Army's recruitment growth in 2024 was "disproportionately driven by women," an 18% increase from previous year, compared to 8% increase by men (NPR 5/19/24). Hegseth's response? Review their "effectiveness." www.npr.org/2026/01/06/n...

Five years ago today, Donald Trump urged his supporters to attack Congress and the Capitol over a proven lie. More than 140 police officers were injured. Trump then pardoned the attackers. He betrayed his oath and his country, and we won't ever forget it.

Candidate running to replace Susan Collins announces his 1st town hall in '26. Collins hasn't held a town hall in a quarter century. C'mon, Maine: This year, let's retire Susan Collins.

Unlike other outlets, ABC News is no longer referring to the Kennedy Center by its legal name. abcnews.go.com/US/trump-ken...

"Words to limits or avoid in government documents" emailed from the Dept of Health & Human Services to a Head Start office on 11/19. Source linked at end of the thread. 1/4

HHS issues list of 200 words to "limit or avoid in government documents." "Female" & "women" are to be limited or avoided; "male" & "men" are not. "Black," "tribal," & "Native American" are to be limited or avoided; "white" is not. www.npr.org/2025/12/11/n...

On election night, I turned off the returns & decided to safeguard my sanity by keeping the tv off this year & spending my evenings in the company of good fiction. Here are some of the books I liked best. #LitFic #CanLit #BookSky

"All the Christmases roll down towards the two-tongued sea... and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged, fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find." Word lovers: here's Dylan Thomas reading "A Child's Christmas in Wales." www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFSs...

Watch the damning "60 Minutes" report on CECOT that CBS pulled at the last minute: www.thereset.news/p/breaking-h...

BREAKING: WATCH the full 60 Minutes CECOT segment here. This was sent to me anonymously. It appears to be the segment CBS' Bari Weiss killed. www.muellershewrote.com/p/watch-the-...

Not Concerned Enough: Susan Collins won't endorse a bipartisan 3-year ACA extension. She proposes a 2-year extension w/ income caps & other "reforms," a position that would let her claim she supports ACA subsidies while voting against them. #mepolitics www.nbcnews.com/politics/con...

Happy Solstice! Here comes the sun ... www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBbX...

Just finished Susan Minot's 1999 novel "Evening," which I'd somehow missed. In the last days of her life, a woman remembers the love & loss that most profoundly shaped her life. The remembered past & the present work of dying are both beautifully, powerfully narrated. #BookSky #litfic

Clearly, T tanked the Biden-GOP immigration reform bill so he'd be free to carry out this kind of cruelty.

5,500 Maine ACA enrollees have canceled their insurance, a drop of 7%. *Everyone* who can't afford their insurance w/o subsidies or who's facing a much higher premium should call or email their members of Congress. www.newsbreak.com/bangor-daily...

It is utterly catastrophic that RFK Jr. plans to end CDC recommendations for most childhood vaccines. It’s a betrayal of science, ethics, compassion, and the people of the United States. And it was also a specific goal of Project 2025 (page 254).

Really first-rate reading of EM Forster's "Howard's End" by Elizabeth Klett as a free LibriVox audiobook. Klett does fine work for LibriVox with novels by Austen & Wharton, as well. #BookSky #audiobooks librivox.org/howards-end-...

Very tender reading of Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter" as a free LibriVox audiobook by Cori Samuel. Find her readings of Woolf and others at LibriVox. #BookSky #audiobooks librivox.org/the-scarlet-...

The White House claims the vote to rename the Kennedy Center was “unanimous.” That is false. I was muted on the call and denied the opportunity to speak or register my opposition. That is not consensus. That is censorship.

Energy Dept IG investigating cancellation of nearly $8 billion in climate & energy grants across 16 states that voted for Harris. Appropriations Chair Susan Collins has held 0 oversight hearings, despite the admin's continued refusal to spend $ as allocated. #mepolitics ctmirror.org/2025/12/18/e...

Among the nominees just confirmed is Leo Brent Bozell III, a far-right activist and critic of the fight to end apartheid, who Collins just approved to be the United States AMBASSADOR TO SOUTH AFRICA. Vile and irredeemable. tinyurl.com/5fwv4dzc #MEpolitics

Susan Collins just voted to confirm all of these Trump nominees in a single vote. Only possible because of a Senate rule change that she helped push through over the objection of Democrats. Collins sided against 85 Biden nominees -- all or nearly all highly qualified. #MEpolitics

CBS's new "Things That Matter" is "brought to you" by Bank of America with the profits they've made bringing genocide to Gaza. Per a Feb '25 analysis, BoA is the 2nd leading underwriter of Israeli war bonds. www.banktrack.org/news/seven_u...

Top 52 Banned Books includes 2 by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison per PEN America. John Green's "Looking for Alaska" ranks 1st w/ 147 bans. It's 1 of NPR's 10 Best-Ever Teen Novels and TIME's 100 Best Young Adult Novels of All Time. #BookSky pen.org/top-52-banne...

