My phone is doing all the same things from 2015 with only minimal benefits. The only reason we have to upgrade is increased software bloat. We should actually just have phones that last 15 years now.

Texas bans GSAs and pride clubs in K-12, but the state sponsors and subsidizes Republican-aligned clubs in public high schools. #txlege #txed www.texastribune.org/2025/11/25/t...

mood

I restored and colorized this c.1910 photo of Magnus Hirschfeld's 4th, 6th, and 7th patients. They were three of the first trans men to receive medical care and legal support in Germany over 120 years ago. I can't help but appreciate their dapper sense of fashion.

Great news for all who care about telling the truth & the full story of American history. The Mississippi Delta barn where Emmett Till died is now owned by the Emmett Till Interpretive Center thanks to a major donation from Shonda Rhimes. It will open as a memorial by 2039.

Breaking: Viola Ford Fletcher, the oldest living survivor of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, has died. She was 111 years old

Five discharge petitions have succeeded since Johnson became speaker. That’s more than the prior three decades, says Politico: www.politico.com/news/2025/11...

Emmanuel, a 15-year-old with intellectual disabilities, wandered away from his mom’s fruit stand in October. She reported him missing to Houston police. But instead of reuniting them, the city turned him over to ICE. “They’re failing all of us,” his mom said. thebarbedwire.com/2025/11/24/d...

Out: Government run grocery stores In: Grocery Store run government.

Woodworking is on NPR's top books of 2025 list, and as a longtime user of NPR's book lists to purchase holiday gifts and add stuff to my library list, I am so glad to think some alternate universe version of myself might decide to check out my new book! apps.npr.org/best-books/?...

Tonight's Law Dork is a story about both the growing frustration from the bench about the unprofessionalism of A.G. Bondi's DOJ in the second Trump administration and more evidence of the overly aggressive — and ultimately illegal — way the administration is attacking transgender people.

What's wild is when you learn the story behind why George W Bush was in an elementary classroom on 911. The Bushes had realized the issue with the cueing method. This school had switched from the cueing to direct instruction, scores shot up, Bush went to visit as part of his Reading 1st initiative

Four patrons at Don's Keyhole jazz club in San Antonio, late 1940s. It was a renowned spot that opened in 1944 and saw Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole and famous folks play. One of the first integrated clubs in the south and historically noteworthy for that reason. Lasted for about 25 years.

The Trump administration violated a court order and deported a trans woman to Mexico despite the credible risk of torture and murder there. She is now in hiding. Don't forget Britania Uriostegui Rios. www.cnn.com/2025/11/19/u...

My wife and I memorialized Trans Day of Remembrance by reading the names of the 59 lost souls of the year prior and tossing a gemstone into a local creek. May they be loved in heaven better than they were in life.

Cw: suicide This article is devastating. Earlier this month, a 15-year-old died by suicide the day after posting about a substitute teacher insisting on misgendering him. Suicide can have many contributing factors. His family is speaking out about bullying and misgendering as two.

Median age of a *first time* homebuyers is 40yo. Where are the future 59 yos supposed to come from who can afford to purchase houses in cash in the long term if multiple generations are denied the opportunity to build wealth when they're young?

One of the worst things about body dysphoria/dysmorphia (or simply being ugly) is conquering that for a moment, feeling good about yourself, going to an event, and then having every picture from that event haunt you for afterwards because you look like a monster

A poetry snippet

Trump defends Mohammed bin Salman over the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi: "A lot of people didn't like that gentleman... Things happen... He knew nothing about it." A US intelligence report concluded that bin Salman personally "approved an operation" to "kill or capture" Khashoggi.

Where are the learning loss people? It’s hard to learn at school if you’re afraid to go because the secret police might kidnap you.

"Paul John Bojerski was born to Polish parents in a German refugee camp a year after World War II ended. His family legally emigrated to the United States in 1952 when he was five."

I spent October traveling to schools throughout the South talking to students about American history. What I found were young people who understand we can tell a story that includes both the positive and the negative. As one 8th grader in Memphis said, “Doesn’t seem that hard, just say both things.”

