Harriet Powers (1839 -1910), African-American former enslaved woman, folk artist, quilt maker from Georgia who used traditional appliqué techniques to record local legends, Bible stories, and astronomical events on her quilts #WomensArt #BlackHistoryMonth

Hahahaha . . . wait, WHAT?

Yay! My first humor piece is up at @belladonnacomedy.bsky.social. Next stop . . . Hollywood! That's how it works, right? thebelladonnacomedy.com/parenting-mi...

Medium having a global hosting outage the day I publish my first humor piece feels very on-brand for 2025

Hey! I write humor now. Check it out.

Although classified as carnivores, wolves may sometimes follow an omnivorous diet. They can eat meat, eggs and even fruit! This time of year, pumpkins are a special treat for our ambassador wolves.🎃 #wolffact

it's a really dark day for journalism and this country. the old institutions simply will not stand—and that's why it's time to create new ones. make independent media a viable path. subscribe to the handbasket: www.thehandbasket.co/subscribe

CBS News will now be a megaphone for the country's most vicious crusader against free speech, and the most relentless propagandist of far-right disinformation. Cancel Paramount Plus, call every CBS advertiser until their only remaining ads are for MyPillow and Daily Stormer.

so the US government just forced a tech company to delete an app it doesn’t like, which is totally normal stuff www.404media.co/iceblock-own...

this should be a much bigger story

Thank you to the modest percent of you who answered the question rather than pontificated on somewhat related matters.

Adelanto is a bad place (all of these places are). In 2015, I spoke with detainees there who were on hunger strike, and a paraplegic teenager who had been denied treatment for a UTI after being denied clean catheters. He told me "they basically just wait until you're dying."

Amazon agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle a FTC suit which claimed that sign-ups + cancellations for Prime are manipulative and confusing In the words of one Amazon customer quoted in an earlier court filing: "IT IS SNEAKY AND BLOODY DISHONEST" www.wired.com/story/amazon...

A statue depicting Trump holding hands with Epstein has been removed from the National Mall in Washington, DC, hours after it was erected. A group calling itself “The Secret Handshake” claimed responsibility for the satirical statue that included a plaque that read “In Honor of Friendship Month."

If you were concerned about Kimmel, here's another for you… Journalist Mario Guevara has been detained for 100+ days, ironically arrested as he reported on a "No Kings" protest. The Trump-Vance admin just issued an order of final removal, to send him to El Salvador—where he fled from 21 years ago.

Fighting back for freedom of the press 👏

Do any of the professors or journalists or teachers also get their jobs back or nah

Rather than permitting the Trump administration to frighten us out of resisting, we must understand this broad, vague, and performative executive order as an effort to intimidate. It should catalyze us into urgent organizing, not paralyze us. Only collective action can keep us safe and free.

It was very telling that for three days, none of the major TV anchors would have me on air one-on-one to talk about my firing from the Washington Post over Charlie Kirk. The first offers were from Black media, independent media, Substackers, and podcasters.

It's pathetically sad, but what we will one day reckon with is how easily and quickly this happened. The media capitulation, the reins-free ICE atrocities. We were already set up for this. The structures were in place. @marisakabas.bsky.social at the Handbasket: www.thehandbasket.co/p/jimmy-kimm...

Political science has obsessed over polarization while largely neglecting extremism, and with few exceptions has been inattentive to the roots of it all—power, structures, and identities. Too many elites are just as unprepared. Thus, their takes are empty, trite, and naive.

LOST writer-producer Damon Lindelof says he won’t work with Disney unless Kimmel js reinstated. I’m hearing other talent weighing similar pledges.

WGA Statement on ABC’s Decision to Pull Jimmy Kimmel Live!

The US Justice Department appears to have removed from its website a study into political violence in America by the National Institute of Justice, the Justice Department’s research agency, which concluded that far-right extremism outpaced “all other types of domestic violent extremism”.

I know everyone is consumed with other news, but this is a big fucking deal: The Trump administration says that IUDs and the Pill are actually abortions. Here's what USAID told the NYT about the $10m in birth control they plan to destroy. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/h...

DC National Guard to carry pistols that can fire without pulling the trigger. I am so worried for everyone in the city I love.

The M-17 is the military variant of the Sig Sauer P320 semi-automatic pistol, a controversial firearm that has been banned by multiple law enforcement agencies (including ICE) for reportedly firing without a trigger pull.

Genuinely incredible that she's saying this with 2 accused rapists on either side of her

Read this very carefully: *One quarter* of all the people who have died of starvation in Gaza over the past 22 months have died in the past *3* days.

“I no longer have the strength to work for the media. My body is thin and I can’t work anymore.” The last journalists remaining in Gaza are near death from forced starvation. There is enough food at the border to feed the entire population for 3 months. This is genocide.

This is extremely important. Generative AI is not a tool developed to advance for human knowledge and understanding. It is a tool explicitly developed in service of corporate greed. AI’s core utility is to undercut the cost of paying workers and thereby increase profit margins for a select few.

Good God, is The Bear back yet? I need some anxiety to be about fictional characters and not real life.

Summer tip: Stare at a tree for five minutes. That is all you have to do.

A piece about the question(s) we ask single mothers. Special thanks to @meaghano.bsky.social for commissioning this. www.romper.com/parenting/th...

We obtained records showing how an ex-DOGE staffer with no medical experience used AI to identify which VA contracts to kill. “I would never recommend someone run my code and do what it says,” he said. Read more: propub.li/4emGV69

The way to beat Trump's fake populism is with real economic populism: - genuine solutions like rent control and free fast busses - directing the deep well of public anger up at the oligarchs, not the vulnerable. This is what Trump fears most - and it's why he never wanted to run against Bernie

New poem up at Sixth Finch. An incredible issue. I highly recommend reading the whole thing: sixthfinch.com/alpert3.html

Just sent in an essay about what it's like to be constantly asked about my "support system" as a single mom. Wrote it in the 3 days of childcare I had this month (covid + rebound covid + closures). In the time it took me to write it, my editor and most of staff have been laid off. Times are sad.

I've been clear: if President Bukele doesn't want to meet here in D.C., then I intend to go to El Salvador this week to check on Kilmar Abrego Garcia's condition and discuss his release. Kilmar was illegally ABDUCTED and deported by the Trump Admin. He must be brought home NOW.

3 days ago RFK Jr. told the CDC to stop recommending water fluoridation, claiming it was a neurotoxin (this is a lie). Turns out he also just eliminated the CDC’s entire Lead Program, and now lead poisoned children in Milwaukee are just on their own. Lead IS a neurotoxin and harms brain development

This is Utah in case anyone’s wondering how pissed off people are. I have never seen anything like this.

If you needed any more reason to stop using AI chatbots

23 hours and counting

hard to choose the most shocking quote from @mckenziefunk.com story on ICE Air, but this one might do it www.propublica.org/article/insi...

Hey Wisconsin, polls are open until 8 p.m. Let’s stop Elon Musk from buying another election: iwillvote.com

We have had nearly two decades of panic about Free Speech on Campus and not a single case, not even the ones they made up, were as bad as what's happening now

Heads up Wisconsin!

I can’t believe I have to say this in 2025 but if your go-to group of experts on immigration are all white non-immigrants then you’re missing out. Actual immigrants of color who’ve lived through various mini-eras of dehumanizing posses a valuable experience that your go-to group does not.

WOW: @miamiherald.com reveals that a person imprisoned in El Salvador had LEGAL REFUGEE STATUS. He entered the USA legally in January and was detained because of his tattoos, EVEN THOUGH he had previously passed a full background check. Without warning, he was sent to El Salvador on March 15.