Must show that they’re actually willing to take on corruption

Grace Panetta, in an article for The 19th posted on Daily Kos, reported that Graham Platner, running for US Senate in Maine is saying, “We will take back our government from the Epstein class.” He’s one of many Democrats using the phrase that Rep. Ro Khanna created. They use it because it connects with voters.

“I’ll give the survivors credit, but I did coin the phrase ‘Epstein class’ because they’re a group of rich and powerful people who are not playing by the rules, and it offends the sense that we have one tier of justice,” Khanna told The 19th.

The phrase connects because it encapsulates two ideas – high level corruption and rich people rigging the system for their own interests.

“I think it directly fits in with voters’ top concern of cost of living right now,” [Ryan] O’Donnell [executive director for Data for Progress] said. “Broadly, Democrats, if they want to fight their way out of this, have to show that they’re actually willing to take on corruption in that way, and I do think that the Epstein class language is one way to do that.”

Oliver Willis of Kos, in his series Explaining the Right, discussed “Why Republicans suck ad being patriotic.”

As a whole, Republicans don’t understand the idea of American patriotism, which is far more complex and unifying than bellicose virtue signaling about being “strong” and “powerful.” ... Republicans are of limited scope—they can’t understand America as anything but the story of faux macho men. They don’t understand America at all.

Lisa Needham of Kos reported on the latest method the nasty guy is using to rig the election.

If they can’t win on the law, they’ll win with the purse strings and illegally withhold money from states that won’t comply with Trump’s conspiracy-addled demands. The money the administration is threatening to withhold, however, only highlights how little Trump cares about the country’s safety and security and how far he will go to get his way. States that refuse to bend the knee and let Trump dictate how their elections work could face losing 20% of Department of Homeland Security grant money that is intended to be used to protect infrastructure, combat terrorism, and prepare for disasters. Sure seems like a weird move for an administration that constantly claims that we are awash in terror and DHS needs infinite funding to keep us safe.

The nasty guy wants to add state voter rolls to a database so non citizens can be flagged. However, that database frequently incorrectly flags citizens. And state election officials (well, some of them) know that. Dion Nissenbaum, in an article for Votebeat posted on Kos discussed getting new voting rules in place faces a race against time. Changes to the voting system don’t happen quickly. First, there will be court challenges. Then there is the logistics of turning the nasty guy’s demands into an actual, workable system in time for election day. Votebeat included a discussion of how to election fact from fiction. The suggestions fit many types of claims. What was the original source? Is there evidence beyond screenshots and that it “just seems weird”? Do independent observers and credible sources said anything? Also, isolated irregularities, a tiny part of every election, are not proof of widespread fraud. Anna Maria Barry-Jester, in an article for ProPublica posted on Kos discussed yet another way the nasty guy is defying Congress. The budget that Congress passed for this fiscal year has specific amounts the State Department is to spend in particular ways. An example is the $5 billion to be spent on emergency humanitarian aid. Another is money designated for USAID, though Elon Musk and DOGE closed it last year But the administration isn’t spending the money according to what Congress put into law. All the money goes through the Office of Management and Budget (as is normal, as far as I can tell). Russel Vought is the head of OMB and a top supporter of the nasty guy. When the money reaches him he classifies a great deal of it as “unallocated” in defiance of Congress. All unallocated money needs his approval and he isn’t approving very much, leaving money unspent. Or the money is held up so the nasty guy can make a deal with the target country that favors himself.

As ProPublica has chronicled, Vought takes an expansive view of presidential power and has moved to give the executive branch dramatically greater authority to not spend legally appropriated money. Foreign aid has been a clear focus; after USAID was razed last year, Vought was made acting administrator and tasked with overseeing the closeout of the agency.

Emily Singer of Kos reported Congress has passed a bill with several provisions to eventually make housing more affordable. It even had broad bipartisan support! The nasty guy was set to sign it. Then he said he wouldn’t until Congress also passed his SAVE Act, the one that demands verification of citizenship to vote. Enough Republicans refuse to vote for it so it won’t pass. And they need something to show their constituents that they’re working on affordability. Amazingly, according to a tweet by Jake Sherman, Speaker Mike Johnson might finally be defying the nasty guy.

SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON is sending the housing bill to President DONALD TRUMP. Starts a 10-day clock for him to take action -- or it becomes law.

A tweet from Telegraph Football with a link to an article in the Telegraph:

Fifa will not stop fans from bringing rainbow flags into the stadium when Iran face Egypt in the controversial “Pride Match” in Seattle. Egypt and Iran have both lobbied Fifa demanding they have no association with Seattle’s PrideFest.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos included a few quotes (not necessarily recent) appropriate for the end of Pride month.

“Pride is both a celebration and a protest, and in the last few years pride marches have become big business, raking in millions of dollars for their host cities. And when corporations heard all those ch’chings, they jumped in. But ever since Donald Trump started viciously attacking the LGBTQ community, corporate sponsors are now pulling back their pride support. As one corporate insider said: they ‘never know if day-to-day they’ll be targeted.’ Wow—not knowing if you’ll be targeted must be so hard for those companies. I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for them to come out to their parents…as companies.” —Stephen Colbert

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?

Damaging to real American people, but an opportunity for cuts

Sheesh, where to begin? Start talking about the new mess or finish talking about the previous mess? I guess I had better finish off the old mess first. Way back on September 18 (so it can be seen as old news) when the Jimmy Kimmel mess was still hot Alex Samuels of Daily Kos reported that Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr hinted that Kimmel won’t be his last target. He said, “We’re not done yet.” Sinclair and Nexstar are the two large TV station owners that objected to Kimmel’s comments, prompting his show to be suspended. On September 23 Oliver Willis of Kos reported that they said when Kimmel’s show is brought back (which was that evening) their stations would not air the show. On Friday, September 26 Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos had some late night commentary, including on Kimmel’s return to air. Bill started with the start of Kimmel’s opening monologue:

I’m happy to be here tonight with you. I’m not sure who had a weirder 48 hours, me or the CEO of Tylenol.

And later in the monologue:

[Trump] did his best to cancel me. Instead, he forced millions of people to watch the show. That backfired bigly. He might have to release the Epstein files to distract us from this now.

Willis posted that opening monologue. I watched it. The whole segment is 30 minutes. The first 15 minutes was rather serious and a full support of strong American ideals, especially free speech. I think it’s worth watching. The rest of it was jokes and a skit on the “new rules” Kimmel would have to follow. In all a great return. On September 26, three days after Kimmel’s return Samuels reported that Sinclair and Nexstar had changed their position and would air Kimmel’s show. On to the other big news, the federal government shutdown. Leila Fadel of NPR spoke with Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut. She wanted to offer a bill to keep the government funded and open for another month so that Congress, and not the Office of Management and Budget head Russel Vought. But the House was gaveled into adjournment before she could. DeLauro reminded us the reason for the shutdown, for the budget impasse, is Democrats want to reverse the cuts to Medicaid that would throw fifteen million people off. They also want to reverse the cuts to Affordable Care Act subsidies, which would cause premiums to be too expensive for millions of people. At the moment Democrats do not trust Republicans. DeLauro said:

In the midst of these negotiations, Russ Vought, who is the mastermind of this, of this effort, and who wants a shutdown - and he said - his words are very clear - there should be less bipartisanship. The president of the United States said it's a waste of time to negotiate with Jeffries and Schumer. And Republicans rally around, jam this Republican continuing revolution down the Democrats' throat. Now, you tell me if that acts in good faith. And Mr. Vought introduced a bill that would continue to steal the money appropriated by Democrats and Republicans, House and Senate, as we're into these negotiations.

As for the nasty guy’s threat of turning mass furloughs into mass layoffs, DeLauro said there have already been mass layoffs. Scott Simon of NPR talked to Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin about his proposal to end shutdowns. He calls it the Eliminate Shutdowns Act. If a budget isn’t enacted this bill would establish 14-day rolling funding at last year’s levels for the parts of the government not yet funded.

And by the way, that's the well-honed process by the uniparty to put pressure on the process to just pass anything, which has then resulted in [the national debt] going from $14 trillion to $37 trillion. It's designed to increase spending. Everybody has to get together and compromise to spend more on everybody's programs. Again, we can't afford this. So again, let's end the dysfunction.

