Kevin Light-Roth

If I'm posting I must be publishing. Thank you to The Progressive for putting out this piece on the Trump administration's attacks on our higher education system. Intimidating and controlling our universities is another major step toward a full blown dictatorship, and everyone who wants to stay free should be seriously concerned. @theprogressive progressive.org/op-eds/dont-le…

Haven't posted a word in two months and in the meantime twenty new people started following me. So I should keep not posting? Is that the strategy here? People clearly find my silences more interesting than anything I have to say.

What a pleasant, unifying Memorial Day message from our nation's leader. Way to stay on topic, Donnie! The dude's posts sound about as rational and linear as an entry from Jeffrey Dahmer's diary.

Awake with insomnia at four in the morning and this occurred to me: the Trump administration is not trying to change anyone's opinion. This is not a hearts and minds operation. The administration's aim is to use violence to suppress the expression of opinions it doesn't like. And if that's not the hallmark of an authoritarian government, then I don't know what is. We're here.

You know the world has gone off the rails when war breaking out between two nuclear powers is three or four stories down on the evening news.

I didn't think I was doing this bad, but looking at my history I guess I'm averaging one post per week. Maybe less. Apologies to anyone who wants more from me. If the neglect goes on any longer someone ought to report me to CPS. This account might be better off in state care.

As over one hundred thousand people die of overdoses each year, one company is defrauding the Washington state government out of millions of dollars in funding that was supposed to pay for chemical dependency treatment programs. Thank you to Aaron Hedge at Range Media for all the heavy lifting he did to make this article happen. @RANGEMedia4all

No one describes fundamental human instincts more eloquently than George Orwell -- but he would be entirely baffled by our president: "The whole idea of revenge and punishment is a childish daydream. Properly speaking, there is no such thing as revenge. Revenge is an act which you want to commit when you are powerless and because you are powerless: as soon as the sense of impotence is removed, the desire evaporates also." #trump #prisonreform #viral

Maryland's state legislature just found an elegant solution to the problem of having to pay settlements to survivors of sexual abuse in its juvenile facilities: pass a law limiting the amount of money a survivor can receive and limit the number of incidents survivors can sue over. This means if you were raped five times, you have to choose which of those rapes you want to file a suit over. One is on the state, the rest are on you. I'm sure these legislators would have the same attitude if it were their children being locked up and raped, and not just a bunch of poor kids who don't look like them. #PRISON #marylandlegislation #massincarceration

What's America coming to when a billionaire can't even buy an election anymore? Tweed is rolling in his grave.

It’s second chance month!!!

There will be a hearing today for anti-genocide protestor Mahmoud Khalil. A trial over his opinions, more or less. The point, clearly, is to intimidate others from expressing ideas that our government dislikes. As my main man Sir Thomas More would say, it's a dark path. First people will deny what's true in their hearts, and presently they will have no hearts at all.

At last!

There was a suicide here this morning. Every time it happens I think about how preventable it was. Not just in terms of mental health care in prisons, though you wouldn't need to do much to improve that. We live in a society that forces huge numbers of its least powerful members into cages, and that tells those people they have no redeeming qualities and no humanity. That they deserve what's happening to them. So many prisoners internalize what prosecutors and police and right wing ideologues say about them. And so many kill themselves as a direct result. #MentalHealth #prison

My first fiction piece Zen! turnandwork.com/blog-post/intr…

Hugh at Turn and Work is officially my hype man. You're hired. :) Thank you, brother. For publishing me and for promoting the bejeezus out of me. Elmore Leonard was my first love -- reading Stick in juvenile hall is what made me want to become a writer -- so the comparison means a lot to me. #turnandwork @turnandwork #fiction

Nope. There was a miscommunication with Inquest and the essay I posted about a few days ago never published. But Range Media totally published this article today, reporting on the Monschke decision and its strange afterlives. Thank you to Aaron Hedge for getting it out so quickly. Please share it far and wide. #rangemedia @RangeMedia @RANGEMedia4all @szarlotka @PrisonPolicy #prison #youthsentencing