Maine has at least 11 unregulated anti-abortion "crisis pregnancy" centers, per the Maine Monitor. Because they're not regulated, these centers are not bound by HIPAA to protect client confidentiality. themainemonitor.org/crisis-pregn...

Democrats are not majority in the House or Senate. MAGAs have majority in House & Senate and has the White House and the majority in the Supreme Court. Elections have consequences. We have 1 chance to get rid of the poison b4 they completely destroy the country & that's the 2026 Midterm elections.

Susan Collins has voted to confirm 2 more judges opposed to basic rights. Chamberlin & Crain both have records reflecting deep, consistent opposition to reproductive, LGBTQ+, & civil rights, per Planned Parenthood ME's Action Fund. #mepolitics www.mainedems.org/media/collin...

The plaque DJT placed under Obama's photo in the WH begins: "Barack Hussein Obama was the 1st Black President...and 1 of the most divisive political figures in American History." Here's Ta-Nehisi Coates's 2017 essay about Trump, "The 1st White President." files.blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/wp-content/b...

They also maintained nobody has died because of the USAID cuts. Here’s our reporting from Kenya, where we found that isn’t true, with 📸 by @storitellah.com www.propublica.org/article/keny...

NEW: Humanitarian officials staged a last-minute plea to Trump officials at their fancy hotel to re-start food aid $ for a huge refugee camp in Kenya. The Trumpers blew it off and babies starved. @annamaria.bsky.social & Brett Murphy www.propublica.org/article/keny...

Good news that there are more loons on Maine lakes. Here's a pair who came to visit us at our camp in New Brunswick last year. The second photo followed the first by a few seconds.

This summer, Brett Murphy, @peterdicampo.bsky.social and I went to South Sudan, where the U.S. had been supporting the response to a historic cholera outbreak in the world’s poorest country before pulling the plug. We found shuttered clinics and dead bodies. www.propublica.org/article/usai...

Susan Collins thinks it's so important for this guy to continue to have a vote in the Senate that she's sent him $10,000 in the last year alone. How many deranged, gutter bigots have you sent five-figure contributions to this year? #MEpolitics

Good work by Jared Golden. #mepolitics

Susan Collins sees a 2-year extension as a "glidepath off" ACA subsidies. If this GOP plan passes, she's likely to run for reelection claiming she saved a gov't program she's planning to vote against in 2 years' time (after she's secured her seat). #mepolitics www.mainepublic.org/health/2025-...

It is really, really hard to get your head around the raw hubris of the majority. They really will be destabilizing the operating structure of the entire U.S. government. Why? Because they believe they have a better idea about how the past century should've been done.

Just reread Doyle's 1993 Booker winner "Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha," a single-chapter triumph of 1st-person narration. 10-yr-old Paddy is Ireland's Huck Finn. #LitFic #BookSky thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-l...

Meanwhile Supreme Court: but we just can't make any changes in Texas on this eve to the November 2026 election

Unlike most vaccine-preventable diseases, hepatitis B is asymptomatic and spreads silently until infected people develop liver cancer or cirrhosis in their midlife. It’s one of the cancers with the highest mortality in the U.S with a 6 month life expectancy. www.latimes.com/california/s...

NYPD: "You can't snatch people off the streets without a warrant. And I'm gonna tell you right now, federal or not, it's against the law."

If you're new to lobbying Congress, here's a handy guide. Calls (especially to in-state offices) take less than a minute: "I live in X & want the Rep/Senator to support (oppose) Y." Use their webforms for longer messages. citizensimpeachment.com/advocate-for...

The US government is summarily executing people on a weekly basis without telling the American people any of their names or presenting any proof of their guilt, for alleged crimes that do not carry the death penalty in the US.

Ironically, I found relief this week from news of the world in Paulette Jiles's "News of the World." The novel was a 2016 Nat'l Book Award finalist. It's an old-fashioned, well-written, big-hearted book. #BookSky

BERMAN: Would it be legal for police in Arkansas to kill suspected drug dealers on a boat in a lake? TOM COTTON: The premise of your question is not well-founded BERMAN: The answer is no. It would not be legal to kill them.

This is just some petty and cruel shit. I was very proud to serve alongside Rachel Levine. She has more leadership, integrity, and expertise in her little finger than the entire RFK HHS crew does all together. www.npr.org/sections/sho...

ICE detained a woman shortly after she had a C-section. Her baby was abandoned in the NICU. DHS no longer restricts the arrest & detention of women who've recently given birth, are pregnant or nursing. You know: they're prolife. 19thnews.org/2025/12/post...

Actual good news: Funding is restored to libraries & museums per court order. www.npr.org/2025/12/04/n...

Rand Paul tells me that he wants the full video of the Venezuelan boat strike released. “And I think if the public sees images of people clinging to boat debris and being blown up, I think that there is a chance that finally, the public will get interested enough in this to stop this.”

Bad news for the Barbies. www.bbc.com/news/article...