Hot stuff learns compassion, a Kurosawa film

I saw the second of two Akira Kurosawa movies at the Detroit Film Theater this afternoon. I wrote about the first one yesterday. This one is Red Beard, released in 1965 with a story set in mid 1800s Japan. It again features Toshiro Mifune, though not as the central character. That central character is Dr. Noboru Yasumoto. He’s just finished his medical training and thinks he’s hot stuff. He thought he was going to be the personal physician to the Shogun, but instead he is sent to a clinic that treats poor people and has little money to do it. The doctor who greets him, the guy he will replace, says it is a terrible place to work and the guy in charge, Dr. Niide, otherwise known as Red Beard because of the reddish color of his beard (not that one can tell in a black and white movie), is an inflexible dictator. This is the role Mifune plays. Dr. Yasumoto can’t leave so tries to go on strike – refusing to eat or work and refusing to wear the clinic uniform – but that doesn’t last long. Red Beard explains that the problem is poverty and many of the people who come to the clinic are sick because of their poverty. Dr. Yasumoto begins to hear the patient’s stories and becomes more deeply involved in their care. He sees Red Beard is much more compassionate than he first believed. Yeah, we know where this is going and it earns its conclusion. The guy who played Dr. Yasumoto did a fine job. The pace of the movie (3 hours long) allow his face to show a broad range of emotions. Mifune is quite good too, as are all the other actors, even the young boy. I was also impressed with the cinematography, the way scenes were framed and lit. There are many scenes that include Dr. Yasumoto off to the side, observing the action. I quite enjoyed this one and recommend it. I appreciate how compassionate its story is. This movie is on several streaming services.

Your thoughts and prayers stink with the blood of innocents

I went down to the Detroit Film Theater this afternoon for the first of two movies. They are finishing up an Akira Kurosawa series, showing eight of the director’s 30 feature length films, newly restored. I intend to see another tomorrow. Today’s film was Sanjuro, filmed in 1962 and starring Toshiro Mifune, one of Kurosawa’s favorite actors. Nine young samurai of a clan have gathered in a room because the clan’s superintendent has done something to the chamberlain (I didn’t figure all that out). This is some sort of corruption, which is not good for the samurai image. One of the nine is the chamberlain’s nephew, so there is a family tie involved too. In comes Mifune’s character to join the group. He quickly shows he’s quite a fighter (of opponents, not the group), earning their respect. He then shows he is much better at anticipating the opponents and prevents these young men from doing stupid things. When not actually in battle he has a lazy, carefree way about him, not at all concerned about how a samurai is supposed to act. Of course, there are lots of complications along the way. At one point they rescue a mother and daughter. The mother admonishes Mifune to be less violent, to kill fewer people, preferably none. They also rescue a servant of the opposing side. They stuff him in a closet. Every so often he emerges to say something, then decides he had better get back in the closet. So a bit of humor, some violence, and a lot of intrigue. An enjoyable afternoon. I’m way behind in my reading. On Monday Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reported the nasty guy and his Attorney General Pam Bondi have issued an executive order that bans burning the American flag without violating the 1989 Supreme Court decision that said flag burning is protected as free speech. At least that’s what they claim. They say if flag burning discriminates against or violates the rights of a citizen they will be prosecuted. But free speech never violates another’s rights (though slander and libel do). So how this will get around free speech rights is a mystery. Except that none of the Supreme Court members who decided that 1989 case are around anymore. Even if the Supremes strike it down, it does serve as red meat to the base. And accusing immigrants as the ones doing the flag burnings just adds a bit of juice to the meat. A week ago Needham reported that a district judge ordered that Alligator Alcatraz (more accurately called Alligator Auschwitz) must no longer receive new detainees and be closed and dismantled within 60 days. The reason was it was constructed so quickly the required environmental study was not done. We’ll take any reason we can get. Oliver Willis of Kos writes a column titled Explaining the Right. Two weeks ago the topic was Why conservatives think American cities are hellscapes. Quotes from his answer:

The conservative movement loves to connect fear of crime to rhetoric about racial minorities. It preys on deep-seated bigotry and motivates conservative voters to get out and vote, all as a way to stop the “other” from gaining control and allowing the spread of crime. ... By invoking crime, particularly at a moment of political vulnerability, he understands that he is activating long-simmering conservative resentments. By raising the idea of a crime wave occurring in cities with large Black populations, the tensions raised within the MAGA movement about Epstein can be eased, at least temporarily. ... Right-wing lawmakers and media have sold conservative voters on a false narrative for so long that those voters truly believe Trump and his cohorts are fighting crime—even as they continue to cover up for an accused sex trafficker and pedophile.

Alix Breeden of Kos gives and update on the continuing saga of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. He was the guy mistakenly sent to the notorious El Salvador prison and the nasty guy claimed he was unable to undo the deportation. Abrego Garcia is back in America. He was detained (I don’t remember the details), released, had three days with his family before being detained again. The administration is annoyed he won’t plead guilty to their fake charges of human trafficking and is threatening to send him to Uganda (which would send him to El Salvador). Abrego Garcia’s legal team is trying to stop deportation and get his case before a court. I am behind in reading the top level articles on Kos, but I’m up to date in reading the pundit roundups. The roundup for today, assembled by Greg Dworkin, included a couple responses to a tweet by The Bulwark:

Vance on undermining the Federal Reserve: "I don't think we allow  bureaucrats to make decisions about monetary policy and interest rates without any input from the people that were elected to serve the American people...POTUS is much better able to make these determinations."

Justin Wolfers responded:

They're now saying it out loud: The Administration's goal is to undo the political independence that Congress granted the Fed, so that the President can directly set rates.

Jessica Riedl also responded:

Political Economy 101: Putting politicians directly in charge of monetary policy would be a pandering, inflationary disaster - as nearly every developed nation long ago learned, often painfully.

In the comments Jesse Duquette posted a cartoon showing 98% of mass shooters are straight men and MAGA snores. 57% are straight white men and MAGA snores. 0.13% of mass shooters are trans and MAGA screams “They’re evil! Put ‘em in camps!” Muriel Vieux posted a poem she first posted January 22, 2023 and, alas, has plenty of reason to post again. The poem is titled “Thoughts and Prayers.” I’ll repeat just a couple of the six verses.

Keep your thoughts away from us They stink with the blood of innocents Keep your prayers in your coffers No God wants to honor them What thoughts are you sending anyways? The ones twisted by your greed and indecency? Is there a return address attached? So we can send them back to you?

David Roberts tweeted a link to an article in Psypost. The article’s title and part of its description:

Trump supporters report higher levels of psychopathy, manipulativeness, callousness, and narcissism. Support for Donald Trump is linked to darker personality traits, including psychopathy and decreased empathy, new research finds.

A comment by wmpmacm (no source for his statistics are given):

Homeschooling is on the rise precisely because of the fear people have of the gun violence in this country. So if you want to know who is really afraid of being shot, look no further than the Conservative Christian Gun Owners who know very well who gets killed — their kids in school. This is why they hide their kids behind closed doors. Religion has absolutely nothing to do with it!

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos included a video as his sanity break. It is less than three minutes and shows some of the things Darth Vader has to put up with on a daily basis such as: Being asked about his weekend plans. Recognizing that the Force can’t help with a slow elevator. I saw sheet music for a song from the musical Godspell that I didn’t recognize, the song Beautiful City. That prompted me to look it up online and listen. I see it wasn’t in the original stage production, but new for the movie. That prompted me to listen to all of the songs. I chose a recording from the 2000 Off-Broadway revival, which I didn’t know had happened. There are, of course, many differences with the CD I have of the original production and, of course, a different cast. Godspell came out when in was in high school. It was a big deal at the time. I saw a live production when it came to town. It has had a special place in my life.

Prioritize joy. Dictators want you to feel afraid.

Max Burns, a Daily Kos contributor, discussed the huge amount of government (as in our) money the nasty guy is throwing at AI companies. He is also working to ease AI regulation.

There’s just one problem: A new report from MIT found that over 95% of AI companies fail without providing a dime of return to investors or the public. That report drove a massive AI stock sell-off this week, and tech guru Erik Gordon predicts investors’ financial pain is just beginning.

That financial pain might include your pension plan. AI stocks surged over the summer, mostly because of all this government money. But the bubble seems about the burst. In the meantime AI CEOs are rewarding themselves lavish pay increases and bonuses. Why not skim off this taxpayer money while it flows freely? The nasty guy’s interest isn’t so much in the technology, but in bringing all these rich dudes into his sphere of influence. The rich dudes want easing of regulations so they can build their huge resource devouring data centers wherever they want, damn the environmental consequences. Though AI is much in the news and lots of people have tried it (sometimes to comical results) it is still speculative and unproven. If (when) the smaller companies fail, that could trigger a cascade of tech bankruptcies. Only the companies the nasty guy is throwing money at seem immune. The rich tech bros will be fine. The losers will be those whose pension fund took a big hit, those who aren’t already at least millionaires. Amanda Becker, in an article for The 19th posted on Kos, wrote about the Free DC movement founded by four women. It is the latest chapter in the generations-long fight to allow the district to govern itself and have representation in Congress. Alas, both parties have blocked that effort. Becker discusses that history. Free DC, the latest effort, is of course in response to the nasty guy posting troops in the city. It is a people-led campaign. They have working groups and hold events open to the public. They have constituency groups for college students, parents, and government workers. They have 38,000 followers, above the 25,000 that represent the 3.5% that researchers say are needed to overcome a dictator. All this in response to “overpolicing and autocracy.” Three principles are effective in taking on autocrats: show solidarity, take up space, and prioritize joy. The last one is important because a dictator’s biggest weapon is to make the people feel afraid. Thom Hartmann, an independent radio pundit and member of the Kos community, has run a contest for the entire 22 years of his radio program. His prize is an autographed book.

