Is there a cost to opposing the government?

My Sunday movie was Two 4 One. Miriam and Melanie used to be lovers. Melanie has now transitioned to Adam. He is still working to establish himself as Adam in an industry that knew Melanie, so he is short of cash and hasn’t completed all the surgeries. Miriam is desperate to have a child, though her current lover Julia doesn’t want one. So while Julia is on a cruise with her mother Miriam orders an at-home insemination kit and asks Adam to help. Both get pregnant – that’s not a spoiler because the movie’s advertising poster says as much. The movie explores Adam’s conflict of still working to be a man yet having this big feminine thing barge into his life. I enjoyed it and the actors did a fine job. It’s a good view into an aspect of a trans life. And the Victoria, Canada scenery is pretty good too. This is perhaps a spoiler: Missing from the film is what happens when Adam begins to show. Daily Kos community member annieli posted a poll by YouGov that asked “Did you participate in the No Kings protest on October 18?” This is another way of getting an estimate of the size of the crowds. Out of all US adult citizens 8% said yes. If I’ve done the math right that means the attendance wasn’t 7 million, but ... over 25 million. Of course, polls depend on the honesty of those polled. When people are asked what they ate they are quite bad at accuracy, frequently replying with what they should have eaten or what they think the questioner wants to hear. Even so, this shows attendance was likely significantly higher than the 3.5% threshold that can cause governments to topple. In addition to the percentage of all adult citizens the report also shows percentages of categories of liberal leaning groups. For example, the poll shows 25% of those 65 and older say they attended the rallies. I had discussed an article that compared the proposed size of the nasty guy’s ballroom to the size of the building it is to be placed in. The building appears to be 50,000 square feet bigger than the ballroom and support services. What’s with all that extra space? RETIII of the Kos community quoted an article in the Washington Post:

The East Wing will be replaced by the ballroom, offices for the first lady and her staff, and new “guest suites” for the “President’s White House Guests,” according to a project description on the résumé of lead architect James McCrery II. The White House would not confirm whether the new guest suites and offices were included in the 90,000-square foot estimate.

RETIII notes this may be for billionaire donors who want to stay or live in the White House. There is no info on the number of suites, their size, and who these guests might be. There is also no info on why the Blair House and the many hotels in the city aren’t good enough. Maybe the suites are the story and the ballroom is a distraction. Thom Hartmann of the Kos community and independent pundit posed the question: Is the nasty guy a lot less powerful than he seems? Yeah, we’ve been seeing Republicans, especially Mike Johnson, groveling and doing all they can to protect him. But Hartmann has also noticed that scams, even with the power of a corrupted government behind them, usually don’t last. See presidents Harding, Nixon, and Clinton. A few House Republicans are demanding details about the Epstein scandal. A few voted to block is tariffs against Brazil. A few Republican senators have spoken their concerns about the murder of “drug traffickers” in the Caribbean. Tariffs have caused inflation to rise. His policies are making groceries and housing prices rise. Because of AI centers electricity prices are way up. He is making relations with the rest of the world – especially Canada – worse. His deportations are wreaking havoc on the economy. His base is turning against him. Republicans are busy gerrymandering because they know how unpopular he is. The nasty guys downfall may be just a matter of time, though Hartmann wisely doesn’t say how much time. In Sunday’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Christopher Armitage of The Existentialist Republic Substack.

[Steven] Levitsky’s test is simple and measurable: is there a cost to opposing the government? When the answer becomes yes, democracy ends. The playing field must be level enough that opposition can realistically win. Loss of power must be accepted as legitimate by incumbents. And two informal norms must operate: mutual toleration (treating rivals as legitimate, not enemies) and institutional forbearance (not using legal powers to their maximum to entrench advantage). When these conditions disappear, formal institutions remain but democracy dies. So have we crossed that line? Levitsky thinks so. ... Competitive authoritarianism has a known definition with precise boundaries. It means formal democratic institutions remain “the primary means of gaining power” but rules get violated so systematically that the regime fails minimum democratic standards. Elections still happen. Opposition parties exist. Courts function. Media operates. But all of these operate on a playing field tilted so severely that calling it democratic becomes inaccurate.

Adam Gopnik of The New Yorker explains the stated justification for demolishing the White House East Wing:

This, of course, is the standard line of Trump apologetics: some obvious outrage is identified, and defenders immediately scour history for an earlier, vaguely similar act by a President who actually respected the Constitution. It’s a form of mismatched matching. If Trump blows up boats with unknown men aboard—well, didn’t Obama use drones against alleged terrorists? (Yes, but within a process designed, however imperfectly, to preserve a chain of command and a vestige of due process.)

Kellie Carter Jackson and Nicole Hemmer writing for The Guardian describe the teach-in the Smithsonian held as a way of resisting the nasty guy’s edicts against museums.

In an authoritarian regime, one of the first things that is taken from the public is honest and credible information. The past itself becomes treacherous terrain: authoritarians attempt to seize control of the country’s history, reworking it into a vision of a glorious, powerful, patriotic – and largely fictional – past. The people and events may be real, but the stories they’re used to tell are false. In such a moment, telling the truth, and teaching the truth, about the country’s history is an act of both defiance and solidarity. [...] A teach-in represents a different kind of activism than the No Kings rallies held last weekend. Such rallies show mass opposition to the regime; but a teach-in represents a step toward deeper organizing and activism.

In Monday’s roundup Greg Dworkin quoted Sarah Stein Lubrano of Zeteo. In an article titled, “You Don’t Argue With Extremists. You Organize Against Them” she wrote:

Studies show debate doesn’t work as a tool of persuasion, and we can’t use it to affect political change in that way. Organizing and action can. ... This might be surprising to hear. As I write in my newest book, the “West” is steeped in debate culture, where debate is prized as part of how everything works – school, the news, parliaments, and social media. It’s even worked into the algorithm that structures what we see on the internet. My Instagram reels never do so well as when people fight furiously in the comments. It makes sense that debates do not change minds once one considers psychology. Psychological research shows political beliefs are not very alterable through argument, evidence, or information – especially compared to other beliefs.

Max Burns, through Threadreader:

In the last 9 days, Trump: - Demolished the East Wing without approval - Told Congress he won't seek approval for boat airstrikes - Said the US is considering land strikes in Venezuela - Threatened war with Colombia - Accepted $130 million in military funding from a billionaire - Threatened Argentine voters with consequences if they didn't support Javier Milei - Said he doesn't care if Congress stays out of session for the rest of the year - Refused to distribute legally required SNAP benefits to 40 million kids and families

Dworkin didn’t quote the complete list. In the comments exlrrp posted a meme showing Princess Diana dancing with a guy I don’t recognize and in the background are men in tuxes and women in gowns. The caption says:

This iconic moment took place in 1985, in the East Wing of the White House. We already HAD a ballroom.

In Wednesday’s roundup Dworkin quoted John Stoehr and his Editorial Board discussing the state of the government shutdown and the heat Republicans are feeling because of it. The article is as expected, so I’ll only mention the article’s title and the subheading (which I think Dworkin added).

The Republicans are used to burning their own people as leverage They are not used to the Democrats saying, “let them burn.”

David Graham of The Atlantic wrote a scenario showing how the midterm election could be stolen. I won’t go into the details because this is just one way it might happen. Just know scenarios like this are being gamed out and planned for by Republicans. They’ll be ready. Ted Littleford posted a cartoon showing a dog gazing upward because his sparkly bowl is empty. The voice says, “Of course there’s no food. But look – it’s gold!” The caption, “The Trump Doctrine.”

Flattery inflation

Last night I went to the Ringwald Theatre, housed in the Affirmations LGBTQ center in Ferndale to see the play Silver Foxes. The show is about three senior gay men coming to terms with their advancing age. Charlie was discharged from the Army when being gay was automatic grounds for dismissal. He used to be lovers with Ben, who lives in Charlie’s house in Palm Springs and is HIV positive and amazed he’s still alive. There is also their friend Cedric who lives in a senior home but has to be closeted there. Also a frequent visitor in the house is a young man about a third their ages who is the lover of another senior man. Charlie and the rest can’t remember his name and refer to him as the Twink. The seniors talk about their lives, the advances in gay rights, and their refusal to give up those rights. A comment about Anita Bryant getting a cake in the face goes right over the Twink’s head (that actor said working on the show was quite an education in gay history). Cedric had worked as a hairdresser in Hollywood and was able to dish. There is talk about how much time they may have left and what they want to do with it. The play was written by James Berg and Stan Zimmerman. The latter was in the theater and talked to the audience a while afterward. He had been a writer on shows such as the Golden Girls and Gilmore Girls. He said that some of the incidents related in the play come from gay men he knew. I quite enjoyed and recommend the play. It is funny and has many touching moments. The show will be presented twice more, Sunday afternoon and Monday evening. Zimmerman said a sequel is about to start rehearsal (somewhere else) and a sequel to that is being discussed. I finished the book On Tyranny, Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder. The lessons are about how to act when a tyrannical state is arising around you. It’s a small book and a quick read. I’d like to mention all twenty lessons with their short explanations, but that could easily reproduce the book. So I’ll mention only a few. 1. Do not obey in advance. Many people adapt to the demands of tyranny with little prompting or thought. 7. If you must carry a weapon as part of your job be ready to say no. Most of those who did the killing in the Holocaust did it not out of conviction, but it avoid drawing attention. 8. Stand out. When you do others will follow your example. 10. Believe in truth. Truth dies through lying; endless repetition of lies; an embrace of contradictions; and misplaced faith (“I alone can solve it”). 11. Investigate. Figure out things for yourself. Read long-form articles rather than ones offering quick takes. Support sites that investigate. 12. Greet those around you to maintain community. 18. Tyrants create crises and use them to justify taking away rights. Don’t offer your freedom in hopes of getting security. 19. Know the difference between a nationalist and a patriot. A nationalist wants power. A patriot wants what is best for all. I highly recommend this small book. In Tuesday’s pundit roundup for Daily Kos Chitown Kev quoted Paul Krugman who explained flattery inflation discussed by scientist Xavier Marquez and Henry Farrell:

Here’s how it works. The ruler’s lackeys and courtiers believe that they must praise him to the skies, proving their loyalty by offering paeans to his wisdom, character, and golf game. And they must continually up the ante… [...] ...a similar process of self-reinforcement applies to telling lies that serve the autocrat’s ego. Call it “mendacity inflation.” Trump insists that he’s overwhelmingly popular and that only a lunatic fringe disapproves of his presidency. Well, to show loyalty his hangers-on must go further, declaring that grandmothers and parents pushing prams down 7th Avenue are illegal aliens and violent criminals. The humiliating absurdity is a feature, not a bug. Simply lying about demonstrators isn’t enough; to prove their MAGA mettle people in Trump’s orbit must tell lies that are grotesque and ridiculous.

