And, as always, send us your stories and wisdom.

Editor's note: As winter's grip tightens and the Wolf Moon rises, remember that rest isn't retreat—it's the radical act of preserving your energy for the fights that matter. The mycelium doesn't stop growing in winter; it just works beneath the surface where no one can see.

The metallic taste of political cowardice hits different when you watch it happen in real-time. Republican lawmakers are fleeing Congress like cockroaches when the kitchen light flicks on, and the stench of self-preservation hangs thick in the air. These shitstains spent years enabling Donaldo Fartfisted's authoritarian fantasies, and now that the consequences are crystallizing into reality, they're suddenly remembering they have "family obligations" and want to "spend more time at home."

This clusterfuck matters because every departure weakens institutional memory and creates power vacuums that Trump the Turd's loyalists are eager to fill. These dumbass cowards aren't leaving because they grew a conscience—they're bailing because they know what's coming and don't want their names attached to the wreckage. The communities most affected? Anyone who depends on functional government: disabled folks navigating benefits, queer families seeking legal protections, immigrants fighting deportation, low-income families relying on social services. When competent (or even semi-competent) legislators flee, the fuckwits who replace them bring nothing but scorched-earth ideology.

Grassroots organizations are already mobilizing to fill the gaps these dickheads are leaving behind. Local mutual aid networks, community defense funds, and direct action coalitions are gearing up for what organizers are calling "the survival years." Congressional staffers—the real fucking heroes who keep the machinery running—are documenting processes, preserving institutional knowledge, and building bridges to community organizations before they're purged. You can support these efforts by connecting with organizations like Indivisible, contributing to congressional staff support networks, and building your local pod structures now, before the shitstorm intensifies.

Historically, legislative exodus precedes authoritarian consolidation—we've seen this pattern from Hungary to Brazil to the Philippines. When lawmakers with functioning moral compasses (or at least functioning self-interest) abandon their posts, they leave behind true believers and opportunistic asshats who'll rubber-stamp anything. For our queer community, this means renewed attacks on marriage equality, adoption rights, healthcare access, and basic fucking dignity. The time for hoping institutional norms will save us is over. Read more

The crisp bite of mountain air, the particular silence of dawn in a canyon, the way pine resin smells when sunlight warms ancient bark—these experiences are about to cost you like you're visiting a foreign country. The National Park Service is implementing a new ID rule that could slap Americans with international visitor fees reaching $250 just to access lands our taxes already fucking pay for. Feel that? That's the sensation of commons being enclosed, of shared heritage being commodified, of access becoming privilege.

The numbers tell a brutal story: Over 312 million people visited national parks last year, and this bureaucratic bullshit could price out working families, disabled visitors who need multiple park entries for accessible experiences, and communities of color who've already been systematically excluded from outdoor spaces. This isn't about security or management—it's about creating barriers, about ensuring that wilderness becomes the playground of the wealthy while everyone else gets priced out of their own damn heritage. The environmental justice implications are staggering: when you can't afford to visit places, you can't build the emotional connections that motivate conservation.

Indigenous land defenders and environmental justice organizers are calling this exactly what it is: theft layered on theft. First, these lands were stolen from Native peoples. Then they were designated "public" but systematically kept inaccessible to Black, Brown, and poor communities through racist policies and economic barriers. Now comes this final insult—charging people to visit lands that should belong to everyone. Groups like Latino Outdoors, Outdoor Afro, and Indigenous-led conservation organizations are organizing coordinated resistance, planning "right to roam" actions, and building alternative access networks.

The ecological stakes run deeper than access: When people can't experience wilderness, they don't fight for it. Climate change is already reshaping these ecosystems—earlier snowmelt in the Rockies, drought-stressed forests, shifting wildlife patterns. We need more people falling in love with these places, not fewer. For queer folks who've always found refuge in nature when human spaces felt hostile, this hits different. The woods don't demand you perform gender correctly; the desert doesn't care who you love. Pricing us out of these sanctuaries is another form of violence. See the full breakdown

The weight of a hand reaching across an airplane armrest to squeeze yours, the particular tenor of relief in someone's voice when they're told "yes, you have rights here"—these moments of dignified travel are what Pete Buttigieg just fought to preserve while simultaneously throwing elegant shade at the incoming shitshow administration. The former Transportation Secretary issued a comprehensive reminder of traveler protections just as Trumpty MouthAnus prepares to dismantle every consumer protection that doesn't directly benefit his golf buddies.

