An excellent response to Trumpian overreach: Mayor of Boston Michelle Wu to Attorney General Pam Bondi (PDF) https://content.boston.gov/sites/default/files/file/2025/08/Response%20AG%20Bondi.pdf
Historian, editor, and translator for hire (🇩🇪 to 🇺🇸); longtime resident of Washington, DC, now caregiving in Conway, NH (he/him) 🏳️⚧️🇺🇦🗽 Cross-posting from my blog and engaging with people where I find them. Profile pics: https://markstoneman.com/credits/
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An excellent response to Trumpian overreach: Mayor of Boston Michelle Wu to Attorney General Pam Bondi (PDF) https://content.boston.gov/sites/default/files/file/2025/08/Response%20AG%20Bondi.pdf
It's just your right to be alive.
We will not yield.
Last week, Boston received a letter from AG Bondi threatening to prosecute officials and withhold funds unless we cooperate with carrying out mass deportations. The US Attorney General asked for a response by today, so here it is: stop attacking our cities to hide your administration’s failures.
#InformationDisorder #NewsMedia
Sorry for the miserable post.
At this point, I think such denials amount to no more than a declaration of the current script that cult followers are to use.
Really? I remember heavy helicopter usage only at specific times. Maybe this depends on where in the city you are? (I'm coming at this from a Glover Park perspective.)
Yeah, I thought of Obama immediately.
women into arts and "therefore" copyright; men into science and tech and "therefore" into patents. remember being called a "patent girl" as if an anomaly by a senior woman copyright academic.
weird how the patent copyright binary gender divide seems to be still a thing
Trump had 8 fighter jets flyover the #Epstein survivor conference, interrupting them mid speech. #opdeatheaters
Or skip my brief comments and go straight to Martin Austermuhler's piece: 51st.news/dc-residents... 2/2
DC Responses to the Federal Invasion: https://markstoneman.com/2025/09/02/dc-responses-to-the-federal.html Quote about the "cancer" of feds in DC and a link to an article about residents' ad hoc and organized efforts to help their neighbors. 1/2
My wheatpasting questions, answered. gorillaprinting.com/all-your-whe...
I did not know the term "wheatpasting" but I'm seeing it in action every day here in DC.
Cool. Thanks!
Speaking as an American, we have had our great moments, but these ain't them.
The lawn as an alternative to the National Archives?
Possibly related: The way Martha Raddatz privileged official (and off-the-record) *military* statements about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq used to drive me crazy because there was no effort to report from outside their narrow framing of these wars and of U.S. security policy more generally. 2//
If I were looking for antecedents, I'd probably first turn to our drone war against ostensible terrorists under Bush and Obama. I remember the media following the administrations' line without fail for a long time. 1/
I don't use Google more than, say, once a month, unless I need its books search. Still, much of my modest blog traffic comes from Google searches. It probably doesn't help that its monopoly status is reinforced by its name serving as a verb for many years now.
We’ve compiled a few essential tips, drawn from the experiences of on-the-ground activists and immigrant rights groups. Guide: lataco.com/documenting-...
What 19th-century European understandings of war and dueling can tell us about Putin's murderous invasion of Ukraine and how he labels his war: https://markstoneman.com/2022/08/11/more-than-a.html (blogged 3 years ago) #PutinsWar #RussoUkrainianWar #LanguageMatters #HistoryMatters #PastAndPresent 🗃️
Yesterday I blogged about some lists I found in a recipe box of my grandmother's: https://markstoneman.com/2025/08/30/cookie-baking-lists-from-my.html #FamilyHistory #WomensLives
![Note with Grandma's Christmas cookie count for 1979. 1,352 that she classified as 'tiny', of which: 103 Pfefeffernusse [sic], 155 Anise flops, 63 anis drops, 48 date-nut, 156 olasses, 144 crescents, 105 chocolate chip, 158 peanut butter, 990 Swedish cherry, 75 white sponge, 84 white spritz, 96 chocolate spritz, 75 green spritz.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:mjwlqv743vswabzoofno4ziq/bafkreifizei2c6yaibwkvwii74mkm6inutmg7wytd4n7ye74rtcc7sosnm@jpeg "Click to view full size")
If "politically correct" were still in frequent use, it would be easy to flip the script and apply it to magaheads. That would be fun and possibly effective because it has a whiff of "unfreedom" about it, even though "wokeness" has tried to expand freedom to oppressed groups. 2/2
It might be helpful if we could find labels that convey stories that are not so easily undone by a label like "woke". Wish I had some notions about what such labels might be. 1/2
"'Dear Lord, stop the war (please)'. A graffiti near Troitse-Lobanovo estate, about 30km outside Moscow…" zirk.us/@ash/1151235... #Russia
boggles my mind how socialists are now defending intellectual property without any qualifications or caveats
Yesterday I blogged about some lists I found in a recipe box of my grandmother's: https://markstoneman.com/2025/08/30/cookie-baking-lists-from-my.html #FamilyHistory #WomensLives
For those asking, my American Revolution lecture course is free online here: oyc.yale.edu/history/hist...
