( via / via )

"...it was not just a prison they had arrived at. It was exile to another world, a place so cold and far from home they may as well have been sent into space, nameless and forgotten."

"Sympathetic newspapers trumpeted McCarthy’s charges—which kept changing, and for which he never offered proof—and many of his colleagues cheered him on, while Republicans who disapproved of his tactics kept their heads down to avoid becoming the target of his attacks.

All but one of them did, that is. Senator [Margaret Chase] Smith recognized the damage McCarthy and his ilk were doing to the nation. On June 1, 1950, with McCarthy sitting two rows behind her, Smith stood up in the Senate to speak. 'Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism,' she said. Americans have the right to criticize, to hold unpopular beliefs, to protest, and to think for themselves, she said. She condemned those trying to stifle dissent.

'I do not want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny—Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry and Smear,' she said. 'As an American, I condemn a Republican Fascist just as much as I condemn a Democrat Communist. They are equally dangerous to you and me and to our country. As an American, I want to see our nation recapture the strength and unity it once had when we fought the enemy instead of ourselves.' " --Heather Cox Richardson via

Commanding and Commanded.

"DISTANT MUSIC (Palindrome)

Emote to me. Refill a note.
By eking, I sedate my awe.

Now all I give, lines dash, promote,
to visit inward—rose, yet raw.

Art eyes, or drawn it is. I vote
to morph sad, senile vigil, law….

One way met a design I key.
Be tonal, life remote to me!"

--@anthonyetherin.bsky.social

"Your immediate and sweetly rebellious urge will be to go ‘Go to hell! I’ll show you!’ – and then use all 144 words in a single poem."