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jeffburtka.bsky.social
Jeff Burtka🇲🇽🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇺🇦
@jeffburtka.bsky.social
890 followers 470 following 1.9K posts
Writing. Running. Outdoors.
Anishinaabe & Wyandot Land (Metro Detroit)
Writer. Lawyer.
Used to blog about the State of Michigan (Lifelong Michigander blog).
I blame it on my elegance.
#detroit #michigan
https://jburtka.journoportfolio.com
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jeffburtka.bsky.social
Jeff Burtka🇲🇽🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇺🇦 @jeffburtka.bsky.social · Nov 14
Introduction: Writer/editor/lawyer in metro Detroit working in legal publishing. I’ve written freelance articles on sports, outdoors, environment, and more for various publications, including The Guardian and Outside. Runner and sometimes coach. Pro-democracy. Roots against nazis in movies and life.
Reposted by Jeff Burtka🇲🇽🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇺🇦
kevinmkruse.bsky.social
Donald Trump is showing off photos of people who allegedly committed crimes that justify the occupation of all of Minneapolis.

Look at this guy who was charged with sex assault and obstructing justice.

Boy, imagine letting someone like that walk around free.
January 20, 2026 at 7:13 PM
Reposted by Jeff Burtka🇲🇽🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇺🇦
klasfeldreports.com
BREAKING

A federal judge STRIKES the words "United States Attorney" from Lindsey Halligan's signature and warns that he will refer her to disciplinary proceedings if she persists in calling herself one.

Doc buff.ly/JvTKLlD

Background buff.ly/Ay2iB6u
January 20, 2026 at 6:30 PM
Reposted by Jeff Burtka🇲🇽🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇺🇦
atrupar.com
Brooklyn Park police chief Mark Bruley: "We're hearing people being stopped with no cause & being demanded to show paperwork to determine if they're here legally. We started hearing from our police officers the same complaints. Every one of these individuals is a person of color... it has to stop"
January 20, 2026 at 5:31 PM
Reposted by Jeff Burtka🇲🇽🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇺🇦
ronfilipkowski.bsky.social
I guess they thought they were special since the Cuban-American community largely supports Trump.
January 20, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Reposted by Jeff Burtka🇲🇽🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇺🇦
physiciandemocracy.medsky.social
25th amendment now
AI image that Trump posted on Truth Social of him declaring Greenland a US territory
January 20, 2026 at 1:38 PM
jeffburtka.bsky.social
"Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity."

-MLK, Letter From a Birmingham Jail #MLKDAY
January 19, 2026 at 10:18 PM
jeffburtka.bsky.social
#poetry
Image of text that reads: Of The Empire We will be known as a culture that feared death and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity for the few and cared little for the penury of the many. We will be known as a culture that taught and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke little if at all about the quality of life for people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a commodity. And they will say that this structure was held together politically, which it was, and they will say also that our politics was no more than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of the heart, and that the heart, in those days, was small, and hard, and full of meanness. -Mary Oliver
January 19, 2026 at 5:45 PM
Reposted by Jeff Burtka🇲🇽🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇺🇦
audacityofdespair.bsky.social
Simply put: I am in control of the world's largest and most powerful military. And because I didn't get a prize for making peace, I feel entitled to consider going to war with a longtime ally.