Name even one single piece of legislation from the past 40+ years (since Reagan) that was: — authored by Republicans, — principally co-sponsored by Republicans, — passed Congress with a Republican majority, — signed by a Republican president, — and benefited average working people or the poor more than it did the GOP’s donor class.

Nobody has collected the prize.

They run for public office because it can make them rich, introduce them to people who’ll help them get richer, and might even improve their sex life.

They get into office “because they’ve convinced enough people that wrecking the plane is the same thing as piloting it.” This explains: Letting America be the only country where the leading cause of childhood deaths is bullets so they can take billions from the gun industry. Killing off government programs to pay for tax gifts to billionaires. Supporting monopolies that rip off customers. Refusing to fix health insurance or student debt. Deregulating polluters when we’re being hit with climate change. Causing millions of unnecessary deaths while insurance and medical executive become billionaires. Gutting unions. Destroying public schools. Ending free or low-cost college because bankers make big profits from student debt. They don’t hate Social Security and Medicare because they are “socialist,” but because they are paid with tax dollars and Republicans and their billionaires hate paying their share of taxes. They don’t do these things just because of racism, though they are racist and their racist language brings them voters.

The reason Republicans work so hard to keep Black and brown people down is because they subscribe to a weird economic theory that “requires” an underclass who do most of the hard work for very little money. Thus, morbidly rich Republican “donors” — being part of the overclass — can reap the benefits of increased corporate profits while keeping their taxes low so they can stuff the extra cash into their money bins.

It isn’t about conservatism, which used to mean “cautiously” improving society. Now the only thing they conserve is their bank accounts. Their only interest in the culture wars is that it brings in more voters. Their only interest in guns is it brings in “male voters who are insecure about their own masculinity.” They say queer people are “coming for your kids” because that brings in voters. But see the leading cause of childhood death above. They don’t care about immigrants stealing jobs from Americans. Their backers like having workers they can underpay. Even though there is a law against hiring undocumented workers, the white owners never go to jail.

All Republican politicians care about is money. Greed is their principle animating force, and is what binds them to their morbidly rich donors.

I have a slightly different take on this. Yes, the accumulation of money is a driving force for Republicans. It is also about and may be more about the power (which Hartmann mentions), prestige, and a high place in the social hierarchy that money can deliver. When someone strives for a high place in the hierarchy they emphasize their lofty position by oppressing those below them. And all those policies that Hartmann says put money in Republican hands also oppress those low in the hierarchy. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin has quotes about Robert Kennedy Jr and his degradation of the national health, gun culture, and the latest power grab by the nasty guy. And this tweet by Annie For Truth:

When Trump says, “I know nothing about it.” He knows everything about it. When Trump says, “I know everything about it.” He knows nothing about it.

In the comments there are several memes and cartoons about the mass shooting in Minneapolis. Jesse Duquette posted a cartoon of a boy talking to a man with a briefcase. The man could be a politician or an investor of or executive at a gun manufacturer. The boy says, “If third graders can get used to the constant threat of murder, so can you.” Tina Smith tweeted:

“Do not offer thoughts and prayers as you systemically enable such tragedies. Do not claim prayers are sufficient when children die as they pray. Do not pretend you do not understand.” — Lydia, 16, Minneapolis

Other commenters wish Democrats were as direct. I also saw a Bible verse that is appropriate:

"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others." Matthew 6:5

Several days ago the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain announced a change to its logo. The new design did away with the old man sitting beside a barrel. The outrage was so strong the company changed it back. In response to the shooting paulpro posted a meme that says, “I need Cracker Barrel logo change level outrage about school shootings.” Laugh About It cartoons posted one it knows is not funny. It shows the White House and says a strategy session is in progress. A voice says, “Another mass shooting? Great! That’s today’s distraction from Epstein.”

He can't sue, cheat, bribe, or con his way out of death

I finished the book You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian. It’s a gay romance. The setting is New York City in 1960. Mark, 28, nominally works for the Chronicle newspaper but hasn’t done much actual work since his lover William died 18 months before. The paper doesn’t pay him but does allow him to use a desk. The lack of pay isn’t an issue because William left him lots of money. Eddie, 22, is a Major League Baseball player. He had a great rookie year, then was traded to an expansion team, the New York Robins. His fielding stayed good but his hitting dropped to almost zero. The title is in part because baseball streaks and slumps are frequently attributed to good or bad luck. Mark and Eddie meet because Mark’s editor proposes he do a weekly “diary” of Eddie, of what life in the big leagues is like. Eddie appreciates that Mark is someone who is interested in Eddie the person, rather than Eddie the kid who can’t hit the ball. Since this is 1960 Eddie can’t be seen as gay. He’d lose his job. Mark is tired of being William’s secret and wants to live openly. But Mark seems more concerned about Eddie’s reputation than Eddie is. The formula for a romance novel, straight or gay, is the couple falls in love, they hit a difficulty, and they overcome it. Homophobia is the difficulty and at the time it isn’t easily overcome. I enjoyed it, though I see again that many romance novels don’t have a lot of depth. Lobachevsky of the Daily Kos community wrote:

At 79, Donald Trump isn't just showing physical signs of decline—he's exhibiting the psychological collapse of a malignant narcissist confronting his own mortality. And that makes him more dangerous than ever.

Lobachevsky lists physical evidence of the bruises on the nasty guy’s hands and the announced diagnoses of chronic venous insufficiency. The psychological evidence is him telling Fox News he is trying to get to heaven. He’s “fixated on legacy, mortality, and divine judgment—classic signs of what psychologists call ‘narcissistic mortification.’” The nasty guy has a textbook case of narcissistic personality disorder. When “narcissists confront mortality—the one thing they can't control, sue, or bribe their way out of—the psychological impact is devastating.” Since he can’t escape death he lashes out at everything else.

His inner circle knows it. That's why they're sprinting to consolidate power before Trump's decline makes it impossible. When desperate men feel humiliated and terrified, they don't go quietly. They try to burn everything down.

History shows (though other dictators and countries are not named) that a leader in psychological collapse drags their country down with them, creating a political crisis for millions. Lobachevsky lists his sources at the end: The Independent, BBC, TIME, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, and PsyPost. Lobachevsky also linked to a thread on X, which I found on Thread Reader. It is by Andrew Wortman, a psychologist. A bit of it:

For Trump, the trigger is being faced with his own mortality. He can’t sue death. He can’t cheat it, bribe it, or con his way out of it. It’s inescapable. And for the first time in his life, he’s powerless — and the panic shows in every crazed rant/wild attempt to project control. That’s why you see him suddenly fixated on things like getting in to heaven (LMAO NEVER going to happen, Don), legacy, and being remembered. Humiliation is the narcissist’s deepest wound — and nothing humiliates more than colliding with the truth that you can’t escape the end. The Epstein files serve to make this terror far worse. Not only do they expose what he’s spent 30+ years concealing, but if they surface after he’s gone, he can’t spin them. The thought of being defined by that humiliation — with no power to control the narrative — is devastating.

Stephanie Armour for KFF Health News in an article posted on Kos, reported that Robert Kennedy Jr. is targeting the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Because vaccine makers were afraid that they wouldn’t be able to afford lawsuits against them, Congress created the VICF in 1988. A vaccine can harm people through anaphylaxis – a life-threatening allergic reaction – and in other ways. If the vaccine maker got sued for every harm they couldn’t afford to make the vaccine. The VICP, funded by a small tax, steps in to pay the injured. They work from a list of injuries that each vaccine is known to cause. Watchers are sure that Kennedy is laying the groundwork to overload the VICP. He announced a massive study to identify the cause of autism (which I wrote about recently). He fired the boards at the CDC and HHS that approve vaccines and replaced them with people who believe the conspiracies he promotes. He has revoked recommendations for vaccines. He has killed grants to develop more mRNA vaccines. And he wants to add autism to the list of known vaccine harms, though science had debunked the claim. The rising number of autism cases would bankrupt the VICP. No VICP and companies can’t afford to make vaccines.

“Make no mistake, this is a revolution that will change the face of public health policy,” Tony Lyons, president of MAHA Action, said in a statement. “Americans are demanding radical transparency and gold standard science.”

No, Americans are not demanding radical transparency. They’re pretty much ignoring where vaccines come from. Keep me well and I’m good. No, this is not “gold standard science.” High quality science proves that vaccines are generally safe and highly effective. Both parts of that statement hide the true intent. Yes, it will change the face of public health policy because preventable diseases, or some new disease, will cause a great deal more death and disability than they need to. Oliver Willis of Kos writes a regular column Explaining the Right the title of which begins “Why Republicans...” Sometimes I like his answer, sometimes I think he doesn’t really explain his point. The one from last Saturday is titled, Why Republicans keep saying slavery was great. You can guess that this is one that I think doesn’t quite make it. Willis gives several examples over the years in which Republicans praise slavery or say it wasn’t all that bad. Then he wrote:

Conservative politics has for decades been focused on pushing white voters with racist sympathies to vote red. This has led the GOP to emphasize that group’s grievances, including praise for the Confederacy and made-up issues like “white genocide.” Arguing that slavery wasn’t all bad or at a minimum arguing that there was something positive about keeping millions of Black people as property fits within that morally bankrupt paradigm. Conservative leaders and Republican voters have made it clear for a long time that they prefer fairy tale narratives about America’s past over the truth—because that truth could expose the legacy of white supremacy.