Egads.
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Cookie Baking Lists from My Grandmother: markstoneman.com/2025/08/30/c... Photos of some Christmas cookie lists I found in a recipe box, and reflections about their meaning then and now.
Don't forget the dead in Syria and the damage to democratic political culture in other countries. He's been extremely "productive" (read: destructive).
We are growing dumber at an alarming rate.
Whether the arson attack and police response represented moral stances or these other social tensions, that is indeed an interesting little clip. (Sorry I didn't keep notes about these other two things, so no source info to share.) 2//
I've seen somewhere that a new kind of social inequality is becoming visible in the provinces, those that are profiting from the war and those that are not. I've also seen reports about how thin the police are now stretched because of those who are drawn into the conflict for a higher paycheck. 1/
The wife of a fighter in Russia’s so-called “SVO” says their home in the Urals was almost set on fire because her husband kills Ukrainian civilians. Strikingly, the suspected arsonist reportedly faced no legal consequences.
Whether the arson attack and police response represented moral stances or these other social tensions, that is indeed an interesting little clip. (Sorry I didn't keep notes about these other two things, so no source info to share.) 2//
I've seen somewhere that a new kind of social inequality is becoming visible in the provinces, those that are profiting from the war and those that are not. I've also seen reports about how thin the police are now stretched because of those who are drawn into the conflict for a higher paycheck. 1/
The twist: The reveal also reveals that admin don't know what's in the syllabus language they mandate
I would read an academic murder book in which the murder was solved by reading the syllabus
Hi Friends, If this popped up for you, a little love helps it reach someone else’s feed too, who might be waiting for a show near them. Join Waitlist Here👇 forms.gle/mDJX9xpv3zSY...
New levels of self-parody, when such shouldn't even be possible at this point.
Recommended Podcast: 'Lists!!!': https://markstoneman.com/2025/08/29/recommended-podcast-lists.html "Lists!!! How they organize the chaos of the world, for good and for bad." An annecdotal podcast by This American Life. Good stuff.
The sky outside a supermarket in North Conway, NH, early yesterday evening https://markstoneman.com/uploads/2025/d5325dc091.jpg
Predicting future of a new weapon system is very tricky even for experts. As an example see Admiral Sir Cyprian A. G. Bridge's article published in 1923. As an admiral surprisingly Bridge believed in airpower which he thought would eliminate submarine threat.
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They're lucky the weather is so nice.
Northbound on I95, NJ–NY border: The winds from faraway Hurricane Erin feel kinda good as I drink my espresso.
Operator Starsky on YouTube today: “Can Putin Be Trusted? Broken Promises, Ukraine & the Ceasefire Question.” (14 min.) https://youtu.be/b6RboHrxQ3Q
Former National Guard Vice Chief Major General Randy E. Manner says deploying the Guard to D.C. will ruin how the average American views the military.
Degenerates, all three of them. Vance, Hegseth Get Booed Over D.C. Takeover No One Wants nymag.com/intelligence...
Once again, Massachusetts has more public high schools ranked in the top 25 percent of the US News & World Report Best High Schools list than any other state in the country. trib.al/Wd4FD6h
The Russia problem is not going away anytime soon. www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder... #RussiaIsATerroristState 2/2
The ISW’s report yesterday underlines that Russia’s ultimate aim in Ukraine is to control the entire country politically. Everything else—from mass murder, kidnapping, land grabs, and war crimes to the erasure of Ukrainian language and culture wherever possible—is meant to serve that goal. 1/2
kyivindependent.com/russia-is-tu... #RussiaIsATerroristState. 2/2
"Russia is turning occupied Ukraine into a giant military base," The Kyiv Independent, Aug. 20, 2025. "From new launchpads for deep-strike drones in Donetsk to barracks built in former Black Sea resorts, occupation means that much of Ukraine "is already a Russian military base today." 1/2
NEW: Russian FM Lavrov accurately stated that the Kremlin's objective in Ukraine is to politically control all of Ukraine rather than to seize select Ukrainian territories. Russia launched the 2022 full-scale invasion after failing to secure control over Ukraine by other means. isw.pub/UkrWar081925
I missed this NYT report from July 16, 2025, by Shawn Hubler. https://archive.ph/9lLIt #CivilMilitaryRelations
self-parody
There's a lot of cruelty out there, and they're happy to direct it at any of the usual targets. But the same magahead who uses "college boy" as an insult can be proud when the first kid in his family starts college.
