Heather Barthell

I follow @itsmikereilley for The Journalist's Toolbox. Lots of resources on this website for mere mortals to make sense of what's real or not. Thanks for all the hard work you do.

@joannalamblooby Exactly. Intolerant people must be called out and resisted.

For Renee Nicole Good Killed by I.C.E. on January 7, 2026 by Amanda Gorman They say she is no more, That there her absence roars, Blood-blown like a rose. Iced wheels flinched & froze. Now, bare riot of candles, Dark fury of flowers, Pure howling of hymns. If for us she arose, Somewhere, in the pitched deep of our grief, Crouches our power, The howl where we begin, Straining upon the edge of the crooked crater Of the worst of what we’ve been. Change is only possible, & all the greater, When the labour & bitter anger of our neighbors Is moved by the love  & better angels of our nature. What they call death & void, We know is breath & voice;  In the end, gorgeously,  Endures our enormity.  You could believe departed to be the dawn When the blank night has so long stood. But our bright-fled angels will never be fully gone, When they forever are so fiercely Good.

My neighbor called the HOA about my patio umbrella. Plain beige one from Walmart was apparently dragging down property values. Karen actually took photos from her window. The violation notice gave me 30 days to remove it. Fine. Spent three weeks crocheting this beast out of pure spite. Every color as loud as possible. Now she can’t complain because it’s “handmade art.” Her husband saw me setting it up, laughed so hard he spilled his beer. Started getting messages asking if I sell these. Posted it in my shop as a joke, priced at $400. Sold three already to other HOA rebels. Karen complained again, but a board member bought one for his wife. Now I’m the neighborhood’s official “revenge crafter,” making custom pieces for anyone with annoying neighbors. Last week someone ordered a neon pink mailbox cozy. Karen’s moving. Victory tastes like rainbow yarn. 🌈🧶 Credit - Martha Barker

@CrazyVibes_1 Not all heroes wear capes.

@SilvermanJacob @WajahatAli @gilduran76 Really enjoyed this conversation. Thanks for enlightening people about these groups!

I regret to inform that this is all very simple, and dumb: since 2017, Putin has been trying to goad Trump into seizing Venezuela and Greenland. Putin thinks this will cement the “Monroe Doctrine” as US policy, which he thinks will drive US disengagement from Ukraine. This effort failed in 2019 because it was blocked by John Bolton, Fiona Hill, Rex Tillerson, and other cabinet officials who considered these proposals but found them unwise. Putin’s efforts to goad Trump resumed in 2025, first with renewed interest in Greenland, second with Venezuela. The Venezuela dangle worked, and there were no adults to stop it, and plenty of profiteers eager to help. Now he’s after Cuba and Greenland, which Putin thinks (again) will catalyze US disengagement in Ukraine, which he hopes will give him a freer hand there, as well as reorient US power in the Western Hemisphere and away from Europe. That’s it. That’s what’s going on. Oil, minerals, peace prizes are all part of the dangle. But this is the whole ballgame.

It took almost one year for OpenAI to finally close a 40B round, which needed two tranches because investors couldn’t provide all the funds in March. This included actively seeking new funds during the round from existing and new investors, and urgently using some of the funds meant for the round for secondary sales for employees, as many of them threatened to quit and many actually left for competitors with better compensation. All of that money was finally, somehow, raised, scraping every dollar from their investors, including Son, who is essentially betting SoftBank’s future on OpenAI. How can OpenAI even think about a 100B round then? This WSJ/The Information scoop is meant to make sure the markets calm down and keep believing the AI narrative is still going strong, and that investors are enthusiastic (ask Blue Owl) about throwing dozens or billions of dollars at Sam Altman so he can generate a calendar for Christmas 2026.

@BaddCompani 🥰

Cut through the clutter and see the data behind today's big questions. Get it all free with the USAFacts weekly newsletter.

Trump has been screaming “Russia hoax” about 2016 and the 2020 election was “rigged and stolen” for years. He does this endless lying bc he knows he’s guilty of Russia crimes, guilty of coup crimes and that he lost the 2020 election. He wants to create a different reality that would excuse his crimes. The fact is, Trump did conspire with Russian intelligence in 2016 through Wikileaks. Roger Stone’s trial proved it. Stone was admonished by Judge Amy Berman Jackson for protecting Trump. The 2020 election was not rigged or stolen. Biden got a massive boost to a record 81 million votes in 2020 bc people hated Trump and his terrible performance as president. Garland’s idiotic “start at the bottom” investigation of the coup gave Trump enough time to cement a false narrative with his gullible base. SCOTUS defiled the constitution by allowing Trump to run again. SCOTUS defiled the country by giving Trump immunity for official acts. Even with immunity, Trump would’ve been convicted in the classified documents case. Jack Smith didn’t have enough time. Cannon’s dismissal would’ve been overturned. Trump was saved by being elected. In the 2024 election…Usually, the party in power wins the presidency if the economy is strong. But Biden looked weak, and Harris didn’t have enough time. Independents were pissed off by poor border performance and alienated by trans stuff like filling out forms with absurd questions like “gender assigned at birth.” People may not like to hear that, but Trump ran nonstop, trans ads in Pennsylvania. That said, Harris would’ve still have won the election had there not been 56 or more bomb threats at heavily Democratic voting sites. Think about the thousands of Democrats that didn’t show up to vote bc of the bomb threats. Do the math. 2000 no shows per site equals 100,000 people. On the bright side, Trump is falling apart. He looks and sounds terrible. And he knows it. Vance will be awful. We will have elections in 2026 and 2028. Don’t let the fear mongers convince you otherwise. There are thousands of federal state and local elections that occur and there is a tremendous amount of momentum to an election. The elections can’t be stopped. Dems need to get a massive amount of early voting done next time.