While all that is true I think there is a more basic reason for their praise of slavery. As supremacists they need to oppress people to give value to their own lives. They praise slavery because they want to reinstitute slavery. In Wednesday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Jordan Weissmann of The Argument:

Trump’s monetary policy preferences seem like a recipe for higher inflation. The president has berated Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, urging him to lower interest rates, despite the central bank’s concerns that the administration’s tariffs could put upward pressure on consumer prices. He seems to be doing so in part out of a desire to lower mortgage costs and give the economy a jolt. But Trump has also made it clear he thinks the Fed should lower rates in order to keep federal borrowing costs low. “If they were doing their job properly, our Country would be saving Trillions of Dollars in Interest Cost,” he recently posted on Truth Social. That’s the sort of thing that makes economists’ and central bankers’ blood run cold: After all, once you’re keeping interest rates low in order to make borrowing cheap for the government, you can’t use them to keep prices in check. The technical term for this sad state of affairs is “fiscal dominance,” and it’s the kind of thing that can lead to much higher long-term inflation and potentially a rapid spiral.

In the comments is a meme posted by paulpro. It shows a young man booting a rich guy holding a sack of money. The meme says, “Refugees didn’t take away affordable housing. Rich landlords and greedy politicians did.” A cartoon by Naked Pastor marks the recent death of James Dobson. It shows two men with coffee and one says, “Actually, James Dobson helped me embrace being gay because I figured God could not possibly that heartless and cruel just for being who I am.” In today’s roundup Chitown Kev quoted several pundits discussing the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina that devastated New Orleans and significantly damaged much of the surrounding area. Eighteen months after Katrina I went on a weeklong work mission to Biloxi, Mississippi to put a roof on a house still being restored. One of Kev’s quotes was by Mark Bonner and Matthew Sanders of the New York Times:

Today, New Orleans is smaller, poorer and more unequal than before the storm. It hasn’t rebuilt a durable middle class, and lacks basic services and a major economic engine outside of its storied tourism industry. The core problem was the inability to turn abundant resources into a clear vision backed by political will. Federal dollars were funneled into a maze of state agencies and local governments with clashing priorities, vague metrics and near-zero accountability. Billions went to contractors and government consultants services such as schools, transit, health care and housing were neglected. For example, one firm, ICF International, received nearly $1 billion to administer Road Home, the oft-criticized state program to rebuild houses. The focus of the effort became replacing what was lost, not building something stronger and better. For example, public funds poured into several flood-prone neighborhoods below sea level, while smarter plans reimagining New Orleans as a modern, sustainable, water-resilient city remain neglected. Countless ribbon cuttings gave an impression of vigorous recovery, belying the reality that they failed to lay the foundation for long-term growth. [...] Today New Orleans ranks near the bottom among major U.S. cites for G.D.P. per capita and is one of the nation’s weakest employment markets. Its population is roughly 23 percent smaller than it was in 2000, with about 37 percent fewer Black residents. Economic output per person lags the national average, and while the city has seen modest recent job gains, job growth remains uneven and slow overall.

Yesterday there was another mass shooting, this time the shooter shot through the windows of a church to strike children inside. Two children died. Fourteen more children and three adults went to the hospital and all are expected to recover, though they’ll have to deal with trauma. In the comments are two items related to the shooting. Dennis Gorlis posted a cartoon showing children with their school backpacks at the Gate of Heaven. St. Peter says, “They just loved their guns more, that’s all.” Denise Oliver Velez posted an excerpt from the NYT article. It says the shooter was a transgender female. At her death she was 23. At 17 she applied to change her name from Robert to Robin. It also said:

On social media, some conservative activists have seized on the shooter’s gender identity to broadly portray transgender people as violent or mentally ill. The police did not provide any motive for the attack, but Ms. Westman’s extensive social media history was a contradictory catalog of anger and grievance. In seemingly stream-of-consciousness videos that she posted, she fixated on guns, violence and school shooters. She displayed her own cache of weapons, bullets and what appear to be explosive devices, scrawled with antisemitic and racist language and threats against President Donald Trump. The videos also show pages from a diary, with long entries describing self hatred, violence against children, and a desire to inflict harm on herself.

As has been noted many times before, when a white guy commits a horrific act he is described as a “lone wolf.” But when a black man or woman or, as is this case, a transgender person does it, they are portrayed as a representative of their kind who are described as all being similarly violent or mentally ill. And here we are again. Yes, Robin was mentally ill. But that does not imply anyone like her is or is not.

Get the right headline and intimidate the right people

Recently I wrote of the observation that a month had gone by and there had been no release from the Justice Department interviews with Ghislaine Maxwell, accomplice to Jeffrey Epstein. And now they have. An Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos reports that a release has now happened. And... It’s about what you would expect from someone being interviewed by the people who work for the guy who could pardon her. Beyond that nothing made the news. Two weeks ago Alex Samuels of Kos reported that three White House officials sent a letter to the Smithsonian saying the museums must embody enduring American values to comply with the March executive order on “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” Everything is to be scrutinized. This is part of a broader effort to redefine American history. Alas, the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents has agreed to a full review of their museums. Also alas, the list of targeted museums include the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Museum of the American Indian. A great deal of African American history is about slavery. A great deal of American Indian history is about how white people took over their land. I hope Smithsonian leaders are documenting their current exhibits so they can be restored after the nasty guy and his ideological successors are no longer in control. A week ago Emily Singer of Kos reported the nasty guy said he will force the Smithsonian museums in Washington DC to remove exhibits that are too “woke” – a term conservatives can’t define (and maybe they want a term that can contain anything they want it to contain). Included in that is a demand to remove exhibits that talk about how bad slavery was. He decried the museums don’t feature American success stories. Yes, slavery was bad and cruel. It is a stain on US history no matter what the nasty guy says. Its effects are still felt today in black economic and educational inequalities. And yes, the Smithsonian does feature success stories. Another of his executive orders declared the story of slavery was “corrosive ideology” and books about slavery should be removed from Smithsonian museums and the national park system.

Trump during his first run for office declared that he “loves the poorly educated.” Now, he’s trying to ensure everyone in the U.S. is poorly educated, taught only his false and whitewashed view of history.

In the pundit roundup for last week Thursday for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Joseph Gedeon of The Guardian:

The document, based on public submissions shared with the administration, points to what it says are problematic exhibits at seven different museums, including a Benjamin Franklin exhibit that links his scientific achievements to his ownership of enslaved people and a film about George Floyd’s murder that it says mischaracterizes the police. “President Trump will explore all options and avenues to get the Woke out of the Smithsonian and hold them accountable,” a White House official said. “Until we get info from the Smithsonian in response to our letter, we can’t verify the numbers of artifacts that have been removed because the Smithsonian has removed them on their own.” The seven museums that have so far been flagged for review include the National Museum of American History, National Museum of the American Latino, National Museum of Natural History, National Museum of African Art, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Museum of Asian Art. The administration argues exhibits at these museums focus excessively on oppression rather than American achievements. At the National Museum of American History, the document flagged the ¡Presente! Latino history exhibition for allegedly promoting an “anti-American agenda” by examining colonization effects and depicting the US as stealing territory from Mexico in 1848.

Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times discussed the nasty guy ordering the National Guard to patrol DC, that the military sent to Los Angeles only gave the White House video for its social media accounts, that the attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities was sound and fury with no result, and that Putin’s visit to Alaska was an embarrassment with nothing to show.

Even his most dangerous actions — his plans to investigate his political rivals and turn the force of the national government against them — seem to fizzle out. It’s as if the point is to get the right headline and hope that it intimidates the right targets.

In the comments are several cartoons on the claim that slavery wasn’t so bad. Almost two weeks ago Lisa Needham of Kos reported the military personnel in DC has started to hold traffic safety checkpoints. This looks like an expansion of the immigration crackdown.

Must just be some crazy coincidence that what was supposed to be a checkpoint for things like busted taillights was staffed by overzealous masked federal agents with the power to detain immigrants.

Yeah, the traffic safety checkpoints are likely illegal. Needham then considers various scenarios in which checkpoints are legal and how this situation doesn’t fit any of them. Whatever the legal justification these checkpoints aren’t making DC residents safer. Last Friday Needham reported the siege of DC was taken up a step – the occupying troops will be carrying guns. Because this is a siege of course eventually they would be carrying guns. This time the administration didn’t bother to say why the guns were now necessary. Needham wrote, “The only reason to arm the troops in D.C. is to continue to treat the residents of the nation’s capital like federal subjects to be, well, subjugated.” Also last week Oliver Willis of Kos asked an important question. With all these troops in DC where are the Democrats? They’ve been way too silent.

The disparity between the two parties’ responses has reinforced a problem that has been apparent since Trump won the election in 2024. The Democrats have been caught flat-footed again and again, unable to respond to many of Trump’s provocations—even while the public has made clear they aren’t aligned with his priorities. ... Showing up when the nation’s capital is under siege would probably go a long way toward letting the nation know that the Democratic Party gives a damn.

In Tuesday’s pundit roundup Kev quoted Paul Krugman discussing the nasty guy’s efforts to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, who is black. She allegedly got two home mortgages and declared both were for a primary residence. No actual accusation has been made, and certainly no evidence has been released, but the possibility is enough for the nasty guy to try to fire her.

I am not going to lead with a discussion of what Cook may or may not have done. That would be playing Trump’s game. Clearly, he’s just looking for a pretext to fire someone who isn’t a loyalist — and who happens, surprise, to be a black woman. If you write about politics and imagine that Trump cares about mortgage fraud — or for that matter believe anything Trump officials say about the affair without independent confirmation — you should find a different profession. Maybe you should go into agricultural field work, to help offset the labor shortages created by Trump’s deportations. The real story here isn’t about Cook, or mortgages. It’s about the way the Trump administration is weaponizing government against political opponents, critics, or anyone it finds inconvenient. You should think about the attack on Cook in the same context as mortgage fraud accusations made against California Senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Or you should look at the attacks on Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, over the cost of renovations at the Fed’s headquarters. Or the still mysterious raid on the house of John Bolton, who at one time was Trump’s national security adviser. The message here clearly isn’t “Don’t commit fraud,” which would be laughable coming from Donald Trump, of all people. Nor, despite what some commentators have said, is it all about revenge — although Trump is, indeed, a remarkably vindictive person. But mainly it’s about intimidation: “If you get in our way we will ruin your life.”