I like his idea, but puzzled. Why have a bill that funds the government in two week chunks that automatically renew every two weeks? Why not just say the government is funded at the previous level until the new budget is passed? News Corpse of the Kos community wrote Speaker Mike Johnson gave the game away. While talking to Maria Bartiromo of Fox News about turning the furloughs into job cuts, Johnson said:

Yes, the president and I talked about this at great length. While, a shutdown is very damaging for real American people who depend upon government services, it can provide an opportunity to downsize the scope and the scale of government, which is something that we’ve all always wanted to do.

This would allow the nasty guy do some things that would otherwise not be possible because Democrats would never vote for them. Johnson also said of Vought:

He gets to decide now what services are essential, what programs and policies should be continued, and which would not be a priority for taxpayers.

So Vought gets to decide – and not Congress? And that “priority for taxpayers” nonsense... This is all about the priorities of the nasty gay and Republicans, which are far different than the priorities of taxpayers. News Corpse wrote that the nasty guy says the shutdown will allow him to do things that are bad for Democrats. News Corpse corrects that thought. The cuts will be bad for the American people. The nasty guy and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called about 800 of America’s generals and admirals to one place in Quantico, Virginia. They ignored the cost of transporting them from around the world and the big security breach of having all the top brass in one place. Then Hegseth laid out his definition of a warrior ethos (from a guy who had never been a warrior) and the nasty guy insulted them. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Robert Hubbell of his Today’s Edition Newsletter on Substack:

They sat in silence as Trump claimed that the military would use U.S. cities as “training grounds” for waging war against American civilians. They sat in silence as Trump said he would ask the military to fight “the enemy from within.” They sat in silence as Hegseth said the generals were free to ignore the law of war and international treaties that separate the US military from barbarians and war criminals. [...] In his final insult, Trump told the generals they looked like they came out of “central casting.” In doing so, he trivialized and demeaned their accomplishments and professionalism, telling them they were nothing more than props for infantile speeches by men who hold the military in contempt. And so, the generals sat in silence, depriving Trump of the thing he values most--obsequious adulation. The silence of the generals spoke volumes.

In the comments are several cartoons and memes about that military gathering. A cartoon by Sophie Labelle has a lot of text. Here’s part of it. It start with saying Vought is a key architect of Project 2025. Then:

What Vought aimed to do was create the conditions in which he could strip bare what he calls the “unelected fourth branch of government.” Back in February, he instructed agencies to prepare for mass layoffs in Sept. 30. This shutdown will give Trump the power to bypass Congressional oversight: Trump can just declare which areas are considered essential services, and ignore the 1974 law that prevents presidents from withholding federal dollars. The shutdown was the goal all along.

Laugh About It cartoons posted one by David Crampton. It shows two women in conical hats with a crystal ball between them. In the ball is an image of a guillotine. One woman says to the other:

Once upon a time, there was a similar concentration of gold and power in a palace. It didn’t work out too well for the leaders.

Last night my friend and debate partner asked what is really lost when the government is shut down. I could only list a few things from memory. So now I turn to a list I made back in 2017 when the nasty guy threatened or caused a shutdown. Here are the departments of the federal government listed in the order of their creation, though some were created under a different name. State

coordinates foreign affairs, foreign policy advisor

Treasury

regulates & stabilizes money, pays government bills IRS – collects taxes and investigates tax cheats

Defense

armed forces, national security

Interior

federal lands & national parks programs for natives

Justice

enforcement of law & administer justice ATF, DEA, anti trust, civil rights, criminal, environment, tax

Agriculture

support the farmer support the forests food safety, promote nutrition, SNAP, WIC

Commerce

promote economic growth & tech competitiveness Census NOAA – Weather Service Patents & trademarks

Labor

improve working conditions, assure worker rights

Health and Human Services

CDC, Food & Drug, Institute for Health, Medicare & Medicaid agency for toxic substances Indian Health Service Head Start & senior home delivered meals services to prevent child abuse and domestic violence

Housing and Urban Development

strong, sustainable, inclusive communities affordable and safe housing Office of Fair Housing Community block grants, Section 8 housing, Federal Housing Admin

Transportation

Aviation safety, highway safety, pipeline safety Fed highway, fed railroad

Energy

Safe handling of nuclear material system of national labs Promote energy production, research, conservation.

Education

Watches over the ed system money for grants and loans money for special ed programs

Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health,

Veterans Benefits: home loans, vocation rehab, education

Homeland Security

antiterrorism, cybersecurity Customs FEMA

Small Business Administration Social Security NASA Environment Protection Agency Ambassador to United Nations National Endowment for the Humanities Corporation for Public Broadcasting

Just about perfect, as conspiracy theories go

Just before my trip I finished the book Southernmost by Silas House. It opens with the Cumberland River flooding and (of course) I thought a lot about the recent flooding in central Texas. I had thought the Cumberland River would be near the Cumberland Gap in western Maryland, but it actually flows through Nashville and much of the length of Tennessee. The main character is Asher, pastor at a rural church a ways downriver of Nashville. He and wife Lydia have a son Justin, nine years old. In the flood Asher and Justin rescue a gay couple, Jimmy and Stephen. Lydia won’t let them stay at the house where Justin can watch them. Justin is described as sensitive, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Lydia wants to toughen him up and Asher sees no need to do that. Asher is also thinking about his brother Luke, who is gay and was run off by their parents. As a critical moment Asher turned his back on his brother. Jimmy and Stephen try out Asher’s church but the congregation condemns them. Asher realizes he has been preaching judgment when he should be preaching love and acceptance. But the congregation understands God through judgment and refuses Asher’s change in direction. Even Lydia rejects the change; her upbringing is too strong. Asher sees he is losing everything but does not want to lose Justin. He also doesn’t want Justin to learn the judgmental attitudes of his mother. He ends up doing something rash and stupid. The rest of the novel is about how that plays out. While a gay couple is a catalyst to the story, they make only a few brief appearances. Luke appears and only briefly mentions his lover. So this isn’t a story about gay people. It is about straight people coming to terms with how gay people are treated. And about coming to terms with the nature of God and with making a mistake. I enjoyed this book. Asher genuinely cares for Justin. My Sunday movie was Maestra. I had heard of this movie a year ago and only recently found it on Netflix. The name is too similar to more popular shows for good internet searching. The competition La Maestra was established to promote female orchestral conductors. The first one was in Paris in March 2022. This is a documentary about five of the women contestants – Mélisse, originally from Paris, but currently with a conducting job in Iowa City. Tamara from America. Anna from Krakow, Poland and the daughter of a conductor. Zoe from Athens. We get to know the lives of these women in their home countries. We don’t meet the fifth one, Ustina from Ukraine, until just before the competition begins. That’s understandable because the competition was one month after Russia’s invasion. The only one of the judges I recognize is Marin Alsop, a female conductor what had made a big name for herself in Baltimore and does a lot of mentoring of female conductors. In documentaries like this I wonder how they select which contestants to feature. Do they pick a few and hope they win? Do they pick the ones that agree to have cameras in their faces? Do they follow several more contestants than appear in the film and then include the ones that do well? The women talk about issues that face female conductors. The first is the reason why the contest was created – 97% of conductors are men. They wonder whether pregnancy will put a career on hold for a few years and would they be able to take a gig wile breastfeeding. They are told their gestures are too big or that they should smile more and they wonder whether a male conductor would be told the same thing. At the end we are told the contest allowed this woman to be offered this opportunity and that woman was able to take that job, a step up from what they did before. They also said the contest created a community of fellow conductors, less interested in competing and more interested in collaborating. In last Thursday’s pundit roundup for Daily Kos Chitown Kev quoted Charlie Warzel of The Atlantic discussing the MAGA revolt over the refusal to release the Epstein files.

