A loving tribute to Chris Whitley. One of the greatest. www.washingtonpost.com/entertainmen...

The military has a duty to refuse unlawful orders, but Congress has a duty to remove from office a president and secretary who would issue such orders. There is something off about members of Congress talking about the former while refusing to say the latter, the part that's actually their job here.

Trump has murdered at least 83 people with extrajudicial military strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats. He needs to face consequences for this. His secretary of DHHS, RFK Jr., will kill several orders of magnitude more with this disinformation.

Earning $7.25 an hour while billionaires exist? Problematic wage gap

Welch the enabler. Again. He sucks and i hope someone is yelling at him during the virtual town hall tonight.

An interesting tidbit in the joint status report filed in the Broadview ICE facility case today: ICE says video from inside the facility "between October 19, 2025, and October 31, 2025, has been irretrievably destroyed" and can't be produced in discovery. www.courtlistener.com/docket/71832...

Jenn Budd/Bordeland

do we just have to plainly state the horrifying fucking thing so men understand the incredibly obvious why

Most of these jerkoffs (D&R alike) are so out of touch - do they have any sense of the huge, life-altering decisions those of us getting pushed off the ACA cliff have to make? Decisions that can’t be made in one day or easily reversed once made. Their Dec31 deadline is too late. Our deadline is now.

Despite the fact that most of us have dreams every night, and there are excellent portrayals of all kinds of weird things in tv & film, I have never seen a representation of a dream that is anything like my actual dreams. I think it’s fascinating that it’s nearly impossible to imitate dreams.

The thing to watch out for here is that appropriations and spending bills have been the most surefire way to get fascist laws passed with bipartisan support. The general idea is that spending for certain things is too important, so part of the compromise has to be other people's rights.

Collaborating on a document with someone you can’t trust with version control really sucks.

Imagine coming off an incredible Election Day mandate from coast to coast and going 'you know what voters want? to be completely sold out by a bunch of craven cowards too pathetic to hold the line against a bunch of fucking weirdos'

In banner on this USDA webpage it says, “Due to the Radical Left Democrat shutdown, this website will not be updated during the funding lapse. President Trump has made it clear he wants to keep the government open and support those who feed, fuel, and clothe the American people.”

This is horrid, unacceptable treatment regardless of someone’s citizenship status. It’s getting under my skin to see distinctions being made in these kidnap and detention situations between US citizens and non-citizens.

"Build A Ballroom"

In total, we estimate the Administration’s plan will result in only about $3 billion in total #SNAP benefits issued, about 2/3rds of the $4.65 billion they say is available for benefits after state administrative costs & nutrition assistance for Puerto Rico. Let’s look at the #s.

Mamdani had pretty much every major media org and all the big money people in American politics trying everything to beat him and they all ate shit tonight. One of the biggest fuck you's ever to the powers that be.

Re-upping the dedication of Mahmood Mamdani's 2020 book, 'Neither Settler nor Native'.

very quietly: i love the fall time change

@charlesgaba.com Vermont ACA marketplace example. Premium increasing more than 400%

Bronze plan, 2 people with a $10k deductible per person. Premium now: $450/month. Premium 2026: $1900/month. So we’d pay $23k for the annual covered basics, then another $20k before coverage kicks in. This is the second least expensive option available. Just completely untenable. Not happening.

I voted in 2024, but I'll be honest. If Kamala Harris had won, I wouldn't be at brunch. I wouldn't put that on a protest sign, even as a joke. I also won't attack other progressives who say they won't vote for Newsom. www.the-sentinel-intelligence.net/if-kamala-ha...