In the comments are a big bunch of memes and cartoons to share. A cartoon posted by paulpro and written by Mike Stanfill shows a man responding to a voice:

Voice: If I offered you $100 to press a button that would ruin the life of a random stranger, would you do it? Man: Uhhh... No? Voice: What if I gave you a hundred thousand dollars to press that button? Would you press it then? Man: Hmmm. Yes. Yes, I would. Voice: In that case, congratulations! You’re hired!

In that last frame we seen the voice is an official at an ICE recruitment center. Another cartoon posted by paulpro is by J S Cuneo and shows seven ICE agents pulling a man from his truck. Each is commenting how the action is making him hard. A meme posted by exlrrp is with a few talking about the nasty guy’s efforts to ban wind turbines:

As you’re stung by rising electricity bill, remember the Trump admin is shadow banning virtually all new wind and solar and forcing us to pay to keep old, inefficient coal plants online. We’re paying for stupid.

In among memes posted by exlrrp about Gavin Newsom’s big moment mocking the nasty guy is one from Newsom himself of a flag giving a new definition of MAGA: “Make America Gavin Again.” Dawn Xiana Moon posted “62% of younger deaths wouldn’t have happened in any other wealthy country.” Then she quoted from Vice:

Zoom out, and the picture gets clearer. As Futurism’s Joe Wilkins points out, America’s excess death problem stretches back to 1980, the year Ronald Reagan took office and rolled out a red carpet for neoliberalism. His policies slashed social programs, deregulated industries, gutted worker protections, and handed power to corporations on a platter. Nearly every administration after has been maintaining or hastening Reagan’s destruction ever since. The result is a shredded safety net, skyrocketing inequality, and a healthcare system that bankrupts people for getting sick. Millennials and Gen Z are the first generations raised entirely under this tattered economic system that cares more about profits than people. They came of age with fewer stable jobs, unaffordable homes, and decaying public services.

Another cartoon posted by paulpro and created by DaveWhamond shows Kristi Noem of Homeland Security at the southern border wall with aides discussing a recent effort at the wall.

Noem: We painted the wall black because the sun will make it too hot to touch. Aide 1: Genius! Let’s hope they don’t find out about gloves! Aide 2: Or nighttime... Or that we only painted our side.

Ellis Rosen posted a cartoon showing a boxing announcer indicating a stern older man. “And in this corner, still undefeated, Frank’s long held beliefs!” The final cartoon is posted by paulpro and is by Guy Parsons. It refers to the recent Press killings in Gaza. The cartoon shows four people wearing “Press” vests honoring a shrouded body with a “Press” vest on it. Beside it is a quote from Edward Snowdon, “When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime you are being ruled by criminals.”

Messing with the numbers doesn't shield you from reality

My Sunday movie was Universal Language. It is one of the most eccentric movies I’ve seen. Matthew Rankin was one of the writers. He also directed and plays a major character named Matthew Rankin. I have no idea how much is autobiographical. A tagline says it happens somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg. Most of the story takes place in Winnipeg, though the major language isn’t English, but Persian. All the signs are in Persian and nearly all the characters – Matthew is one of the few exceptions – look to be of Persian descent and speak Persian or French. How this came to be is not explained. The story takes place during a Winnipeg winter. Matthew leaves his government job in Montreal (or maybe Quebec) and takes the bus to Winnipeg, where he grew up. He is trying to find his mother. Two young girls find paper money frozen in ice and try to get a way to get it out before an adult can do so. Massoud leads walking tours of Winnipeg for tourists. Many major sites on his tour now have highways next to them. Another site features a briefcase on a bench someone left behind fifty years ago. The tourists complain of the cold. There is a turkey shop owner promoting his frozen turkeys and he paid for a prized turkey to be a passenger on Matthew’s bus. A scene takes place in a Kleenex repository. Canada submitted this for “Best International Feature Film” for the 2025 Academy Awards. It wasn’t chosen as a finalist. It did win an award at the Cannes Film Festival and won and was nominated in many other film festivals. I heard about it when it was shown at the Detroit Film Theater perhaps a year ago, but didn’t see it then. This is definitely an unusual movie, something to watch when one is tired of movies seeming all the same. And I enjoyed it. Sharon Lerner, in an article for ProPublica posted on Daily Kos, discussed Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy Jr and his effort to find the cause of autism. He said he would have an answer by September. Erin McCanlies, an epidemiologist at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a part of HHS, was stunned by Kennedy’s announcement. She was about to release her fourth paper on exactly that. I think she was able to finish it before she was fired, though many offices around hers were already empty. So why was her job and funding cut when Kennedy said he was looking for an answer that she and the rest of his department were well on the way to finding? Kennedy said the answer was vaccines and environmental toxins. Based on what McCanlies found he was half right. To put this in proper scientific terms, McCanlies and others found autism risk factors. The more factors the higher the chances of a child being on the autism spectrum. That doesn’t mean a particular child will be autistic. Some of the factors are genetic, others are things like parental age and whether the mother had a fever during pregnancy. Still others are whether the mother had been exposed to chemicals such as the solvents varnish, xylene, methylene chloride, and others. More culprits are certain pesticides, certain metals, and air pollution. Folic acid, one of the B vitamins, can decrease the chances of autism. One can see reasons why Kennedy doesn’t like the results McCanlies and others are publishing. His favorite culprit of vaccines has been proven not to be a cause of autism. The Environmental Protection Agency, under Administrator Lee Zeldin is blocking air pollution rules and reversing bans on several chemicals that have been shown to be a risk. Kennedy likes to say we don’t know the causes of autism and because the condition can be so devastating we need to find those causes quickly. I’ve heard media say over the last several years that the higher rates of autism are because of more frequent testing, implying there isn’t a cause. But we do know the causes. Alas, the corporations that back the nasty guy would rather protect their profits through the use of harmful chemicals and releasing pollutants into the air. So the nasty guy hires people willing to put corporate profits over the health of mothers and children. Mary Childs of NPR discussed the consequences of a government not publishing honest and trustworthy financial statistics. The story was aired because the nasty guy recently fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he didn’t like the reported jobs numbers. Childs talked to George Papaconstantinou, who became the finance minister of Greece in 2009, just after the financial mess that caused the Great Recession. At the start of his term a person went to him and said the financial situation is quite bad, much worse than what is officially said. His team needed more than a year to figure out the real numbers. According to European Union rules, member countries were to keep their deficits under 3%. The real deficit number, once determined, was 15%. That created a huge loss of trust. To recover Greece had to borrow a lot of money at much higher interest rates and cut its spending to austerity levels. “Messing with the numbers doesn't shield you from reality.” Recovery took nearly ten years. I usually use dashes or asterisks to soften expletives. I grew up at a time and in a family where such words were not used. There have been times where I thought including such words were critical to the tone or forcefulness of a quote, but years have passed since I’ve let one through. But I can’t hide the expletives in this next quote because they’re the point. So if such words offend you just skip the first quote. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quotes Glenn Kessler, formerly of the Washington Post and now writing his own Substack.

Twenty years ago this month, the late Princeton philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt published his seminal work On Bullshit, which argued that bullshit was worse than lying. His point was that a liar knows the truth and deliberately tries to hide or distort it, while a bullshitter doesn’t care about the truth at all — they care only about the impression they make. When Donald Trump emerged on the political stage in 2015, Frankfurt wrote in Time magazine that Trump was the epitome of the bullshit artist he had identified a decade earlier. [...] But, following Frankfurt’s theory, focusing only on Trump’s lies obscures a deeper danger to American society. As a bullshitter, Trump doesn’t care whether what he says reflects reality. He says whatever serves his momentary purpose, often contradicting himself without hesitation or shame. This indifference to truth makes Trump’s bullshit more insidious than lies.

Kev followed that quote with one from Frankfurt. I’ll let you read it. Kev also quoted Jason Linkins of The New Republic:

But Trump is getting plumped by some in the media as well: The Atlantic’s Michael Powell idly handwaves the fact that D.C. brought the violent crime rate to a 30-year low in 2024 to admonish Democrats for “downplaying crime.” (In this case, “downplaying crime” means “marshaling statistics demonstrating that the crime rate is trending in the right direction.”) Charles Fain Lehman, also in The Atlantic, goes to similar lengths to dismiss the actual facts to assert that “the reality is more complicated” and that some “deliberate intervention”—atop the one that brought the crime rate to a 30-year-low, presumably—is warranted. These authors and others are making a profound error from the jump in assuming that Trump sincerely desires to lower the crime rate in D.C. Trump is actually a “blank, sucking nullity” who wants to see himself on television and has decided that his second term in office will be about self-enrichment and revenge. He is inventing a crisis of crime as a pretext for further consolidating his power; this is authoritarianism 101. Personally, I think downplaying crime in the nation’s capital is not nearly as irresponsible as downplaying Trump’s authoritarianism. But if we must pretend that Trump’s efforts are sincere, then I’d challenge the proponents of his militarized deployments to approach their work with more rigor, and less vibes. Trump has proposed a thesis: Crime in D.C. will go down if masked paramilitaries flood the city and amble about the streets. The task, then, is to see if his theory stands up to the test—to take this seriously.