The Jeffrey Epstein saga is just about perfect, as conspiracy theories go. At its core, it’s about a cabal of corrupt billionaires, politicians, and celebrities exploiting children on a distant island—catnip for online influencers and QAnon types who have bought into any number of outlandish stories. Yet for such a dark conspiracy theory, there’s a great deal we know about Epstein’s life and crimes. There are unsealed court transcripts, flight records, victim statements. His black book has been reported on, giving the public access to names of people Epstein is thought to have associated with (though some have said they don’t know why he had their information). There’s real investigative reporting, much of it from the Miami Herald’s Julie K. Brown, who spoke with detectives and victims and provided a fuller account of Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking and the attempts to downplay his crimes. Brown also credits the police officers who continued to press on their own investigation as federal officials seemed to wave it away. The case is real and horrifying, which gives life to all the wild speculation: If this is true, why not that? ... Whatever happens next will be a defining moment for Trump. However strange it seems to measure the Epstein conspiracy theory against, say, the president’s approach to tariffs or his bombing of Iran, this is the stuff Trump’s mythology is based on. Trump has positioned himself as an outsider who shares enemies with his base—namely, elites. It hasn’t mattered to his supporters that Trump is an elite himself; the appeal, and the narrative, is that Trump wants to punish the same people his supporters loathe. In appearing to bury the Epstein list—which, again, may or may not exist—by calling it a “hoax” and pinning it to his “PAST supporters,” Trump is pushing up against the limits of this narrative—as well as his ability to command attention and use it to bend the world to his whims. If Trump and the MAGA media ecosystem can successfully spin the Epstein debacle into a conspiracy theory that helps them, or if they can make the story stop, it would suggest once again that his grip on the party and its base is total: an impenetrable force field no bit of reality can puncture.

And if they can’t successfully spin it? David Wallace-Wells of the New York Times discussed what is known about the Epstein mess, which is quite a bit. Then:

Almost none of this information has satisfied those seeking it, or those seeking still more. And really, how could it? As with so many contemporary conspiracies, the known picture is expansive and uncomfortable enough, with abundant detail arrayed like so much proverbial red yarn. But the logic of paranoid thinking demands ever more cycles of disclosure and running epicycles of analysis. (This is among the many ways it is an extremely good match for the age of social media.) And what is missing in the Epstein story isn’t exactly more information — it’s more meaning. Is there more to see here, beyond the striking fact of a suspiciously wealthy and curiously well-connected sex offender? Or perhaps less, with Epstein turning out to have been more a shady influence hustler and savvy estate planner than some world-historical man of mystery? We get a classic conspiracy theory, we’re often told, when disempowered people try to make sense of a disordered world, seizing on a story that gives them a comforting sense of control, at least as analysts of an otherwise overwhelming system producing improbable or inscrutable outcomes.

In the comments of Sunday’s pundit roundup are a good cartoon and meme about the Epstein mess. The cartoon was from Marc Murphy. It is titled “The Real Epstein List” and shows a dozen female faces with black bars across the eyes to prevent identification with their names and ages, which range from 14-16. Murphy added:

This is the list. I hate that it falls to me to make this as clear as I can. Every sex act with these children was rape. Rape. It’s a moral and leadership and political problem, yes. But before all of these, it was a rape.

Murphy said it because, alas, the media sources I’m exposed to (and I can’t imagine any other source doing any better) ignore the underage girls that are why this is a scandal. A meme posted by exlrrp shows the nasty guy and Epstein, each with an arm around the waist of a woman. The text says, “Wow I can’t believe Epstein killed himself before realizing it was all a hoax.” That sentence is attributed to Elon Musk. In today’s roundup Greg Dworkin quoted Dan Pfeiffer of Message Box discussing why he changed his opinion on the nasty guy’s involvement in the Epstein case. The full article explains his reasoning.

Trump’s behavior is so bizarre, so unhinged, and so counter to his short-term interests that the most likely explanation for his actions is that Trump either believes or knows that he is mentioned in the Epstein files in ways that are even more damaging than the blowback he is getting for not releasing the files. This is, of course, speculation. There is no evidence that Trump was an Epstein “client.”

Congressman Brendan F Boyle, writing in The Bulwark:

The question that will soon be before my party is: Should we provide our votes to fund the government—and they need our votes—knowing that Republicans may very well undo, on a strictly partisan basis, any deal we’ve made with them? I certainly don’t speak for every Democrat, but I believe we must be prepared not to do so. No one wants a shutdown, but agreeing to a deal that can be revoked whenever Trump demands it isn’t responsible. It only teaches the other side that they can do it again and again. Guided by Russell Vought, Donald Trump has set out to seize complete control over federal spending. Meanwhile, the administration is already impounding—that is, illegally withholding—billions in congressionally approved funds for public services and infrastructure across the country. We’re already in a slow-motion government shutdown. We cannot allow this blatant power grab to continue. We need to ask ourselves: Is Congress going to defend its responsibility to set and safeguard federal spending? Or are we just going to roll over?

I think this is an issue because a budget vote can be filibustered and a rescission vote to cancel previously approved spending can’t be. If I have that right then my earlier writing of a couple months ago about the death of the filibuster was not accurate. Reporting during the passage of the Big Brutal Bill also implied the filibuster is still alive. In last Friday’s Cheers and Jeers column for Kos Bill in Portland, Maine quoted late night commentary. Here’s one:

"This really highlights Trump’s dilemma. He’s desperate to tamp down the drama, but his entire career has only taught him how to heighten the drama. You can’t spend your whole life as the messy b*tch from a reality show and then suddenly say, ‘Can we have some decorum here, please?’ ” —The Daily Show's Jordan Klepper

Brian Mann of NPR went to Santiago, Chile to explore the country’s low birth rate, much lower than in the US, though the US rate is dropping and many of the reasons are the same. The birth rate in Chile is 1.6, well below the 2.1 rate of a stable population. Many social systems – the economy, labor market, and pensions – are based on a new generation big enough to replace the older ones. These systems will have problems if the new generation is notably smaller. Some of the reasons for the low birth rate: Younger women want fewer kids or don’t want kids at all, seeing them as a burden and great expense. Or they are delaying having kids until later in life after they are well established in their careers. To them being a mother means a loss of freedom and a loss of body autonomy. The number of women earning college degrees and entering the workforce is rising. They are rejecting the idea that the purpose of a woman is to give birth to and take care of children. They have almost erased teen pregnancy in the last 20 years. Immigration could relieve some of the problems of a low birth rate. But Chile is following the US opinion that immigration, even from elsewhere in South America, is seen as an invasion. They fear what makes the Chilean national character will be extinguished. Of course, conservative political leaders decry the loss of the mother-child bond. They propose policies to encourage women to have more children. The influential Catholic Church also preaches motherhood. Women respond by saying the government and the Church will not change their decision.

Ideological bumper stickers are for fundraising, not life

Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported the Big Brutal Bill has passed the Senate. Three Republican senators voted no so the vice nasty broke the tie in favor of passage. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska seemed to be heading towards no, but the Republican leadership gave her a deal that the Medicaid cuts won’t hit Alaska and threw in some other goodies so she voted yes. How sweet that Alaska is protected from a bill that screws over all the other states. How annoying that Murkowski doesn’t care about all the other states. And then said she hoped the House would correct some of the bill’s problems. The bill goes back to the House because the Senate made changes to what the House passed. One of those changes was deeper Medicaid cuts. Already some of the Freedom Caucus members are saying the bill doesn’t cut Medicaid and the social safety net enough. They don’t like how the bill will balloon the national debt and they certainly aren’t going to give up on tax cuts to the wealthy. Singer reported the vice nasty wrote on X:

The thing that will bankrupt this country more than any other policy is flooding the country with illegal immigration and then giving those migrants generous benefits. The OBBB fixes this problem. And therefore it must pass. Everything else—the [Congressional Budget Office] score, the proper baseline, the minutiae of the Medicaid policy—is immaterial compared to the ICE money and immigration enforcement provisions.

Yeah, he wrote that throwing millions of people off Medicaid is “immaterial” and just “minutiae.” Singer rebuts the opening lie: Immigrants lower budget deficits by about $100 billion a year because undocumented workers pay taxes but can’t receive benefits. Then Singer quoted several Democrats who say the loss of Medicaid is not “minutiae.” Merlin196360 of the Kos community used a term I like: “MAGAcaid.” They started their post with a tweet from digby:

One more time, folks. This isn't a Trump thing. “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.”--Vice President Dick Cheney "They'll get over it." - Mitch McConnell This is all performative nonsense meant to secure tax cuts and keep working America poor, sick and desperate. It's their raison de'etre.

Merlin196360 added:

While some element of fear of Trump supporters may have played a role in MAGAcaid, what’s really going on is that the current GOP is filled with people who simply hate to pay taxes for the social safety net. Full stop. The legacy media still talks about — cough, cough — “moderates” in Congress, but I’m with Catherine Rampell of now MSNBC: GOP moderates on the Hill are like Bigfoot sightings. There is no proof they exist.

