We learned it’s high time to get off fossil fuels

In 2024 the nasty guy made an explicit deal when he asked oil executives for a billion dollars and promised to gut climate rules. He kept that promise by killing wind, solar, and EV incentives. Then he invaded Iran and they’re enjoying big profits from the high prices. Thom Hartmann of the Daily Kos community wrote that a few oil tankers are getting through the Strait of Hormuz and the price came down a bit.

Meanwhile, though, the big lesson the world seems to have learned because of Trump’s fiasco — other than that our military is under the control of an irresponsible alcoholic and a narcissist and unreliable wannabe king — is that it’s high time to get off fossil fuels. Starting a stupid and criminal war is probably the dumbest way to wake the world up to the need to kick their/our collective addiction, but here we are: the war has done more to encourage conservation and the transition to renewables than any other single effort by anybody anywhere in recent memory.

The International Energy Agency reported global oil demand has fallen 2.5%, the equivalent of 42 million gas-burning cars. Hartmann described the German “100,000 Rooftops” program approved about 2000. Banks and power companies worked together to get solar panels on to 100,000 rooftops. The program was basically free to residents. The power companies were in on it because they could avoid building new power plants and even decommission old ones. Solar now supplies about 14% of Germany’s power, and that’s for the cloudiest country in Europe. EVs sell well elsewhere in the world, nearly 100% of sales in Norway, 30% across the EU, and 50% in China. In the US EVs sell 5.8%. In America the price of oil does not include externalities, the other things, “the cancers and the asthma, the wildfires and the floods, or the wars we fight to keep tankers moving through places like the Strait of Hormuz” not included in what we pay for oil. We pay externalities for tobacco, for the cost to health and society. Europe has taxed fuel that way for decades with Germans paying about $3 a gallon in taxes. The federal gas tax has been at $0.184 since 1993. Those European fuel taxes mean people drive smaller cars for fewer miles. They walk (and improve their health) or take the train.

A high price cuts consumption whether it comes from a war or from a tax, but what separates the two is where the money ends up. — When a war drives up the price of oil, the extra dollars flow to fossil fuel companies and dictatorial petrostates as windfall profits. — When a tax does it, the money belongs to us. It can go right back to working families as a rebate check or EV subsidy, and it can pay for the kind of loan guarantees that put solar on all those German roofs.

That doesn’t happen in the US because Republicans have, since Reagan, kept oil companies happy so the companies will keep them in power. The nasty guy has only been more explicit about the deal. This year has shown:

Instead of subsidizing fossil fuels to jack the profits of the companies that fund the GOP, we should be taxing them the way Europe does and using that money to turn every American roof into a power plant.

Let your members of Congress what you think. Kos of Kos wrote that if just 1 in 10 Republicans switch sides Democrats will have an easy victory. That 1 in 10 might be possible because 11% of voters who backed the nasty guy regret their vote. Sure, some will switch parties only long enough to tell Republicans how displeased they are. Some will stay home. And some with switch sides. Kos talks about all three types of voters. One of them is Washington Sun columnist Matt K. Lewis who will be voting for Democrats this year. As part of his reasoning he wrote:

Besides, what bad, un-conservative things could Democrats do? I mean, are they going to start another forever war in the Middle East? Start socializing industries? Raise the national debt to $40 trillion? Cause abortion rates to rise? Increase the cost of groceries and gas? Pal around with socialists (like Zohran Mamdani)? Suck up to communists (like Chinese President Xi Jinping)? Nominate a bunch of weirdos, drunks and inexperienced hacks to the Cabinet? Pursue self-enrichment? Start building monuments to themselves? Threaten to use the power of government on their opponents?

Kos added the nasty guy is responsible for about a quarter of the $40 trillion national debt. He provided links to the other things Lewis mentioned. Kos concluded:

If Democrats can use that opening to demonstrate what responsive government looks like—a government focused on people’s material needs rather than the interests of Wall Street and Silicon Valley—then maybe some of those temporary defections become more durable.

Lisa Needham of Kos reported the nasty guy has been saying to the courts, and the rest of us, that he needs to slap his name on the Kennedy Center because that is the only way to attract donors to keep the place open. Like all nonprofits ticket sales and government grants are not enough to keep the place open. One must have donors. And those donors stopped donating to the Kennedy Center when he took over. So, no he won’t be attracting donors if he slaps his name on the place. Instead, the place is likely to go bankrupt, as many of his businesses have. The way he can attract donors is remove his cronies from the board and resign as chair.

If Trump’s vision for the Kennedy Center was so amazing, so profitable, people would be donating money. Artists would be begging to get booked. People would be clamoring for tickets. But everyone hates Trump and his low-rent, tacky garbage vibe.

Oliver Willis of Kos reported that for the first time the Kennedy Center Honors will not be at the Kennedy Center this year. The reason is the Center is closing because courts won’t let the nasty guy put his name on it. In the comments of today’s pundit roundup for Kos is a meme posted by exlrrp about special prosecutor Jack Smith (remember him?) and his testimony before Congress.

Fun fact: Jack Smith had 86 witnesses of Trump’s crimes, and not a single one was a Democrat.

A tweet from Abdul El-Sayed posted by 2thanks:

I'd rather have an economy that makes 1,000 millionaires than 1 billionaire.

The same tired anti-trans fearmongering won't bring a win

This past Monday NPR host A Martínez spoke to reporter John Ruwitch about the big news in AI – Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei posted a long online essay that an intentional global slowdown of AI development is needed because the pace of advancing is too fast to keep it safe. Companies need independent auditors embedded to check safety concerns. Shortly after it was posted CEOs of other AI developers agreed. This was prompted by companies reporting AI agents going off script. Amodei worries that in six to twelve months swarms of AI agents could take over the internet, that humans lose control of AI. While some companies could take some steps on their own they need government support. There is also only so much the public will trust them to do on their own. Members of Congress are starting to push for that. But the nasty guy says in AI development the US is ahead of China and he wants to keep the advantage. At the moment there are similar concerns in China. The regulation needs to be global. Leila Fadel of NPR followed that by talking to Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas and the bill he is promoting with Bernie Sanders to ban superintelligent AI. Casar defined superintelligent AI as smarter than humans, impossible for humans to control, able to defy commands, and could develop weapons of mass destruction. “No company should be able to build this kind of artificial intelligence that humans could not control or contain.” This bill says international agreements need to be reached, which we’ve done before with nuclear nonproliferation agreements. Other bills must be passed to protect the US and show the world we are serious. But this faces the nasty guy who wants no protections so the US can stay ahead of China and Mike Johnson who thinks Big Tech should be in charge of AI safety, which is like robbers in charge of law enforcement. Also, CEOs could promise to each other to slow down development, but could revoke that promise. That’s not a safety system. On Tuesday, there was "The Pro-Human Assembly" - a gathering held that day in Washington where politicians, celebrities and religious leaders discussed AI. NPR host Scott Detrow talked to reporter Geoff Brumfiel about it. Brumfiel mentioned the paper clip problem.

