The Texas redistricting hearing started on Wednesday in El Paso. Democracy Docket is covering it every day like it is the most important case for free and for elections in the country -- because it is. Legacy media is no where to be found. Support the DD team to make it possible. hubs.ly/Q03M8rql0

Today Chicago is the frontline in the battle for American freedom. Our resistance is peaceful, but it is not weak. We will not stop until Donald Trump gets his masked battle-armed thugs off our streets. My latest: open.substack.com/pub/edwineis...

You first, Sock Boy

Best source out there for tax filings on nonprofits is @propublica.org's Nonprofit Explorer. It tends to have returns that aren't even on the IRS's website. 4/

Proud girls, you gorgons, gorgeous in your gowns, rising back unrepentant out of your loam house, tiptoe fripperies, overlook my misreading. ‘Autumn Cyclamen’, a poem by @aestallings.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

The return of once-rare birds: when habitat is restored & protected, when people remove harmful substances from the environment & address harms caused by human infrastructure such as lights at night & reflective windows, some species may return to the places we live. No pay wall.

What if one could automatically monitor what politicians promise and enhance the ability to check, at scale, whether they deliver? Pledgetracker, by @fullfact.org and researchers, tries to retrieve relevant evidence and reduce human verification effort. Read their preprint here: lnkd.in/ec5gHYV9

Bravo @willbunch.bsky.social "..the Washington Post has been the newspaper of this career journalist’s dreams... The Washington Post is dead to me."

One good thing about rewatching films you already know quite well, is it encourages you to concentrate on aspects other than the narrative - in this case, Haskell Wexler's cinematography. [and to enjoy, always, the scenes between Steiger & Poitier].

For me, hope is not a feeling of certainty about the future. It is born of the knowledge that we may do everything we can without the assurance that it will be enough. Hope is accepting that the arc of the moral universe may not bend toward justice — even if all of us push with everything we have.

Abundance but for bees

@nancyterhune.bsky.social This made me think of you...and of Harry.

@johnbharveywriter.bsky.social Just read your short entry on Peter Temple's The Broken Shore, for Connolly and Burke's Books to Die For: .."they use it as a tool, a tool with which to open up and expose a small area of society for us to examine and understand." Yes, you, too. Thank you.

Full piece:

Yes. It’s actually quite instructive to see the simplicity of older tech in solving problems. This goes right back to early Industrial Revolution when the problem solving was quite self-aware and systematic. See The Lunar Men, Jenny Uglow. Fascinating stuff.

Timeless wisdom. ✨ "Maturity is the ability to do a job whether you're supervised or not; finish a job once it's started; carry money without spending it; and the ability to bear an injustice without wanting to get even." — Abigail Van Buren, 1918-2013. 🙏🏼🌎🕊️

Gorgeous! “What makes life livable despite the cruelties of chance…are these little acts of mercy, of tenderness— the small clear voice rising over the cacophony of the quarrelsome, over the complaint choir of the cynics, to insist again & again that the world is beautiful and full of kindness.”

I think @atrupar.com doesn't get enough credit for watching Trump's nonsense and finding the best clips. I'd have put a gun in my mouth a long time ago if I had to do that.

“Hang on to your hope.” E. B. White in 1973.

“When you really break it down, it’s like trying to sing while you're starving. They were spending all their time just trying to find food.”

NEW: Decades of NASA satellite data reveal how quickly the planet’s underground stores of fresh water have been depleted and how their use is contributing to rising sea levels. Here are the key takeaways.

activist360 has now launched on Bluesky. If you think the climate crisis is one of the vital challenges of our time, please follow @activist360.bsky.social. Thank you. 🙏

SEN. KLOBUCHAR: “Blaming the Dems for Trump’s Epstein files cover-up is like blaming Coldplay for that CEO getting caught cheating.”

Haven't posted here much yet, so I thought I'd try to get things rolling by offering this advance look at the cover for my next novel, which will be published in July by Knopf. #booksky

Musk can’t get up his rocket before it explodes

If you're looking for some small distraction from the daily horrors of real life in today's America, consider the brilliant, dark but fictional DI Tom Thorne detective series by Mark Billingham. #crimefiction At least in Thorne's world the bad guys usually pay the price.