Republicans say they vote for the bill because they fear the nasty guy. But what this post says, and what I’ve concluded, is Republicans, nearly all of them, want the Medicaid cuts because they hate paying taxes so that other people get “free stuff.” I don’t know the origins of the various pieces of this gigantic bill. I know the nasty guy campaigned on extending the big tax cuts that favor the wealthy. Did he also say the cuts should be “paid for” by cutting Medicaid? Or did that cruel mess come from Congressional Republican leadership? Oliver Willis of Kos reported that Elon Musk decried the bill the Senate passed because it isn’t cruel enough, it doesn’t cut the social safety net enough. When one hast $400 billion (didn’t Musk lose about half that over the last half-year?) why does the cost of Medicaid matter so much to him? Why does he demand to make the lives of poor people even worse? From what I’ve figured out he doesn’t value his life for who he is or for the huge amount of money he has. He values the difference between what he has and what the lowest people have. The further he beats them down the better he thinks he looks. Musk’s comments did not please the nasty guy, so their “feud” is back on. The nasty guy is talking about having DOGE examine Musk’s billions in government contracts. He also mentioned perhaps deporting Musk, sending him back to South Africa. That is one worth sending back. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin had a few good quotes. A tweet from Greg Sargent commented on the vice nasty’s quote above:

What JD Vance is really doing here is telling MAGA voters who are set to lose health coverage due to Medicaid cuts not to think too much about that eventuality. It'll all be worth it once they get to see lots more migrants detained and frog-marched on to deportation planes.

Jilll Lawrence of The Bulwark talked about transgender kids:

Studies do not support the idea that peer pressure leads to “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” among susceptible teens or young adults (the “social contagion” effect). In addition, research shows that the prevalence of regret among people who transition is “extremely low.” And intriguing recent research points to possible factors in brain anatomy that correlate with identifying as transgender—which suggests it is wrong to describe transgender identity as a “subjective preference,” as the Ohio attorney general did in 2023. So let’s be clear: Trump’s “two-genders-only” is not science, it’s an ideological bumper sticker. Fundraising pitches are just that simple, but life is not. Here’s what the American Medical Association told governors in 2021: “Empirical evidence has demonstrated that trans and non-binary gender identities are normal variations of human identity and expression.”

G Elliott Morris tweeted a graph about Medicaid. Before I got to that I thought to check what the government spends on Medicaid. The number isn’t straightforward because Medicaid is open-ended. The federal program pays a particular percent of whatever the state Medicaid programs incur under the rules of the time. At least that’s what I came up with while scanning a Medicaid financing document put out by Congress. The closest I came up with for a dollar amount was from Figure 2: All personal health care in 2023 was $4.1 trillion. Medicaid paid 18.8% of that total or $771 billion. Figure 3 says that for 2023 federal spending was $614 billion and state programs paid $280 billion. However, news organizations have been saying there would be $800 billion in cuts to Medicaid. I didn’t flunk arithmetic all those decades ago and I’m pretty sure $771 billion is less than $800 billion. Then I see, as in this article from CBS News, there is a missing phrase (at least in my memory): “over a decade.” So $80 billion a year (or $93 billion a year in the Senate version). That makes more sense. Which means (a guess here) that for 2026 the cut is about 10%. So back to that graph that Morris tweeted. It divided up the Medicaid recipients in 2022 into groups. 37% were children and 9% were 65 and over. That meant 54% were working age. Out of that 54%, 48% (or 26% of the total) worked that year. 7% worked the next year 27% were disabled. 12% would soon leave Medicaid. And only 6% (or 3% of the total) were not working. From the way Republicans say it (and I quite possible have mixed this up) they want to get that 3% working so they institute work requirements and figure Medicaid expenses will go down by 10%. Yeah, my math isn’t mathing. In the comments are several good cartoons and memes. One by Kevin Kallaugher shows a globe with dynamite attached that is labeled “US Gov’t, Int’l Relations, Int’l Trade, The Environment, ETC.” The nasty guy is about to set off the dynamite. Behind him is this discussion:

Lady Liberty: “Are you going to watch and do nothing?!” Elephant: “NO!! I’m going to close my eyes and do nothing!”

Art Garfunky posted a cartoon of a cop holding up a skin color chart beside a stopped driver. The pale colors on top are labeled “Ignore” while the darker shades are labeled “Yank out of car.” Garfunky added:

There are almost a million people residing here illegally from Europe, Canada, and Australia, but you don’t see footage of ICE hassling them.

In a cartoon Lalo Alcaraz has a better name for the new detention center in Florida I wrote about yesterday. He calls it “Alligator Auschwitz.” exlrrp posted a tweet from the Florida GOP. They are indeed selling “Alligator Alcatraz” shirts and other merch. paulpro posted a meme that starts with a tweet from Adam Kinzinger, “Imagine being a grown man waiting for Donald Trump to tell you what to do. Lol. Super beta.” paulpro replied to that with a cartoon by Clay Bennett showing a man in his hands and knees wearing a GOP shirt and red hat with a dog collar around his neck and holding a leash in his mouth looking up at a guy in a dark suit and red tie. In another tweet paulpro quoted a tweet by The Serfs: “If it took 8 days to build a massive concentration camp in Florida then it means they could build and house the homeless at any point but choose not to.” Then paulpro quoted chris.writes.books:

Elon Musk said, “Homelessness is a lie.” Hear that? A billionaire thinks you’re faking your poverty. You genuinely can’t make this up. Even comic book villains are less cartoonishly evil.

Captain Frogbert responded to cartoons about abortion (which I won’t describe) first with a quote:

The conservative solution to any problem is always the proximate cause of the problem to begin with.

Then Frogbert added:

How to have fewer abortions: + Provide universal, age-appropriate sex education. + Safe and effective birth control to everyone asking for it. + Universal healthcare including pre- and post-natal care. + Ensure a living wage for all Americans. + Secure the civil rights of women. + Investigate and punish all rape severely. + Teach boys to be better men. + Do the work needed to make abortions safe, legal, and rare. How NOT to have fewer abortions, but ensure more women die: + Criminalize abortion. Conservatism is ignorant and harmful to humanity. Conservatism is not Christian.

In June, the views of this blog set a record of 48,310 views. It is quite a bit higher than any month in over a year. In the last 30 days (which doesn’t line up with June, but it is info I can get), 18 thousand views came from Brazil, 13.5 thousand from the US, 8.9 thousand from Vietnam (!), and about 1.5 thousand from both Britain and Argentina. Blogger will give me view counts from 19 countries and at the bottom of the list is Colombia with 133 views. In the last 7 days there were 7.5 thousand views from Brazil, 6.8 thousand from the US, 2.2 thousand from Vietnam, down to 38 from Russia. In overall statistics (from when Blogger started keeping stats for me in 2010) the top ten countries are the US (238 thousand), Singapore, Hong Kong, Italy, France, Brazil, Russia, Germany, Vietnam, and Sweden (9.8 thousand). Brazil hit the top ten in January and is now at 6th. Vietnam didn’t have enough views for me to notice until mid May and is now at 9th. The number of views has been climbing since March 2024, when it was 2668 views. There were a few months in the year before then that had high counts, but not consistently. After 17 years of writing the world has found my blog and declared it worth reading.

