Some truth from James Baldwin, who is as ever correct TODAY as he was DECADES AGO.
Prof. Carl Sagan
@ProfCarlSagan
Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.– James Baldwin
Over the course of this past year, I have come to the same conclusion. If a print edition of a book exists, I have been buying it. If Peanut asks for a book, she’s getting the physical copy. I also try to buy a DVD with every paycheck. Want that physical media. And, I have bought actual CD’s this year. Peanut has been going ‘vintage’ – she has started her own vinyl album collection.
Andrew A. Michta
@andrewmichta
🧵This won’t be my typical post; rather, a reflection after the Christmas season that allowed me to slow down a bit. BLUF: We need a return to analog culture. We need to reclaim reading physical journals and books. We need to return to in-person contact and conversations. 1/6
11:26 AM · Dec 30, 2025Andrew A. Michta
@andrewmichta
The internet generates alienation and ultimately loneliness. As human beings we were never meant to live our lives online. The world can’t be reduced to a phone screen, and even if so, it shouldn’t be. We need to reclaim tangible living where real human complexity resides. 2/5
11:26 AM · Dec 30, 2025Andrew A. Michta
@andrewmichta
No computer screen can substitute for the weight of a book in your hand, no zoom call can substitute for the timbre of someone’s voice, or genuine eye contact, or a handshake. No AI algorithm can replicate the act of learning that takes time, reflection and making mistakes. 3/6
11:26 AM · Dec 30, 2025Andrew A. Michta
@andrewmichta
I shudder when I see young women or men snap endless selfies to post online; or seeing a forest of raised iPhones to snap a picture of Mona Lisa at the Louvre. Such moments were never meant to be documented; they were meant to be lived-saying this doesn’t make me a luddite. 4/6
11:26 AM · Dec 30, 2025Andrew A. Michta
@andrewmichta
I was raised reading real books. They offered the requisite linearity that disciplined the mind, for each line had a starting and ending point. I see the devastation that hypertext brought to our young in their writing, and in speech where “like” is the most ubiquitous word. 5/6
11:26 AM · Dec 30, 2025Andrew A. Michta
@andrewmichta
The digital world has become one of imprecision and progressive ignorance. The vulgarity that pervades social media is but one sign of our times, as we continue to regress. It’s not too late to course correct, though soon it will be, as digital decadence engulfs our lives. 6/End
11:26 AM · Dec 30, 2025
https://x.com/andrewmichta/status/2006054370694058091?s=20
I appreciate those who stand up in resistance to this Administration, anyway they can.
Protect Kamala Harris ✊
@DisavowTrump20
🚨NEW: Legendary jazz saxophonist Billy Harper has cancelled his planned New Years Eve performance at the Kennedy Center: “I would never even consider performing in a venue bearing a name that represents overt racism”RETWEET if you stand with Harper against Trump!
https://x.com/DisavowTrump20/status/2005850192017346725?s=20
Gary Chambers
@GaryChambersJr
The police were called on me last night because I spoke up to a cashier at the Express Mini Mart on Mickens Road.
I’ve been going to this store for years, like many people in this neighborhood. We pay taxes, yet the quality of retail options in our communities is still limited.
I address issues head-on. Allowing a younger cashier to disrespect a young Black man in this neighborhood can escalate in dangerous ways, and I wasn’t going to ignore it. Once the back-and-forth went too far, I asked them to call the owner. I stepped outside to my truck.
When I came back in to ask how long it would take, I was told 20 minutes. I said I wasn’t waiting that long and asked to speak to the owner by phone. I waited. Then I looked up and saw a deputy pull into the lot. I didn’t trip — I knew I was in the right.
That’s when the cashier started fast-talking, finger-pointing, acting alarmed. Full blown Karen shit.
I calmly explained the situation to the deputy. He tried to contact the store owner, but the cashier stalled before finally making the call. I got the owner’s number, and he needs to seriously consider his staffing.
Anyone who knows me knows I confront issues directly. I don’t back down because someone calls the police. I wasn’t breaking the law — you just didn’t like being checked.
End of the year or beginning of the year. Day or night. I’m consistent.
I bet he didn’t expect me to still be talking to his boss today.
Respect is the minimum. Especially when people spending their hard earned money. I have options, everybody in this area doesn’t. They will be respected.
https://x.com/GaryChambersJr/status/2006402545577545842?s=20
Brad
@BraddrofliT
Funny how debt is forgivable when it’s tied to yacht, hedge funds, or failed businesses but suddenly becomes a “character flaw” when it’s tied to education, healthcare, or survival.
6:24 PM · Dec 30, 2025
https://x.com/BraddrofliT/status/2006159556502560993?s=20
Whenever I read something about the USPS that pisses me off, I think of Saint Bernard of Vermont, who is responsible for the nonsense at the USPS because of his antics during Obama’s Presidency.