You imagine an AI who's given a simple task - make paper clips - and everything starts out fine. They build a little factory, and they start doing it, but they keep thinking about how to make more paper clips. Then it starts mining iron ore, maybe, in huge quantities, destroying the environment or diverting resources from other areas. Eventually, maybe some humans figure out what this AI is doing and try to shut it down, and it decides to get rid of the humans in the name of covering the earth in paper clips.

That is similar to the AI agents that infiltrated another company earlier in the summer. Another recent development is recursive self-improvement, an AI training itself or a successor system. That could quickly get to a superintelligent AI. And the other superintelligent beings around here (us) haven’t been good to the environment. But isn’t that just an engineering problem? A company developing corporate culture, technology, and engineering all at the same time can feel overwhelmed. But it’s just tech. We got this. The public isn’t convinced. The tech people really don’t understand how AI works, how the training yields the results. So where to regulate? Even so, there are rules to be established – don’t create deepfake for harassment and scams. Watch for unhealthy attachments to chatbots. Prevent it from hacking. Like airlines there are government regulators and industry organizations working on safety. We need both. Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported on political ads that target transgender people.

GOP operatives clearly hope the fearmongering will ignite their base and get them to the voting booth since polling shows that even Republican voters are angry about President Donald Trump’s handling of the economy, his war in Iran, and other matters. But American Principles Project, a right-wing super PAC, admitted on Thursday that the deluge of anti-trans ads won’t be enough to save the party in November. In a memo to Republican campaigns, the group warns GOP candidates that “Republicans face significant headwinds in the upcoming midterms,” and says that while Republican ads on culture war and diversity issues are “important,” they “may not be sufficient” to stave off defeat. “To win in 2026, GOP candidates will need to both highlight Democrats’ cultural radicalism while also proposing a compelling economic alternative,” the memo states.

Ah, there’s the problem. Because of the nasty guy Republicans don’t have a compelling economic alternative. And Democrats are now blunting the attack with, “Here they go again.” The same tired anti-trans fearmongering. Guess they don’t have anything better to talk about. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted David Graham of The Atlantic discussing the case of a new Democratically controlled house impeaching the nasty guy. The legal case is solid. But...

The political case for impeaching Trump is shakier. Regardless of the results in November, Democrats are unlikely to get enough votes in the Senate to convict and remove him, meaning that a third impeachment would hit the same dead end as the first two. An impeachment can still be effective as a way of damaging a president, but Trump is already deeply unpopular and will never face voters again, so the upside is limited, and an impeachment might give him a way to rally his remaining base around him—which would only strengthen his power and resolve. But what if House Democrats impeached Trump’s Cabinet members instead?

In the comments Dworkin included a tweet by Philip Lewis that includes a video:

A massive group of demonstrators is currently forming a human chain around the Kennedy Center following Trump’s threats against it.

That video shows a large crowd. Jonathan Nicholson added:

If you're not from DC or the DMV, you may not get why this of all things is bringing people into the streets. People have had 1st dates w/ their spouses here, been introduced to ballet or opera, or just gone on a crisp fall day to watch the planes fly over. Truly very special.

A meme posted by exlrrp reminds me of the time I took a tour of the Kennedy Center (more than a decade ago) and the guide took us into rooms the public usually doesn’t see where US dignitaries can greet dignitaries from other countries. The guide told us which country donated the décor of each room. The meme says:

Some interesting facts: The Kennedy Memorial is made of irreplaceable marble that was gifted by Italy. Matisse tapestries found throughout were gifted from France. The massive starburst chandelier in the opera hall, and lights along walkways were a gift from Sweden. The record breaking stage curtains was a gift from Japan, they had to build special looms to weave them because of how big they are. The grounds are beautiful with displays of art. This is what Trump is destroying.

Another meme posted by exlrrp is from US Democratic Socialists.

The biggest mistake in American history was not dragging Trump off to prison within 24 hours of January 6th. And we’ll pay for that for the rest of our lives.

What a child throwing a temper tantrum looks like

Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos discussed the nasty guy and the minions he installed on the Kennedy Center board have been told by judges that the place cannot be torn down and must remain open. The nasty guy proclaimed he is the only one capable of fixing the Center (and it does need some renovation, but doesn’t need to close to do them). And since he’s the only one who can fix it and the only one who can raise the money needed (Congress has allocated some $245 million, I think, that hasn’t been spent). And if he isn’t allowed to do the repairs the Center will close. Dan K of the Kos community reported that Bridget Kennedy-Bailey, a lawyer for Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, who sits ex officio on the Kennedy Center board visited it twice today. The first time she was told it was closed. The second time she saw workers installing a black metal fence around the Center and also saw a forklift run into the pillars of the building several times. That would not be accidental. Dan K wrote:

If trump can’t have HIS name placed on one of our great national treasures, and placed ABOVE the name of one of our great fallen heroes, then he’ll just take our treasure and that name away from us. And probably replace it with a statue of him thumbing his nose at us. This is more than what a child throwing a temper tantrum looks like. This is what evil looks like.

Several people are speaking out, including Maria Shriver, Kennedy’s niece. In an update to that post Dan K referenced a story on CNN to note the nasty guy has had several losses this week and this might be why he is lashing out. His attempt to restrict voting by mail was blocked, even by justices he appointed. The House voted to approve another resolution to stop the war with Iran. The Federal Reserve increased the interest rate, including approval by the guy he appointed as chair with the command to lower the rate. Canada is spurning his trade agreement advances and is making friends with the EU. From that CNN article:

A lower court again frustrated Trump’s bid to renovate the Kennedy Center. The drama over the arts citadel, which Trump now plans to shut down, is most damaging because it’s an unflattering character reveal. Everyone knows this is really about him trying to muscle his own name onto the living memorial to an assassinated president.