At a special meeting of the VT Emergency Board today, $6.3 million in state funding was approved to replace 50% of Nov’s SNAP benefit for Vermonters. There is technical work to be done now; DCF hopes to make the benefit available by Nov7. VEB will reconvene Nov13 if shutdown continues #SNAP #vtpoli

D Secretaries of State control 278 Electoral College Votes. Not that they should all say this now but they should hint at the fact that the constitution is clear & they won’t put Trump on the ballot in 28. If the GOP wants to nominate him that’s their choice but he has no path to a win so have at it

Someone get Jim McGovern a dictionary, stat! (From Punchbowl)

The Trump Administration’s assertion that it can't use SNAP’s contingency reserves for SNAP benefits is contrary to: ▪️The plain language of the law ▪️Their own (now deleted) shutdown plan ▪️Guidance from prior Administrations We have the receipts:

The plagiarism machine that’s mostly wrong and consumes lakes would like you to get a low flow toilet

$27,000. The average cost per person for the National Health Service (NHS) in England in 2022-23 was £3,300 and it costs that person nothing if they need care while we spend thousands on top of insurance to get care, and that’s only if the insurance company doesn’t deny you. What are we even doing?

Vermont Sen Peter Welch doing his best to support the shit bomb administration once again.

Hi. I wrote an essay about AI slop: How it feels like an invasive species for the internet. How its boosters describe building a future that’s devoid of craft. How frictionlessness can be nihilistic & how this stuff seems to leach part of our shared humanity out of the world. I hope you'll read it.

I might go so far as to say Wikipedia is the single most important website on today’s internet. Maybe the internet in general. It is a necessary resource and we need to do all we can to support it.

I feel like I shouldn’t care about this. Buildings can be restored. No one has died. And yet the metaphor is so blunt it has physical force.

We need to wake up.

I’m sorry but this is clown shit. No Kings protests are fine, but if going to a protest and waving your ‘resist’ sign for a few hours on a saturday is worthy of memorializing for future generations as your stand against fascism, i really think you’ve missed the bus.

"is everything breaking down at the micro and macro levels or am I so stressed out about the macro levels that I am messing up the micro levels on a subconscious level so that they may become targets for my displaced stress" An autobiography

The destruction of knowledge and fact based reality is the underpinning framework for atrocities we truly have no ability to conceive of.

I kind of get the dustup over that vile little troll claiming “plenary power” but honestly, they are already behaving as if this is true and there is not a whole lot happening to show they’re wrong, especially in the case of their DHS/ICE activities and blowing up Venezuelan fishermen.

Horrific reporting from the AP on the Myanmar families watching their kids starve to death from Trump and Musk’s aid cuts apnews.com/article/myan...

Matt's Weather Rapport: All time record highs for month of October were broken or tied in #Vermont , Quebec, other places. More of the same today. Climate change making bizarro heat waves more likely. Details: matttsweatherrapport.blogspot.com/2025/10/incr...

I walk by this in the woods every day. I’ll confess I’m a 54 year old person utterly convinced there is some Wind in the Willows stuff going on in there.

Worried about food prices? More upward grocery price pressure from State SNAP restriction projects, which are projected to cost retailers $1.6 billion to implement. progressivegrocer.com/snap-purchas...

This is a cutting from a cutting (ad infinitum) of a begonia that belonged to Sigmund Freud and it’s now in my house!

Fall colors in the garden and in the woods.

This is a cathartic read.

@govpritzker.illinois.gov owns every arrest and act of violence against protesters this morning. He is aiding and abetting Operation Midway Blitz by allowing state cops to do this. He tells us to film ICE. His cops have shoved me around for filming this morning.

I don't know how @climatetown.bsky.social keeps getting better, but their newest video on how awful lawns are is not to be missed

In #Chicago , the #authoritarian goons broke into homes of American citizens, grabbing them and binding them with zip ties. Children were zip tied together-separated from their parents. Rodrick Johnson,“…was left tied up outside the building for nearly three hours before agents finally let him go.”

What exactly do people think will happen if the Epstein files are released and you- know-who is in them? It’s not salvation. Get a grip people.

I entered the Montpelier zip code, and it shows #Novavax widely available in VT… Walmart, Hannford, Shaw’s Osco. Great news. It’s also available at CVS and Costco, though might not be an available option through the online scheduling tool.