Wasting public money to turn troopers into babysitters

Hayley Sanchez of NPR reported on the death of James Dobson at age 89. He turned “family values” into a household phrase and into a rallying cry for conservative Christians. He also defined “family values” to be against LGBTQ rights, leading the effort for Colorado to ban LGBTQ rights in its state constitution (later struck down by the Supremes). Dobson’s political activism rallied some people to his cause. He was considered a pioneer in that effort and inspired others to be leaders belligerent conservatism. That same activism turned many others away from the church while it created a living hell for many LGBTQ people. He’s gone. On Tuesday Alex Samuels of Daily Kos reported after Gavin Newsom signed the gerrymandering bill in California, Democrats of the Texas House returned from breaking quorum. They could return because they knew the Republican maps to gain five more federal House seats would be matched by Democrats getting five more seats in California. When they returned “Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows slapped them with restrictions straight out of a police state.” They could leave the Texas House floor only if they agreed to be in the custody of a Department of Public Safety officer. Rep. Nicole Collier, a Democrat from Fort Worth, refused to sign that agreement. So she was stuck on the House floor, later expanded to include her office. Gene Wu, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, stayed with her and shared meager food supplies. Samuels concluded:

The irony is striking. The GOP often claims to be the defender of taxpayers and the enforcer of law and order. Yet here they are, wasting public money to turn troopers into babysitters for political rivals. It isn’t law and order—it’s surveillance and intimidation.

I can imagine Texas Republicans saying, “We have power, you don’t. You tried to thwart our power. So we will humiliate you.” Also in Tuesday Emily Singer of Kos reported that in response to California’s plans to also redistrict, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told Fox News:

What the Democrats have done is disgraceful and potentially illegal. If California is trying to squeeze out more Republicans, there will be lawsuits that overturn that.

He’s criticizing California for doing the same thing he did in Texas. In the comments of Wednesday’s pundit roundup for Kos – after Texas approved its new maps and California approved sending new maps to the voters – there are several memes showing Newsom as an ultra strong patriotic defender of America. I rather like the one showing the studly Newsom on the back of an eagle that has the nasty guy in its talons. Toonerman posted a cartoon of Star Trek’s Spock saying:

So you maintain your innocence and yet you won’t relinquish documents that would prove your integrity. That’s not only highly illogical, it makes absolutely no fu*kin sense.

A meme posted by exlrrp asks “GOP: Do you still believe Taco-Pedo-Donnie?” It lists several of his recent statements. Here are some of them.:

I have reduced inflation to 0%. Groceries are cheaper than ever. 380 farm bankruptcies don’t affect you. Gasoline is now less than $2.00 / gallon. Ukraine started the War, Putin wants to end it. We do not need or want any imports.

Another meme posted by exlrrp has the words, “Donald Trump has released a statement.” The image shows a bowl of alphabet soup. Friday’s roundup by Greg Dworkin includes more Newsom memes. Dworkin included a tweet by Ashley Zavala:

California Democrats in Assembly this AM changed the state’s Redistricting ballot measure legislation, which basically now allows new Congressional maps to go into effect NO MATTER what other states do. Even if Texas backtracks or courts strike it down, CA would have new maps.

Pending voter approval, which polling indicates is likely. In the comments exlrrp posted a meme by Micah Erfan:

The government privately interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell for 9 hours. Right after, they quietly moved her to a low-security prison. That was a month ago. Now? Still no transcript. Still no charges against any clients. We are witnessing the biggest cover up in American history.

I add that I haven’t seen any nasty guy minion even spinning the Maxwell interview. Not even that.

The worth of a musical memorial

I finished the book Time’s Echo; Music, Memory, and the Second World War by Jeremy Eichler. It is a history book, what I’ve seen called a micro-history, focused on one or a small number of things. In this case it is the history of four classical music compositions that commemorate World War II and the Holocaust. I found the book fascinating and recommend it, though I realize classical music, especially heavy duty classical music, may have limited appeal. The four compositions are A Survivor from Warsaw by Arnold Schoenberg, Metamorphosen by Richard Strauss, War Requiem by Benjamin Britten, and Symphony 13, “Babi Yar” by Dmitri Shostakovich. Definitely heavy duty stuff. Along with a discussion of the pieces there is enough of a biography of the composers to explain why they came to write it. The story actually begins with the grandfather of Felix Mendelssohn in the 1740s. There began to be an understanding of common humanity between Germans and the Jews who live among them. There was a striving towards a German-Jewish culture. Of course, to build that culture many Jews felt they needed to convert to Christianity. That included the Mendelssohn family and Arnold Schoenberg. All that goodwill fell apart when the Nazis blamed the Jews for Germany’s defeat in World War I. Schoenberg saw who the Nazis were and shortly after Hitler took power he left for Paris, then moved on to New York. He settled in the Los Angeles area where a lot of other musical and intellectual Jewish refugees had settled. Prior to this Schoenberg wasn’t very religious. But Germany’s rejection of his Jewish ancestry restarted his Jewish faith. He felt he could inspire the Jews of Europe to rise up or flee. His efforts didn’t get very far. As a composer Schoenberg stretched tonal music (all popular and folk music is tonal and not very dissonant). Schoenberg pushed into atonal music and developed the tone-row method of composing (I could explain it, but for now I’ll stick to saying it is really dissonant, sounding harsh and disorienting, and most classical music lovers hate music written this way). But for *A Survivor from Warsaw*, with a narrator describing Nazi brutality, this method of composing actually works. When I taught how music works, I sometimes used it as an example. The piece had been commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky, who had commissioned a lot of music in the 1920s to 1940s. But when he got the score for A Survivor he did nothing with it. The premier was actually held in Albuquerque. Richard Strauss is not the Waltz King (that’s Johann Strauss). He wrote the theme that was used in 2001 A Space Odyssey, tone poems such as Don Juan, and several operas such as Der Rosenkavalier, the most famous living German composer at the start of the 1930s. As such he was invited by the Nazis to lead the music division of the culture ministry. He took a long time to see who the Nazis really were, though he could use his position to protect his daughter-in-law, who was Jewish, and his grandchildren. He could not save her siblings and parents. The Nazis eventually released him from his post. But because he had worked for, and did not denounce, the Nazis few wanted anything to do with him. He retreated to his home south of Munich where he wrote *Metamorphosen* as a way to express his grief of his country and the world. I hadn’t heard of the piece prior to reading this book. I have now listened to it on YouTube. I much prefer his Four Last Songs, written after Metamorphosen, and depicting the end of life. Britten and his life partner Peter Pears had applied for and gotten conscientious objector status during WWII. Just after the war Britten persuaded violinist Yehudi Menuhin that he should be the accompanist on a tour of Germany to play for those made homeless by the war. Britten was deeply shaken by the extent of the devastation. Early in the war Coventry Cathedral was bombed, leaving just the outer walls and bell tower. There was talk of rebuilding, but that changed to preserving the old cathedral as a memorial and building a glorious modern cathedral beside the old. When I went to England with a cousin in the 1980s we stopped to see the old and new cathedrals. The new one is bright, modern, and radiates joy. When the new one was consecrated in 1962 Britten, as the most famous composer of the land, was commissioned to write a piece. He wrote this War Requiem. The text is the Latin Mass for the dead, interspersed with poems of Wilfred Owen, who was also gay and died in WWI. Owen’s poems deal with the brutality of war and do not lead to catharsis. One of Owen’s poems is about the ancient story of Abraham and his son Isaac. God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son. At the last moment an angel tells him not to, and provides a ram to sacrifice instead. In Owen’s version Abraham kills his son anyway, then kills all the sons of Europe. I heard the work performed in concert. It’s quite an experience. It was also discussed in a composition class when I was working on my Master of Music. Shostakovich, throughout his life, was under the watchful eye of he Soviet regime. Some times he could do his own thing, sometimes the regime cracked down. Many times he wrote what the regime commissioned him to write, meaning he had to support their ideology, and not his own. Even so, his symphonies supported the regime in a coded way. They were celebratory in the required manner, but with an undertone that doesn’t fit. An example is his Fifth Symphony, written to bring himself back into good graces after his first denunciation. I think Shostakovich’s symphonies are the most interesting of the 20th century. He also wrote string quartets and because these were meant for small audiences he could let his true feelings out. Early in Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union the German army reached Kyiv. There they demanded all the Jews of the city assemble for relocation. The next morning 33 thousand Jews were escorted out of town to Babyn Yar, a valley nearby, where they were all murdered. The valley became their mass grave. The Soviets were pretty good covering it up because they didn’t want Jews to be singled out when a great number of Soviets also died. When Shostakovich saw a poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko written about Babi Yar and antisemitism he knew that would become the first movement of his Thirteenth Symphony. The same poet provided more texts for four more movements. The Soviet regime did quite a bit to make sure the premier didn’t happen. The work wasn’t banned until later, but the regime could make life difficult. But after a lifetime of compromise Shostakovich was done. He had a text he firmly believed in and he provided music to fit. He did not back down. The premier happened. I’ve heard the work, or at least part of it, but it’s been a while. So I listened to it this evening while following along in the score. The whole piece is about an hour. It is for a bass solo, a choir of bases, and orchestra. The text is, of course, in Russian and the score does not provide translation. So I found a translation online. The first movement is about Babi Yar and a recounting of many of the antisemitic acts through history. The second movement says that emperors have not been able to command, buy, or kill humor. The third is about the endurance of Russian women as they do what’s needed for their families. The fourth is about fears, how they slither everywhere and subdue people; but a new fear is parroting someone else’s words. The last movement is about whether one is advancing their career by telling the truth or saying what the authorities want to hear. After the premier of War Requiem Britten sent a recording to Shostakovich. The two became good friends, though they rarely met. Each saw the other and someone who understood what they were trying to accomplish through music. Eichler also discussed the meaning and purpose of memorials. Can any type of memorial, including one of music, help future people to adequately understand the horror and devastation of World War II and the Holocaust? No. Memorials can also make us think we’ve encountered the past enough, we don’t need to delve deeper into the event. But music has (or can have) an endurance that exceeds the lives of survivors of horrific events, so can keep their stories alive. And music has an emotional immediacy that archives and websites can’t produce. Musical memorials are a whole lot better than no memorials at all, than letting the events fade into dry history books. Of course, Eichler discussed memorials in a lot more detail. As I said the book was fascinating to me, though I understand the limited appeal.