When they can’t win a fair fight, they rig the system

I finished the book The Gravity of Us by Phil Stamper. It’s a gay teen romance that is science fiction adjacent. The narrator is Cal. He lives in Brooklyn and finished his junior year in high school. He’s a budding journalist and has a social media following for his video posts of what is going on around NYC. He occasionally creates news, such as asking city candidates awkward questions they didn’t expect from a teen. Then his father announces he’s the final hire in NASA’s class of 20 astronauts for their program to go to Mars. The move to Houston happens Monday. Cal is upset at leaving his life in Brooklyn. Once in Houston Cal sees most of the astronauts are parents of young children, with one exception. Kat and Leon are his age and Cal is immediately attracted to Leon. We know where this is going. NASA’s funding to go to Mars is in a large part because of StarWatch, a celebrity gossip network. Their program Shooting Stars is about the astronauts and their families, the modern version of Life magazine which presented the 1960s astronauts to the public. The show host and producers thrive on presenting the families with as much drama and not-quite scandal as possible. Some of the astronauts have gotten good at deflecting or redirecting those attacks. StarWatch does not like Cal offering an alternate portrayal, one of information and truth. NASA does. That is the driving conflict of the story. I enjoyed the book. I call it science fiction adjacent because the focus isn’t on getting to Mars, it’s on StarWatch and Cal, who is helped by NASA’s public relations office. I was amused and baffled by one small point. The cover illustration shows two young men sitting on the ground with their backs to us watching a rocket launch. Their fingers are intertwined. I got the impression that one was white, the other black. But because of the light of the launch I could not be sure. I was about a third of the way through the book before skin color was mentioned in passing, then it was never mentioned again. Race was never a factor in their growing relationship. Yeah, that’s a good thing. However, without those brief mentions of skin color Cal and Leon would be seen as two white lads. Alex Samuels of Daily Kos reported that the law firms that caved to the nasty guy’s demands are facing serious backlash from their clients. The nasty guy targeted these law firms because at some point they helped his opponents. He pulled security clearances to make business difficult for them. Then he offered a deal – give him millions of dollars in free legal help for his unconstitutional agenda and he would return them to his good graces. Several firms sued. At least nine major firms submitted and took the deal. In response, many of their clients are walking. Their reasoning is simple. If the law firm can’t stand up for itself it’s not going to stand up for its clients. The firms look like the legal arm of the White House. They lost credibility. Submitting has a steep price. That’s in addition to many of their lawyers leaving for other, more ethical, law firms or starting new ones. Carter Walker, in an article for Votebeat posted on Kos, discussed voter fraud in the 2021 mayoral election in tiny Millbourne, Pennsylvania, suburb of Philadelphia. It’s tiny as in 50 acres, less than a tenth of a square mile, and about 1,200 residents. It is now majority Asian and many are Bangladesh immigrants. The fraud was done by Muhammad Nurul Hasan with help from Muhammad Munsur Ali. They illegally registered dozens of nonresidents as Millbourne voters, then cast ballots for them. Hasan’s opponent was Mahabubul Tayub. He reviewed the voter rolls before the election because adding 29 names to the rolls in a short time in a town with 600 voters didn’t make sense. Tayub recognized the names of several people who did not live in Millbourne. Last month Hasan pleaded guilty. Walker noted that these small cases of election fraud are used to claim fraud is rampant and laws to protect against it (while actually suppressing voters) are necessary. But cases of fraud look like what happened in Millbourne – a small number of people affecting a small number of votes that could make a difference in a local race. Scaling up the effort to make a difference in a state or national race is much more difficult. It would involve a lot of people, and they would leave markers that officials would see. The perpetrators would be caught. Alas, the difficulty in scaling up is not a persuasive argument. And that can undermine trust. The Millbourne town council is only five members. Two resigned for reasons unrelated to fraud. The three remaining members, barely a quorum, include Hasan and Ali. Though they are convicted (sentencing pending) they are still on the council. Nothing says they must resign. And if they did the council could do nothing until new members could be voted in. That is making for difficult moments in the tiny council meeting room. The Congressional Budget Office rated the Big Brutal Bill, about to be taken up by the Senate, and said the bill will raise the national debt by trillions. Some Republicans by saying the CBO has been taken over by partisan hacks and its numbers can’t be trusted. They claim big tax cuts for billionaires will actually pay for themselves – a line Republicans have been using consistently since Reagan with plenty of evidence the opposite is true. In yesterday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet by Jessica Reidl:

Elected Republicans are coalescing around the talking point that CBO's tax cut estimates are complete fiction and that tax cuts pay for themselves. Well, CBO's 2018 and 2019 revenue estimates - which included the previous year's TCJA - were ... 99.5% accurate.

The TCJA is the 2017 tax cut bill. Way down in the comments exlrrp posted a couple memes about Elon Musk:

Elon Musk, who was once worth over $400 billion in December 2024, has seen his fortune plunge by $200 billion, setting a new world record for the largest personal wealth loss in history.

Contrast that with this:

Elon Must is officially out of DOGE. It might look like he failed since he didn’t save us any money, find waste, or uncover fraud, but his true goal was in data mining and on that front, he made out like a bandit.

In today’s roundup Chitown Kev quoted Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo about Musk’s departure from the White House along with Musk calling the Big Brutal Bill and abomination.

Musk isn’t shifting sides here. He’s complaining that the cuts to social programs in the GOP budget aren’t deep enough. He claims this is about growing deficits. But he’s not said anything about the centerpiece high income tax cuts which are the drivers of those deficits. So while it’s probably obvious to most of you reading this, it’s important to note that Musk isn’t in any way switching sides...I’m skeptical.

Down in the comments are several cartoons and meme in response to what Sen. Joni Ernst said in a town hall meeting. Ernst talked about how wonderful the Big Brutal Bill was. A constituent said that because of the cuts to Medicaid people would die. Ernst cold-heartedly replied, “We’re all going to die.” My favorite cartoon shows a man on the ground reaching towards Jesus, who says, “Why bother healing you? We’re all going to die.” Three weeks ago Lisa Needham of Kos discussed the nasty guy’s efforts to keep us in the dark. He closed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Weather and Climate Disasters program so we can’t learn the cost of extreme weather events. Also, agencies are barred from considering the economic effects of climate change. Don’t believe in climate change? Don’t track the costs of climate change which allows pretending it doesn’t exist. Also gone are over a dozen health-tracking programs. Who needs to know about pregnancy risks, cancer clusters, childhood lead poisoning, domestic violence, or police misconduct? If risks can’t be shown there is no downside to eliminating regulations.

If Republicans refuse to track the bad effects of their bad policies, they can obscure the harms their policies create. Genius move for them, but bad news for everyone else.

Yeah, this is a chance to clean out my browser tabs. Nearly four weeks ago Oliver Willis of Kos tackled the question of why the right hates colleges. He gives several examples. Yeah, the attack on Harvard and other top schools. There is the harsh restart of payments of student loans and the work to eliminate the Department of Education and its programs who help the financially disadvantaged to get to college. So why? One answer is that conservatives have long seen college as a source of liberal indoctrination – their children come home as liberal radicals. But millions of college graduates voted for Republicans.

What is really going on isn’t indoctrination, but a failure of conservatism to win the war of ideas. And as is so often the case with the right, when they can’t win a fair fight, they try to rig the system from the inside. Republicans fail to enlist those who go through a college education to their side of the aisle, so they undermine student loan programs, try to bully colleges, and even attempt to turn college sports into another casualty of the bigoted “culture war.”

Only fools and toddlers care about contribution limits

My Sunday movie was The Piano Lesson, a screen adaptation of August Wilson’s play available on Netflix. This is not about someone sitting at the piano and learning to play it. The story, set mostly in Pittsburgh in 1936, is the conflict between Boy Willie and his sister Bernice. He wants to sell the piano to get enough money to buy the land where their ancestors were slaves. He’s quite intense in his demand. She refuses to sell because it is a family heirloom – one of their slave ancestors carved family portraits into the wood. Because of bad memories she also refuses to play it. There are questions why this land is now available. The descendant of the slave owner died by falling down his well. Was he pushed? Why does Bernice say she sees the landowner’s ghost in her house in Pittsburgh? I enjoyed it. I had held off on watching it because it didn’t get great reviews. I would have placed it higher than the Metacritic score of 69. It came out last year and I heard about it both because it is based on the August Wilson play and because it is a Washington family production. Boy Willie is played by John David. It’s directed by brother Malcolm who also co-wrote the screenplay. Don’t recognize those names? And one of the producers was father Denzel. I’m sure you recognize that one. In a minor role was Olivia and a bit of searching showed she is Malcolm’s twin. And the credits show Katia, John David’s older sister as another producer. Alex Samuels of Daily Kos discussed some of the recent surveys. One of interest is opinions of aspects of the nasty guy’s agenda. For example, opinions on various parts of his immigration policy show 39% of adults in support, 45% opposed, for a net difference of -6. The topics include DEI at net -14, executive power at -26, and at the bottom is health care at -31. At the top at net +10, and the only one positive, is LGBTQ rights. Scary that his policies are aimed at rolling back our rights, yet 10% more people support his position than don’t. Samuels wrote:

Why the outlier? It’s likely because Trump’s LGBTQ+ policies are really about attacking transgender people. For instance, rather than loudly going after same-sex marriage, which a strong majority of Americans want to remain legal, Trump is targeting a vulnerable minority. And unfortunately, discomfort with transgender people remains widespread, even among Democrats. As grim as that is, it explains why a lot of voters support Trump here.