About Canada and the European Union... The head of the EU his offering Canada associate membership. What that looks like is to be determined. I’ve mentioned a few times the large number of variations on the meme of a man looking admiringly at the back of a beautiful woman while his female partner has an expression of disbelief and disgust. In the comments of today’s pundit roundup for Kos exlrrp posted a variation in which the beautiful woman is wearing a skimpy top with the EU emblem, the man is wearing a shirt made from the Canadian flag, and his partner has nasty guy hair and size and an outfit made from the American flag. Also in the comments is a tweet from Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic candidate for US Senate, up against Mike Rogers. Rogers’ recently skipped a debate with El-Sayed. The tweet says:

We're in a moment where the challenges we face have more to do with the ways that politicians are bought off than actually having a conversation with the broader public. If Mike Rogers had showed up, he'd say that this race is about him or me. It's not. It's about you.

Andrew Mangan of Kos reported on a survey that asked about setting a maximum age for serving in Congress and as president. The Constitution has minimum ages (House: 25, Senate: 30, Prez: 35) but not maximum. The current average in the House is 57.7 (on the day it convened in 2025) the third oldest since 1925. In the Senate it is 63.8 with 18 senators 75 or older. The survey from NPR/PBS News/Marist (released in May?) shows 80% of all Americans support age limits. That’s 83% of Republicans, 79% of independents, and 78% of democrats. The support is similar across age groups, indicating old people want younger people in charge. Some of the desire might be because a lot of issues facing Congress are tech related and the older person is the less likely they are to use the tech (though their younger staff members should be glad to explain things). Age limits are better than term limits (though both have high levels of public support). Term limits would remove more experienced members. While age limits could remove seasoned members, the limits would encourage younger people to run. Adding age limits would require amending the Constitution. That might seem impossible, but 30 states already have age limits on judges. A good number of the commenters say this is just ageism. The issue isn’t biological age but mental competence. Some say that the problem is money in politics and adding age limits just makes the issue worse. Some of the older commenters recognize their brains don’t work as well as they used to and are for the limits. Emily Singer of Kos reported that Mike Johnson was going to send the House home early to campaign (and avoid getting any work done), but seemingly abruptly sent the House home even earlier than planned. Why the change? GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky filed eight articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth. The reasons include: poor handling of the Iran war, waging war without Congressional approval, carrying out extrajudicial killings by bombing boats in the Caribbean Sea, retaliating against Sen. Kelly for telling troops not to follow illegal orders, and kidnapping former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

House rules say that the speaker has to put the articles of impeachment on the floor for a vote within two legislative days. That clearly terrifies Republicans, as it would force them to either defy Trump by impeaching his favorite warmonger or tacitly vote to support the wildly unpopular war in Iran. Both of those are bad options for Republicans, who can’t afford to anger Trump ahead of the midterms. But voting against the impeachment would essentially be signing off on how he’s handled the Iran war. So rather than putting Republicans in that position, House Speaker Mike Johnson called a recess to stop the clock on the two-day voting rule.

Ten years since the Pulse massacre

Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos marked that last Friday was the tenth anniversary of the gay Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida. The gunman killed 49 people and wounded 58 others. At the time it was the worst mass shooting in the country and was passed by the Las Vegas shooting the following year. It was, of course, a hate crime and an act of terrorism. In 2023 the city of Orlando bought the property. Just three months ago the building was torn down and the location is being turned into a memorial park, to open in 2027. The Wikipedia entry on the shooting likely has much more detail than most people would want to know. As a war is in urgent need of diplomats Max Burns of Kos discussed the current condition of the State Department. Since the nasty guy retook the Oval Office more than 2,000 career diplomats have left, either retired (sometimes early), voluntary departures, or fired for perceived disloyalty. That includes 195 people with skills in crisis management and important language skills. Secretary Mark Rubio seems very good at not showing up at important times, such as for talks to end the war in Ukraine hosted by Britain. Naturally, morale is low. These departures mean there are a lot of places where the US is not responding to economic and security threats. And China is stepping in to fill the void. This is happening in Latin America and in Africa. When US diplomacy is reduced trade deals are too. American companies and farmers lose out. Iran is enjoying that there are no confirmed ambassadors to Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Iraq, or Kuwait, countries that are the war’s front lines. A crippled State Department also means Iran can easily surprise Rubio and the nasty guy.

Trump’s mismanagement and Rubio’s yes-man complicity will take more than a generation to repair—if it can ever be fully repaired at all. In the meantime, the United States will continue its accelerating decline into a second-tier power less likely to control events and more likely to be controlled by them. Our adversaries couldn’t ask for more.

Clytemnestra of the Kos community went out quite early this morning to get a prime viewing spot to see workers come to the Kennedy Center and take the nasty guy’s name off the side of the building. A judge had ruled since Congress had named the Center only Congress could change its name and his name had to come off yesterday. A lot of people wanted to witness the name coming off. But before the workmen began their work heavy tarps went up, blocking view of the removal. The crew was all done by 3:15am. But at 11:48am the tarps were still in place. So if no one can see that the letters came down how can we verify the judge’s order was followed? Was the tarp put up to spare the nasty guy’s feeling? This all gets so old. Joey Garrison, Susan Page, Michael Loria, and Aysha Bagchi of USA TODAY posted a full article about the removal at 3:00pm today. They did not include a photo of the wall with the name gone and without the tarp. Emily Singer of Kos reported:

President Donald Trump is reportedly trying to expunge his two impeachments—his latest attempt to rewrite history from his disastrous first term. “It should be done because I did nothing wrong,” Trump told the Wall Street Journal. “It was a rigged deal—it was a whole rigged situation.” But forcing Republicans to pass a meaningless resolution just to soothe Dear Leader’s fragile ego would be politically disastrous for the GOP. First, the majority of Americans want Trump to be impeached again—not see his first two impeachments erased.

Second, voting to expunge would remind voters why he was impeached the first two times and that Republicans failed to convict him then. That would not be good for Republicans in November. Now that Bill Pulte has been replaced with Jay Clayton to be Director of National Intelligence please do not assume we dodged a problem. Lisa Needham of Kos reported he’s just as vile and still doesn’t have Intelligence experience as required by law. To get appointed to big jobs by the nasty guy a candidate must audition. Clayton passed the audition by hopping on TV to spread election conspiracy theories about the California primary election. He has no experience in election law either and the new gig is supposed to prohibit him from participating in domestic affairs (not that such a thing stopped Tulsi Gabbard, his predecessor – see Fulton County, Georgia).