"Agencies within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, including ICE, ERO, and CBP intend to implement a comprehensive plan to target Spanish-speaking churches across the country during the upcoming holiday season between Thanksgiving, Nov. 27, and Christmas, Dec. 25."

I love it when I'm occasionally right. Looks like I was right: www.politico.com/news/2025/11...

It's giving The Lives of Others.

People are trying to 3D chess Trump reversing course on the House Epstein vote House Rs when there is a simple explanation. The House plans to vote this week, so the usual whip count must have been approaching or beyond a veto proof majority. 1/2

Also in here: DHS responded to the faith-led protest yesterday, calling participants “violent rioters” and “imbecilic morons” who need to “get a job.” Asked about the statement, one UMC pastor who participated in the protest told me: "This is our job." religionnews.com/2025/11/15/a...

Soon #booksky

Some inspiring words on cinema in the streaming era from the Pope. Yes, THAT Pope.

Epstein was convicted in 2008. This dump of emails shows him *over a decade later* in constant communication with damn near everyone with any degree of power. There are emails from 2019, 11 years later, over decade later.

Republican primary challengers waiting for the GOP incumbent to vote against releasing the Epstein files.

It's a fresh week, and I have two new slots open in the Trans Emergency Meal Fund. Can I buy your lunch today? Here's the request form: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Open bribery by a foreign leader. The exact scenario that the Founders feared. "no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State"

Inside Politics does a detailed analysis of the new Texas map and concludes that, no, nothing about it looks like a dummymander. Dems there could do better than the GOP expected, but even then the map would have shielded GOP from more losses. Important to be realistic:

This is fascinating because this is written just well enough to be written by an aide for him (plus the specific numbers), but it nails his writing style down to the bad punctuation. Like uncanny valley Trump-posting, y'know?

I made my first appearance on NPR’s Weekend Edition this morning covering the Texas A&M System’s new race and gender curriculum policy. one.npr.org/i/nx-s1-5609...

Deportations actually _increase_ housing prices because they shrink the construction industry. The reduction in new houses being built swamps effects from lower demand

Note the class dynamics on display in both this and the Epstein story--these were wealthy men preying on girls made all the more vulnerable by their poverty

The people who think I'm a pervert for using the women's bathroom have resorted to "it's actual ephibilhia"

Something absolutely perfect about Larry Summers riffing about the scourge of woke cancel culture being unfair to predatory men in a friendly email to his pal JEFFREY EPSTEIN.

thinking about how i get anxious writing emails because i don't want to sound like a moron while larry summers is apparently typing emails like this: u kno she dint want to talk tomorrow. make me bad pheel.

The allegations about the treatment Ghislaine Maxwell is getting at her Texas prison are shocking. If they're true, they amount to essentially giving a convicted sex trafficker special treatment at the behest of the American taxpayer. www.chron.com/culture/arti...

pretty funny in retrospect that QAnon hinged on the idea that powerful elites at the highest levels of government were smart enough to talk in code when sending emails to each other about their despicable crimes

The idea that sexual abuse is part of “private” life instead of a public crisis has done incalculable damage. Anti-rape activists have to fight to even make it possible to expose sexual abuse as a wrongdoing in public without being silenced and undermined. That fight is far from won

Lest there be any insinuation that Dems spared their own. It would be tough for Kathy Ruemmler—Obama’s WH Counsel from 2011 to mid-2014—to come off looking worse in these docs the committee Dems released. oversightdemocrats.house.gov/sites/evo-su...

Found out yesterday that our son was mentioned by name on the initial intake form. Wasn't even info they had to go search up, they had it. Caseworkers, the court appointed lawyer, CPS, and all failed to do their job and call us for 9 months. The utter incompetence of the CPS system is by design.

The date on this article 😭

This is absurd - the university president would have to pre approve any lesson plan involving race or gender? I would have such malicious compliance. www.texastribune.org/2025/11/10/t...