Sorry for the dirty window but it’s still a nice autumn Appalacian view from my office at @virginiawestern.bsky.social

“‘Paper Girl’ layers memoir with reporting to produce an unsettling portrait of her native Urbana, Ohio, battered all but unrecognizable by opioids and other malignant social currents.” @bethmacy.bsky.social

Alexa, thank my driver FOR DELIVERING THE BEST, MOST TIMELY, BOOK OF 2025! You’ll cry, but maybe see a path ahead. @bethmacy.bsky.social #papergirl

The plant is the managing editor.

Hey, did your family break over MAGA politics? Join the club! And listen to my BFF @bethmacy.bsky.social talk about her new memoir “Paper Girl” and how to mend and (maybe) move forward. www.npr.org/2025/10/06/n...

“This is not a policing strategy. It is a campaign, a show of dominance, a performance meant to look like wartime footage.”

"It's like they don't care about us. They just don't see us as human. ... They just see us as different, different, like an animal. ... Like we were just here, roaming around, and they just are grabbing us, like animal patrol type thing."
#ICE in Virginia. 💔
www.vpm.org/news/2025-10...

“We often think about the rule of law in overly intellectualized terms…But its erosion has a very real human cost, measured in fallen ideals and thwarted principles and, ultimately, shattered lives.”

A must-read from @michael-feinberg.bsky.social:

www.lawfaremedia.org/article/maki...

“The Mercury asked Reid if his view (of the Kashoggi case) changed as evidence mounted, but his campaign did not answer.”
virginiamercury.com/2025/10/02/r...

H-1B visas are not a problem that needs fixing. They help put teachers and doctors in rural areas. They help Virginia businesses expand. They also are not exactly easy to get.
vcij.org/stories/new-...

Duncan: But I’m proud to say I’m a Democrat. I’m proud that I can show up to work every day with a better toolkit to love my neighbor—instead of villainizing everyone or putting an asterisk next to someone just because they don’t look like me, talk like me, love like me, or worship like me.

Winston Churchill did not bench 300.

Reading this is making me relive my own laid-off experience, which was horrible but cotton candy, kittens and rainbows compared to DOGE.
Let Virginians remember: The cruelty is the point.
#VOTE2025

😘

“The network audits show how regularly police in other states, often cooperating with federal authorities, utilized Flock data in Virginia for immigration-related purposes. Roughly 9 in 10 searches were conducted by law enforcement in other states.”#ICE #immigration vcij.org/stories/virg...

“In other words, nine days from today, any ability to charge Comey for any alleged false statement he may have made at that hearing will lapse.”

www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-...

📌 This.

Measles cases up 31-fold in the Americas region this year

The Americas region have reported 11,313 cases so far this year.

www.cidrap.umn.edu/m...

Tribune visual journalist Stacey Wescott has been making pictures in and around Chicago for 26 years.
On Friday, she documented former Marine Curtis Evans carrying an American flag amid a cloud of gas in the middle of a confrontation outside of an ICE facility.
Here's how she captured that shot.

I’ve now had two opportunities to change my last name, and I’ve never regretted not doing it.

The Pentagon just dropped a memo saying reporters have to sign a pledge promising not to obtain or use “unauthorized” material. That word—unauthorized—is so vaguely defined it could cover basically anything. It’s a direct attack on journalists just doing their jobs.

This is bullshit.

Still waiting on the "Virginia Way" people to finally stand up to MAGA. "Virginia Republicans have been publicly silent, but they surely understand that when the president of the United States goes after someone like Siebert — who has been one of their own — that these aren’t normal times."

Once again, Trump is out-Nixoning Nixon. "The ouster of Siebert on Friday is far more serious, because this involves the president of the United States essentially ordering the prosecution of a political rival." cardinalnews.org/2025/09/22/h...

These are two excellent opportunities for journalists. Best wishes on making great hires!