Michael Goldberg of the New York Times discussed the video the nasty guy posted that shows him dumping poop on protesters.

What’s curious, then, is not Trump’s eagerness to degrade us, but his uncontrollable urge to defile himself and his office. Most national leaders, after all, do not willingly associate themselves with diarrhea. Scatological attacks are usually the province of outsiders trying to cut the powerful down to size... Perhaps the most puzzling thing about the second Trump administration has been its attacks on pillars of American strength that pose no challenge to its ideology. It was predictable that the White House would gut support for the humanities, but not that it would defund pediatric cancer research. I expected it to try to eliminate the Department of Education, but not to deliberately wreck the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which helps communities in both red and blue states when they’re beset by disasters.

That puzzle isn’t so puzzling to me. Those high in the social hierarchy, especially one like that nasty guy whose ego is so wounded, will use every means available to oppress those below them. And wrecking FEMA so that it can’t help people after devastation oppresses people quite nicely. In Wednesday’s roundup Greg Dworkin quoted the Wall Street Journal that reported the Treasury Department, across from the now demolished East Wing of the White House has told its employees not to share photos of the demolition because they could “potentially reveal sensitive items, including security features or confidential structural details.” They’re worried about confidential structural details of a building being demolished? Sure. John Stoehr of The Editorial Board discussing the No Kings rallies.

But let’s not lose sight of what has been accomplished. On the one hand, Trump is confessing to the allegations of illegitimacy against him. Protesters said he is not a king. Then he said, in effect, Oh yeah? Watch me. That alone is worth celebrating, as it affects people who have doubts about Trump, but don’t yet trust the opposition. No Kings drew about 5 million people in June. This time, it added a couple million more. Next time, perhaps, a couple million more than that. On the other hand, however, is something deeper and more powerful. The president and his party want the American people to believe that the Republicans – and the Republicans alone – are the real arbiters of reality. Critics do not have the liberty to interpret facts independently. They do not have the right to express beliefs according to guaranteed liberties. Only Republicans have the true authority to define America. With one voice, more than 7 million Americans said no.

Way down in the comments paulpro posted a cartoon by Naish showing a young person in a cafeteria line with a tray with a steaming bowl on it. The person says, “Yuck! How long are you gonna serve us slop?!” The servers are revealed to be Google, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and X and one says, “How long will you keep taking it?” In the comments of Friday’s roundup is a meme posted by exlrrp. It shows a MAGA guy saying, “Illegal immigrants don’t deserve due process! Send them all to El Salvador prisons!” A scholar responds, “How do you know they are illegal without due process?” The MAGA man thinks about that then turns into a sheep, saying, “Because the government said they are.” In the comments of today’s roundup is a meme posted by exlrrp showing a skeleton sitting by a window and saying, “Me waiting to finally get one of those checks from George Soros that MAGA has been talking about for years.” Below the cartoons The Geogre discussed an article by Igor Volsky at The New Republic titled “If Dems Won’t Tax Billionaires After This, What Are They Even Doing?” From Volsky:

The sequence of events over the past few months reads like a case study in how oligarchy actually works in America. First, billionaires passed legislation to enrich themselves. Then they shut down the government to avoid helping working Americans afford health care—a system those same billionaires profit from. And now, they’re trying to leverage the shutdown to fire thousands of workers who protect vulnerable Americans while gutting programs millions of families depend on. This is a moment that demands a response. If Democrats can’t run on a unified platform that centralizes and prioritizes taxing the ultrawealthy in order to dismantle their stranglehold on our government, then they need to get out of the way for people who will. ... Let’s start with the “One Big Beautiful Bill”—a piece of legislation that delivers more than 70 percent of its benefits to the richest fifth of Americans in 2026. The richest 1 percent will receive an average net tax cut of $66,000—at a cost of $1 trillion. Meanwhile, the bill would result in 14 million more Americans becoming uninsured by 2034, with more than $1 trillion in cuts coming from Medicaid alone—the largest cuts in the program’s history, and a stunning transfer of wealth, almost dollar for dollar, from the poorest Americans to the richest. ... Billionaires have used the power that comes with their extreme wealth to capture our government and bend it toward a single purpose, enriching themselves at everyone else’s expense. And if Democrats won’t confront that reality now, when will they?

The Geogre added that 73% support raising taxes on billionaires. The Geogre doesn’t agree with everything Volsky wrote. Volsky commented that nasty guy says he is cutting programs and personnel of programs that Democrats want, which would deepen the pain of the left. The Geogre says that’s a misdirection.

To the degree that the Republicans can hide their attacks on the poor and “minorities” (an absurd idea by itself, “minorities”) by calling them attacks on “Democrats,” they can hoodwink the victims of their attacks into cheering for their own suffering. Like the poor white southerners who applauded right-to-work laws because “they’ll hurt the Blacks,” the labeling of cuts in infrastructure, education, environment, and services for food, entitlements, and the safety net as “Democrat programs” is a lie that will work. It’s false consciousness.

Kos community member revrick2 mentioned a few items from a Facebook post by Andrew Kerr, an architect with more than 20 years experience. From the stated square feet of 90,000 and budget of $300 million the cost per square foot would be $3,333. But even a price of $1,000 per square foot is astronomically high. A ballroom usually allows for 20 square feet per person. Stated occupancy is 999 people, or 20K square feet. Add in 10K for support functions and 10K for lobby, both generous, that’s only 40K square feet. What’s the other 50K square feet for? The renderings of the interior show that 20K square feet. The renderings of the exterior are 90K square feet. They don’t match. James Tate tweeted a cartoon drawn in 1906 by William Balfour Ker. It shows a ballroom filled with gowns and tuxes. Below are people oppressed by the ballroom floor. There is a fist that has punched up through the floor to the consternation of those in the ballroom.

He’s making a branch of the government obsolete

Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reported the nasty guy has come up with a method to keep paying members of the military, Border Patrol, Customs and Border Protection, and ICE during the shutdown. He didn’t like the look of soldiers going to foodbanks or, as Needham describes them, he wants to keep his favorite fascists happy. So he came up with a way to do that. All other federal workers don’t get paid during the shutdown and the nasty guy has been talking about refusing to give them back pay. Needham also wrote:

The New York Times headline writers are not meeting the moment at all, reporting this as Trump “expanding his authority” to spend federal money without Congress. This is not a thing. The president doesn’t have this authority. There’s nothing for him to expand. This is just sheer lawlessness where Trump is singlehandedly deciding how all tax dollars are spent. It’s from the same playbook as his idea of taking the revenue he got from singlehandedly imposing illegal tariffs, and illegally shuffling it over to farmers, who are being hurt by … his illegal tariffs. Gotta keep them voting Republican!

The NYT also fails by implying his expanding authority is a good thing. News stories I’ve heard are about farmers who are glad for a possible bailout but that won’t cover the loss of markets because of the tariffs. They’d rather have the markets. John Stoehr of the Editorial Board says this way of paying the troops is bad. The nasty guy is doing two bad things with the government’s money. The first he’s been doing since the start of this term, which is called impoundment. That means not spending the money Congress appropriated and is against the law. The Republicans who control Congress essentially said that’s fine with us. The big rescission package approved last summer merely confirmed what the nasty guy was already doing. That impoundment got worse after the shutdown started because the nasty guy used “ideological targeting” – withholding $27 billion from Democratic districts. This move to pay the troops after the start of the shutdown is the second money thing the nasty guy is doing. The money Congress designated for one purpose he is now using for another purpose. This is “a violation of the Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the US Constitution, which was written to make sure the people don’t lose control of their money.” The Antideficiency Act reinforced that Constitutional clause by saying, as Stoehr summarized, “it’s a felony for anyone in government to spend any money on anything that’s not approved by the Congress.” This adds to the understanding the nasty guy views the Constitution and law as a suggestion he may ignore. It also means he views blue states and cities as sources of income to be extracted as he controls their population. If he can refuse to spend money on things Congress tells him to spend it on and spends money on things Congress didn’t designate, then he doesn’t need Congress. He’s made a branch of the government obsolete. Any court that says no to the nasty guy will see its decision appealed to the Supremes. Because they are corrupt they will not stop this crime. Republicans in Congress, meaning Congress through official action, will not stop this crime and will not try to reclaim their power of the purse. Which means the remedy can only come from Democrats. The nasty guy has also put them in the position that if they make a deal with him to end the shutdown they become complicit in these crimes. I hope they recognize that because of these crimes any deal they make he will override. How can Democrats wield the power to force the nasty guy to face the consequences of these crimes? Alas, Stoehr doesn’t know exactly. Though the part he does know involves the people understanding this crime which seems obscure and right now leads to the good thing of troops being paid. And it involves the people continuing to protest. Max Burns of Kos wrote about other aspects of the crime. Things like, “unpaid troops will quickly lose their patience with [Trump’s] destructive shutdown antics.” And Republican senators griped because the reasons he gives for being able to pay the troops during the shutdown keep changing. Another aspect of the crime is the nasty guy saying he can divert the money the government collected through his illegal tariffs to pay the farmers hurt by those tariffs. Or maybe he’ll divert to maintain food assistance for pregnant women, mothers, and young children. Again, doing that without Congressional authorization is illegal.

