On this Black Friday in this difficult year, I’m grateful to @swwim.bsky.social for publishing my cento ghazal and to the poets whose lines are part of it!

this AI initiative is a high risk system according to Maryland's own ​​AI Risk Classification System. why wasn't this mentioned? what safeguards are involved? where's the mandatory AI Risk Assessment report that's supposed to be made?

I am so thrilled and honored that @neologismpoetry.bsky.social nominated my poem “ Hunger Ghazal, 1981” for a Best of the Net nomination. Congratulations to the other BOTN & Pushcart nominees.

If you are in Baltimore City or anywhere in Maryland come to our house party with special guest Comptroller Lierman.

#Maryland Did you know I run two organizations? Last year we launched a sister C4 organization (Economic Action Maryland) to build power and ensure that voters know which legislators and elected officials are voting for and leading on economic justice issues. Here is our 1st legislative scorecard!

Let this sink in: A president can apparently now order lethal force outside of congressionally declared wars, in international waters, without oversight, and face no personal criminal or civil liability—even if the action was blatantly illegal. trib.al/FwmJyLa

so happy with @vanhollen.senate.gov leadership on this and in so many other areas since January. and of course @sanders.senate.gov always

Oregon’s Board of Pharmacy is holding an emergency meeting today to discuss a change in protocol for vaccine administration around fall respiratory viruses. That change could allow pharmacists to administer vaccines without a prescription, regardless of what ACIP decides.

In light of the ongoing genocide, thought I would reshare my poem “Meditations on Martyrs, or Shuhada Ghazal” which was published in the About Place Journal’s Shaping Destiny edition last October.

To say that "the data show these vaccines fail" in regards to the mRNA plaform is unforgivable. For those of you that don't remember - this is the data from a SINGLE dose. In December 2020. So good I cried in grateful tears.

I just received my copy of the Connecticut River Review in the mail. I love the cover! So thrilled my poem “ Self-Portrait: Contents of My Junk Drawer” was included alongside so many great pieces.

A journalistic principle I’ve come to believe in quite strongly, thanks to experience of the Sony and Podesta hacks, is that bar for publishing stories based on *hacked* material should be quite high. It really should be unambiguously newsworthy to clear it.

so let me get this straight—the NYT accepted hacked information given to them by a substack white supremacist to be used against a mayoral candidate?

it’s absurd that NYT forced him to delete these skeets, which … convey the factual information that Zohran Mamdani is, in fact, a man of South Asian descent who was born and raised in Africa, and that the pseudonymous source of the hacked material is a white supremacist eugenicist.

A thing that makes that Times story especially odious is that Zohran Mamdani's father was LITERALLY expelled from Uganda during Idi Amin's fascist effort to scapegoat Asian Ugandans as not really African www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Seriously, every person involved in bringing this nonsense to print should not be in this profession.

I am grieving the barbarism that is going to unfurl from all this. People are going to die. Livelihoods gone. All to feed a corrupt kleptocracy. I see every day up close how different it is from the first time around. There are no guardrails. A disaster. I’m sorry we have to live through this.

This is what I mean when I say the system is rigged. Is it any wonder so many feel abandoned by our economy? People lose faith, and a demagogue fills the void. This is why we must fix the system.

An addled president is shredding the Constitution to usher in white nationalism and fascism while destroying the economy and our health care, so if you’re going to write an alarmist op-ed because a mayoral candidate might open five (5) city-run grocery stores, you can kindly get bent.

To jump on this point, here are places that have implemented some of these radical ideas: City-owned groceries: Erie, Kansas Free buses: Akron, Ohio Ban on noncompete agreements: North Dakota

This is excellent.

No one: Me: Holy shit, this week is a lot.

If you’re in Baltimore, come by & hear my “Ted Talk on speed” about 19th century French poet Marceline Desbordes-Valmore whose story in verse comprises part of my poetry manuscript of real and fictional “Marcelines”

Cuomo’s biggest donors are cheering Trump on. These are the MAGA warmongers who would have his ear in City Hall.