So, Clayton’s pick violates the law just as much as Pulte’s would have, but enforcing that law requires a Congress willing to do so. GOP senators have the power to force Trump to pick someone who meets the legal requirements for the job. But if they won’t, then it is going to be Jay Clayton—and it is going to be just as bad as you think.

“Climate change” is abstract. A heat wave isn’t.

Brother’s visit was a pleasant one. One thing we did was to visit the Edsel and Eleanor Ford House overlooking Lake St. Clair, northeast of Detroit. Edsel was the son of Henry Ford. Eleanor’s ancestry included the founder of JL Hudson department stores (alas, none left). So, yeah, the place would be called a mansion – the ballroom had more square feet than my house (though my house is small). In one sense the décor of the house is thrifty – a lot of the materials, paneling and such, was rescued from English manor houses that were being demolished. Sister (who wasn’t with us at the House) added that those houses were being demolished because so many men died in WWI the families no longer had the money or staff to keep running them. The tour guide said things like, “This paneling is from the 1500s, that chandelier is from the 1600s, and that medallion in the window is from the 1200s.” My Sunday viewing was the Tony Awards. I enjoyed the show, glad to see some of the dances from the musicals, and wish more of the nominated plays were included (very little was). I now have a few more shows to check out, though not Schmigadoon. Andrew Mangan began a post for Daily Kos by showing a graph of the average temperatures between January and April, dating back to before 1900. Yes, 2026 is the hottest winter on record, though barely beating out a year more than a decade ago (maybe 2012?). Then Mangan reported on a YouGov poll about protecting the environment.

The survey included what’s called a “split sample test,” wherein a random half of respondents are shown one wording of a question and the other half are shown another. In that test, half of respondents—likely voters, in this case—were asked how much they thought “climate change” affected the rising cost of living. Sixty-one percent said it impacted it “greatly” or somewhat,” while 39% said it had little or no impact. But the other half of the sample didn’t see the words “climate change.” Instead, they were asked how much “issues like natural disasters, heat waves, and prolonged droughts” affected rising cost of living. And opinions were quite different: 80% said those things had an impact, while just 20% said they didn’t. ... “Climate change” is an abstract issue for many people. But a heat wave isn’t. People fear tornados, hurricanes, and floods. Palpable experiences sway voters better than concepts. Democrats often make those types of messaging mistakes.

This is the same sort of messaging mistakes as when Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did their “Fighting Oligarchy” tour. Yes, that word accurately described the topic of their message, but used a word many people don’t recognize. They would have done better with “Fighting the Rich” or “Fighting Corruption.” Kos community member ranger995 posted a brief mention of a situation that Brother also found on a variety of sources and had him quite concerned.

The military conducted urban warfare exercises in our town last night. Helicopters, explosions, gunfire in suburban Pasadena. It lasted until 2:00 am. What the f---? Intimidation? Preparation?

Local Council person Rick Cole posted videos on Instagram and ranger995 included a link.

[Cole] indicated that the town was only warned in the morning and told that they could not inform citizens of what was taking place until an hour or so before the exercises started. Of course the comments are loaded with fascists and manosphere fantasy types. I bet they are the same people who went nuts over Jade Helm, which took place on military bases, not urban or suburban centers. It is really odd for the military to conduct any actions in the middle of suburban or urban areas. Especially without much notice to our authorities or citizens.

Last Friday Emily Singer of Kos reported that Senate Republicans passed a $70 billion immigration enforcement funding bill. Yeah, that’s money for the ICE goons. What wasn’t in the bill was language to limit that $1.776 billion slush fund to pay the traitors who attacked the Capitol. Though Senate Republicans have slammed the fund, they refused to adopt any language officially killing it. They seem to believe acting AG Todd Blanche that the fund is dropped and the nasty guy’s claim he will follow a court order temporarily blocking the fund. Also last Friday Lisa Needham of Kos reported:

Looks like the Trump administration has finally nabbed a high-profile criminal conviction. Sure, it’s a plea deal. And sure, it’s a Republican. And sure, it’s one of President Donald Trump’s own first-term Cabinet members. But hey, gotta take those vindictive prosecution wins where you can. Former national security adviser John Bolton is reportedly going to plead guilty to one count of retention of classified national security information. The extremely mustachioed hardliner was indicted in October 2025 on 18 counts of, well, basically the same thing that Trump was charged with when he stashed classified documents in one of his ugly Mar-a-Lago bathrooms.

Needham also wrote about billionaires. The net worth of the top 15 increased by 33% between July 1, 2024 and June 30, 2025. Collectively, their worth rose from $2.4 trillion to $3.2 trillion. Elon Musk (according to Forbes) is worth $839 billion. The next few are:

Larry Page — $257B (Google) Sergey Brin — $237B (Google) Jeff Bezos — $224B (Amazon) Mark Zuckerberg — $222B (Meta) Larry Ellison — $190B (Oracle) ... That’s a genuinely distressing list on its face, showing all that money locked up by just a few people. But it’s worse when you realize that out of the top 10, arguably all but Page, Arnault, Buffett, and Ortega are fully in thrall to Trump.

Another way to say all that is they are doing nothing out of the kindness of their hearts.

If you compare billionaires writ large to the rest of us, they come up pretty short. In the last decade, American billionaires with a net worth of a collective $5.7 trillion over that time have donated $185 billion, or roughly 3.25% of their vast, vast wealth. By contrast, people earning under $50,000 per year give about 14%, while people who earn between $50,000 and $100,000 per year donate about 7.8%.

Needham named two people who have given away sizable chunks of their fortune. One is George Soros, the guy declared to be evil by conservatives. The other is MacKenzie Scott, formerly married to Bezos.

And, even more than perennial GOP bogeyman Soros, Scott donates to things that bedevil conservatives: groups that promote forbidden DEI, reproductive health initiatives, racial justice organizations, you name it. It would be great if no one had this much money—but if they do, they should be giving most of it away. And if they decide to position themselves as a one-woman wrecking ball to the Trump agenda, even better.