So I did a google search: how to resist the aphrodisiac of power. Google returned an AI four part list with bullet points under each. It's good, but bottom line: You have to want to resist. That's probably obvious, but it's good food for thought about our elected leaders.

Sound up!

⭐️ Thought thread. Exactly what’ll it take to jar the dispassion, the cruelty out of American hearts? Does choosing kindness over hate require a personal “I didn’t think it could happen to me”?

Please take a moment to read this tribute to Steven Joel Gitomer, a scientist (plasma physicist) at Los Alamos. Cheryl writes about how her colleague impacted her life & the difference he made for our country as a gov't employee. RIP Thank you @cherylrofer.bsky.social for sharing this.

Along with outer space, maybe let's explore this. ⬇️ "Less than 0.001% of the sea floor has been seen by humans. New study shows just how little – about 99.999% – of the world’s oceanic depths have been viewed by human eyes." Happy 99th Birthday, David Attenborough! 🎂 @surfermagazine.bsky.social

I don't disagree with RF here, but I sure would like to know exactly WHO Ron believes should take Schumer's leadership role? Who else in the Senate can be a truly forceful advocate and direct the inner workings on the Dem side?

Trump invited himself to the U of Alabama - now I am inviting you to Tuscaloosa to show the world that Alabama and the rest of America have had enough. My friend Beto O’ Rourke and I will be in Snow Hinton Park tomorrow so if you are anywhere in the vicinity please come by.

I've been plumbing the depths of Colin Dexter's Morse series and here's what I've just read: ""After he had gone Monica felt utterly miserable, her thoughts a pallid multitude that drifted along the sunless waters."" He must have laughed out loud when he wrote that and then got it past his editor.

“It was heartbreaking.” A federal program offering Utah farmers free therapy was so successful that it ran out of money in four months. But lawmakers have chosen not to continue funding it. @jessicamiller.bsky.social @sltrib.com

The Mercy Chair is the next installment in the Washington Poe series. Poe has a story to tell about the mercy chair & why people would rather kill themselves than talk about it...   Discover the longlist and cast your vote 👉 https://bit.ly/TOPAwards25 @mwcraven.bsky.social @littlebrown.bsky.social

My latest in @thebulwark.bsky.social: There’s nothing inevitable in war, and the Ukrainians are in very strong defensive positions right now, and are improving weekly, their ability to generate force and to reinforce those positions. www.thebulwark.com/p/if-ukraine...

We all matter or none of us do.

Really enjoyed this conversation with @twoauthorspodcast.bsky.social about thriller writing and more. Now available on all streaming platforms: thetwoauthorschatshow.podbean.com/e/reverse-re...

#Handsoff My favorite so far:

Saw a bunch of neighbors exercise their 1st Amendment rights this afternoon. Petted some nice pups, too. Wish I had seen the one sign that that applies to us all. And that resonates with us all. ‘We All Matter Or None of Us Do” “And all means ALL” Always Fight for ALL

I miss the laundry scent they call ‘unscented’. Like a depression, it makes it hard to write. What is is less, less there, half uninvented, And I, not quite. ‘Anosmia’, a poem by @aestallings.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Future political scientists will teach this collapse of elite lawyers faced w/ common threat as paradigmatic case of collective action failure. Common action would defeat the threat. Failure to unite will damage all, albeit in varying degrees. Yet most cower. Not just cowardly, but stupid.

There were four Republican-backed extreme constitutional amendments on the ballot in Louisiana yesterday. The voters REJECTED them all (in a state Trump won by 22 points in November). Keep the pressure on.

One of my candidates for 2028 @ossoff Watch as much video of him as you can. He's a very smart, very persuasive, no bullshit Senator. He's a strong advocate AND has none of the negatives of other potential candidates. He's would appeal young and older voters, men and women alike

People who care about the future of their country. It's inspiring.

Except when y'all attack "the Dems" for being weak and/or complicit, you don't limit your criticism to individual Dems who do things you don't like. You attack "the Democrats" - including the 95 percent of them who are fighting like hell. ... One of the reasons we lost the House and Senate.

James Harrison, whose blood donations saved over 2 million babies, has died. www.npr.org/2025/03/03/n...