It’s easy to imagine Trump ramping up tariffs simply to swell a war chest he alone oversees, free of congressional oversight and used solely to advance his personal goals. $10 billion to ICE for the purchase of military weaponry? Done. No purpose is too self-interested or shady in a system where Trump controls the purse strings of a parallel government treasury. ... Trump’s latest federal shutdown has offered him yet another testing ground for the unconstitutional power grabs that define his second term. His administration has made clear it intends to press forward unless Congress or the courts stop them.

In the pundit roundup for Kos from Monday, ten days ago Greg Dworkin included a pair of tweets. First from NewsWire, a headline:

U.S. BEEF PRICES SOAR TO ALL-TIME HIGH

Response from scary lawyerguy

If you doubt the media bias *in Trump's favor* consider that this general topic (food prices) was covered obsessively under Biden and used by the media to take down his presidency and is now barely mentioned and when it is, no blame is put on Trump for what's happening.

In response to a tweet quoting Mike Johnson saying Republicans the ones fixing healthcare, see the Big Brutal Bill, Jesse Ferguson tweeted:

This bill was... - The largest cut to Medicaid in American history - seniors in nursing homes, kids health care - Over 500 rural hospitals are in jeopardy of closing - 1-in-4 nursing homes say they may have to close The GOP calls that "fixing health care"

Anat Shenker-Osorio of Weekend Reading discussed pollingism, the belief that a political race can be mapped because voters make decisions based on conscious preferences, those preferences are discernible by polls, and winning in polls can translate to winning in the real world. An alternative view sees voters with opinions that change with relationships and societal discourse. Repeated comments of family, trusted messengers, and persistent media narratives change opinion. The author calls this magnetism. That means the politician must establish the right conversation, to be attractive. One must have a cause to draw people and do so from a place from broadly shared values, not prejudices.

In short, the first step to winning an election is making it about what you can win on. Strategic campaigns begin with the question: How do I force the issues and conversations that most benefit my side to the fore?

In the comments a tweet by Will Saletan quoted and provided a link to an article in The Bulwark:

To bring a democracy under authoritarian control, you need more than a strongman. You need politicians who will assure the public, as we slide toward one-man rule, that nothing odd is happening. That’s the role Johnson is playing in Trump’s takeover.

Meidas Touch tweeted a quote from a source he didn’t identify:

JD Vance lied repeatedly on Sunday shows with his trademark smug insufferability. Trump lies like a huckster televangelist – like he knows he’s trying to con you with obvious bs so he keeps checking to see if you are buying it and can’t believe his luck that so many are. Mike Johnson lies with a monotone smooth sliminess that reminds me of the character Kevin Spacey played in The Usual Suspects. But Vance tells preposterous lies with a tone of indignancy if you dare suggest that he might be full of s---.

Yesterday I heard Johnson complain that Democrats want to prosecute the nasty guy for everything he does. I wanted to shout through my radio to say that’s because everything he does is a crime. In last Saturday’s roundup Dworkin included a tweet by Ronald Brownstein.

The #NoKingsOct18 website lists ~65 (!) separate events across Southern California alone. @SpeakerJohnson has stamped all of those people as anti-American. It's his "deplorables" moment, tho it hasn't sparked anything like the media attn HRC faced. Why's that any less of a slur?

Seven million people say no to kings

I attended the No Kings protest in Livonia, MI on Saturday. I saw very little of it and had no sense of the size of the crowd because I was at a table encouraging people to sign petitions for a ballot proposal to remove corporate money from Michigan politics. This work is to get the proposal on the 2026 ballot. I’m sure we pulled in over 200 signatures and our table was usually quite busy. I did watch a lot of people pass my table. I also heard a great deal of honking from cars showing solidarity with those on the sidewalk – the afternoon was a noisy one. Some of the attendees had cute signs, though I couldn’t pay a lot of attention to them. There were several signs saying they reject the nasty guy for free, refuting the claim that we were all paid to be there. I did note a shirt that said, “Aunt Tifa” and heard about another that said, “Gran Tifa.” I wasn’t able to get a photo of one that I liked. A friend was able to share her photo of it.

A new form of protest is inflatable animal costumes. That began when a person in a frog costume danced in front of ICE agents. Of course, the idea quickly spread. I saw several inflatable costumes of several animals. Kaili Joy Grey of Daily Kos posted photos of No Kings events around the country and invited people to share their photos in the comments. My favorite signs from those photos: A takeoff on The Cat in The Hat

I do not like your lying ways I do not like your hate for gays I do not like you grabbing rump I do not like you Mr. Trump

If Kamala was president we would all be at brunch. Peaceful resistance NOW is easier than hiding a family in your attic LATER. My Sunday movie was Egoist, a Japanese film based on a novel by Makoto Takayama. The story is about Kosuke who has a job in fashion (scenes of him actually working are few) and does quite well but he wears designer clothes as armor and to say he’s no longer from his birth village. His mother died when he was 14. His gay friends suggest Kosuke is getting out of shape and should get a personal trainer. They recommend one. That trainer is Ryuta and getting in bed with Kosuke takes very little time. Ryuta’s father left the family when he was a teen. He dropped out of high school to support his mother and continues to have a several jobs. So there is a rich man, poor man dynamic. Ryuta is reluctant to accept Kosuke’s generous gifts. Even so feelings develop. Ryuta takes Kosuke to meet his mother and she recognizes they care for each other very much. Kosuke begins to have the mother he lost. When the film description includes the words, “When tragedy strikes...” one keeps waiting for that to happen. I don’t want to say more. I’ll only say that Kosuke, though he doesn’t give up his designer duds, he no longer uses it as armor. This one is good enough to recommend. I have one mild complaint of the movie. In most scenes instead of a camera on each of the participants in a discussion there is a single camera that swivels back and forth among them. That’s a lot of camera movement. Back to the No Kings rally. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Monday Cheers and Jeers column for Kos included several photos of the event in his home city. One that I like is a guy wearing suit of armor holding a sign, “If we’re going back to the Dark Ages, better suit up.” In my reading I followed a link to an article in the Durango Hearald written by Christian Burney with story and photos of the protest there. My favorite line is from the sign of a woman in a frog costume, “United we ribbit, divided we croak.” In Monday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers who worked with The Xylom to estimate the turnout for all of the 2,700 No Kings rallies:

Our median estimate is that 5.5 million people participated in a No Kings Day demonstration somewhere in the country on Saturday, with an upper bound of 8.7 million people. We provide an “estimate” and not a “count” because we are making predictions of turnout in protest sites where official records are still missing. Our estimate is based on reports from local officials, local organizers, and attendees, and suggests the count from organizers — who report 7 million participants nationwide — may be a bit optimistic (but is not impossible). Still, regardless of whether the precise number is 5, 6, 7, or 8 million, Saturday’s events are very likely the biggest single-day protest event since 1970, surpassing even the 2017 Women’s March demonstrations against Trump.

Aaron Blake of CNN:

President Donald Trump and his allies have spent weeks painstakingly trying to manufacture an image of an irredeemably violent American left. ... The Trump team and its allies suggested that the rallies, which are likely to draw millions of people, will essentially be chock full of antifa, terrorist sympathizers and even terrorists themselves. It’s baseless and ugly, yes. But it’s also highly suspect strategically. The GOP rhetoric surrounding this and the Democratic base more broadly has grown remarkably pitched.

But no violence by the No Kings participants was recorded. The little violence reported was traced to those protesting the No Kings events. In the comments is a cartoon by Guy Richards Smit of an ICE agent handcuffing a small girl. The agent says, “It might be comforting for you to know that, on the inside, I’m also a terrified little child.” A meme posted by exlrrp shows what the nasty guy thought of No Kings.

In a late night Saturday post, Trump shared his official response to the historic “No Kings” protests by posting an AI video depicting himself as a King literally dumping his own shit on protesters heads.

The reaction is embarrassment that our president would post such a video. Of course, there are a lot of cartoons about it. Another meme posted by exlrrp is about the White House press secretary:

Karoline Leavitt officially announced the launch of a large-scale investigation to find the person behind “No Kings.”

To which exlrrp added, “time for everyone to stand up and say I am George Soros!” Or, as another suggests, the person behind No Kings is the nasty guy. Without him there would be no need to protest. Emily Singer of Kos reported on the reactions to the day by the nasty guy and others. He described the event as very small and very ineffective. No, it was not small. And since he was rattled by the size, it was effective enough. Republicans tried to defend their comments that the event would be violent. Or – the fun one – they claimed the participants were on a day trip from nursing homes. Seems that shortly after the nasty guy’s poop video came out there appeared photos of work on the White House Ballroom. In particular, photos of demolishing part of the East Wing. On Monday DRo of the Kos community has photos and tweets in reaction. This demolition comes after the nasty guy said the work would not “interfere” with the existing building, “near it but not touching it.” A sample of the reaction. Form Joseph Fink: “taking an actual wrecking ball to the White House is a little on the nose as far as metaphors go” Kevin Kruse:

"Yes, yes, it *is* sad that you lost the family farm, but have you heard about the big beautiful ballroom that President Trump is building at the White House? It's going cost a quarter of a billion dollars! Yes, billion, with a b. ... What? ... No, you can't come see it. What a stupid question."