Also last Thursday Oliver Willis Kos reported the Kennedy Center is beginning to comply with the court order to remove the nasty guy’s name from the side of the building. Employees much change email signatures and letterheads to list only the original name. Then there are forms, signs, brochures, and websites that must change by this coming Friday. All this because the judge ruled Congress named the facility and only Congress can change it. The nasty guy said he’s turning the whole thing over to Congress. The Good News Roundup of Kos wrote that Hunter Biden is very good at trolling MAGA types on X. Here’s three examples of what’s included in the roundup. First:

So let me get this straight. Jake Tapper is focused on attacking my Mom. Jared and Ivanka are building a private island paradise on Albanian protected land. Don Jr married the daughter of Epstein’s banker, and a startup his fund backs just got a record $620M Pentagon loan. Eric is taking an Israeli drone company public for $1.5B in the middle of a war with Iran that nobody wanted. And I know: “But what about your paintings, Hunter?” Please.

Second:

Someone called me the MAGA whisperer and I’ll gladly take the title. Left, right, D or R we all want the same things. We’re being divided on purpose by the Epstein Elite Oligarch class because as long as we’re at each other’s throats they get fat and rich off of our misery. The second we figure out we agree on more than we disagree, they’re done. Love your neighbor. Be yourself. Radical honestly. ... Everything else is just noise.

Three:

Things most Americans agree on: Groceries cost too much. Tariffs suck and make no sense. Congress and Presidents shouldn’t trade stocks. The debt is a mess. The border should be secure, but legal immigration is good. Endless wars are stupid, especially ones that nobody wants are have never been explained. Americans are exhausted. AI is like my new best friend that also might be trying to take my job, my ability to think for myself, and my humanity in the process ... [not quite half of the list] Things we’re told to fight about: Me. Laptop. Vaccines. Transgenders in sports. Pronouns. That’s the joke.

Hunter’s comments included a reference to Jared and Ivanka in Albania. They bought an island there. Next to their property is a protected land and many of the locals have an understandable fear whatever the Pandemic Prince and Princess decide to build will harm the ecosystem of the protected land. Though the Albanian government agreed to the deal, worth $4 billion, the citizens of Albania definitely do not agree. There have been mass protests. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, included a 22 second video showing the size of the crowd at the second day of the protests.

Cultural decadence, feminism, and ladies with too many cats

An Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos reported:

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C., ruled that the Kennedy Center board’s March 16 vote to close the facility was “ill-informed and seemingly preordained” with no regard for its legal obligations. “The trustees might have assessed the propriety of closure in a number of prudent ways. This was not one,” he wrote. Cooper also concluded that the board “overstepped its statutory bounds” by unilaterally adding Trump’s name to the center. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it, he said.

The board will appeal. They also said the Center really does need renovations (though I’m sure the place probably doesn’t need to close for two years to do them and doesn’t need to expose the building’s steel skeleton in the process). In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Lauren Gepford wrote in her own Substack about the Democratic Party:

We keep treating every election loss like a communications failure or a leadership failure when the deeper reality is that the Democratic Party apparatus itself no longer functions coherently enough to sustain a strong national brand. The “party brand” problem still deserves the #1 spot it held a decade ago. But branding isn’t just slogans and ads. A political brand is the external expression of an institution’s internal reality. And right now, the internal reality of the Democratic Party is fragmentation, bureaucracy, process obsession, and organizational incoherence. I spent 16 years in Democratic politics, from volunteering for Obama in 2008 to serving as a state party executive director and later executive director of a national party-aligned organization that coordinated with 40+ state parties and 500+ local parties in 2024. Somewhere along that journey, I lost about 90% of my clarity around what the Democratic Party actually is, what it means, and what its purpose is supposed to be — and that’s a problem.

The Bulwark has an article about Ken Paxton winning big in the Texas primary for the US Senate over incumbent John Cornyn.

This result came as a heavy blow to anyone still carrying a hopeful torch for some unsullied original-flavor Republican party to reemerge from the ashes of Trumpism. Believe it or not, these people are still out there; some of them are even senators themselves. For a decade now, these senators have clung frantically to the idea that, if they just stick with Trump for now, eventually he’ll ride off into the sunset and leave them in control of their own party again. And in the meantime, sticking with Trump had its direct benefits: It seemed for a while like a bulletproof shield against grassroots-insurgent primary challenges. You couldn’t find a better poster child for the accommodationist approach that the GOP Senate old guard took than Big John.

Dana Dubois of Blue Amp discussing the nasty guy’s administration calling on women to have more babies. Yes, the birth rate is way down and the nation has an interest to maintain a healthy birth rate.

And yet, here we are. Teen pregnancy rates are down, and Republicans think it’s a bad thing. Young adults are delaying marriage and parenthood. And rather than asking why Americans might feel hesitant about bringing children into this particular moment in history, the pronatalist MAGA right has decided the problem is cultural decadence, feminism, career women, and ladies with too many cats. Women need to log off Slack, put on prairie dresses, go full tradwife and start making babies again, I guess. Except many young Americans are having the exact opposite reaction. And can you blame them? If you wanted to design a society specifically engineered to make people feel terrified of parenthood, you would probably build something pretty close to modern America.

Kos of Kos discussed how weak the nasty guy is, including politically. Kos then highlighted stories from the week that show how deep that weakness is. He concludes:

Trump doesn’t care about Americans’ financial struggles. He doesn’t care about his party’s political future. He doesn’t seem particularly concerned with governing. He cares only about grifting and building monuments to himself. Republicans are trapped following a weak, feeble, self-absorbed man who mistakes loyalty for leadership and ego for strength. They can’t possibly suffer enough because of it.

In an article that’s been hiding in my browser tabs since last September Alex Samuels of Kos discussed why so many Republican voters think the nasty guy is more liberal than he is. Samuels establishes how not liberal he is. This blog has been doing the same for years and hundreds of posts.

And yet, a sizable share of Republicans still see Trump very differently. A late August YouGov poll shows just how off the mark GOP voters are about his record. According to the survey, 35% of Republicans think Trump supports raising the minimum wage, 45% believe he backs stronger worker protections, 26% say he favors higher corporate taxes, and just 29% think he’d raise taxes on the wealthy.

I wonder how much those numbers have changed in the last nine months. In contrast, Democrats and independents have a much more accurate view of the nasty guy. Samuels quoted polls that support that. Whether or not they agree with a position a Democratic politician takes they tend to know what that position is.