This long Bluesky thread offers interesting perspectives on the Alaska summit that might suggest far less cordiality from the U.S. side than seemed to others to be the case. #PutinsWar https://bsky.app/profile/prune602.bsky.social/post/3lwk2v2igwk2u
That "reporter's" narration---yikes.
I so wish I were in Berlin before this closes in October--go see it, Berlin peeps
Klára Hosnedlová is truly one of the most remarkable artists working today www.artbasel.com/stories/the-...
Commissioned by the Centre for Democratic Integrity, the volume explores the socio-cultural foundations and political manifestations of contemporary anti-Ukrainian sentiment within the Russian state and society. Edited by @shekhovtsov.substack.com @russland-analyse.bsky.social @russlandwatcher.de
Even if one drinks raw milk, doing it this way is weird.
The colloquial meaning of the term "intellectual property" - however well meant against AI scraping etc - seems to get ever more expansive and maximalist. Not every scrape of thought or writing is intellectual property. More private property is not the good defence that people thing it is.
All these people with their comfy History, English, Philosophy, Arts and PPE degrees, their self-satisfied faces show they've done very well out of it all. Now they want to deny that to everyone else. They're nothing more than moral effluent, and in fact worse than that: the drain, not the contents.
It's hard to call that thing by its name if you're the one being conned.
Bin gerade dabei. ☕️
Durch Essen kann man vieles über Menschen und Gesellchaftswandel lernen.
"How Red is the little red schoolhouse?" (circa 1949). The GOP's longstanding fever dream of indoctrination in schools and universities
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Why do we have to do this workplace excursion at night?
I share this syllabus bc I'm one of a tiny handful of university faculty in the UK who teach trans history at a specialist level, & I'd like there to be more of us! I learned the field from scratch post-PhD, bc at my prev institution it was politically necessary - which means that you can too!
Heh. His claim/brag/goal is perfect for these times.
I’m old enough to remember when it was on pace to out-think humanity.
The Kyiv Independent’s take on the “sickening,” “shameful,” and “useless” meeting in Alaska is spot on. https://kyivindependent.com/editorial-that-was-sickening-was-it-necessary/
On the bright side, history teaches us that, once a fascist dictator has brought apocalyptic catastrophe down on his own people after destroying half the world, right-wing extremism tends to fall out of favor for a couple of generations.
#LanguageMatters #ПутінІдиНахуй 🇺🇦
Micromanaging the day-to-day affairs of D.C. is not what voters elected the president and members of Congress in their home states to accomplish. We need D.C. statehood NOW: dcstatehoodnow.org
I have not done much walking this summer because of haze that carries all the way over to New Hampshire. markstoneman.com/2025/08/04/1...
I want to know if one of the world’s most profitable retailers is getting tax credits or incentives to provide “independent contractor” jobs without benefits. #mepolitics www.bangordailynews.com/2025/08/15/a...
Who?
David O’Hara blogged his favorite bookstores. Fantastic idea as I still tend to take them for granted. https://davoh.org/2025/08/15/favorite-bookstores.html #books #bookstores
The Home Rule Charter allows the president to "request services" from MPD when an emergency exists that require local police "for federal purposes." Schwalb says the so-called crime emergency is bunk, and that taking over MPD to fight crime isn't really a "federal" purpose.
Interesting: While the lawsuit focuses initially on Trump's push to take daily control of MPD, it also challenges his initial claim that he's even allowed to ask the police department to do his bidding.
NEWS: @dcattorneygeneral.bsky.social is suing the Trump administration in federal court over a recent move to take day to day control of MPD. The lawsuit calls the move the “gravest threat to Home Rule that the District has ever faced.”
the two young women just waiting for their Ubers while this unfolds behind them really captures the complete ludicrousness of this situation
Slava Ukraini! 🇺🇦 #FridayPhoto 🗃️📷📸
A rally in Alaska ahead of the meeting between President Trump and Putin.
Russian journos don't sound too happy with their accommodations and are peeved that their credit cards aren't working.
genuinely brings me pleasure that no one respects this guy (least of all himself)
I'm just happy whenever anyone who is not a DC resident takes notice of the problem. (I live in NH now, but my spouse is still in DC, and a family member is starting college there.)
this is some bullshit
the enemy is explicitly us in this situation. there is literally no one else around.