Democracy Docket
@DemocracyDocket
The USPS finalized a postmark date change that could upend mail voting for rural voters living over 50 miles from a regional processing facility. The initiative is part of a series of controversial reforms launched by Trump’s first postmaster general.
https://x.com/DemocracyDocket/status/2006388638498574738?s=20
Kyle Griffin
@kylegriffin1
The Kennedy Center adopted bylaws earlier this year that limited voting to presidentially appointed trustees — not those designated by Congress — a move that preceded the dubious vote to add Trump’s name to the center.
Legal experts say that may conflict with the institution’s charter.
https://x.com/kylegriffin1/status/2006383604121604260?s=20
Aaron Blake
@AaronBlake
The local CBS station in the Twin Cities reviewed security footage from one of the day cares on the day Nick Shirley visited.
It shows “families evidently arriving to drop off their children earlier that morning and later in the afternoon.”
https://x.com/AaronBlake/status/2006371387653439930?s=20
philip lewis
@Phil_Lewis_
Kennedy Center changed board rules months before vote to add Trump’s name
https://washingtonpost.com/style/2025/12/31/kennedy-center-board-trustees-bylaws/
CBS Mornings
@CBSMornings
Nine Republican Montana state senators voted with 18 Democrats to form a new majority to pass major legislation last session, undermining the influence of the ultra-conservative caucus of the state’s GOP.
Dubbed “The Nasty Nine,” the Republican senators were censured by their own party, stripped of their GOP status and cut off from voting rights at their party’s conventions in June.
Some of those senators — and two of the Democrats they voted with — spoke with
@jolingkent
about what they accomplished: “We voted for lower income tax relief. We invested in infrastructure. We invested in the future of Montana.”
https://x.com/CBSMornings/status/2005642568575357263?s=20
Brian Allen
@allenanalysis
NEWS: The Department of Justice now claims it’s reviewing 5.2 million Jeffrey Epstein–related files, conveniently “discovering” more documents in real time.
If the numbers keep changing, so does the story. Transparency doesn’t look like this.
10:00 AM · Dec 31, 2025
https://x.com/allenanalysis/status/2006395020522484182?s=20
Acyn
@Acyn
Cross: And I just find it laughable that the party of the self-proclaimed pro-life people are celebrating cutting off funding to children, the white evangelical crowd who purports to uphold these Christian values are celebrating targeting communities because of their ethnicity and cutting off care to children. It’s utterly ridiculous
https://x.com/Acyn/status/2006206459353391393?s=20
LongTime🤓FirstTime👨💻
@LongTimeHistory
ICE violently detain woman driver—goes to draw gun on another woman filming.
3 male agents start to take clothes off woman handcuffed and pinned to ground. (1:19)
Then agent reaches for his weapon and nearly points gun directly at woman filming—a confirmed U.S. citizen. (1:13)
Agents claim the woman arrested was “blocking them in” with her car—but witnesses say it was the ICE vehicles who were blocking. #DemsUnited
https://x.com/LongTimeHistory/status/2006106605599760478?s=20
Molly Ploofkins
@Mollyploofkins
‘South Park’ alum Toby Morton responds to unnamed lawyers regarding his registering the Trump-Kennedy Center domain names: “Satire is protected speech… I’ll proceed accordingly while you go f^ck yourselves.”
https://x.com/Mollyploofkins/status/2006326258838519818?s=20
Kyle Clark
@KyleClark
President Trump promised punishment for Colorado. And delivered.
Relocating Space Command
Denying disaster funding for wildfires and floods
Planning to dismantle NCAR
DOJ investigation of Colorado’s prisons
Vetoing a clean drinking water project
👇👇👇
https://x.com/KyleClark/status/2006227711870505448?s=20
Democracy Docket
@DemocracyDocket
NEW: Earlier this month, Dallas Republicans announced plans to hand count every ballot cast in the upcoming GOP primary, insisting “failure is not an option.” This week, failure was very much an option: The Texas GOP announced it would drop the initiative.
https://x.com/DemocracyDocket/status/2006409580859801758?s=20
austerity is theft
@wideofthepost
The Trump admin cutting off all childcare funding during a cost of living crisis because a Jan 6 insurrectionist cameraman made a completely fake, debunked youtube of himself going to daycares outside of their business hours.
https://x.com/wideofthepost/status/2006332617768260057?s=20
Brian Krassenstein
@krassenstein
NICK SHIRLEY’S GRIFT UNCOVERED:
I want to take a closer look at the grift Nick Shirley is running here, because once you slow it down, the entire thing collapses under its own weight.
So let’s get this straight: he went to a daycare that doesn’t open until 2 p.m., filmed it before it opened, and then presented the fact that it wasn’t open as evidence of fraud. That’s not investigative journalism.