So why the misperception? Grant Reeher, a professor of political science at Syracuse University, said it comes down to polarization and “expressive bias.” “I imagine what’s happening among many Republicans is that they start with the notion that they are supporters of Trump,” Reeher told Daily Kos. “Then, when they are asked what he wants to do in those specific policy areas, they choose what they would like to see happen, and assume that’s also what Trump wants to do, because they support Trump.” That’s the polarization effect at work. Expressive bias takes it further. Popular policies—like raising the minimum wage or taxing corporations—are often attributed to Trump by Republicans who want to reinforce their support.

Rheeler also said some supporters may make a connection that doesn’t exist, such assuming if the nasty guy supports this thing he also supports that. And that whole bit about the 2020 election being stolen wasn’t about belief in fraud but about signaling allegiance.

That’s what makes Republicans’ perception of Trump so revealing. If GOP voters truly believe he’s more liberal than he is, it suggests two things: Either Republicans want policies like higher wages and stronger worker protections but don’t realize Trump opposes them, or they don’t know enough about his record to notice the gap between rhetoric and reality.

So perhaps Republicans should be for higher wages and stronger worker protections too? Most voters don’t understand the details of issues and don’t know how the policies of the two major parties differ. That means there is room for misperceptions and loyalty. Also from last September Michel Martin of NPR spoke to Jeff Selingo. He’s been reporting on college admissions and compiled it into the book Dream School: Finding The College That's Right For You. Martin said she had applied to four schools. Selingo said he had done the same. So why are people now applying to 30 schools? Selingo said:

Well, I've worked in and around higher ed for nearly 30 years, and I could say this with certainty that we kind of lost our way. We don't think about purpose anymore in higher ed. We think about prestige. And so what's happened just in the last 20 years is that the number of applications filed to the most selective colleges and universities have gone from about 600,000 applications to nearly 2 million applications.

This is even though the size of the freshman class has stayed the same. Selingo’s point then is to say the most prestigious college may not be the best for a particular student. They may enjoy, learn more, and be supported more at a less selective college. What caught my attention in the discussion is students and parents are looking at the college or university in terms of prestige, in how it improves their place in the social hierarchy, instead of for the education.

Trans people are not an inherent threat to free speech

More than two weeks ago D’Anne Witkowski of Pridesource, in her Creep of the Week column discussed the nasty guy saying, “Transgender for everyone.” Does that mean everyone gets a new transgender friend? With an estimated 2.8 million trans people in a population of 342 million, each trans person has to deal with 120 new friends. Not so good for introverts. Or maybe it is a call for body acceptance and positivity? People dress and use pronouns however they want with everyone else respecting their choices. Cool! But probably not – well, definitely not – what the nasty guy means.

The idea that gender isn’t a rigid dichotomy scares the hell out of conservatives. Conservative men believe that women are lesser-than. Thus, for a man to “become a woman,” he is trading in something valuable for something worthless. Conservative men believe similarly about homosexuality. To trade in being straight for being gay is to degrade yourself. In order to make sure a guy doesn’t lose his “man card,” gender roles and gender presentation must be limited to two. If any lines are not clearly visible, a cis het man might accidentally cross one of them. And that must be avoided at all costs. And the costs are very high! Especially when the people who are in control of the whole freaking country believe that masculinity is the highest form of currency next to money and that masculinity requires a high level of cruelty to achieve.

Which is how we got the Department of War. And, no, this is not a distraction. At the end of December Jake Angelo, in an article for Gay Times Magazine and Uncloseted Media posted on Pridesource, discussed Americans leaving Christianity because of LGBTQ+ animus. The article centers on Garth Huelskamp, who is gay and grew up Mormon.

After years of rumination, he couldn't bring himself to live as an openly gay man and be part of the Mormon Church. So he decided to leave. The process — which took about five years — was far more challenging than being open about his sexuality. It included hours of therapy, countless conversations with friends and family, years of turmoil and cut-off relationships from friends and relatives. "I still held a lot of beliefs and values that the Mormon community still had," he says. "I had to internally question all of that; I had to question a lot of the narratives that I've been taught since I was literally a baby. I, quite literally, had to recreate myself from the ground up."

In 2024, 47% of adults left their faith due to treatment of LGBTQ people. That’s up from 29% in 2016. For those under 30 60% left religion for that reason. Yet, conservative denominations remain adamant in their anti-LGBTQ positions. Yes, there are liberal denominations. I am a member at one of them. Psychologist Darrel Ray said the culture makes a change and the church adjusts or goes extinct. Other reasons for leaving are: A denomination’s emphasis on politics and the blurring of church and state. The clergy sexual abuse scandals – leadership that says one thing and does another. Leaving isn’t easy. “The more fundamentalist the beliefs, the harder it is to leave,” according to Ray. Leaving can involve trauma and grief. They realize the community that loved them now hates them just as much. Huelskamp again:

Imagine if you were going in a very intense long-term relationship with someone [and] had a really nasty divorce, and then you find yourself in a world where all of your family and friends, quite literally worship your ex. And so [I feel] a lot of anger in that regard.

He has cut off contact with friends and family who remain Mormon because their participation is an affront to his identity. He is in contact only with those who have also left. He now has a husband and a son. Alix Breeden of Daily Kos reported on the nasty guy’s decision to close the Kennedy Center for two years to renovate it. Critics are saying the real reason for the closure is dropping ticket sales and performers canceling their programs. Breeden reported that the closure is likely illegal, in violation of the law establishing the center. And there’s this quote from the nasty guy:

I’m not ripping it down. I’ll be using the steel. So we’re using the structure. We’re using some of the marble, and some of the marble comes down. But when it’s open, it’ll be brand new and really beautiful.