What is largely a show of farce

Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported that California has released its new House district map that will give it five more Democratic seats. Which Republicans would lose their seats is also identified. Singer noted the sales job by Gov. Gavin Newsom has already started. He’s stressing why it needs to be done – that Texas started a power grab. Singer also noted that Border Patrol agents were outside the museum where Newsom announced the start of the effort. Does that show the nasty is worried? Of course, California Republicans are crying foul, accusing Democrats for doing what their colleagues in Texas are doing, something California Democrats wouldn’t consider if Texas hadn’t pushed first. JulglelandDan of the Kos community wonders why California is stopping at a five seat gain. They could surely go for a seven seat, maybe even an eight seat, gain. And, get busy New York. You too Illinois, New Jersey, Washington, Oregon, and any other state where Democrats hold majorities in both legislative chambers plus the governor. Yeah, there are administrative hurdles and Democratic belief in independent redistricting commissions. “But this is war. And we damn well better start acting like it.” Oliver Willis of Kos notes the number of Republicans who are saying they are scared of cities (at least those with Democratic mayors) and want “Daddy” Trump to come in with federal forces to make all those scary things go away. Yeah, they’re providing cover for the nasty guy’s takeover of DC, but they certainly don’t sound like the alpha males they claim to be. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev started with a quote of Joan Walsh of The Nation discussing federal troops in DC.

Although Trump justified his moves by citing the District’s allegedly escalating crime rate—crime of every sort is actually down dramatically in Washington—for better or worse, they’re not policing any of the District’s high-crime areas, residents complain. I say it might be better, because if they descended on Anacostia or other overly policed areas, they likely would criminalize and brutalize indiscriminately. Remember, these troops haven’t been trained in urban policing (not that such training always prevents brutal behavior). But it’s also quite bizarre, if Trump’s genuine focus were crime reduction. But it’s not. It’s intimidation. Trump’s troops have mostly shown up in touristy places and lively neighborhoods, in what is largely a show of farce. They’re writing people up for public drinking, smoking weed, and broken taillights. They’ve succeeded in reducing business at bars and restaurants by almost a third compared to the same period in August 2024. So much for the pro-business GOP. […] It’s clear: The addition of 1,000 red-state National Guard troops to the 800 already in DC, all untrained in urban policing, raises the odds of a “mass casualty event,” at minimum. We used to say people who described Trumpism as “fascism” were exaggerating, though now even mainstream media regularly uses the F-word. Right now, we should be wary of talking blithely about “civil war.” But these moves on the capital by Trump and his red-state cronies seem like an acceleration of danger to democracy, meant to familiarize Americans with the sight of federal forces patrolling blue American cities, as Trump has already said is coming.

This morning NPR had a segment on the nasty guy getting ready to issue an executive order to ban voting by mail. I’m not linking to that because here are a couple quotes that say as much as NPR did, and a bit more. Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo lays out what all of us should have learned in high school civics or government classes.

President Trump has a new post up on Truth Social today in which he claims that states only run elections and count ballots as agents acting at his direction as president of the United States. The key lines are “the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tell them …” He claims he’s going to issue an executive order to ban voting by mail and any voting machines he doesn’t like. Put simply, this is total bulls---. The president has basically nothing to do with election administration. States run American elections. Period. Congress, within certain parameters, can make laws with standards that states must apply. But states still administer them. This is a foundational, constitutionally-mandated and structural feature of the American republic. Trump’s claims are so far from anything even remotely legal or constitutional that I doubt even the corrupted federal judiciary will have much truck with it.

Joseph Gedeon of The Guardian explains the nasty guy’s sudden pronouncement.

Donald Trump on Monday announced that lawyers are drafting an executive order to eliminate mail-in voting, days after Vladimir Putin told him US elections were rigged because of postal ballots. In a White House meeting alongside Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump said: “We’re going to start with an executive order that’s being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail in ballots because they’re corrupt.” The push follows Trump’s meeting with Putin in Alaska on Friday, when the Russian president allegedly told him that the 2020 election “was rigged because you have mail-in voting”, according to Trump’s subsequent interview with Sean Hannity. […] Mail voting has exploded in popularity – from fewer than one in 10 voters in 1996 to nearly half during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. As of 2022, it was used by about one in three voters, according to a report by the MIT Election Data and Science Lab. Supporters have long said mail ballots make voting easier for people who can’t get to polling stations – those with disabilities, parents with young kids, or workers with long shifts, while also giving voters more time to research candidates at home.…

I’ve been voting from home for several years now. It’s “by mail” though I usually have to drive to city hall to use the ballot drop box. I appreciate being able to see the actual ballot ahead of time (yeah, there are ways to see it online) and research the candidates and issues – and not have to stand in line. One thing that NPR story discussed is all the safeguards to make sure vote by mail is not corrupt. Of course, the nasty guy did not say in what ways mail voting was corrupt and did not offer evidence of that corruption. He never does. Lisa Needham of Kos says that the national debt has set a new record of $37 trillion. Yeah, not all of it accumulated under the nasty guy – previous Republican presidents back to Reagan helped. Even Joe Biden helped a little – all that pandemic and infrastructure spending, very much needed. But the nasty guy keeps promising his economic policies will, any second now, unleash massive growth leading to massive reductions in debt while economists say those policies will do just the opposite.

They didn't know because the press didn't tell them

My Sunday movie was The Boy Next Door, a Korean comedy. It was recommended by Krotor of the Boys Love column at Daily Kos. The video (at least the version with English subtitles) is embedded at the bottom of the Boys Love post that describes it. The film is a series of 15 episodes now as one 1:35 film. Kyutae and Gijae live in adjacent efficiency apartments. They meet on the outdoor hallway between the two. They frequently get into situations that, when an outsider sees them, they appear to be a gay couple. There’s a fire in Kyutae’s apartment and the landlord asks him to move in with Gijae and will cut the rent in half. They are Asia’s version of The Odd Couple. In spite of the perception the lads say they are straight. Gijae has been dating Mina, who is also a friend of Kyutae. She frequently sees them in the compromising positions. Krotor, in his review, said he laughed so hard his dogs howled along with him. He wrote a big source of the humor is the way this film keeps using and twisting the tropes that frequently appear in these sorts of stories (Krotor provides a link to an article where he discusses these tropes). I didn’t laugh as much (actually, barely at all), but I did grin through the whole thing. I guess the Korean sense of humor doesn’t translate so well. I did enjoy it. The news this evening included the report that Democrats in the Texas House are returning home, which means Republicans will be able to vote on their Congressional redistricting plan to give themselves five more seats. An Associated Press article posted to Kos reported last Thursday that California Gov. Gavin Newsom is proceeding with revising its maps to give Democrats several more seats. The California legislature is drawing new maps and will vote on them next week. They have a supermajority in both chambers. They will also vote to declare a special election (or is it a special proposal in the regular November election?) for the voters to approve the new maps. These maps will be good through the 2030 election when redistricting returns to the state’s independent commission. California has some of the most competitive House seats so gerrymandering them could be easy. Mike Luckovich posted a cartoon on Kos showing an elephant with one gun squaring off with a donkey with two guns for a redistricting fight. The elephant says, “Wait, you’re only supposed to bring a knife!” Thom Hartmann of the Kos community and an independent pundit did a specific comparison of the US now and Germany in the Nazi era. We’ve heard about the deportation flight of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Did you know there have been over 1,000 deportation flights? Did you know ICE is planning to open or expand 125 detention facilities, including ones to hold families? This expansion will give the US the largest prison system in the world? Well, did you know? Don’t feel bad if you didn’t. I didn’t either. Hartmann then discussed a good German friend, who was a part of Hitler Youth when WWII ended. Hartmann asked him how Germans were okay with Nazis shipping millions of Jews to death camps. The answer was simple: “We didn’t know.” They were told the camps were for the worst criminals. They were told the innocent Jews were being resettled to make room for urban renewal projects. They were shocked at the images when Americans liberated the concentration camps. They didn’t know the truth because the press didn’t tell them. That’s because...

By the end of 1933, Hitler had largely neutered Germany’s free press; not by market competition, but by bankrupting writers and outlets with libel lawsuits, unleashing police raids for “slander” claims, vigilante “Brownshirt” militia violence against reporters, arrests of publishers for “publishing anti-German propaganda,” the outright seizure of progressive newspapers, and a sweeping Schriftleitergesetz “Editor’s Law” which criminalized journalism that exposed government excesses. Nazi loyalists and party-friendly oligarchs took over the press outlets that remained in a massive media consolidation project, ensuring that every headline and every radio news report served the regime much like Fox “News” and rightwing hate-radio/podcasts do today for Trump. ... There were literally no public reports in Germany about mass killings or illegal detentions between 1934 and the end of the war in 1945.

Both then and now the public is shielded from the magnitude of state-led oppression of targeted groups. That allows the “policies to continue without mass pushback.” Those 1,000 deportation flights – Hartmann, a voracious consumer of news, didn’t know. In 1944 the Nazis created a slick PR film about the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Things looked great. The foreign press assumed all the camps looked that nice and bought the propaganda. How long before we see Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi star in films telling us how “humane” those tent cities in 100F heat are? In Sunday’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Anne Applebaum of The Atlantic. I’ll repeat part of the quote.