Great episode!

The scoop: Trump refuses to do anything to reduce health insurance premiums; House Republicans refuse to come back to Washington due to Epstein files; and now they send layoff notices to CDC researchers dealing with burgeoning measles cases? MAHA=Measles Are Here Again

(From @Cryptadamist)

There were no shutdowns when President Biden and Democrats controlled the White House, House, and Senate. This is what happens when you elect unqualified mediocre people to the highest levels of government because you hate Black and brown people.

@innercitypress @MatthewLeeICP Thank you for following this case

Diddy dockets: "the victim who testified under the pseudonym Mia at trial wishes to be heard at sentencing," US Attorney's Office has just filed / told Judge Subramanian. Inner City Press will live tweet it

@Gerashchenko_en Thanks for reporting on this.

On September 12, the Mariinsky Palace in Russia's St. Petersburg hosted a meeting of the so-called "International League of Anti-Globalists 'Paladins.'" Although this event took place several weeks ago, I decided it was very important to highlight it - organizations from Spain, France, Hungary, several other European countries, Mexico, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina have attended. Most of these organizations are neo-Nazis and/or fascist. One of Russia's goals is to break/disrupt European support for Ukraine, and Russia is investing a lot of money and resources into reaching that goal. In my opinion, close attention should be paid to the souvenirs participants brought from Russia and whether or not they will be reflected in their tax declarations. Interesting detail: the face of one participant was blurred in the photo. Reportedly, it is a participant from Spain. I wonder why he was the only one to have that. The event was announced by Russian "Orthodox oligarch" Konstantin Malofeev (husband of the Russian children’s ombudsman and ICC indictee for the abduction of Ukrainian children, Maria Lvova-Belova). According to Malofeev, more than 50 delegates from three continents, representing 15 organizations, came to St. Petersburg. The event's agenda: "the situation in the world, migration issues, the defense of traditional values, and the fight against global Canaan and Sodom." Russian participants included: ▪️ Alexandr Dugin, ideologue of the "Russian world"; ▪️ Konstantin Chebykin, a United Russia deputy in the Legislative Assembly; ▪️ Representatives of the Federation of Traditional Sports "Double-Headed Eagle"; ▪️ Assembly Chairman Alexandr Belsky, who did not attend in person but sent a welcome address; ▪️ Priest Vladislav Malyshev, known for hearing confessions of those injured in the bombing that killed Z-blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, and recipient of an award for "patriotic education." Foreign delegates included: ▪️ Falange Española de las JONS, whose members openly use the Nazi salute. Ironically, they honor the fighters of the "Blue Division," which fought with the Wehrmacht in the blockade of Leningrad; ▪️ The Spanish fascist party "National Democracy," founded in 1995 by former members of the neo-Nazi CEDADE; ▪️ The Mexican group Unión, Nación, Revolución (UNR), which Global Project Against Extremism links to Mexican fascists and to Germany’s neo-Nazi "Third Way." UNR propaganda uses the "Celtic cross," a recognized neo-Nazi symbol of "white supremacy"; ▪️ The French neo-fascist movement Les Nationalistes, founded in 1983 by ex-members of the National Front and former SS officers; ▪️ The Hungarian Sixty-Four Counties Youth Movement, which campaigns for revising Hungary’s borders set by the 1920 Treaty of Trianon; ▪️ Representatives of three organizations from Italy, two from Serbia, and one each from Greece, Germany, Belgium, the UK, South Africa, Brazil, and Argentina; ▪️ Among the attendees was far-right French politician Yvan Benedetti, who openly called himself an "anti-Zionist" and "anti-Semite," for which he was expelled from Marine Le Pen’s National Front (now National Rally). Benedetti has spoken admiringly of Mussolini and French collaborator Marshal Pétain. Those who joined via video link included: ▪️ French far-right thinker Alain de Benoist; ▪️ conspiracy theorist Alain Soral; ▪️ Alexander von Bismarck, descendant of the Iron Chancellor, now a supporter of German neo-Nazis. Fun fact: once the gathering became public knowledge, the Legislative Assembly scrambled to distance itself. Speaker Belsky, whose welcome letter was read at the event, claimed he had no idea "who exactly would be invited." 📷: Photo from Falange Española de las JONS

The moment the lights went out in Russia's city of Belgorod. Now without power, the Russians are finally getting back what they've been doing out to Ukraibe for 3 years.

EXCLUSIVE: Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel behind Trump is now exporting the MAGA playbook to Britain - embedding across three parties: Blue Labour, Tories, Reform - via a network of race science believers. By me with @peterjukes via @BylineTimes bylinetimes.com/2025/09/25/blu…