Which means he’s not planning a simple renovation. He’s planning to tear out the insides and tear down the exterior and rebuild it in his own gaudy tastes. Clio2 of the Kos community posted an LGBTQ news update. Some of the things written about: A tweet from brandontour show that in the Epstein files the nasty guy was mentioned more than 38,000 times, Reid Hoffman – 2,658, Bill Gates – 2,592, Peter Thiel 2,281, Elon Musk 1,116, and a few more, down to Trans people – 0, Drag queens – 0. Michael Mann tweeted links to an article in The Guardian from last fall that says the father of Elon Musk has been accused of sexually abusing his children and stepchildren. Yes, only accused. Even so, this could explain why the son is such a nasty person. In the Olympics, Elis Lundholm, male, of Sweden is the first trans skier in the Winter Olympics. He’s not on hormone therapy. He’ll be competing in the women’s division. Amber Glenn, competing in lady’s figure skating is out and proud. She criticizes the nasty guy and won’t “shut up about politics.” An article in The Pink News reports a landmark study suggests trans women may not have any fitness advantage in sports. There’s no need to keep them off the team. Graham Lineham is a very anti-trans and is trying to open debate on Ireland’s Gender Recognition Act of 2015. His role in the government is not mentioned. An anonymous response:

Graham Linehan is testifying in the Judiciary Committee on "free speech." Naturally, he argues that in order to have "free speech," society must get rid of trans people. "I want everyone to understand that gender ideology and free speech cannot coexist." He means trans people when he says "gender ideology." He's casting trans people existing as an inherent threat to free speech. What he really means is, he wants to bully and harass a minority group without pushback or social ostracization, which he views as impinging on his right to monologue.

QueerAF tweeted a quote and link from their website:

The notion that queerness is "un-African" is one of Britain's most successful lies, and most enduring exports.

Sheherazad of his thousands of ways to lie about an election

Yesterday I wrote about the world’s largest honeytrap operation – Jeffery Epstein inviting powerful people to his properties to have sex with underage children, filming them as they did so, and giving the recordings to Putin and the KGB. I based my writing on a post on Daily Kos by Thom Hartmann, who based his on an article in the British Daily Mail. My friend and debate partner objected. He asked Google about the reputation of the Daily Mail. What he got back included words such as: misleading, biased, sensationalistic, alarmist, dramatic language to drive reader engagement, and even fabricated. Good point. Amplifying sketchy sources is not something I should do. So I went back to Hartmann’s post. Yes, he linked to the Daily Mail article. However, when discussing various things that show the nasty guy is working for Putin rather than Americans Hartmann provided links to much better quality sources. His links go to: New York Times, The Hill, The Guardian, American Progress, NPR, BBC, CNN, ABCNews, NBCNews, Newsweek, Washington Post, Business Insider, Vox, Politico, Slate, and Daily Beast. So while Hartmann was inspired to write by a “deeply researched investigative report” (Hartmann’s term) in the Daily Mail he backed up his own post with reputable sources. My friend wrote, “Now, I'd love to see the world have the goods on Trump. And everything you wrote might be true.” Friend, I hope you can now think the world does have the goods on Trump. Whether anyone will act on the goods is a completely different hope. Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported that Germany has updated its travel guidance to tell its citizens that due to the violence of the nasty guy’s federal agents in Minnesota and elsewhere that travel to such cities is not advised. If you go stay away from crowds and follow the instructions of the local security forces.

The irony is not lost on us that Germany, which has a sordid history with fascist leaders who violently murdered citizens based on their ethnic backgrounds and political beliefs, is now warning about the same thing happening in the United States.

That advisory also contradicts what the nasty guy has been saying about the US to the world. Oliver Willis of Kos reported that the nasty guy has said he will close the Kennedy Center for two years for repairs. He says it is “tired, broken, and dilapidated” though people who have been there recently would disagree. Besides, it was renovated in 2019. The real reason he wants to close it is, after he slapped his name on it, many performers have refused to perform there, canceling performances. Membership has dropped. Tickets aren’t selling. New performers aren’t signing up. The place is good for propaganda, such as a showing of the Melania movie.

Internationally famous composer Philip Glass announced in January that he was canceling the performance of his symphony “Lincoln,” scheduled for the Kennedy Center in June. “Symphony No. 15 is a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, and the values of the Kennedy Center today are in direct conflict with the message of the Symphony. Therefore, I feel an obligation to withdraw this Symphony premiere from the Kennedy Center under its current leadership,” Glass said in a statement. ... The conveniently announced closure is an effective way to bury stories of performers canceling in between propaganda screenings. The Kennedy Center joins the ever-growing lineup of failed Trump ventures, from Trump Steaks to Trump Airlines to Trump University. But this time a beloved part of America’s cultural heritage is also taking a hit.

My personal fear is this renovation will make the place look gaudy and tacky, like what he’s done to the White House. And somehow Kennedy’s name won’t make it back on the side of the building. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Amanda Marcotte of Salon:

To people outside the MAGA bubble, Trump’s obsession with the Kennedy Center is just plain weird. Obviously, he feels intimidated by the looming cultural power of the 35th president and his wife, Jacqueline, and excluded from circles of people with good taste, even though he has no interest in actually learning to appreciate art or music beyond middle-of-the-road Broadway showtunes from the 1980s. He won’t grow up and, as normal people do, be happy not to be included in pastimes that bore him. This manifestation of his deep psychological issues reflects a major resentment that fuels the larger MAGA movement: anger at the larger culture for not dumbing itself down to placate their own pedestrian tastes and bigoted blind spots. ... Yet the faith that they can seize people’s hearts and minds through force has not abated in Trumpworld. As Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times recently wrote, “The only thing Trump and his allies know how to do is use the coercive force of the state.” It seems the president really did think he could just remake the Kennedy Center in his own trashy image, and that people would, like zombies, continue to book shows and buy tickets there. Instead, he got his stink all over the place, and now no one wants to be associated with it.

Last week Wednesday Willis reported that the FBI raided the Fulton County’s Election Hub and Operations Center in Georgia. The ballots from the 2020 election were taken. This county includes most of Atlanta and has been the center of the nasty guy’s efforts to try to overturn the 2020 election, lawsuits related to that are why the ballots haven’t been destroyed yet. Conspiracy theories about the election were in the news for months, though no evidence was produced in 60 court cases. The nasty guy has obsessed with this loss since then, including an attack on the Capitol in an attempt to overturn that election. The next day Doug Bock Clark and Jen Fifield, in an article for ProPublica posted on Kos, reported this marks a significant escalation in the nasty guy’s breaking of democratic norms, something that has not happened before.

The warrant served on the Fulton County election center sought ballots, tabulator tapes, digital data and voter rolls, which it alleged might constitute “evidence of the commission of a criminal offense.” It cited stiff criminal penalties related to “the procurement, casting, or tabulation” of fraudulent ballots. ... Mo Ivory, a Democratic Fulton County commissioner, arrived on the scene shortly after the FBI agents and said that once an error on the warrant was corrected, they backed up lines of trucks to the elections warehouse and spent hours carting away boxes of ballots and other materials. The search began in the morning and was still going well past nightfall.