Another survey of interest was about safety of air travel. Plane accidents for the last three months are down compared to last year, but public perception says safety is worse. Samuels says part of the answer is the media coverage of the big disasters. Another part is the nasty guy, in pushing to fire air traffic controllers, is not helping public confidence. Andrew Mangan of Kos says the nasty guy is waging war on our fridges. He’s doing it in two ways. First, the Food and Drug Administration is planning to end most routine food safety inspections. Some, but not all, inspections can be shifted to the state. 84% of voters oppose such a move, including 75% of Republicans. The second war on fridges is the plan to end the Energy Star program. This is the blue star logo that indicates how energy efficient an appliance is compared to similar products. It has saved more than a half trillion dollars in energy costs. Every $1 the Environmental Protection Agency spend on the program resulted in nearly $350 in energy savings and massively reduced greenhouse emissions driving he climate crisis. Yep, 55% of voters oppose killing it. 86% of Democrats want the EPA to keep funding the program, though only 22% of Republicans feel the same way. I had talked about the nasty guy boosting the value of his personal crypto currency by offering investors dinner with him. Yeah, that dinner has happened, and Emily Singer of Kos says it was as corrupt as one might think it would be. The dinner was held at his own golf club in Virginia and he used a military helicopter to get there (as in taxpayer-funded), yet the White House won’t release a guest list because the nasty guy attended on personal time. That detail is of interest because the Supreme Court said he immune from prosecution only for official acts. (So is someone going to prosecute?) The attendees said they spent millions on the coin to get access to the nasty guy. These are foreign nationals, people who are banned from contributing to his campaign. The top contributor was Chinese crypto magnate Justin Sun who spent $40 million. He’s been sued by the SEC for fraud. He got a gold watch for his troubles (plus face time with the nasty guy). Another investor praised the nasty for being good to his sponsors, who expect a return on investment. Singer wrote: “That's as blatant of a ‘pay-to-play’ scandal as it gets.” Lisa Needham of Kos has a weekly series titled Injustice For All to show the nasty guy is trying to weaponize the justice system and the people fighting back. In last Saturday’s edition Needham wrote vice nasty declared that Chief Justice John Roberts doesn’t understand the judiciary, saying the judiciary is supposed to allow the deportations the American people voted for. Needham wrote:

Good god, man. The Roberts court invented immunity for Donald Trump. The Roberts court is the reason you have a job. The Roberts court is wholly controlled by your allies. The executive is not exactly beleaguered here, you big baby. But aside from Vance’s usual whining about how oppressed the Trump administration is, this is also spectacularly wrongheaded in terms of how separation of powers works. Vance’s theory of governance seems to be the one that the administration as a whole has settled on: Because people elected Trump, they implicitly endorsed every future action Trump takes, so courts can’t rule otherwise. If they rule against the administration, goes the thinking, that violates the separation of powers. Such a theory, of course, makes courts entirely unnecessary, which may actually be Vance’s goal.

Needham also wrote about that crypto dinner.

What is the current price of dinner with the president? Well, it’s variable based on the price of his stupid crypto meme coin, but here’s how it breaks down: 220 people, many of whom are anonymous, bought $394 million of scammy crypto coins owned mainly by two Trump-affiliated private companies. Individual spend ranged from $55,000 to $37.7 million, averaging out at roughly $1.7 million per head. Federal per-person campaign contributions are capped at $3,500, but everyone knows that only fools and toddlers care about that. Savvy folks know the move is just to bribe the president directly by investing in whatever scam he’s got going. Never thought we’d long for the low-key days of everyone bribing Trump by spending a few thousand bucks at his D.C. hotel. Things used to be so innocent.

Walter Einenkel of Kos wrote that the Qatari jet has been delivered to the Department of Defense. This is the gift that is worth $400 million, but the DoD would need to spend a billion to make it usable as Air Force One. The necessary modifications probably won’t be done before the nasty guy’s term is up. That means the plane should go straight to the presidential library. That presidential library is becoming a corruption magnet. Missed out on donating to the inauguration? It broke records in pulling in money. So the next way to get time with the nasty guy is to donate to his library. Donating to him directly is supposed to be illegal because of the Constitution’s Emolument Clause. Mother Jones wrote that because of the nasty guy’s known shady handling of classified document and his lack of transparency we should not believe what anyone of his team says about how much is actually going to the library and how much to current pockets. Yeah, presidential libraries are expensive. The price tag for constructing Obama’s is about $830 million. But building his was not an invitation for bribes. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Crispin Sartwell of Splice Today, a person Kev is surprised he agrees with enough to quote.

Let me express my skepticism. I don’t think that Biden’s cognitive decline or his late withdrawal made a decisive difference in the outcome. And I think the direct claim that it did, as in Klein’s headline (the “cover-up” “re-elected Trump”) is self-serving in a familiar way. Also in a way that indicates that Democrats will find it difficult to absorb useful lessons from their 2024 disaster. [...] I don’t think that the Democrats would’ve won in 2024 if Kamala had had more time to run. I agreed with those commentators who at the time argued that the compressed schedule might be an advantage for her. I don’t think that there are good reasons to believe that if there had been a full-fledged or compressed primary and the Democrats had nominated Buttigieg or Shapiro or Whitmer that they would’ve done any better. Harris was as plausible a candidate as any, and ran a fairly competent campaign. The Democrats are fooling themselves if they stick to Biden’s dementia as their explanation, and that without a more honest assessment, they’re liable to lose again. Going into Election Day, everyone on both sides and in between seemed to agree that 2024 was “a referendum on Trump.” I think, by and large, that’s just what it was, and that a variety of factors had the whole country, essentially every region and every demographic group, trending to Trump by Election Day. I don’t see any reason to believe that it would’ve been any different with Gretchen Whitmer. Trump is an overwhelming personality who’d become even more overwhelming after his 2020 loss. It’s hard to focus on anything else while he’s there, yapping and thrashing away. Maybe there wasn’t even exactly a rightwards sing in 2024, but rather a swing to Trump, which isn’t ideologically defined except perhaps as a sort of screeching nationalism.

Peter Orszag is a former Office of Management and Budget Director and writes for The New York Times.

For years it was reasonable to tune out the worrywarts carping about deficits. With very low interest rates, a lack of particularly attractive alternatives to U.S. Treasuries for investors and a muted market reaction to serial Capitol Hill dramas over raising the debt limit, those who bemoaned the unsustainability of deficit spending and debt levels seemed to cry wolf — a lot. Even as a former White House budget director, I grew skeptical of their endless warnings. Not anymore. Two things have changed: First, the wolf is now lurking much closer to our door. Annual federal budget deficits are running at 6 percent of G.D.P. or higher, compared with well under 3 percent a decade ago. Interest rates on 10-year Treasuries have more than doubled — around 4.5 percent now versus just over 2 percent then — and in the current fiscal year the government is projected to spend more on interest payments than on defense, Medicaid or Medicare. That’s right: Our borrowing now costs us more each year than each of these big, essential budget items. Meanwhile, federal debt held by the public, excluding Federal Reserve holdings, as a share of G.D.P. has increased by about a third since 2015. The Congressional Budget Office, which I once led, projects that by 2029, our debt as a share of our economy will grow to levels unprecedented since the years after World War II. All of this is occurring against a backdrop of an even more polarized political system, increased tension with foreign debt holders and less confidence in American security protections that promoted the dollar as the world’s safe haven.

Back in mid May Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos honored George Carlin on what would have been his 88th birthday. One of the Carlin quotes:

To my way of thinking, men have only one real problem: other men. That's where all the trouble starts. A long time ago, men gave away their power. To other men: princes, kings, wizards, generals and high priests. They gave it away, because they believed what these other men told them. They bought into the okeydoke. The bulls---. Men always buy the okeydoke when it comes from other men.

Mike Luckovich posted a cartoon on Kos. It shows a man, woman, and child wearing life jackets and in the water. The man’s life jacket is labeled Medicaid. An elephant in a speedboat comes alongside and says, “You heard me. Billionaires need your life jackets...”