Israel is bombing Gaza, Iran, Yemen, Lebanon, and Syria

1. There is not widespread rioting in LA. The protests are largely peaceful. And 2. …a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? Dr. Martin Luther King

CNN’s Jason Carroll was zip-tied and escorted away—for reporting the news. But they claimed he wasn’t under arrest? Why are they shooting rubber bullets at and silencing journalists? We still have a First Amendment.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu announced Tuesday that she signed an executive order seeking greater transparency from federal immigration officials. She said the city will submit regular Freedom of Information Act requests to find out who ICE is detaining and on what grounds.

How very ironic that GOP Governors aren’t standing up for states’ rights here. I guess that only matters if you’re denying women or transgender people access to medical care. democraticgovernors.org/updates/stat...

DEVELOPING: No warning. No reason. NYPD officers rushed into the crowd and tackled a protester this weekend. His body was limp. He couldn’t move. He said, “I can’t feel my legs.” He might never walk again. For showing up. This is brutality. This is America.

Greta Thunberg and other human rights defenders have been kidnapped by Israel on international waters. The aid they were delivering to Gaza that includes baby formula & medical supplies has been stolen. The ship Madleen was attacked with drones & will be forced to port at Ashdod Port. #3E #FreeGaza

At KFF for deep dive into medical debt and federal and state solutions. I am one of the contributors to a report on medical debt that Lown will release soon.

BREAKING: Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced he has ordered the FDA to consider new nationwide restrictions on medication abortion — and that President Trump, not scientists or doctors, will make the final decision.

Time to prepare, beloveds. If you are considering stocking up, remember that these pills do expire eventually, and *do not* discuss your actions online or via unencrypted communication. Take no shit, and leave no trace. www.plancpills.org

Then and now. Happy Mother’s Day to all who mother. What would really make me & lots of mothers happy-paid family leave, affordable child care, universal healthcare, universal basic income.

Haaretz yet again having the courage to report on matters that mainstream American and Canadian outlets would never.

Is this who we are? newschannel9.com/news/local/f...

what's going on here is that Republicans genuinely cannot concieve of going to any sort of trouble for 'illegals' and keep getting thrown off by other people not being sociopaths

Watch the full video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvfa...

Things have been a bit busy in my work world-turns out economic rights & housing justice are not popular atm- but I am very happy to have these four poems that are close to my heart out in the world.

Trump orders DOJ to investigate his enemies. Pg. 18.

The cruelty and banality of evil is gutting. As a divorced mom with a different name than my son, I had to carry a consent form from my ex stating my son was allowed to travel with me on vacation- but suddenly we don’t care about parental rights or consent now? Such hypocrisy!

On this last weekend of National Poetry month, I am so happy to finish the month with four new poems in @lothlorienpoetryj.bsky.social. Thanks so much to Strider for accepting these poems. lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/2025/04/four...

I am unable to brand myself so I will continue to talk about policy, politics, pop culture, and poetry because I contain multitudes as we all do.

The earth is burning, my country is rapidly descending into a fascist kakistocracy, and sunbeams still gleam on white daffodils in my backyard as the roses begin to bud. It's difficult to live in this dissonance-- the beauty and rot of it, the seeds of hope amidst evil.

Within days of assuming top role, CU trustee-president Claire Shipman personally intervenes to terminate the appeal process of disciplined students and workers, including Grant Miner, shattering any illusion of due process.

SWC President Grant Miner: "This is another outrageous overreach by our trustees. Not only have they appointed their own president, they've made her intervene in our cases. What they fail to realize is that no matter how many of us they punish, more will take their place."

In Nazi Germany, the targeted population was encouraged to self-deport and the state sought to impoverish them to force them to leave.

“It’s the most extraordinary attack on voting rights in American history,” Wilentz said. “This is an attempt to destroy American democracy as we know it. www.democracydocket.com/analysis/the...