Here's what actually matters: You have enforceable rights when airlines fuck up your plans. Automatic refunds for canceled flights. Compensation for significant delays. Protection against discriminatory treatment. Fee transparency. The ability to sit with your goddamn kids without paying extra. These aren't suggestions—they're regulations with teeth, at least for now. Buttigieg's timing was impeccable: remind people these protections exist before the new administration starts gutting them, and make sure queer travelers especially understand that discriminatory treatment remains illegal even when bigotry becomes presidential policy.

The queer travel community responded with recognition and grief—recognition that someone in power actually gave a shit about our dignity, grief that we're about to lose that institutional support. LGBTQIA+ travelers face compounded vulnerabilities: gender markers on IDs that don't match presentation, increased scrutiny at security checkpoints, hostile airline staff emboldened by shifting political winds, and the constant calculation of which bathrooms are safe, which cities are dangerous, which countries might imprison you for existing. Every protection Buttigieg championed matters more when you're navigating the world in a body the state considers aberrant.

Community organizers are already building alternative support structures: digital networks for reporting discrimination, mutual aid funds for travelers stranded by bigotry, safe house networks in hostile regions, and documentation projects preserving queer travel history before it's erased. The National Center for Transgender Equality, Lambda Legal, and grassroots collectives are compiling know-your-rights resources specifically for LGBTQIA+ travelers. Because when institutional protections evaporate, we fall back on what's always sustained us: each other. Full story

The particular quality of moonlight on snow, the way January's full moon seems to sharpen every shadow, the ancestral memory of wolves howling through your DNA—this is Wolf Moon season, and it arrives exactly when we need its fierce medicine. Over millions of practitioners worldwide will work with this first full moon of 2025, drawing on traditions that predate Christianity, capitalism, and every other system trying to domesticate our wildness.

The Wolf Moon gets its name from Indigenous North American traditions, marking the time when wolves' hunger howls pierced frozen January nights. It's a moon of survival, of finding sustenance in scarcity, of remembering that we're predators too—not in the violent sense, but in our capacity to hunt down what we need, to move in packs, to protect our own. Modern practitioners blend these ancestral practices with contemporary magic: setting fierce intentions, banishing what no longer serves, calling in the resources needed for the year ahead. The rituals vary wildly—from solitary witches in studio apartments burning bay leaves to full covens gathering in state parks for all-night ceremonies.

Queer witches and LGBTQIA+ magical practitioners have always found particular resonance in lunar work—the moon refuses binary thinking, waxing and waning, pulling tides and blood, governing transformation itself. In a world that demands you pick a lane and stay there, the moon says "fuck that" and shape-shifts every goddamn month. Wolf Moon magic carries extra weight for anyone who's had to survive by their wits, who's learned to hunt for scraps of acceptance, who's howled their truth into hostile darkness.

This year's Wolf Moon falls on January 13th (check visibility in your location), and magical communities are planning coordinated workings focused on protection, abundance, and resistance. Common practices include: creating moon water by leaving vessels under moonlight for charging, writing banishing lists to burn, crafting protection charms, performing prosperity rituals with cinnamon and bay, and collective howling sessions (yes, really—there's profound power in letting your voice go feral). Whether you're a seasoned practitioner or just someone who feels something when the moon rises full, this is your invitation to work with cycles older than nations, older than the systems trying to break us. Explore Wolf Moon practices

The Hill | Opinion. Watch Donny Dingleberry accidentally expose every American vulnerability while claiming to fix them—the taste of irony is so thick you could choke on it, like metal fillings grinding together while he tweets the republic into oblivion. (Read)

Vox | Politics. Feel the cold sweat of technological apocalypse running down your spine as experts explain how artificial intelligence could weaponize electromagnetic pulses, creating hunter-killer scenarios that make Terminator look quaint—the weight of our digital dependence suddenly measurable in pounds of dread. (Read)