No use for robust public corruption investigations

I finished the book A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain. I’m contrasting it with the book The Cross-Time Engineer, by Leo Frankowski and the rest of the eight books in his Conrad Stargard series. Twain’s book, published in 1889, is about Hank from that time who gets a blow to the head and wakes up 528. A couple days later he uses a solar eclipse to save his life and establish himself as a magician to rival Merlin. Not many people in the 19th century know the dates of eclipses thirteen centuries before. Hank becomes The Boss, top aide to King Arthur. Frankowski’s book was published almost 100 years later in 1986. It is essentially a remake of Twain’s story. Conrad, a young engineer in Poland, is transported back to 1231. Once he realizes what has happened to him he sees he has a huge task – Mongols will destroy Poland in ten years. In time travel stories the question is whether or not to change history and in what way. There is a subgenre featuring time police. If the goal is to change history, does the change take hold by the end of the tale and we understand it will persist, firmly altering the history we know? In Twain’s tale, the basics of Arthur’s legend are there – Guenevere, Launcelot, Morgan le Fey, Mordred have their usual roles. The Round Table and its knights are there but Twain says nothing about what made the table special. Instead, Hank declares his disgust with kings – nobility in general – and church officials who fill the heads of commoners with superstitions to keep the nobility in power. Hank tries to work the system to bring about a republic, a society of equals. Since he is second only to Arthur he tries to sell that idea. Over four years he develops schools and the basics of 19th century industry, which soon includes the telephone and guns. But when Hank goes out in public he is still expected to wear armor, which gives Twain a chance to rant about how uncomfortable it was. I was disappointed that Twain didn’t show how Hank caused that industry to come into being. But Twain wasn’t an engineer and went with his strengths, portraying the injustices humans perpetrate on each other. But he recognizes the superstitions the people grew up with will not be overcome. That’s one reason for the schools. Causing that industry to come into being is exactly what the Frankowski books are all about, which is why I was disappointed it wasn’t in Twain’s book. Conrad builds one concept onto another, first the basics of industry and schooling, then modernizing Polish society, especially the military so it can repel the Mongols. Every so often I fantasize about how I would go about things (minus the military part) if I was in Conrad’s position. I enjoyed Twain’s book and appreciate his defense of democracy and the equality of humans. The first five of of Frankowski’s stories were printed from 1986 to 1990. I enjoyed them very much when they came out. The sixth book came out in 1998. I was annoyed enough with the ending that I was done with Frankowski’s stories. So I didn’t read the prequel (that explains the time machine) that came out in 2002 or the final book that appeared in 2005. From online reviews I didn’t miss much. I might have a different opinion of the whole series if I read them today because Conrad’s dealings with women isn’t the best. Fandango at Home lists three Connecticut Yankee movies. One featuring Will Rogers came out in 1931. Another stars Bing Crosby in a musical version released in 1949. The third was released in 1989 and it is a black woman who goes back in time. Alas, none appear to be highly rated. Wikipedia has a long list of adaptations as movies (the first in 1921), TV movies and series, cartoons, stage shows, and other books. Frankowski’s books aren’t in the list. Long ago I saw a scene from the Bing Crosby version and today I watched the trailer. I don’t think I want to see this story as a musical. Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reported on a surprising ruling from the Supreme Court. The case is out of Oklahoma and is about whether the Catholic Church can run a public charter school and have it teach Catholicism. Yes, that’s a violation of the separation of Church and State. So the decision should be simple. But we’re talking about a very conservative Supreme Court. The first surprise is that Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the case. This is a Court becoming known for justices not recusing themselves even when the outside world can see a clear conflict of interest. Justices don’t have to give a reason for a recusal, but Barrett likely did it because she taught at Notre Dame University and their religious liberty clinic represented the case before the court. The second surprise was that the decision was deadlocked at 4-4, not the expected 5-3. When deadlocked the Court doesn’t need to give its reasoning and doesn’t have to tell how justices voted. Even so, oral arguments suggest Chief Justice Roberts voted with the liberals. So the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling stands, which said the Catholic Church cannot run a public school. Don’t consider the issue dead. The Catholic Church will try again, perhaps through another state. This next time they won’t ask Notre Dame to represent them. Or... Needham reported that Republicans are proposing a federal voucher system. It would allow federal money to be spent on religious schools (see Church and State above) which would pull money from public schools. These schools discriminate against LGBTQ student and don’t have services for learning challenged or disabled students. For conservatives, all that is a big win. The proposed system would demand participation from states that have laws or constitutions that prohibit funding church related schools. Also, the funding proposed, $5 billion a year for four years, won’t be nearly enough for the expected demand. Voucher money is mostly claimed by parents who have already been sending students to private schools (showing they can afford them) or homeschooling them. Which means the money not going to public schools affects poorer students. Conservatives like to proclaim vouchers give parents a choice, meaning the parents would choose the better schools. But these schools are shown to mostly be a lot worse than public schools. Kos of Kos reported Senate Republicans voted to strip California’s right to set its own vehicle emission standards. That’s bad because it is hostile to the climate and defiant of states’ rights. If it gets any further than the Senate it will be tied up in courts for years. Kos found good news in the move – for Republicans to get their way they gutted the filibuster. The filibuster, requiring a supermajority of 60 vote, is anti-democracy. And it has a long history of being used in racist ways. Also, even though at the moment Democrats could use the filibuster to stop some things Republicans want to do, most of the time the filibuster hurts Democrats. That’s because the Senate gives more power to smaller states, which lately are strongly Republican. Also, Republicans have carved out filibuster exceptions whenever it suited their agenda. So why were Democrats clinging to it (see Joe Manchin)? As for the current situation:

Yes, it means Republicans can pass bad laws when they’re in charge, but that’s democracy. Let the public see what happens when they put the GOP in power. Let Democrats offer a clear alternative. No more hiding behind obscure rules, no more excuses.

Several Democrats warned that when they’re in power again they have a lot of bills they want to pass and will be glad Republicans can’t stop them. Needham does a weekly column on how the nasty guy is trying to weaponize the justice system and the people fighting back. In her column from a week ago this is her last bit:

Can’t get in trouble for corruption if you stop investigating corruption. The FBI is shuttering its public corruption squad. You’d think an administration so committed to pretending to be rooting out fraud and firing traitorous deep state federal employees would want to keep the team that was responsible for those things. But the public corruption squad, working with special counsel Jack Smith, is the unit that investigated Trump’s many crimes. In this instance, the squad wasn’t likely shut down simply because it hurt Trump’s feelings. An administration that is 100% committed to its own graft and enabling the graft of others has no use for robust public corruption investigations. After all, that would greatly interfere with Trump’s effort to turn the government into his own personal corruption machine.

In a separate post from this past Tuesday Needham discussed the ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell that was filed in response to DOGE forcibly dismantling the United States Institute of Peace. The USIP isn’t a government agency, but a nonprofit corporation. Yet, DOGE showed up with with the DC Metro Police and the FBI to break in. Howell’s ruling listed a lot of reasons why this DOGE action was unlawful. But it didn’t put a stop to the destruction. The administration obeying this order is doubtful. From their point of view the longer they drag this out (with appeals to Circuit Courts and Supremes) the more likely the USIP can’t be put back together. It has already been damaged. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet by Billy Binion reacting to the nasty guy’s announcement of a 25% tariff on Apple iPhones not manufactured in America:

You will not be able to afford an iPhone. You will own 2 dolls. You will work in a factory. And you will be happy about it. That is actually the MAGA platform right now. What a wild time to be alive.

Down in the comments Carol *Resister Sister* posted a cartoon by Clay Bennett. It shows a car with several bumper stickers saying “Equality” with a rainbow background, “Climate Change,” “Gun Control Now,” “Black Lives Matter,” “Abortion Rights,” “Harris 2024.” The car has been stopped by the Department of Justice. The caption says, “Driving while Democrat.” The Naked Pastor posted a cartoon showing Jesus visiting the nasty guy. Jesus says, “Hey, I have an idea! Why not use your power for the good of all?” The nasty guy says, “Get behind me, Satan!” The caption says, “The problem is, unwise people often think the evil they are doing is actually good.” Bill in Portland, Maine, in yesterday’s Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, quoted late night commentary.