There is a reminder that the destruction is breaking the law. Not that the nasty guy worries about such things. On Monday there was still debate about how much of the East Wing was being demolished. This morning host A Martínez of NPR spoke with White House reporter Tamara Keith, who said:

A White House official not permitted to speak on the record tells me the East Wing is being brought down, modernized and rebuilt as part of the ballroom project. President Trump has wanted to build a ballroom at the White House for more than a decade. But this demolition is taking a lot of people by surprise because when the project was announced in July, President Trump downplayed the impacts.

See the nasty guy’s comments above. The The National Capital Planning Commission is supposed to have a role in this but the nasty guy appointed chair Will Scharf. He conveniently said the commission doesn’t have jurisdiction over demolition. Besides, the commission is shut down with the rest of the government. Keith said that the construction is being paid by corporate donations is “a giant ethical red flag.” Today DRo reported that the White House is saying the entire East Wing is to be torn down, with demolition completed by this weekend. DRo included a tweet by Jon Cryer:

If this had happened during a Democratic presidency Fox News would be 24 hours of nonstop “AMERICA DESECRATED!” headlines.

And Republicans in Congress would have started impeachment proceedings. Comments of the ballroom architecture and its architect were supplied by davidkc of the Kos community. The architect is James McCrery, who specializes in religious buildings and describes modernist buildings as “ungodly.” Peter Eisenman, McCrery’s former mentor, described the ballroom plan as “bonkers.” And Christopher Hawthorne says the plan suggests...

not so much a bloated classicism or an effort to turn Washington into Mar-a-Lago north, although it is both of those things, as a blueprint for making concrete the notion that the White House has turned in some fundamental sense into a retail outlet, a place where access and influence are nakedly bought and sold.

Are we going to need to tear down that ballroom after the nasty guy vacates the place and we work to restore the country and government? Added to all of this yogipohaku of the Kos community wrote that since the East Wing was built in the 1940s it is full of asbestos. Is proper asbestos remediation being followed? Who will pay when the mesothelioma lawsuits go to court? Why isn’t Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, wearing a mask? And scott3460 of the Kos community wrote:

Putin’s tentacles are almost certainly in the construction of this new Ballroom. God only knows what sorts of technology will be embedded in to the White House after this construction in done. It must all be razed to the ground the afternoon of the next Inauguration. Tin foil hat conspiracy? Maybe, maybe not.

In Tuesday’s Cheers and Jeers column, Bill in Portland, Maine posted new lyrics to a famous Gilbert and Sullivan song. The first verse:

I am the very model of a modern fascist potentate, I gin up fear across the land and viciousness I advocate, I tweet my fingers to the bone and cable news I dominate To tear you down and smear your name and fill your world with spite and hate My propaganda is the very best that I can propagate I love Vlad Putin like a son, for he's my greatest surrogate When I slam 2020 you will hear me bellow "cover-up!" And whip my crowds into a froth by leading chants of "Lock them up!"

Save your soul and quit your job

Alix Breeden of Daily Kos discussed the New York State Young Republican group chat that had a lot of “extremely homophobic, racist, sexist, and antisemitic remarks.” One member even said if the chat was leaked “we would be cooked.” It was leaked. They were cooked. Some had job offers that were rescinded.

However shocking this might be, this kind of language—once thought to be culturally on its way out—is swinging back into the mainstream. But why?

The answer is simple. The nasty guy, and other far right people before him, use those kinds of words and other demeaning language, making their use by others more acceptable, and desensitizing the rest of us to their use.

Ultimately, this is a massive jump backward in a decades-long effort to denormalize hate speech, with the right feeling emboldened to make jokes and comments at the expense of people’s races, genders, and religions. And instead of pushing back, young people are also feeling pressured to let it slide—or even to laugh along. So where is this train going? And, more pressingly, will it slow down before impending impact?

A few months ago I wrote about Elon Musk’s Boring Company and his effort to put tunnels under Las Vegas to ease traffic topside. In that earlier story Musk said he would rather pay penalties than wait for environmental approvals. I noted that if his company causes environmental damage paying a penalty does nothing for the damage that probably can’t be repaired. Anjeanette Damon for ProPublica and Dayvid Figler for City Cast Las Vegas in an article posted on Kos reported on another reason why Musk would favor paying penalties.

Nevada state regulators have accused Elon Musk’s Boring Co. of violating environmental regulations nearly 800 times in the last two years as it digs a sprawling tunnel network beneath Las Vegas for its Tesla-powered “people mover.” The company’s alleged violations include starting to dig without approval, releasing untreated water onto city streets and spilling muck from its trucks, according to a new document obtained by City Cast Las Vegas and ProPublica. ... The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection could have fined the company more than $3 million under the 2022 agreement, which allowed for daily penalties to be assessed. But regulators knocked down the total penalty to $242,800. ... “Given the extraordinary number of violations, NDEP has decided to exercise its discretion to reduce the penalty to two $5,000 violations per permit, which it believes offers a reasonable penalty that will still serve to deter future non-compliance conduct,” regulators wrote in the letter.

A fine that small, compared to Musk’s wealth and the money he doesn’t have to spend on protecting the environment, will not “deter future non-compliance conduct.” I doubt the top level $3 million would act as a deterrence. Musk prefers paying penalties instead of doing proper environmental reviews because agencies and courts could look at a penalty and say it’s too big when it isn’t big enough. Emily Singer of Kos reported the nasty guy went to the Middle East on Monday to bask in the praise of Israel’s far right leaders and various Arab leaders. They lamented the nasty guy didn’t get the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded the previous Friday. The prize went to María Corina Machado, a Venezuelan woman who stood against Maduro’s vote rigging. The Nobel Committee wrote, in explaining their choice:

When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognise courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist. Democracy depends on people who refuse to stay silent, who dare to step forward despite grave risk, and who remind us that freedom must never be taken for granted, but must always be defended—with words, with courage, and with determination.

Which sounds like they are explaining why the nasty guy will never win it. Alex Samuels of Kos reported that Middle East leaders were not the only ones lamenting that the Nobel Committee passed on the nasty guy. Congressional Republicans, lead by Mike Johnson also joined the praise for the Israel-Hamas peace deal. He announced that he and the Speaker of the Israeli Knesset would urge other world leaders to jointly nominate the nasty guy to receive the Peace Prize next year. Samuels wrote:

According to a September Ipsos poll for The Washington Post, 76% of Americans believe Trump does not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, while just 22% think he does. Even Republicans are split down the middle, while independents and Democrats are overwhelmingly opposed.

Samuels concluded that this campaign for the award is a convenient distraction from the government that has been shut down for more than two weeks. A tweet by paulpro shows a frame of the old Peanuts cartoon in which Lucy is holding a football to be kicked. The text has been changed to: “Come on Democrats. Pass our Budget. We promise this time we’ll definitely work on funding the ACA afterwards.” I think that is the clearest explanation of what the shutdown is all about. Singer reported on the next step in Republican efforts to gerrymander their way to protecting their House Majority in next year’s election. In North Carolina the state Senate leader, a Republican, will call the Republican controlled legislature back into session to pass a new map that could steal another seat from Democrats. North Carolina’s maps are already highly skewed. The nasty guy carried the state by just 3%, yet they hold 10 of the 14 seats the state holds in the House. The new maps need only a majority to pass and the governor can’t veto. Texas, Missouri, and Utah have already passed new maps. Ohio Republicans are expected to pass a new map by the end of November. Starting their effort are Republicans in Kansas, Indiana, Florida, and Nebraska. Dennis Goris tweeted a cartoon he created showing two young kids playing baseball looking at another with a big trophy. One says, “That’s Gerry Mander. He’s a loser who’s figured out how to get a trophy.” In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Patricia Lopez of Bloomberg on what ICE in Chicago is really about:

President Donald Trump's actions in Chicago, including militarizing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and attempting to federalize National Guard troops, are seen as an exercise of raw power rather than an effort to improve public safety.

John Seidel tweeted, “From the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on deployment of National Guard: ‘Political opposition is not rebellion.’” Seidel highlighted a section of the ruling:

The spirited, sustained, and occasionally violent actions of demonstrators in protest of the federal government’s immigration policies and actions, without more, does not give rise to a danger of rebellion against the government’s authority.

In the comments LJ Slater posted 10 reminders for tomorrow’s No King’s rallies. I plan to take part and will have more in a future post. Some of the reminders:

Lead with love, not anger. Focus your energy on what you stand for, not what you stand against. Anger fades; compassion lasts. Smile and greet others. Say hello, wave, or share a word of encouragement. Small acts of friendliness build community trust and lower tension. Look out for one another. Offer water, a smile, or friendly chat to someone nearby. Check on families, elders, and people with mobility needs. Make your sign speak peace. Choose messages that uplift – creative, clever, values-based signs draw attention without aggression or profanity. Carry joy beyond the rally. After the event, share stories, photos, and reflections that highlight unity and courage – show the world what peaceful power looks like.

Pat Begley posted a meme titled The Paradox of Tolerance by Philosopher Karl Popper from The Open Society and Its Enemies.

