Timeline cleanse: I bought a little seed treat and put it in Rosie’s dish She carefully picked up each piece and dumped it on the ground. Point made.

Hey folks: I'm organizing my YouTube channel & just added the course I'm teaching w/colleagues David Blight & Beverly Gage, as well as my "What the Heck Just Happened?" conversations w/Heather Cox Richardson, & my Friday AM podcast "History Matters." Take a look! www.youtube.com/@joannefreem...

The message from Trump is crystal clear - if you beat the hell of out police, if you threaten to kill FBI officers - I will make sure you get away with it if you are breaking the law to keep me in power. If you don't see it, this is a message about 2028.

I had academic job interviews this way in the late 1990s. All of us sitting on beds in hotel rooms. All men but me. Nothing happened. But it was REALLY strange, to say the least.

I hope you all are starting to arm yourself with CPB’s greatest fear: Whistles Someone sees CPB, the blow their whistle, vulnerable people know to hide. I hope that takes off around Charlotte like it did around Chicago.

The Founders were so concerned about bribery that the Constitution forbids it three separate times. Two emoluments clauses ban officials—unambiguously including the president—from accepting things of value, plus bribery is the only named impeachable offense besides treason. Unprecedentedly corrupt.

This line in the NYT: “.. the near-complete breakdown of the Justice Department’s traditional independence to prosecute cases based on facts and the law, as opposed to presidential fiat.” @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2025/11/14/u...

Pretty accurate.

Here’s a story for every national news outlet: In N.C., churchgoers are literally running into the woods as federal agents descend on the property. “Inside the church, women and children sobbed as they wondered whether their loved ones had been taken.” www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politic...

In the Obama White House we were so careful to follow the rules, including about use of the seal (which is regulated by statute), that we ran a legal process just to see if we could use the seal for fun on our White House softball team tee shirts! No joke. The team was called STOTUS.

"A citizens group in Ontario, California is spearheading an effort to make the community aware of incidents involving federal immigration agents. They're placing signs at the locations that read, 'ICE stole someone here'..." abc7.com/post/ontario...

😶

Hey folks: This week on "What the Heck Just Happened With Heather & Joanne," we talked about why this moment feels different--politically--& invented the "MTG-o-meter"--watching Marjorie Taylor Greene's turns & twists as a way to measure how the tides are shifting. www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DOy...

“I think I’ll give Rosie a new toy since she decimated the other one and…” YOU ARE TOUCHING MY NEW TOY FOR TOO LONG, HUMAN— I WILL EAT YOUR HAND

made a similar point on the opinions podcast this week in response to the idea that epstein is a dead end. not only are actual voters interested in this but it divides the gop and puts pressure on the president. it would be political malpractice to treat it as a sideshow

Hey folks: This week on "What the Heck Just Happened With Heather & Joanne," we talked about why this moment feels different--politically--& invented the "MTG-o-meter"--watching Marjorie Taylor Greene's turns & twists as a way to measure how the tides are shifting. www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DOy...

Sure looks that way.

NEW: Pope Leo XIV will share a meal this Sunday with Alessia Nobile and four fellow transgender Catholic activists, during the Vatican’s Jubilee of the Poor — marking the most significant public encounter shared between a pope and the trans community.

Trump's illegal murders in the Caribbean just got worse. An internal DOJ memo on the bombings says the victims are waging war on the US, but per NYT, it extensively cites the WH's *own claims* to this effect as evidence! It gets even darker than that. 1/ (new piece) newrepublic.com/article/2032...

Count the ways they’re corrupting DOJ: Presidents don’t direct AG’s to open criminal cases, especially ones designating only Dems for investigation when POTUS himself is involved. DOJ doesn’t publicize criminal investigations & the AG definitely doesn’t assign them on Twitter.

Here’s a gift link (no paywall) to the article, “Catholic bishops condemn ‘indiscriminate mass deportation’ in rare statement”: wapo.st/448fDw6

Friday night martini and food from Veselka. Rosie is sleep-peeping. Watching old episodes of Top Chef. Happiness.

President Trump using the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members is a flagrant act of executive overreach. "Our system of checks and balances exists to prevent this kind of abuse," we write in a new amicus brief with @cato.org.

Short but worthwhile thread.

From this minister's op-ed: "People wanting to experience God are more likely to meet the Divine trying to shut down the Broadview, Illinois, ICE facility than we ever were in church...God does not live in our houses of worship, but...with those who are bearing the brunt of cruelty in this moment."

BREAKING: Twenty-four survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s crimes have issued an emotional and urgent appeal to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, demanding that Congress vote to release the long-awaited Epstein files. meidasnews.com/news/survivo...

I tried to take a photo of this same toy. Rosie has demolished it. But…

THREAD

Oh wow @reuters.com got the photo here:

I thought the earlier news from A&M was bad, but this is incredibly bleak. It’s close to the point of not having a functional university.

😡 @ashtonpittman.bsky.social just shared one of the worst uses of the passive voice I’ve ever seen with me. Make no mistake: Too many in journalism use passive voice on purpose to give passes and to soften certain news about power. Why I basically outlaw it in our shop. (It also ruins writing.)

MAGA’s ongoing war on academic freedom, reflected in headlines from the last 24 hours.

Goodnight peeps. I’m utterly pooped. See you tomorrow AM on my podcast. 10AM ET NCHEteach.org/conversations

Tomorrow on my podcast “History Matters:” Who Is The Monster? Sometimes, the answer is clear. Join us. Friday 10 AM ET NCHEteach.org/conversations

I watched the new Frankenstein. And I thought about current events—and Andrew Jackson. You KNOW you’re curious. Join us tomorrow 10AM ET

Tomorrow on my podcast “History Matters:” Who Is The Monster? Sometimes, the answer is clear. Join us. Friday 10 AM ET NCHEteach.org/conversations

Hayes: It’s weird that everyone just stopped applying those two things to the situation we’re in now, where they elected who also is on an accelerated aging schedule. I mean, his nickname for Joe Biden was “Sleepy Joe.” He literally fell asleep at a White House event the other day.

He's undoubtedly planning the Mother of all Distractions but can't think of anything to top flying over a city in a crown dropping poo on American citizens.

W. T. F.

If you have tenure at Texas A&M and aren't maliciously emailing the president a dozen times every day to ask if you can say this or you can say that, then what's the point in having tenure?

Please read this. Please.

"The UK is no longer sharing intelligence with the US about random vessels in the Caribbean because it does not want to be complicit in illegal US military strikes." Funny how more honest language is also more concise.

Reposting news of a generous billionaire wanting to do good.

In December 2018, Epstein wrote about Trump: “I am the one able to take him down.” Eight months later, Epstein was found dead in a prison run by the Trump administration. Weird coincidence.

Quick — someone tell the New York Times that the situation in early October, when the shutdown began, was not “normal.”

Today I will randomly post good things — because this timeline is repulsive. Here you go. Look! A cute bird!

So….we’re headed in to the Caligula part, aren’t we? Madness, crazy immorality, the humiliation of senators…

And for something completely different: Someone is molting. Her little yellow head is patchy. And she left me gifts.

Seems possible that this is about even more than underage women. Perhaps money changing hands— corruptly and internationally, and intertwined with underaged women? Man, oh man.

Judge rules mandatory detention of Chicago day care teacher by ICE is illegal