"Another wildly destructive day in Washington D.C. They pulled another all-nighter in the House, where they passed Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill.' And, man oh man, if this is the beautiful bill, I'd hate to see the ugly one. I'm not sure which part of the bill is the most beautiful: the part where we take food from hungry kids, or the devastating effect it'll have on college education, or the trillions of dollars it'll add to our national debt, or the almost 700-billion dollars in cuts to Medicaid. Either way, say goodbye to Grandma." —Jimmy Kimmel "If something is beautiful, you don’t do it after midnight." —Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who voted against the bill "How weird is it that the ‘news’ is selling you a book about news they should have told you was news a year ago for free? It's just fun to watch them continue to push the book in light of this difficult news [of Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis], but to actually frame this difficult news as even more of a reason to buy this book. ... Some observers might think, do these CNN people work on commission? Like, why are they hawking this f---ing thing? Is this a Girl Scout cookie situation? Whoever sells the most Tapper books gets a Schwinn?" —Jon Stewart, on CNN's disgusting 24/7 infomercial'ing of Jake Tapper's Biden hit job

How will I know I’m special if I don’t have all this?

I had written about the meeting between the nasty guy and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. The nasty guy kept pushing the racist lie of white genocide in South Africa and Ramaphosa tried to refute it. Oliver Willis of Daily Kos wrote that the video and paper images the nasty guy used as evidence were not at all what he claimed they were. A field of white crosses was a protest, not a burial ground. Another image was from Congo, not South Africa. And so forth. No, I’m not surprised. Lisa Needham of Kos wrote that U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy was getting mighty annoyed with Department of Justice lawyers. The reason was that the lawyers didn’t give deportees enough time to challenge their deportation. Then the lawyers refused to say which country the were sent to. South Sudan? Djibouti? Or maybe it was Narnia or Atlantis. Sending people to South Sudan is quite bad because the State Department says to avoid it because of armed conflict. DHS spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin said the crimes of these deportees are so uniquely dangerous that no other country would accept them. To that Needham wrote:

Show your work, Tricia. If these are the worst criminals in the world, surely you can easily prove that.

Emily Singer of Kos discussed a new poll by Civiqs for Kos. It shows that 46% of voters say that “bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. is more important than keeping prices low.” But 66% don’t want to be those factory workers. Only 5% said they already work in a factory. That poll was done because Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has been saying when manufacturing returns to the US workers would be glad to do the jobs. So what happens if manufacturing is brought onshore but nobody (or not enough people) want the jobs? Are Republicans trying to make life for the poor so difficult they’d be glad to take these jobs? Speaking of which, Singer reported that the One Big Beautiful Bill (I’ve replaced the third word with “ugly” and Singer used “cruel” though I think the best substitute is “brutal”) passed the House by one vote. It now goes to the Senate, where there is Republican opposition. But don’t be surprised if fealty to the nasty guy gets it passed anyway. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Michael Podhorzer of Weekend Reading:

The current backlash against Trump is exactly the outcome we’d expect to see if my long-standing argument is true: that America has an anti-MAGA majority, but not necessarily a pro-Democratic one. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the reality of American politics today is not a “realignment,” wherein the views and values of most ordinary Americans have become fundamentally more aligned with the views of MAGA Republicans. Rather it’s been a “dealignment” from both parties. Voters, increasingly distrustful of institutions and clamoring for substantial change that neither party is delivering, have punished incumbent parties in nine of the past ten elections—a D-R-D-R presidential alternation pattern unseen in over a century.

From Monica Hesse of the Washington Post discussing the nasty guy’s claim of white genocide in South Africa:

“Dead White farmers” was a bizarre fixation in what should have been a serious meeting. In three words, he invented a genocide. And then he spent the rest of the hour creating a different problem. Because every time he insisted that the mainstream media refused to cover the genocide of dead White farmers, he sowed more distrust in journalism. To the point that now, every time an article on the topic doesn’t appear, that in itself will become evidence for this genocide that is not actually happening. So if you came to this column because you Googled “dead White farmers,” here is your mainstream media coverage of the issue. I’m so sorry.

Harry Enten tweeted in response to Musk’s announcement that he will no longer donate to politics:

Why's Musk edging out of politics? Because he's political kryptonite. His net favorable plummeted: +24 pts to -19 pts. (It fell by 126 pts with Dems!) Musk crushed Tesla's popularity (-20 pt net favorable). Trump was done with him (100% drop in Truth Social posts about Musk).

I’m not sure how favorability can fall 126 points. I thought the scale maxed out at 100. In the comments is a cartoon by Dennis Goris. It shows the Capitol dome surrounded by the words:

We remember the poor and sick. As it is written. In the bill. Let us prey.

The caption: “From the book of big and beautiful” Nick Anderson posted a cartoon showing a pregnant woman with “Waste” on her forehead, a child with “Fraud” and an old woman with “Abuse.” The nasty guy, holding a sharpie, says “I told you we could make big spending cuts!” Thom Hartmann of the Kos community and an independent pundit started a discussion with a quote Neil deGrasse Tyson made this week.

If a foreign adversary snuck into our Federal budget and cut science research and education the way we’re cutting it ourselves — strategically undermining America’s long-term health, wealth, and security — we would likely consider it an act of war.

Almost two-thirds of Americans can’t afford life necessities. Income for the bottom 60% of Americans declined from 2001 to 2023. Before the pandemic a family earning $75,000 could afford half the homes on the market, now they can afford only 20% of homes. Hartmann talked about the Santa scam. Republicans claimed they were better than the Democratic social safety net by bestowing tax breaks. That was followed by declaring the national debt was a big problem, forcing Democrats to end social programs. The same scam is now being used to hollow out the American government. From the start of the nation until Reagan the federal government was consistent at paying off the national debt, which had only grown through war. The Revolutionary War was paid off in the 1830s. The Civil War was paid off by the end of the 19th century. Paying down WWI was interrupted by the Great Depression, but there was only $17 billion remaining. The debt from WWII was 106% of GDP, but was steadily paid down until Reagan took office. The national debt under Reagan rose by $2.4 trillion. That boosted the economy, masking Reagan’s faults and this plan’s faults. Hartmann said that Jude Wanniski came up with a “Two Santas” plan. As Hartmann described it, quoting Wanniski:

Force the Democrats to “shoot their Santa [of programs like Social Security and Medicaid] in the face.” Whenever a Republican is in the White House, Wanniski argued, Republicans should run up the debt as hard and fast as possible, so when a Democrat is in the White House they can squeal about “the debt our children will inherit! Oh, the humanity!”

Republicans have followed that plan for 44 years. Hartmann included a chart showing the national debt falling after WWII until 1981. It rose under Reagan/Bush I, fell a bit under Clinton, rose again under Bush II, then slowed under Obama, before rising quickly under the nasty guy. Biden’s efforts aren’t shown. By the chart, if Reagan hasn’t slashed taxes and balanced the budget we would have paid off WWII about year 2000. So the entire national debt since then is because of Reagan and Bush tax cuts (and now nasty guy cuts) and the illegal wars of Bush II. This tactic transferred about $50 trillion from the poor to the rich. In 1980 the middle class was about two-thirds of the population and did it on one paycheck. Now about 47% of Americans are middle class and require two paychecks to stay there. So that Big Brutal Bill is damaging education, changed the promotion of democracy to the embrace of dictators, and gutted the social safety net. I had written that the national debt is unsustainable. The reason is the national debt has passed the GDP, the total value of the American economy. I did an online search and found the GDP of America is just under $28 trillion and the national debt is above $36 trillion and the Brutal Bill could push it up to $40 trillion. Then Hartmann gets to his question. Why are Republicans doing this? Did Putin or Xi tell the nasty guy to do it? (Quite possibly.) Greed? Because democracy is outdated? And why is the media saying so little about this? I was a bit surprised that Hartmann keeps saying nobody knows. Commenters to the article give a good try at answering the question: Greed. Power. Commenter mozartsister explained what I had also developed on my own.

I’ve said this before, but my ultimate light bulb moment was when my rich friend took me to lunch in the mahogany-clad dining room at his country club, where the waitress greeting him by name. He said, sweeping his arm around the room, “How will I know I’m special if I don’t have all this?” It was power, it was stuff, but above all it was the deepest need imaginable to prove yourself superior to and more deserving than others. To me, those are the two fundamental belief systems: his, which I think of as authoritarianism, which categorizes people into groups, hierarchies, of more or less worth. And mine, which I think of as humanism, in which all people (and all living beings, actually) fundamentally have innate dignity and worth, i.e. all humans are equal on an existential level. Looking at things this way has been very useful for me in explaining a lot of what’s going on, from white supremacy to dismantling democracy to the Silicon Valley tech bros. Capitalism is based on the “deserving” worldview; democracy is based in the “equality” worldview. They could be more compatible than they are, but I’m not holding out a lot of hope lately.