Should a tolerant society tolerate intolerance? The answer is no. When we extend tolerance to those who are openly intolerant the tolerant ones end up being destroyed and tolerance with them. Any movement that preaches intolerance and persecution must be outside of the law. As paradoxical as it may seem, defending tolerance requires to not tolerate the intolerant.

LEastsound posted a cartoon of two men discussing a poster of a man with a bulging chest and tight pants.

First man: We asked 100 extremely online straight men what makes a man attractive. Second man: How many w– First man: Zero. We asked zero women.

And Bill Amend posted a cartoon of his Foxtrot characters celebrating Pumpkin Pi season. In last Friday’s roundup Dworkin quoted John Harwood of Zeteo:

Over four decades as a journalist, I’ve covered seven presidents, 20 Congresses, and thousands of staffers. I’ve never encountered one as sinister as Stephen Miller. I see it in the darkness of his eyes, the venom of his words, the malevolence of his affect. And also by the deliberate brutality of his campaign from the White House to deport immigrants and crush dissenters. That Miller serves as the president’s top domestic policy adviser demonstrates the unique depravity of Donald Trump’s second presidency. So does the fact that Kash Patel commands the FBI, Kristi Noem directs the Department of Homeland Security, Pete Hegseth peacocks around the Pentagon, Pam Bondi stains the office of attorney general, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. runs the Department of Health and Human Services.

Jack Jenkins of Religion News Service reported that religious leaders have been part of the protests at the ICE detention center in Broadview, Illinois, about 12 miles from downtown Chicago.

Despite the danger, religious leaders and faith activists have been a visible presence at the protests, some waving signs with slogans such as “Love thy neighbor” and “Who would Jesus deport?” Many argue they are compelled by their religious beliefs to advocate for immigrants, but as officers continue to respond with violence, some claim their religious freedom is increasingly at risk — even, they say, as the pray for the souls of ICE agents. “One of the chants that has become ubiquitous at these protests at Broadview is, ‘Love your neighbor, love your God, save your soul and quit your job,’” said Black, who pastors at the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago. “Everybody chants that.”

A tweet by Scott Horton says:

Kash Patel spends most of his time on Fox News today smearing and attacking the city and people of Chicago, a large number of which are thugs and criminals. But the available evidence shows that a much higher percentage of people inside the White House are felons than in Chicago.

Wayno posted a cartoon showing two ancient Romans, one with a bowl of greens and croutons. The other announces, “Hail Caesar’s salad.” The caption says, “Holy Romaine Empire.” In Saturday’s roundup Dworkin quoted a pair of tweets. First by Eleanor Mueller:

On this press call with the House Freedom Caucus, Johnson tells reporters: "We worked on rescissions, and there'll be more of that, we expect, in the days ahead."

And a response by Eric Michael Garcia:

This is why the Democrats are voting "No" on the CR. It's not just health care. What's the point of doing a bipartisan appropriations process if the Republicans do a partisan rescissions package?

See Lucy and the football above. Brian Beutler of Off Message talked about the standard ways to stand up to the nasty guy. Then he added:

But my sense is that what costs people like us sleep at night isn’t that we aren’t doing enough. It’s that we’ve lost confidence in the people who are in positions to do more. It’s become fashionable to repeat cliches like “nobody is coming to save us,” and “we’re going to have to save each other.” We surely do need stamina and self-sufficiency, but mantras like these let people in power—people who sought power, and people who have power by dint of wealth—off the hook too easily. They should know what we expect of them.

Mike Nellis tweeted:

A reporter asked the chair of the Nobel Peace Prize committee why Trump didn’t win, and the guy basically said it’s because he has no courage or integrity. Absolutely brutal.

There’s also that the deadline for nominations for the 2025 prize was about the time the nasty guy was inaugurated. So all the things he did this year to get the prize would only apply to next year’s award. In the comments are a lot of cartoons about the nasty guy and the Peace Prize. Walter Einenkel of Kos posted part of a transcript of Obama’s interview on “WTF with Marc Maron.”

The question has always been, can we pull off this experiment in which people are showing up from all over the place? They're not tied together by blood. They don't necessarily worship God in the same way—or worship God at all. They speak different languages. They have all these weird foods. They show up with these odd customs. And some of them were dragged here in chains and some of them had their land taken from them and their culture destroyed. And out of all that, can we create a shared creed that allows us to live peacefully together and get stuff done? There's always been this fight over what is the true story of America. And I believe deeply in this story—that if we can pull this off, if we can actually treat everybody with decency and respect, and compromise, and make democracy work—it shines a light for the entire world.

Must I say something positive?

I finished the book Everything I learned, I learned in a Chinese Restaurant, a Memoir, by Curtis Chin. The author is American with Chinese ancestry and his parents owned a Chinese restaurant in Detroit’s Chinatown. This is his story from birth in 1968 to graduation from college in 1990. I’ve lived in the Detroit area since 1979. I did not know Detroit had a Chinatown. The original Chinatown was west of Downtown and was demolished in the 1950s to make way for a freeway, in the same way Black Bottom, on the east side of Downtown was demolished for a freeway. The new Chinatown was created in the Cass Corridor, the area between Downtown and New Center, which soon had the reputation as the worst of Detroit. Much of the Corridor has been revitalized and renamed Midtown, though Google Street View still shows the area around the restaurant as rather empty. There is a red roofed building at the corner of Cass and Peterboro that might be the restaurant building, though it has been renovated and looks like a showroom. The first school Chin attended on the other side of Cass is still there, but it isn’t a school anymore. After looking around the school through Street View a bit more I realized I had been inside – it was the first home of Cinema Detroit (which now appears to hold events in other movie theaters or in Planet Ant). And I now see in Street View a kiosk with Chinese characters marking Chinatown. Chin was at that school only a year or so when the declining conditions prompted the family to move their home out to Troy, one of the whiter suburbs. The restaurant stayed where it was. To fit in, he became an ardent adherent of the Republican Party, though he was barely a teenager. Also about that time he figured out he is gay, and was terrified of being outed. I wondered what, if anything, would prompt him to leave Republicanism behind. Surely, now a proud gay man in his 50s would he stick with them? He was in the restaurant pretty much all the time he wasn’t in school. There was a room in the back where he studied with his siblings, and when he wasn’t studying he was working either in the kitchen or in the dining room. He learned about what it meant to be a family, what it meant to be part of a team, and how to meet and get along with people from across the economic and racial spectrum. His early encounters with being gay were at the restaurant, from asking the super cute cook to teach him (an excuse just to be close) to the gay couple, one in drag, who used a racial slur but still showed a gay adulthood was possible. So, yeah, he also learned about racism. Chin is a fine writer with a compelling story to tell. I enjoyed the book and recommend it. My Sunday movie was Ennio, a documentary about film composer Ennio Morricone, released in 2021 after his death, though that is not mentioned. I streamed this through Kanopy and was surprised it didn’t come with subtitles. I had to explicitly turn subtitles on. Yes, Morricone is Italian, so his words and most of the commentary was in that language. His father demanded he learn to play the trumpet as Dad did. When the boy was a teen in WWII he played in clubs to get enough to eat, sometimes substituting for his father. But he felt humiliated to play for food and tired of it. His playing was good enough to get into music school. While there he studied composition with a well known composer. A lot of that music was experimental. To pay the bills he arranged songs for singers. He wanted to do more than provide the chords, so every arrangement had something different about it. That led him to arrange, then compose, for films. He thought it was degrading, a thought a lot of film composers have, a thought pushed by composers able to write exclusively for the concert hall. His name got around and soon film director Sergio Leone wanted his talents. They realized they had been classmates. Leone is known for his spaghetti Westerns – Italian films set in the American West, such as A Fistful of Dollars. The quite unusual scores Morricone wrote for those movies set his reputation. Morricone could write fast and appears to have been able to do it at a desk, not at a piano. When a director wanted a change he could come up with something quickly. In 1969 he wrote for 23 films. Sometimes he could start developing his musical ideas as the script was being written. The actors could get a sense of what the director wanted by listening to music already written. Morricone’s fame grew with the score for The Mission in 1986 and The Untouchables in 1987. He was nominated for an Oscar for both and won neither. Several people thought his score was much better and his loss an injustice. After being nominated for and losing a few more Oscars the Academy gave him a lifetime achievement Oscar – and then he won outright the following year for The Hateful Eight. Morricone also wrote concert music, though those pieces aren’t well known, party because many of them are avant-garde. But starting about 2000 concerts of his film music became cultural events, filling arenas. He also saw that many of his tunes were so good they were pulled into the music of other composers. He pretty much redefined what film music could be. I found it all quite enjoyable and fascinating, but then I compose and I very much enjoy listening to film music. I have a CD of The Mission, which I listen to every so often. I once streamed one of his arena concerts (likely at his death). While I recommend this film I know it isn’t for everyone. While I spent evenings watching an orchestra concert, a movie (above), was a part of two rehearsals, and went to supper with my friend and debate partner (emphasis definitely on friend this time), there was a peace deal between Israel and Gaza. Hostages were released! Prisoners returned! After two years and significant destruction and death is the war over? Will I have to say something positive about the nasty guy? Last Friday morning Leila Fadel of NPR spoke to Gershon Baskin, described as a “veteran hostage negotiator,” an Israeli peace activist, and “was involved in back-channel discussions over this deal.” Baskin said:

I've been in regular communication with Steve Witkoff, the presidential envoy to the Middle East and his No. 1 confidant. And from that point, I was communicating with him. Mostly a one-way communication on the importance of the U.S. understanding that the only way that the war in Gaza would end is if President Trump decides that it has to end because Prime Minister Netanyahu had no interest in ending the war whatsoever. He was willing to continue it forever because it keeps him in power.

