Current Mood: 😱

As I write this, the wind chimes that hang in the back of my house are ringing up a storm. We were under an evacuation warning for most of the last week; right now we’ve got another real rager of a Santa Ana condition.

The wind is expected to die down this evening, leading to several days of relative calm that could help the firefighters finally tame the conflagrations that still threaten the region. Unless more fires break out. Which is why I’m still on edge, and why our things have been sitting in our car for over a week, ready to go at the drop of an order to get the hell out of here.

And we’re the lucky ones. Every day, we learn of more friends and acquaintances who have lost everything. Do I feel rage at the Republican politicians who say “there should be conditions” on disaster aid to California because of some imaginary “mismanagement” of water resources? You betcha.

So this is what was in the background during the recording of this week’s podcast, when we talked about the firehose of dangerous cabinet nominees who are getting their Senate hearings this week.

The Podcast

Alas, the fires prevented us from recording our first podcast of the year LAST week, which means we began without Karoli (who is on a well-deserved vacation). We soldiered on, but the show is always better when Karoli is with us!

We spent a good time talking about this week’s Senate hearings with Trump’s cabinet nominees. We were relieved to see Senate Democrats bringing the heat - for all the good that’s going to do. The Republicans are all afraid of Trump - which is where he gets his power. They are all going to fall in line.

“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t go down fighting,” says Aliza. “We elected these people to fight.”

We also touched upon the anti-immigration Laken Riley Act and the number of Democratic legislators who appear poised to just let the Republicans have their way. Other topics included the anticlimax of Jack Smith’s report, changes at MSNBC, and Meta’s MAGA turn.

We concluded with a discussion of the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. While a ceasefire is better than no ceasefire, neither of us is starry eyed about this ending the conflict once and for all.

“I try not to be too hopeful because of course, God only knows if it’s going to come through… Let’s just get these poor people home and these poor families some semblance of closure,” said Aliza.

View the podcast on YouTube here. Or listen to the audio version below.

Stuff to Read

This week’s podcast was recorded Wednesday afternoon - BEFORE President Biden’s poignant farewell speech. If you missed it, Heather Cox Richardson wrote a summary/analysis last night that’s worth your time.

Just hours before his speech, President Biden announced a new ceasefire deal has been hammered out between Israel and Hamas. That does not mean their war is over.

Melissa Ryan points out how Meta’s policy changes will “make it easier to target marginalized groups with harassment”.

This was one of the few things that gave us joy this week.

One Last Thing…

In another timeline, Karoli, Aliza, and I would be going back to DC this week to celebrate the historic inauguration of Kamala Harris. We had flights booked and everything. Instead, the inauguration will be historic for installing a convicted felon who is already exercising his fascist muscles by blitzing us with an overwhelming onslaught of threats to our well-being. We will not be watching.

We need to remember that this is a tried and true tactic of authoritarians. They want us to feel paralyzed, fearful, and incapable of putting up a fight against “the inevitable.”

It’s not inevitable until the last of us gives in.

My version of self-care this week has been found in the many political organizing publications we collected in our Alternate News Resources document. Each day, I am emailed with easy steps I can take to fight back: phone calls to legislators, petitions to sign, Zoom calls where like-minded people are building the grassroots opposition to the new regime.

I can’t do anything about the Santa Ana winds or the possibility of another fire breaking out near me. But I can do this.

It’s helping me feel just a little less overwhelmed.

A number of organizations and charities are working to help the thousands of people who have been displaced by the fires. I have been giving to the California Community Foundation’s Wildfire Recovery Fund and the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. Local public radio station KCRW has posted a slew of additional vetted charities and volunteer opportunities.