupation and maintaining community in the face of horrors. You can’t keep politics out of Irish music. No one should try, for two reasons. First, it’s ahistorical. Second, Minnesotans are ready for a big anti-fascist party.”

The judges in WV have seen enough. They say that if the ICE continues detaining people in ways they have unanimously deemed illegal they will start issuing civil fines and contempt findings — including against state officials who help them carry it out. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

We have received numerous credible reports of torture, killing, and inhumane treatment of detained individuals at the Camp East Montana migrant detention facility, located within Fort Bliss. #txlege

BONUS RULING: Judge Thomas Johnston, a George W. Bush appoiintee in West Virginia, used a recent ruling to warn of the dangers of defying due process for immigrants because of what it could also mean for Americans. It's worth a read. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Gramsci once observed "the old is dying and the new struggles to be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear," and I'm not sure there would be any better encapsulation of our society's comorbidities than this headline.

Interviewing a 5-year-old about how they're worried because "bad guys are taking mommies and daddies" is not something I ever thought I'd do.

Reposting w/alt text. Iranians are experiencing collective trauma. Thousands have been killed/injured, the economy is crippled & the threat of a wider conflict is real. It’s especially difficult for those living in Iran, as many have lost (or fear losing) loved ones. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

When the Guinea worm eradication program began in 1986, there were an estimated 3.5 million cases across 21 countries in Africa and Asia.

disturbingly plausible

I don’t want to hear anything from an elected official unless it’s a plan to defund the DHS and impeach Noem, Bovino, etc. No texts. No emails. No talk about the economy. Step up or step off.

Why is Dem leadership not on the ground in MN? If the answer is “polls show Trump’s disapproval is only -15 on deportations, but -25 on prices,” thats a Bad Use Of Polling and a complete failure in their capacity as leaders to lead public opinion and fight for democracy and the rule of law

I don’t think a state that is threatening wars of territorial aggression and has random death squads wandering about its mid-tier cities assassinating civilians should be hosting the World Cup

Eastern European here. My entire childhood is filled with stories of abductions, torture and murder - from terror campaigns under Soviet rule and the Nazi regime before then. This kind of violence and suppression is exactly what we all hoped to be free of.

The responses here to Asha's request are truly sobering, & worth reading and contemplating.

The main thing an authoritarian government has to fear is a loss of power that could one day make them answer for their actions. So we can expect ICE’s tactics will only get more extreme.

Something folks can do in the coming weeks is to organize Ice Watch Training in your communities. There's an excellent resource that can help you to do this: docs.google.com/document/d/1... - Get five people together in person or virtually and get skilled up together.

I’m a sexual violence researcher. And one of the main threads in abuse research is that normalization is crucial for long-term, sustainable violence. It’s the only thing that gives the appearance of legitimacy. (Because violence is actually an illegitimate and unstable way to seek power.)

What can history teach us about what happens when a populist strongman with an idiosyncratic taste for low interest rates undermines central bank independence?

The scale of the protests in Iran are absolutely unbelievable. Hard to quantify, but I've seen some speculation that this uprising is more significant than the 2023 protests (themselves the largest challenge to the regime since it came into power in '79.) (Video from @AmirMiresmaeili on Twitter)

We've removed the paywall from this guide so everyone can access it. 👇 Stay safe.

I feel like I haven’t even been properly lied to about the purposes of this war

Indigenous and rural communities in Ecuador’s Amazon condemned a ruling ordering Ecuador to pay $220M+ to Chevron over the historic Texaco pollution case. Groups say it forces the public to compensate a company responsible for massive environmental harm.

via The New Yorker, Ellis Rosen cartoon

Per NY Times’s Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her “60 Minutes” colleagues in full:

The only way to get back on track to the Paris Accords — which aims to limit global warming to 1.5 to 2.0 C — is to pull the “Emergency Brake” climate solutions. Towards the top of the list is curbing methane emissions as quickly as possible. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Some perspectives from our community on what NCAR means to weather and climate researchers: "NCAR is quite literally our global mothership" @katharinehayhoe.com "I came to the US over 10 years ago for a postdoc at NCAR. It changed my life..." @climateflavors.bsky.social #SaveNCAR

Some autumn smoky gold is good for the soul.

this rocks. when indiana edu killed the student newspaper, Purdue stepped up, printed the forbidden issue, drove it to Bloomington and stocked the boxes.