He also had contacts within Hamas. He told Fadel:

Every time they said, Israel won't accept this, Israel won't accept that, I kept telling Hamas, Israel won't accept anything. You have to imagine that you're sitting in a room across the table from Donald Trump, not from Netanyahu. The person you need to convince is Trump. Trump will impose a deal on Israel when the time is right, when he believes that you are serious about ending this war, returning the hostages, no longer controlling Gaza.

Then about how much credit the nasty guy gets:

A hundred percent. There's no question about it. Without Trump, this would not have happened.

Why doesn’t Biden get any credit?

Biden's relationship with Israel was problematic from the Israeli side. Let's face it, Benjamin Netanyahu and Ron Dermer, his main ally in the Israeli government, are Republicans. They support the American Republican Party, not the Democratic Party. They were hostile to Barack Obama. They were hostile to Joe Biden, and they're very supportive of Donald Trump. So that was one thing. Biden never had the leverage over Netanyahu that Trump has. I couldn't get Biden's people to look at the deal that I negotiated with Hamas in September 2024.

I was pleased that Friday evening NPR broadcast a rebuttal to Baskin. Host Scott Detrow talked to Jake Sullivan, National Security Adviser to former President Biden. I’ll summarize his main points: When Biden left office there was a ceasefire in place with a plan for the end of the war (so Biden must have looked at something). Israel walked away. In the six months since then Hamas’ position has been very badly weakened and is a shadow of its former self. That allowed the nasty guy to apply some pressure.

So to me, the key thing here is that Israel had no more military objectives to achieve in Gaza, and Hamas had lost a huge amount of its capacity to continue to resist militarily. And when you put those two things together, this situation was ripe to be resolved.

Sullivan says there are still big issues: Will Israel withdraw out of Gaza? When? How willing are Hamas fighters to keep fighting? Who will govern Gaza? I’ve heard since there are still lots of ways the deal could fall apart. For example, the deal calls for other Arab countries providing a peace-keeping force. But why would they want to? Why would they want to put their own troops into a very dangerous situation? So because the nasty guy has done and continues to do so much harm, and because the peace in Gaza is far from a sure thing I won’t credit him for doing something good. Some examples, though mild, of the nasty guy continuing to be vile... Last week Alex Samuels of Daily Kos reported that as part of the nation’s 250th anniversary next year the nasty guy wants to hold an Ultimate Fighting Championship bout on the White House grounds. This will also be around his 80th birthday. I read that and thought he thinks the best way to celebrate our history is with violence. A reminder that the purpose of violence is to enforce the social hierarchy. Also last week Alix Breeden of Kos reported the nasty guy revealed plans for America’s own triumphal arch. I don’t know how it will compare to the Arch de Triomphe in Paris. The map on the nasty guy’s desk showed the arch would be placed across from the Lincoln Memorial where there is a traffic circle, currently just grass. Breeden noted it is another way the nasty guy insists on leaving his fingerprints on the capital. I note an arch of triumph implies destroying an opponent, not learning to live together. Oliver Willis of Kos discussed the nasty guy’s tendency to turn Fox News reporting into governmental policy. The nasty guy doesn’t read and he is an avid watcher of the network. That appears to be his major source of information. And he’s quite susceptible to suggestion. Couple that with Fox News’ reason to exist being the pumping out of conservative propaganda. The network showed one image of a migrant scaling the border. The nasty guy starts pushing a migrant invasion. The network shows old isolated images of violence in Portland and the nasty guy claims the city is “war ravaged.” His North Korea policy is based on what he watched on Fox News.

In his first term, the Trump-Fox feedback loop—as Media Matters for America senior fellow Matt Gertz has termed it—came to life. Trump watched the network religiously and built his presidency around its obsessions.

And the network’s influence has only gotten stronger during the second term. Alan Austin of the Kos community listed 40 ways the nasty guy and the MAGA movement are violating the Bible. He lists their actions with links to articles and the Bible verse that contradicts the actions. Here is a selection:

2. Greed for personal wealth. Proverbs 29:4 affirms that rulers intent on justice build strong nations but those obsessed with money ruin them. 3. Skewing the economy in favor of the rich. Jeremiah 22:16 refers to the righteous King Josiah who won God’s approval by defended the poor first and foremost. 6. MAGA leaders refuse foreigners equal rights as the native-born. Leviticus 19:33-34 demands equality: “Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” 7. Trump and other MAGA leaders routinely call for violence against perceived political enemies. Philippians 4:5-7 urges believers to be peaceful and gentle towards everyone. 18. Multiple court cases and bankruptcy hearings have confirmed Trump has defrauded thousands of employees of their wages. Jeremiah 22:13 vehemently condemns the employer “who makes his people work for nothing and does not pay their wages.” 29. Changes to tax and other laws have shifted wealth and income from the poor to the rich. Proverbs 22:16 warns that this eventually impoverishes a nation.

Make resistance the safer bet

I finished the book Whistle-Stop Politics; Campaign Trains and the Reporters Who Covered Them by Edward Segal. The book is small scenes of when a politician climbs onto a train to take his message to the small towns across the country. Segal was the press secretary for an Oklahoman Congressman in 1984 and thought to use a campaign train to introduce his candidate to more of the state. He wanted to find a book or other resource about campaign trains and came up empty. So he started collecting stories, then did serious research, and 40 years later produced this book. Overall, it’s a lightweight book. He covers the campaigns from the late 1800s to Biden’s train in 2020, though the first train campaign was in 1836. Th coverage isn’t of the type of saying in 1896 this candidate was on the rails for this number of days, covered so many miles, gave this number of speeches, had these incidents along the way, and the trip had this consequence for the candidate or the future of campaign trains. Instead, the book is organized by topic. These campaigns had this type of incident. These had that type of incident. Each incident is described in a few paragraphs, up to a page or two. Campaigns can appear under several topics, but there isn’t a complete campaign narrative. Some of the topics: A description of the campaign train (the candidate’s car was always the last one and out its back door was the campaign platform). Who was on it (candidate, staff, reporters, regular train staff). Whether the candidate gave the same speech at every stop or how he pulled in local details. What local politicians were introduced. How the logistics of the trip were set up. What the Secret Service did to make the route safe. What happened when a doctor was needed. How the candidate dealt with hecklers or protesters. How the press managed enroute (no showers, no laundry, no direct communication while on the train). As to the last topic, occasionally the train stopped and everyone stayed at a hotel. Sometimes they stopped only during the day, so the hotel would get a request for six rooms and 150 towels. Segal also described some campaign imitators. In 1940 Gracie Allen of the comedy team Burns and Allen did a train tour as the candidate for the Surprise Party. Winnie the Pooh did one in 1972 with advisors Tigger and Eeyore. Mickey Mouse did one in 1978 to celebrate his 50th birthday. The top candidates that logged the most miles on a train were Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, far more than any of the others. There is a description of the rail car built for Roosevelt to keep him comfortable and safe. The reason for campaigning by train was simple: There was a train depots downtown in practically every small city. Everyone knew where it was. The airport, if there was one, was a ways outside of town and few people knew about it. A train allowed the candidate get close to the people. I enjoyed the book, but glad it was just over 200 pages (plus 778 endnotes to list the sources that I could skip) and I could finish it in just a few days. As I said, these were short amusing stories without a comprehensive narrative. Oliver Willis of Daily Kos reported on Monday the nasty guy’s invasion of Chicago has begun. It’s over the objection of Gov. JB Pritzker and the city’s mayor. The justification for sending in the troops is, of course, lies. Also on Monday Lisa Needham of Kos reported on the state of the invasion of Portland. U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut ruled on Saturday that the nasty guy could not federalize the Oregon National Guard to protect federal agents in Portland. On Sunday the judge ruled that the nasty guy could not use California’s national guard protect federal agents in Portland. That ruling was at the request of both California and Oregon because neither wanted one state to invade the other. While she was at it the judge ruled the nasty guy couldn’t use the national guard from any other state either, even if Texas was offering. The case was appealed and I’m still behind in my reading. A week ago Needham reported that the nasty guy has a new effort to get colleges and universities to bend to his will. He came up with a ten point plan titled “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” Schools that agree to it will get preferential access to federal funds. Needham wrote about the points in the plan. Here’s some of them.

So a vibrant marketplace of ideas, but one where schools put their thumb on the scale for conservatives, who basically can’t compete in the marketplace of ideas in higher education. ...And, of course, there are demands that there be no race-or sex-based preferences in hiring and that transgender women be barred from women’s locker rooms and sports.

And they need to hire an independent auditor to ensure compliance.

So all that schools need to do to get “multiple positive benefits,” including “substantial and meaningful federal grants,” is to totally alter their curriculum, departments, admissions, hiring, and sports teams to conform to whatever racist, transphobic, or xenophobic thought that skitters across Trump’s gray matter at any given time. Just some minor tweaks, really.

Nine schools have received the “invitation.” One, the University of Texas at Austin, appears all in. On Monday Dalbert of the Kos community reported that Gov. Gavin Newsom of California has a response. Refuse the nasty guy’s offer a school could lose federal funding. But if a state school accepts the nasty guy’s offer they lose state funding, including grants to California students.

People cave to bullies when there’s no cost to giving in. Newsom’s changing that dynamic. The article urges other blue-state governors to follow suit: cut off state resources to institutions and officials who comply with Trump’s demands. Make resistance the safer bet.