There is not much else to say about yesterday’s Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska, other than to observe the intertwining elements of tragedy and farce. ... The better way to understand Anchorage is not as the start of something new, but as the culmination of a longer process. As the U.S. dismantles its foreign-policy tools, as this administration fires the people who know how to use them, our ability to act with any agility will diminish. From the Treasury Department to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, from the State Department to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, agency after agency is being undermined, deliberately or accidentally, by political appointees who are unqualified, craven, or hostile to their own mission.

Eugene Daniels of MSNBC discussed Democrats leaving Texas:

It's too soon to tell whether any of this will stop the brazen Republican plan to keep power in the House amid polls showing GOP lawmakers are massively unpopular. But it has already succeeded at the real goal, which was to help voters realize what Republicans are attempting, understand the stakes and know that Democrats are trying to do something to stop it. The spectacle wasn't a tactic; it was the whole point. It's a lesson that Democrats have been slow to learn since President Donald Trump's first term, but one that may finally be breaking through. [...] That Texas grit has proved to be catching. As Democrats have rallied around the stand those dozens of state lawmakers have taken, they have decided to fight fire with fire, or at least talk about it that way. Instead of shaking their fingers at Trump and Texas Republicans for calling a special session to gerrymander, they've threatened their own. And that's really how spectacles change things. They grab voters' attention, which gives politicians a mandate to go further. That can happen even with politicians who aren't known for taking bold stances, as when New York Gov. Kathy Hochul threatened to have the state do its own gerrymandering. And it helps make an idea mainstream. California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, two politicians who are fairly obviously thinking about presidential runs one day, both jumped on the issue.

In the comments paulpro posted a cartoon by Weyant showing a worker at Subway asking, “Is this to stay, to go, or to protest authoritarian military occupation?” Further down in the comments are two cartoons by Toonerman showing the nasty guy saying “Democrat controlled state’s crime is out of control! I need to send in my Army!” Toonerman points out that “8 of the top 10 highest murder rates are these red states,” pointing to Mississippi, Louisiana (where Speaker Mike Johnson is from), Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee. The two Democratic states in the top ten are New Mexico and Maryland. In today’s roundup Greg Dworkin included a tweet by Patrick Wintour, diplomatic editor of the Guardian:

US administration goes from severe consequences on Russia if no ceasefire was agreed to Rubio on Meet the Press shutting down the option indefinitely. “I don't think new sanctions on Russia are going to force him to accept the ceasefire. They're already under very severe sanction.”

Shashank Joshi, defense editor of The Economist, added:

Extraordinary to see negotiators systematically destroy their own leverage at every turn.

Here are some numbers to go with Hartmann’s article above, which shows some of what Hartmann says is being hidden is getting to the public. Even so, Hartmann’s overall message is accurate. From the Washington Post:

When President Donald Trump took office this year, the United States already commanded the largest immigrant detention system in the world, with the capacity to hold close to 50,000 migrants. Right away, his administration set a goal of doubling it. An internal planning road map obtained by The Washington Post shows for the first time exactly how immigration authorities plan to reach that goal, including by opening or expanding 125 facilities this year. By January, ICE will have the capacity to hold more than 107,000 people, internal agency documents show.

Jamie Dupree tweeted photos of National Guard troops around Washington’s Union Station and Lincoln Memorial, neither is a high crime area. A tweet by Jordan Fischer showed that within three days of the Washington police takeover local restaurant reservations dropped 31%. “It couldn't come at a worse time. D.C. Summer Restaurant Week starts... tomorrow.” Toonerman posted a cartoon of a pastor “At the Victory New Life Calvary Apocalyptic Evanpedocal Church” where the preacher is saying “Let us now whip out or King Trump edition Holy Buybull and open it to page 47, Pedophilians 34:4-7.” A meme posted by exlrrp shows what might be a pair of news anchors. One says:

In America you call it the alt right. In Germany we call it “why Grandpapa lives in Argentina now.”

Also posted by exlrrp is a Doonsbury cartoon (alas, the Detroit paper hasn’t carried him in a long time, one can forget it is still running). In this one (and I forget the character names) a woman is making dinner as she tells her husband that her aunt’s caretaker stopped coming in, the farm stand is closed in the middle of summer, the cafe had only one cook, and the hedges haven’t been trimmed. She says, “I wonder what’s going on.” He replies, “It’ll come to you.”

This red carpet handshake shows he's free to continue the war

An Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos reported on the meeting between the nasty guy and Putin, held in Alaska yesterday. The two met for 2½ hours and reached an “understanding” on Ukraine but offered very few details on what was discussed. The nasty guy said he would speak with Zelenskyy and European leaders soon. This morning Scott Simon of NPR spoke to reporters Charles Maynes in Moscow and Greg Myre in Kyiv to talk about how the meeting was seen in their host cities. Myre noted the press session afterward lasted all of 3½ minutes and the nasty guy didn’t take questions. Myre said the nasty guy called Zelenskyy while on the plane to invite him to Washington. Maynes explained why, though nothing of substance came from the meeting, Putin won.

For Russians, I think the moment that really mattered was this red carpet handshake, watching Putin and Trump meet, all smiles, and then sharing this ride together in Trump's presidential car, also known as The Beast. You know, those scenes are on loop on state television because it tells Russians Western efforts to isolate them have failed. You know, Putin went from an ostracized leader who Trump was threatening with massive sanctions if he didn't end the war to being given a presidential welcome on U.S. soil in the course of just one week. Nationalist voices here in Moscow are praising Putin's performance in the sense that he got the summit with Trump but seemingly gave nothing in return. You know, in essence, Putin got his photo op, Trump's revised threats of sanctions against Russia evaporated and Moscow's free to continue the war. ... You know, Putin, like many world leaders, has learned that when it comes to Trump, flattery doesn't hurt. We've heard Putin not only talking about shared history yesterday in culture, in Alaska but also calling Trump his dear neighbor. He also went out of his way to embrace Trump's gripes about the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden, and in effect, blaming Biden for forcing Putin's decision to invade Ukraine.

Myre said Ukraine is relieved that there is no deal that they would be pressured to accept. And Zelenskyy is to come to Washington on Monday where the fear is the nasty guy will side with Putin. On Wednesday (yeah, I’m behind in my news reading) Oliver Willis of Kos reported that the federal officers ordered into DC by the nasty guy don’t seem to have much to do. A video shows them walking around Georgetown where streets and sidewalks are mostly empty. When there is need for police way too many officers show up. Willis wrote:

The Washington incursion has no justification, and the visuals are now reinforcing that reality—so the administration is pivoting to conspiracy, as always.

The conspiracy is the stats that show a decline in crime, that show it is the lowest in 30 years, are fake. Of course, no credible evidence of the fakery is produced. Also on Wednesday Walter Einenkel of Kos reported the nasty guy said crime in American cities is an emergency (it isn’t) and because of that he doesn’t need Congress to act, to continue efforts in DC beyond 30 days (not true) or to go into other cities. Along the way he said, “Democrats will not do anything to stop crime” (also not true). Einenkel concluded:

This isn’t about safety, it’s about power, and if Congress cannot stop it, D.C. may just be one of the first stops on the Trump administration’s “Make America A Police State” tour.

In today’s pundit roundup Greg Dworkin of Kos had a quote about the Alaska meeting and that there was no deal, then had a comment of his own:

Of course there wasn’t. The whole thing was a sham. But the press ate up the “pageantry”. I will say that on air live, they tried to make something of a nothingburger, but some of them were honest enough to tell their live audiences they had no idea what actually happened. That’s because you can never take Trump at his word on anything. Ever. He’s a congenital fabulist and this time it didn’t work for him like North Korea did the first term (also, you know, pageantry.)

Greg Sargent of The New Republic:

President Trump’s vaunted dispatching of troops into Washington, D.C., has managed to be both buffoonish and authoritarian. Thus far it has involved little more than handfuls of National Guard members standing around and taking selfies. And yet Trump has accompanied it with genuinely alarming threats: This week he openly described the deployment as a dry run for more cities, and on Wednesday, he made things even worse, suggesting that he has the authority to take control of the D.C. police indefinitely without Congress’s assent. (He doesn’t.)

A tweet from Martina Navratilova:

If Trump didn’t show in the Epstein files in a really bad way (rapes, pedophilia), he would have released them long ago, no matter who else goes down. He only cares and will ever care about himself. But because it’s clear what he’s done, we won’t see them if Trump can help it.

How long has he been dangling the Epstein files, saying it would damage Democrats? Since sometime in his first term, I’m sure. Navratilova is saying that if the files implicated Democrats and not himself he had every reason to release them back then. In the comments are a lot of cartoons about the hoagy hurler, the guy who threw a sandwich at a federal officer in DC. John Buss drew one saying “The Subway Slinger is being charged with baloneyious assault.” Willus posted an image of a sandwich with the words:

Behold the latest inanimate object that strikes fear into the snowflake alpha-males of the MAGA movement. Apparently it’s a felony to throw one of these but not to molest children.

A meme posted by exlrrp shows the front page of “Weekly World News” that has a photo of a sandwich in front of microphones. The caption says, “Sandwich thrown at ICE agent holds press conference, ‘I’m the victim here!’” Below that is another meme with a soldier about to be hit by a sandwich and the caption, “Don’t bread on me.” New inflation numbers came out. They were higher than expected and higher they had been over the last few months. Kos of Kos discussed the new Republican response that has the flavor of Orwell’s 1984.