That’s not knowing how a schedule works.
Next, the blackout windows and secured doors. This is completely normal for ground-floor daycares in large cities. It’s done to protect children from strangers staring in, filming them, or worse. Ironically, the exact behavior he’s engaging in is the reason those windows are covered in the first place.
And just to be clear: no, a daycare should not have its doors unlocked for random walk-ins during operating hours. That’s basic child safety. Especially in a country where the same political movement Nick aligns with insists that everyone should have easy access to assault rifles.
Then there’s the part where a 23-year-old guy with a camera shows up asking if he can “enroll little Johnny,” a hypothetical child, in a Somali daycare. You can hear the uncertainty in his voice because even he knows this doesn’t make sense.
Judging by how this is going, the lawsuits are going to explain the rest.
https://x.com/krassenstein/status/2006399226201112969?s=20
Alex Cole
@acnewsitics
Tina Peters didn’t protect democracy — she tried to break it because she didn’t like the results. Colorado Republicans ran the elections. Republicans investigated her. Republicans testified. But sure, blame Democrats anyway. Tina can rot in fucking jail.
https://x.com/acnewsitics/status/2006399535443071198?s=20
UH HUH
UH HUH
BythePeople
@BythePeople18
When Hillary Clinton suggested coal jobs would be replace by green jobs, as coal production fell, she was killed for it. Yet, Trump is telling people who will lose their jobs to AI, in essence, tough shit, with nothing proposed to replace those jobs. And the media says nothing.
2:54 PM · Dec 30, 2025
https://x.com/BythePeople18/status/2006106619722043744?s=20
Looking at this picture..I feel so old..LOL
Kentah Gwanjez
@GWANJEZ
Black Excellence in 1994
https://x.com/GWANJEZ/status/2006352985010651417?s=20
Andrew Mercado
@Guru_Merc
BREAKING:
@MPRnews
reports that Minnesota House GOP leader Lisa Demuth acknowledged the Repubican Party’s involvement in
@nickshirleyy
viral daycare video, saying, “We worked with Nick Shirley on this.” That matters, because the video has been widely framed as independent citizen journalism. Minnesota officials have said fraud investigations were already underway long before the video, and inspections have not backed up many of the claims made about the specific daycare centers shown.
Still, the video fueled widespread outrage and targeted scrutiny of Somali-owned childcare providers. With a top Republican now on record confirming coordination, this reframes the entire narrative. This wasn’t just a lone YouTuber uncovering something new. A political party acknowledges involvement in producing or shaping media that went viral (not organically) and helped drive public backlash.
https://x.com/Guru_Merc/status/2006156014404657220?s=20
Harry Sisson
@harryjsisson
The WSJ just reported that Donald Trump sent employees (usually young women) to Epstein’s mansion for massages where they would be assaulted. Everyone at the spa knew Epstein was creepy and Trump kept sending girls anyway. This should be the biggest story of the day.
12:44 PM · Dec 31, 2025
https://x.com/harryjsisson/status/2006436360023105854?s=20
NOH8 Campaign
@NOH8Campaign
BREAKING: Renee Hardman wins special election to the Iowa State Senate, becoming the first Black woman elected to the chamber #NOH8
https://x.com/NOH8Campaign/status/2006215879776985145?s=20
If the internet did not exist, I would not be reading this post or other posts by the 3chicspolitico. With out the internet, my friend in Eastern Europe would not have been easily able to wish people today a Happy New Year in 100 languages.
Without the internet, 324 people from 29 different nations would not have been able to read the 50 different news articles, opinion essays, poems, art pictures or cartoons that i read, liked and shared yesterday out of the several hundred that I scanned to find those 50.
Without the internet, I would not have access to thousands of novels and non-fiction books, news articles, songs, poems, films and essays via the internet archive, Gutenberg free ebooks, hundreds of online versions national and public libraries at no cost to me other than my internet connection fee and a proportion of my electric bill each month. Because of the free internet translation apps, I am able to read dozens of pretty good translated pieces.
During the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s I was able to read in English about 30 novels a year, read two newspapers daily and 3 magazine a month. I have dozens of books, articles, essays, songs, pictures saved on external hard drives.
Do I miss paper books or vinyl records? Not at all. I have so much more now.
The internet connects and can foster division. The choice of connection or division has not changed… it is yours and mine to make. I choose connection and I can’t wait for the day when holograms of films and live performances to be available and affordable on the internet. I also believe that a percentage of my internet fee ought to go toward paying authors, journalists and artists for their analog and digital efforts.
I appreciate your viewership. I understand what you mean, but, I still think the young people are missing out on things being so attached to their phones and tablets.
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
I’m an analog girl in a digital world and I endorse this post! Also, with this administration I fear wholesale wipe out of online information and I want to own the book, CD, etc. Happy New Year to you and Ms Peanut!