Alix Breeden of Kos wrote that a few top level comedians have gotten themselves into a mess. The royal family of Saudi Arabia funded the Riyadh Comedy Festival. The royal money means they paid big bucks to the comedians, like $375K and upwards. They are working hard to burnish their image. With this royal family we know there is a catch – the entertainers signed contracts specifying they would say nothing bad about the country, the royals, the legal system, or the religion. But giving up free speech for a paycheck, especially a big one, means they are losing credibility in America, especially after Jimmy Kimmel was pulled off the air because of free speech. Fellow comedians are saying their hypocrisy is showing. In the comments of Monday’s pundit roundup for Kos paulpro posted a cartoon by Angel Boligan showing the nasty guy beating furiously at a huge drum set while the two speakers are aimed at earth. John Sipher posted a cartoon by Kal showing a big beefy American army man ready to fight foreign foes while a small Pete Hegseth tugs at his ankle and points to a cat named “Wokeness” and saying “You’re under attack!” In Tuesday’s roundup Chitown Kev quoted Paul Krugman writing for his Substack on why the nasty guy’s second term seems to have gotten so extreme so fast.

One reason things have gotten so extreme, so fast may be that Trump, Miller and company are in a race against time. Foreign autocrats like Orban or Vladimir Putin could afford to chip away gradually at the foundations of democracy because they were, at least initially, quite popular. Trump — although he won’t admit it — has very low approval, and the public opposes him on every major issue. Yet he and his minions control much of the machinery of government, and are trying to use it to intimidate — you might say terrorize — their opponents before public anger catches up with them.

In the comments exlrrp posted a meme showing, I think, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Whoever it is the text is fun. It says, “She’s going through the normal 5 stages of grief: pyrotechnics, merch, podcasting, grifting, and acceptance.” In the comments of Wednesday’s roundup is a cartoon posted by LJ Slater and created by Smit. It shows ICE agents standing around and one says, “I gotta leave early today, guys. We deported my kid’s babysitter.” A comment posted by paulpro shows a calm Chicago scene and two ICE agents are talking:

First: You see any Chicago Antifa rioters yet? Second: No, but there was a dress sale at the Water Tower my wife would kill for.

LJ Slater posted a cartoon by David Cohen. It shows a peace prize on the floor and the nasty guy reaching for it. To the side one guy tells another. “It’s an old bar trick. I glued it to the floor. Let’s see how long it takes him to get it.” In the comments of today’s roundup Fiona Webster posted a cartoon by Jesse Duquette showing a policeman cuffing a young black child (I’ve seen mentions that this is a thing). The policeman says, “Stop crying. America’s great now.” Webster also posted a cartoon by Lalo Alcaraz that has a caption, “Meanwhile, at the border... The president ordered that the border wall be painted black because it makes the wall hotter when migrants climb it. Also, it’s lunchtime.” The image shows the bottom of three beams of the wall bent up and being used as a grill attended by a Mexican man. Beside him is a sign, “Hot border tacos.” While checking one set of stats for this blog – the excitement of setting big viewing records in September – I forgot to keep track of other stats. I’ve passed mentioning the nasty guy in 700 posts, this one is 701. There are only two topics with more posts. One is “GOP” which is now at 1114 posts. The other is “Gay Marriage” and “Marriage Equality” (I switched tags) at 711.

A majority of book challenges come from organized movements

My Sunday movie was Lover of Men: The Untold History of Abraham Lincoln. Several years ago I saw stories in the press about Lincoln perhaps being gay. This is a documentary exploring that possibility in more detail. The movie shows many letters by Lincoln and others that are evidence of his relations with other men. The letters are authentic. The movie uses actors to portray scenes. We see emotions (mostly tender glances) but hear no words. Where possible the scenes are enacted in the location where the original happened. From what I heard before Lincoln shared a bed with four men at various times, the most famous was Joshua Speed. This movie says Lincoln shared a bed with Speed for four years, declining housing where he would have a room and bed of his own. The two men were seen as great friends. Speed was instrumental in turning Lincoln from a country bumpkin into a man ready for national politics. This was at a time when mattresses were rare and men sharing a bed, especially in a tavern, was common. It was also a time that was homosocial – men and women socialized separately and all of one’s friends were of the same sex. Photos with fingers intertwined and with hands on thighs were not seen as strange. Letters mentioned Lincoln as being uncomfortable around women, perhaps having an aversion to them. But to get anywhere in politics one needed a wife. Speed introduced Lincoln to Mary Todd and they became engaged. But since that caused a rift with Speed Lincoln broke the engagement. Speed soon inherited the family plantation in Kentucky. Lincoln went to visit, which is where he saw the Speed family wealth and the human cost of slavery. Back in Illinois Lincoln resumed courting Todd and married her. There was another man, Billy Greene, who shared a cot (even smaller than a bed) with Lincoln for 18 months. They really had to want to share it. There was Elmer Ellsworth when Lincoln campaigned for and became president. And there was David Derickson who was Lincoln’s personal bodyguard and shared his bed at what became the “Lincoln Cottage” when Mary was away. The history of Derickson’s regiment mentions that Derickson was seen wearing Lincoln’s nightshirt and the mention includes no shame. Towards the end of the 19th century science replaced religion as the source of morality (well, to some extent). But science institutions were led be white men. And we get eugenics, the effort to “prove” scientifically that black people were inferior. Also a part of that effort was to show sexual difference also meant inferiority. Science supported hierarchy. Sigmund Freud said that doing a certain type of thing showed that you were a certain type of person. Have sex with men and you were a homosexual, which according to their “research” claimed homosexuality was not natural and homosexuals were inferior to heterosexuals. So sexuality became performative. One had to act in a way that removed all doubt one was straight. That’s why images of the American West of the time were filled with rugged men. Since homosexuality was said to be not natural it became punishable. There were brutal and abusive treatments in hopes of turning men straight. Lincoln is easily seen as the best president our country has had. He was the most invested in the country and in democracy. He is the closest we have to a national saint. How could one be so masculine as to win a war and also be queer? One of the historians is tired of that question because it implies stereotypes. Was Lincoln gay? There is strong evidence and no proof. Also, there was no concept of sexual orientation at the time. I quite enjoyed this movie and recommend it. There is, of course, a lot more information than I can include in my discussion of it. I finished the book The Wings Upon Her Back by Samantha Mills. This is a good science fiction novel that mirrors our current political climate. The story is about Zemolai, nicknamed Zenya. She lives where there is a domain of five gods. Arthur C. Clarke’s phrase “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” might be useful here or maybe, “... indistinguishable from divine intervention.” The gods are in charge of creation (engineering), scholarship, workers, farming, and security (mecha). Those that follow the mecha god, if they’re good enough, can earn mechanical wings to help with their security duties. The story begins with an incident 26 years after earning her wings that causes Zemolai to lose them. The rest of the novel has alternate chapters on how she earns her wings and what she does after she loses them. With this alternating format the two parts of the story highlight and parallel each other. When Zenya is young she is captivated with the idea of flying. When old enough she leaves her father and brother to begin training. She becomes a student of Vodaya, the top teacher who seems to be in direct contact with the mecha god. Vodaya drives Zenya to excel, and she does, and also becomes a tender mother to her. The five parts of the society are supposed to be an interrelated community. But rivalries develop. The scholars want to know all about the gods, even if the knowledge can upset current understanding. The mecha don’t want to disrupt the current stability, though the rivalries do exactly that. And the mecha shift from protectors against external threats to enforcers of internal doctrine. Spoiler alert: After Zemolai loses her wings she is cared for by rebels while her body recovers from the withdrawal of drugs that made control of the wings possible. As she maintains her devotion to Vodaya there is a long process to understand how abusive Vodaya had been to her and the rest of the community. Zemolai had earlier interpreted that abuse as just a tactic to make her stronger and more fit to receive the wings. She also begins to realize the abuse she doled out to stay in Vodaya’s favor and stay within the theology Vodaya upheld. Zemolai’s desire for the wings blinded her to the abuse. I enjoyed and recommend this book. I saw similarities to the nasty guy supporters. They also want something desperately – a restoration of the middle class and the hierarchy that places straight white Christian men at the top. They see the nasty guy getting it for them, certainly he’s blaming and hurting the people they want blamed. But their lives are being made worse as the nasty guy’s policies are implemented. They may need a long time to see he is abusive and has always been abusive. I found a page of Arthur C. Clarke quotes. A few:

The goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play. That's why we have to destroy the present politico-economic system. Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. Each grows out of the other, and we need them all. In my life I have found two things of priceless worth - learning and loving. Nothing else - not fame, not power, not achievement for its own sake - can possible have the same lasting value. For when your life is over, if you can say 'I have learned' and 'I have loved,' you will also be able to say 'I have been happy.’

While I’m discussing a book... The American Library Association is marking Banned Books Week by releasing the list of the top ten most challenged books of 2024. From their top ten page:

The 2024 data reported to ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) shows that the majority of book censorship attempts are now originating from organized movements. Pressure groups and government entities that include elected officials, board members and administrators initiated 72% of demands to censor books in school and public libraries. Parents only accounted for 16% of demands to censor books, while 5% of challenges were brought by individual library users. The 120 titles most frequently targeted for censorship during 2024 are all identified on partisan book rating sites which provide tools for activists to demand the censorship of library books. The most common justifications for censorship provided by complainants were false claims of illegal obscenity for minors; inclusion of LGBTQIA+ characters or themes; and covering topics of race, racism, equity, and social justice.