It started a few days ago, when Trump ally Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina went on Fox News and insisted that rising costs were “for the good of the country.” This, from the same party whose leader promised to lower prices “on Day One”—a pledge that convinced many voters that Trump, despite his fascism, bigotry, and criminality, would improve their bottom line. ... Norman gave it his best shot: “Yes, [prices are] higher. Steel prices are up, but it’s for the good of the country.” He added, “Should we expect high prices for a short time? Yes … The cancer in this country was letting other countries rule the day and tax our products, and why should we run a deficit every month? … And that’s why this president is doing such a good job.” Got that? The “cancer” was lower prices, and the cure is making everything more expensive. Meanwhile, Norman voted lockstep with Trump to add another $3 trillion to the national debt, so spare us the fiscal-hawk routine.

A strategist said lowering prices may not be desirable because falling prices are usually tied to recession. While true, this isn’t an economics seminar and the nasty guy promised the opposite. They’re trying to explain “why voters should be grateful for the pain.” Good luck with that. I enjoy watching the Kennedy Center Honors. Every fall The Center would name five people or groups from across the performing arts that had done outstanding work in their art and had also contributed to mentoring the next generation or strengthened the human community. The award would be given in early December and a grand gala presentation would be broadcast a bit before or after Christmas. They would tell an honoree’s life story and then their colleagues would perform a tribute. I won’t need to watch for a few years. Emily Singer of Kos reported that the nasty guy was very involved in choosing this year’s honorees (to make sure no one “woke” got an award) and that he will be the show’s host. Sure, why not, he used to host *The Apprentice*. This years honorees are Sylvester Stallone, the band Kiss (frontman Gene Simmons is a Trumper), George Strait, Gloria Gaynor, and Michael Crawford. I won’t be missing much.

The Texas chainsaw gerrymander

Alex Samuels of Daily Kos wrote on Monday that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is organizing a meeting to be held (was held?) in Wednesday to discuss how to respond to Republican led redistricting efforts. One of the attendees will be (was?) Eric Holder. He was Attorney General under Obama and leader of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a group working to turn the redistricting process over to independent commissions. Here’s the quote of the day:

Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the lead Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, was more direct. “I honestly don’t see any debate in the party over this,” he told Axios. “If [Republicans] are going to continue with the Texas chainsaw gerrymander, we have no choice but to fight fire with fire and use whatever legislative resources we have ... to fight back.” He added, “Ultimately, we will fight fire with water. But nobody is on the side of unilateral disarmament ... we are not going to allow them to gerrymander us into oblivion.”

This is a minor incident but is has been fodder for cartoonists. On Tuesday Oliver Willis of Kos wrote that a man apparently drunk yelled at the federal officers in DC, repeatedly calling them “fascists,” then threw his sub sandwich at one of the officers. They chased and arrested him.

To be sure, it is a bad idea to throw food at law enforcement—but it also isn’t the sort of offense that requires such a response from federal agents. The arrest echoed the actions of the Trump-enabled agents, who on Sunday night responded en masse to a fender bender in Washington.

Rep. Jamie Raskin from neighboring Maryland had a few things to say:

“If he really cared about public safety in D.C., he would release the billion dollars he has held up—and the Republicans have held up—in funding for the local budget. That's all local money that they've put a hold on,” Raskin said. The capital has plenty of police and did not need the federal incursion. In fact, Washington has 4.7 police officers for every 1,000 residents—more than any other major American city, according to FBI data.

Today Annieli of the Kos community reported that Sean Dunn, the hoagie hurler, appeared in DC Superior Court on Monday. The judge released him. Prosecutors obtained a new arrest warrant from a federal court and on Wednesday 20 officers came to his home to arrest him. In court the judge said the felony charge is excessive and released Dunn pending trial. He did lose his Department of Justice job because of the incident. Some say hurling food is political violence. Others say it is a non-violent form of protest, a moral objection to politicians and controversial figures. In Thursday’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Toluse Olorunnipa of The Atlantic:

Trump would need buy-in from Washington’s police officers themselves to enforce the more aggressive form of policing he has requested. (Trump said yesterday that law enforcement should “knock the hell out of” suspected criminals, lock up more juveniles, and otherwise “do whatever the hell they want.”) He received a nod from MPD’s union, which has clashed with the city council over laws that aimed to reduce police misconduct and hold officers accountable for using excessive force. The union said yesterday that it welcomed the federalization and looked forward to working with the White House to tackle local crime. At the same time, the union asserted that any federal takeover should be temporary, and fissures have already emerged over staffing levels. The department said its force of about 3,200 officers, which has shrunk by about 600 over the past five years, is overstretched and needs more employees. Trump, who wants the department to make more arrests, disagrees, saying yesterday that the officers need only to have the right policies in place. “I was told today, ‘Sir, they want more police.’ I heard a number—3,500 police,” Trump said. “They said, ‘We have 3,500. We need more.’ You don’t need more. That’s so many. That’s like an army.”

A couple comments: This shows one of the problems of federalizing the police – he nasty guy has a much less regard for human rights. Mayor Muriel Bowser may tell her police chief and the officers they need to respect rights. But this sidelines her and her opinion. I’ve now included two quotes about the size of the DC police force, one says there are plenty and another saying there aren’t enough. I can’t tell which is true. David Blight of The New Republic:

In Richard J. Evans’s trilogy on the Third Reich, he shows indelibly how the Nazis achieved power because of eight key factors: One, the depth of economic depression and the ways it radicalized the electorate; two, widespread hatred for parliamentary democracy that had taken root for at least a decade all over Europe; three, the destruction of dissent and academic freedom in universities; four, the Nazis’ ritualistic “dynamism,” charisma, and propaganda machinery; five, the creation of a cloak of legality around so many of their tactics, stage by stage of the descent into fear, terror, and autocracy; six, the public manipulating and recrafting of history and forging Nazi mythology to fit their present purposes; seven, they knew whom and what they viscerally hated—communists and Jews—and made them the objects of insatiable grievance; eight, and finally, vicious street violence, with brownshirts in cities and student thugs on college campuses, mass arrests, detainment camps, and the Gestapo in nearly every town. All of these methods, mixed with the hideous dream of an Aryan racial utopia and a nationalism rooted in deep resentment of the Versailles Treaty at the end of World War I, provided the Nazis the tools of tyranny. In 2025, our own autocratic governing party has already employed many, though not all, of these techniques. Thanks to a free press and many courts sustaining the rule of law, Trumpism has not yet mastered every authoritarian method. But it has launched a startlingly rapid and effective beginning to an inchoate American brand of fascism.

In the comments is a cartoon by Jack Ohman that shows a guy in a DC sweatshirt running after a National Guard tank saying, “Guys! I want to report a cabal of coup plotters, adjudicated sex offenders, convicted felons, and emoluments clause grifters holding America hostage!!!” A cartoon posted by paulpro and created by Smit shows a couple facing a bunch of armed soldiers blocking the road. He says, “Gosh! Whatever’s in those Epstein files must be really, really bad!” Trilemma posted a cartoon of a woman on a park bench with the Capitol in the distant background. She is holding a loaf of bread and feeding the birds. Two officers are watching her and one says, “Command, we’ve got a Code Crumb, requesting immediate backup. I’ve got eyes on her... suspect is armed with... rye.” Paul Fell posted a cartoon and explaining that because of tariffs “nearly half of all U.S. parents had to go into debt for school supplies.” The cartoon shows a boy telling his teacher, “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to complete the writing assignment. Yesterday was by brother’s turn to use the pencil.” A cartoon posted by paulpro and drawn by Dr. Seuss shows a sign explaining what the merchant is selling:

Get your Ostrich Bonnet here. Relieves Hitler Headache. Forget the Terrible News you’ve read. Your mind’s at ease in an ostrich head.

In today’s roundup Greg Dworkin quoted Dan Pfeiffer of The Message Box saying the nasty guy and Republicans are not able to cancel the 2026 or 2028 election. But...

Look, I don’t put anything past Trump or this Republican Party. No one got rich betting against Trump doing unprecedented and dangerous things. But Trump doesn’t need to resort to such extreme measures to undermine our democracy and lock in political power for decades. There is a more nefarious and subtle plan to end our democracy in form and function — and it’s already underway.

I looked at Pfeiffer’s post. Step one is the gerrymandering we see starting to happen. Alas subscription requirements prevented me from seeing any more. Dworkin posted a tweet by Stephen Miller, the nasty guy’s chief of staff and author of the most racist policies:

Crime stats in big blue cities are fake. The real rates of crime, chaos & dysfunction are orders of magnitude higher. Everyone who lives in these areas knows this. They program their entire lives around it. Democrats are trying to unravel civilization. Pres Trump will save it.

Dworkin posted that for Ronald Brownstein’s rebuttal:

Coupled with the attack on BLS, this is rapidly advancing deeper into the territory of insisting that all data that doesn't conform to Trump preferences is inherently invalid & that only the leader can tell you the truth. A hallmark of authoritarians across world & thru history.

Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times:

None of these were real emergencies. There was, and is, no external crisis facing the United States. But for reasons of both personality and political ambition, Trump needs a crisis to govern — or rather, to rule. And if the actual conditions of reality will not give him a state of exception, he’ll create one himself.

In the comments is a cartoon by Jesse Duquette:

Wanted by the FBI Assault with a deli weapon [a drawing of a sandwich] Ham on White description Salty and prone to loafing around, suspect was last seen slapping an ICE agent in the face while shouting, “All cops are baguettes, F---o.” Neighbors describe him as “quiet” and are glad the streets are safe for pedophiles and fascists.”

Fiona Webster posted a cartoon by Jeff Stahler showing two women looking at an abstract painting with lots of swirling lines. One says, “A Jackson Pollock? No... The new redistricting map.”