This man is mentally ill. That is not hyperbole. He's sick. He must be removed from power immediately.
politico.eu POLITICO Europe @politico.eu · 1d
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre has confirmed he received a message from Donald Trump at the weekend saying he was no longer interested “purely” in peace due to not getting the Nobel Peace Prize.
Norway’s PM says Trump sent letter tying Nobel prize snub to Greenland ambitions
American president says his failure to win the Nobel Peace Prize has shifted his focus, as he ramps up bid to take over huge Arctic island.
www.politico.eu
January 19, 2026 at 1:50 PM
Reposted by Jeff Burtka🇲🇽🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇺🇦
jeffburtka.bsky.social
Dr. King
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
April 16, 1963
www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen...
#MLK #MLKDay
One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
January 20, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Reposted by Jeff Burtka🇲🇽🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇺🇦
jeffburtka.bsky.social
Dr. King
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
April 16, 1963
www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen...
#MLK #MLKDay
I have no despair about the future. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are at present misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America's destiny. Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence across the pages of history, we were here. For more than two centuries our forebears labored in this country without wages; they made cotton king; they built the homes of their masters while suffering gross injustice and shameful humiliation -and yet out of a bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.
January 20, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Reposted by Jeff Burtka🇲🇽🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇺🇦
jeffburtka.bsky.social
Dr. King
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
April 16, 1963
www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen...
#MLK #MLKDay
But again I am thankful to God that some noble souls from the ranks of organized religion have broken loose from the paralyzing chains of conformity and joined us as active partners in the struggle for freedom. They have left their secure congregations and walked the streets of Albany, Georgia, with us. They have gone down the highways of the South on tortuous rides for freedom. Yes, they have gone to jail with us. Some have been dismissed from their churches, have lost the support of their bishops and fellow ministers. But they have acted in the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. Their witness has been the spiritual salt that has preserved the true meaning of the gospel in these troubled times. They have carved a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment.
January 20, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Reposted by Jeff Burtka🇲🇽🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇺🇦
jeffburtka.bsky.social
Dr. King
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
April 16, 1963
www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen...
#MLK #MLKDay
Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists. I had hoped that the white moderate would see this need. Perhaps I was too optimistic; perhaps I expected too much. I suppose I should have realized that few members of the oppressor race can understand the deep groans and passionate yearnings of the oppressed race, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action.
January 20, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Reposted by Jeff Burtka🇲🇽🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇺🇦
jeffburtka.bsky.social
Dr. King
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
April 16, 1963
www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen...
#MLK #MLKDay
More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.
January 20, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Reposted by Jeff Burtka🇲🇽🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇺🇦
jeffburtka.bsky.social
Dr. King
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
April 16, 1963
www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen...
#MLK #MLKDay
I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively.
January 20, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Reposted by Jeff Burtka🇲🇽🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇺🇦
jeffburtka.bsky.social
Dr. King
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
April 16, 1963
www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen...
#MLK #MLKDay
Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
January 20, 2025 at 5:21 PM
jeffburtka.bsky.social
MLK could have written this today.
January 19, 2026 at 1:57 PM
Reposted by Jeff Burtka🇲🇽🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇺🇦
jeffburtka.bsky.social
Dr. King
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
April 16, 1963
www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen...
#MLK #MLKDay
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
January 20, 2025 at 5:21 PM
jeffburtka.bsky.social
Here we are in the U.S. in 2026.
January 19, 2026 at 1:55 PM
Reposted by Jeff Burtka🇲🇽🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇺🇦
jeffburtka.bsky.social
Dr. King
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
April 16, 1963
www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen...
#MLK #MLKDay
I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all." Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.
January 20, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Reposted by Jeff Burtka🇲🇽🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇺🇦
jeffburtka.bsky.social
Dr. King
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
April 16, 1963
www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen...
#MLK #MLKDay
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."
January 20, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Reposted by Jeff Burtka🇲🇽🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇺🇦
jeffburtka.bsky.social
Dr. King
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
April 16, 1963
www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen...
#MLK #MLKDay
My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.
January 20, 2025 at 5:21 PM
jeffburtka.bsky.social
Reposting this thread to honor a man who this nation dishonors.
jeffburtka.bsky.social Jeff Burtka🇲🇽🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇺🇦 @jeffburtka.bsky.social · Jan 20
Here are several of my favorite passages from Dr. King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail. In my opinion, it should be required reading for all Americans, especially those who shallowly quote his "I Have a Dream" speech. The letter is available here: www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen...
#MLKDay
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.
January 19, 2026 at 1:50 PM
Reposted by Jeff Burtka🇲🇽🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇺🇦
atrupar.com
this is what it has come to for Mexican restaurants in the Twin Cities
We are open: please wait for us to unlock the door. Thank you for your understanding
January 19, 2026 at 2:12 AM
Reposted by Jeff Burtka🇲🇽🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇺🇦
nikitagill.bsky.social
“When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.”
Epitaph on a Tyrant W. H. Auden, 1907 - 1973 Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after, And the poetry he invented was easy to understand; He knew human folly like the back of his hand, And was greatly interested in armies and fleets; When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children died in the streets.
January 19, 2026 at 12:20 PM