There were 821 attempts to ban books, down from 2023, but up from 2021. Those 821 attempts included 2,452 unique titles. That’s significantly up from 2001-2020. The LGBTQ books in the list. 1. All Boys Aren’t Blue by George Johnson. This had 39 challenges. 2. Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. 3. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. 10. Flamer by Mike Curato. All of them on the list, including those above, were challenged for a claim to be sexually explicit. Also related to literature is the end of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. I realized that I hadn’t heard about this year’s winners, which had usually been announced around Labor Day, so I looked for the website. That’s where I learned Scott Rice, the guy who created and ran the contest since 1983 announced his and the contest’s retirement back in March (sheesh he’s older than Biden). The archive of winners will be maintained. In August Deena Prichep of NPR talked to Rice about the contest and retirement. He explained the contest (which I’ve mentioned several times over the years) is to create the worst possible opening sentence for a novel. The rest of the novel is irrelevant. Last year Rice got 6,000 entries. The contest is named for Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, a 19th century author who wrote best sellers, but is remembered for the bad opening sentence of his novel Paul Clifford, “It was a dark and stormy night.” An example of a contest winner included in Prichep’s report:

For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity's affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss - a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity's mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world's thirstiest gerbil.

I never submitted to the contest, though thought the worst first sentence would be one where there was no possible second sentence.

I could tell you about my life but thought it’s none of your damn business.

I searched previous blog posts for contest winners. I found these:

This dishonorable mention in the Fantasy category from the 2009 winners is by Shannon Gray of Wichita, KS. Detective Pierson mentally reviewed the group of suspects milling around the recent crime scene – two young siblings eating gingerbread, a young girl in a red hoodie, a beautiful girl with narcolepsy, and seven little people with the profession of miners – then gave his statement of "It's a grim tale" to the press. A winner in the Vile Puns category for 2015 is by Matthew Pfeifer of Beaman, Iowa: Old Man Dracula forgot to put his teeth in one night, and so had to come home hungry, with a sort of “nothing dentured, nothing veined” look on his face.

From 2018:

In preparation for visits by African dignitaries, we had redecorated the West Wing of the White House in an African motif with numerous artificial plants and animals, but the President asked that we remove the papier-mache wildebeests, saying he was "tired of fake gnus." Wm. "Buddy" Ocheltree, Snellville, GA

From 2023 and working with the inspiration for the contest:

It was a dark and stormy night at the harbors of Sydney, where wind whipped the seawater across the docks and the torrents of rain soaked everything that the waves could not reach, but luckily for James Tyche this story begins at a beach in Southern France, where it was currently day and James was gradually developing a healthy tan and less healthy sunburn. Robin Alberts, Ludenscheid, Germany

And from last year’s contest:

Stepping outside just after dawn, Chef Billingsworth was pleased to discover that for once the morning fog was not as thick as pea soup—or even lobster bisque for that matter—but was more a chicken velouté, or perhaps a beef remouillage. Mark Meiches, Dallas, TX

I’ll miss this fun. A while back I wrote about Kat Abughazaleh, who is Gen Z and running for Congress in a district that’s a long strip in Chicago’s northern suburbs. Alix Breeden of Daily Kos interviewed her. She’s a person I’d very much want to see in Congress right now, willing to take on the fascists (she’s been taking on ICE) as well as the stodgy Democratic leadership.

The people rose up and took power back for themselves

Thom Hartmann of the Daily Kos community and independent pundit posed a thought experiment. If you were hired by Putin or billionaires and your job was make the country vulnerable to takeover, what steps would you take? I’ve heard a variation of that question: Would you do anything different from what the nasty guy is doing now? Hartmann gives a twelve step program to accomplish that task (quite different from the programs to treat addiction). I’ll list some of them and let you read his article for the rest. The whole list is painfully familiar – we’re living through the takeover. 1. Turn America from “Out of Many, One” into warring factions. 2. Create a huge pool of mostly white men who are mad because they feel locked out of the American Dream. Destroy unions. Gut the social safety net. Ship manufacturing overseas. Demonize “the other.” Ban books on diversity. 3. Destroy people’s faith in the news. Loudly proclaim “leftwing bias.” 4. Shatter faith in reality. Challenge science. Spread conspiracy theories. 6. Shatter faith in elected officials by legalizing the buying of legislators. 11. Seize control of legislative and judicial branches so a tyrant’s corruption and election rigging is never held to account.

All of these twelve simple steps have been used by every despot in history, from the ancient Roman Empire through the kings of the Dark Ages to the fascists of early 20th century Europe to today’s strongmen including Orbán, Putin, Erdoğon, El-Sisi, Maduro, Netanyahu, and Modi. ... The good news is that multiple countries have elected men to leadership who tried to run through this list and were stopped before they could finish the job. Instead of letting their leaders turn their nations into permanent autocracies, the people rose up and took the power back for themselves and their democracies. They include Ukraine, the Philippines, Brazil, Poland, Zambia, Sri Lanka, Guatemala, Peru, South Korea, Romania, North Macedonia, Slovakia, Gambia, Malawi, Moldova, and South Africa.

We can look away or we can act. Lisa Needham of Kos reported that even though the government is shut down the construction of the ballroom for the White House continues. The reason is it isn’t funded by the government, but by private donations (also known as bribes). Critics, such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom, see this as a bad public relations blunder, cutting support for the poor while building a playground for the rich. Newsom tweeted an image of the nasty guy as Marie Antoinette with the words, “NO HEALTH CARE FOR YOU PEASANTS, BUT A BALLROOM FOR THE QUEEN!” Kos of Kos noted this government shutdown is because Republicans need Democrats to vote for it – they need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. Then Kos lists several recent cases in which the filibuster was, for a specific situation, eliminated. Both parties did it. Republicans aren’t talking about doing it now. If the filibuster was gone they would have enough votes. That means Republicans want the shutdown. Alex Samuels of Kos reported that the nasty guy is threatening Republican governors who don’t redraw Congressional districts to give Republicans more seats. The threat is he will back primary challengers when they’re next up for reelection. Those threatened include governors of New Hampshire, Indiana, North Carolina, Kansas, Kentucky, and Florida. Missouri is already somewhere in the process. Some Republicans fear the backlash from independents isn’t worth the potential gain of new seats. They cite polls in Texas showing a majority of independents oppose the redrawn maps there. Adelita Grijalva, Democrat, won a special election to fill a Congressional seat for Arizona. Needham reports that Speaker Johnson is delaying her swearing in, giving reasons that didn’t apply when Republicans won special elections. The reason appears to be simple. Hers would be the last signature needed on a petition to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files. I had written about younger Democrats challenging the party elite. Here’s another story like that. Alix Breeden of Kos wrote about Saikat Chakrabarti. He had been chief of staff for Alexandria Ocsaio-Cortez among other important jobs. The person he is challenging is a big one – Nancy Pelosi. Chakrabarti sees Democrats who are “doing stuff” and others “doing nothing.” That second group appears to find security in doing as little as possible and with plans to win off the backlash against the nasty guy and Republicans. He sees Pelosi in the “doing nothing” category. Chakrabarti recognizes that if Democrats don’t offer a compelling vision many people won’t vote at all. He wanted to explore why Democrats lost in 2024, what they did wrong, and how could they change. Helplessness can’t be the message. And that is a challenge to the “do nothing” camp. Pelosi was first elected to Congress when Chakrabarti was a year old. He’s 39 now. His parents were extremely poor. He grew up middle class. He got a job in Silicon Valley and says he got rich because the company he worked for did extremely well. He says it is like winning the lottery. Business Insider did an article on him and he says that exposed him as a class traitor. He knows teachers and firefighters work harder than he ever did without making the money he has. They can’t afford a home in San Francisco and won’t have a secure retirement. He sees the system is rigged against them. Breeden did a lengthy interview with Chakrabarti. He sounds like a fine candidate. And it sounds like Pelosi, who has done many fine things in her decades in Congress, has reached the end of her time. Jen Fifield and Carter Walker, in an article for Votebeat posted on Kos discussed the debate over clean voter rolls. The voter rolls of a city need to be updated because citizens move and die. The question is “how to ensure that only eligible voters are registered without endangering voting rights.” The article was prompted because the Department of Justice has sent letters to states asking for their voter lists and how they maintain them. The DoJ wants to enforce the parts of the federal law the nasty guy wants to prioritize. We can guess what his priorities are. States are pushing back. This is the core of the matter:

House Republicans claimed dirty voter rolls enable fraud, and said ensuring that only eligible voters are on the list increases election security and voter confidence. They dismissed the idea that their efforts are meant to purge certain types of eligible voters from the rolls, such as people of color.

Though the policies they propose very much show they intend to purge certain types of eligible voters.

House Democrats made it clear that they, too, don’t want ineligible voters, such as dead people or noncitizens, on the list. But they questioned why Republicans would want to take any actions that could potentially disenfranchise eligible people, citing recent incidents of state list maintenance actions that led to eligible voters being removed.

Maintaining rolls is difficult because our voting is decentralized. It’s run by states, townships, and cities. There is no national database, though states have databases. Cities must rely on official notices of death. But moves to another state are difficult to track. Even if rolls are poorly maintained, fraud is still quite rare. The effort to purify the voter rolls has come to Michigan. Back in 2000 we passed a voter bill of rights, allowing vote by mail, early voting, and registering through election day. Naturally, Republicans are outraged that voting was made easier. There is an effort right now to gather signatures to put a proposal on the ballot that would do such things as require a birth certificate when registering to vote. Of course, the ballot summary is misleading. If you’re in Michigan, please decline to sign that one (but please do sign the proposal to get money out of politics). Mike Luckovich posted a cartoon on Kos titled Fighting for Democracy. It shows unafraid Dems, cartoonists, late night hosts, never Trump Republicans, uncowed journalists, and everyday Americans. Randy Bish posted a cartoon showing a military general with a chest full of insignia. He says, “Am I insulted? A drunk and a draft dodger just told me that I need to do better.”