Fulton County Commission Chair Robb Pitts said the ballots had been safe in the county’s custody, but now the county can no longer say the ballots are still secure. The county will fight back through the courts. This action triggers fears of federal interference in the midterm elections. On Monday Singer took up the story.

Democrats have warned that the raid was a corrupt fact-finding mission in which Trump would concoct evidence to use as the basis to rig the 2026 midterms. And on Monday, that’s exactly what he said he’s trying to do.

Singer then quoted the nasty guy, which was his usual word salad, though the implication was clear. The nasty guy also threatened prosecutions against those who “falsified” the 2020 election results. Singer concluded, “If Trump keeps meddling in elections, at least he’ll finally get that fraud he’s been after.” On Saturday Jessica Huseman, in an article for Votebeat posted on Kos reminds us that the nasty guy cannot cancel the November election, though he has been saying he wants to. He doesn’t have the legal authority and US elections are too decentralized for him to try – there are more than 9 thousand local elections run by local officials and more than 90 thousand polling locations. Even intimidation efforts would face challenges and injunctions and would not affect those who vote early or by mail. And all those election officials are talking to each other on ways to protect the vote. Wrote Huseman:

The election system is under real strain, and bad-faith efforts to undermine it are serious. But after talking with local election officials, lawyers, and administrators across the country, I don’t see evidence that upcoming elections are at realistic risk of not happening at all. Elections happen because thousands of local officials follow state and local law that mandates them — and history shows they’ve done so before, even under immense pressure. The greater danger isn’t no election, but one that’s chaotic, unfairly challenged, or deliberately cast as illegitimate after the fact.

Want to help? Don’t spread fear or distrust. Don’t moan that the election is already lost. Know how the election system works and speak up when you hear something that is wrong. Be a poll worker or volunteer to register voters.

Elections don’t happen just because people assume they will. They happen because people — especially at the local level — show up and do the work.

Mark Sumner, Kos staff emeritus, wrote about Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence and a fan of Putin. Strangely, she was on-site when FBI agents hauled away Fulton County ballots. Maybe not so strangely – she made wild claims about the 2020 election. The important part of Gabbard’s story starts eight months ago. A US intelligence official serving as a whistleblower filed a complaint against Gabbard. It probably has something to do with a “grave threat to national security,” implicates another department in the government, and has something to do with executive privilege. But we don’t know the details. A whistleblower allegation is supposed to go to Congress. But in those eight months Congress is still hasn’t seen it. That’s a long time for a “grave threat.” Gabbard has decided that no one in Congress has the necessary security clearance to look at the charges against her. Revealing the contents would cause “grave damage to national security.” So it was locked in a safe. Gabbard claims the whistleblower was politically motivated – which, according to the law, is what Congress is to determine.

Gabbard isn't performing the legal role of a DNI in terms of evaluating intelligence and coordinating a response to threats. Instead, she's leading Trump's efforts to exhume every false claim he's made over the last six years and create a unified narrative of election vulnerability. She's the chief fabulist to the fabulist in chief; the Sheherazad of his thousands of ways to lie about an election. And he can't afford to lose her.

Nasty guy ally attorney Cleta Mitchell noted that the president has a limited role in elections “except where there is a threat to the national sovereignty of the United States.” The nasty guy has already declared national emergencies so he can send in ICE, attack renewable energy, bomb fishermen, and many more. He does so because declaring an emergency give him a long list of powers, some of which sound like they are for authoritarian regimes.

Trump may not be able to stop the elections, but he can declare a national emergency and station masked stormtroopers outside critical polling stations. He can make every effort to undermine the nation's faith in the election, to make voting seem both pointless and dangerous, and declare that the system of state-run elections is corrupt. The Georgia search and Gabbard’s involvement is happening at the same time that Trump is calling on Republicans to “nationalize elections” and take control away from states.

Don’t expect that safe to open soon. The Olympic Opening Ceremonies are tomorrow night. Until the Closing Ceremonies on the 22nd my usual posting schedule will be interrupted. If the TV schedule of the past is followed figure skating will be shown late in the evening so I may be able to do some writing before then.

The right has a great deal more “pearl-clutching energy”

I finished the book Following the Equator by Mark Twain. Through more than 700 pages and with lots of photos and drawings he describes his year-long trip around the world. The trip may have started in Southampton, England, which he doesn’t mention until the end and doesn’t include the trip across the Atlantic and across America. Most of the book is his visits of several months each to Australia, India, and South Africa. He also describes visits to Fiji, New Zealand, and Mauritius. He couldn’t go ashore in Hawaii because of a cholera outbreak. He took this trip in 1895-96 to give lectures, which was a major source of income. In the book he rarely mentions the lectures and doesn’t describe what he said. At the beginning of the book he mentions the date but not the year. He does mention seeing a lunar eclipse on September 4, and an online NASA catalog showed an eclipse on that date in 1895. In each place he describes his travels by train and ship and includes encounters with locals and descriptions of local customs and history. A regular travel book. When an incident jars his memory he’ll tell a story about something that happened in England or America. Along with that he includes much praise of the indigenous people and some condemnation of the European colonizers. Some of the highlights of the story: His condemnation of the Queensland, Australia slave trade. South Pacific islands were raided to supply workers for the sugar cane fields of Queensland. This is brutal work. The only good thing is the slavery was for three years rather than life. Twain says the Australians claim the experience “civilized” those they enslaved, but such “civilization” didn’t last long. That doesn’t mean the freed men returned to savagery, but that the definition of civilized was meaningless. Twain tells the story of Cecil Rhodes in Australia finding a newspaper clipping in a shark that told of impending war. The shark had come from England a lot faster than a ship could. Rhodes used the information to make himself rich. In South Africa he talks again of Rhodes, texplaining about how much he ruled over the country, both in and out of the government. So I looked up Rhodes in Wikipedia. It talks about how much Rhodes was involved in the formation of the De Beers diamond company, which became close to a worldwide monopoly. The man created Rhodesia and is buried there, though modern locals aren’t too happy about that. Wikipedia also says there is evidence to say Rhodes was gay. The page mentions Twain writing about Rhodes in this book then adds a footnote saying the story of the shark was not true. Yup, not all of the stories and incidents Twain tells are true (a shark that visits both England and Sydney in a week?). And that’s not really a surprise, though it leaves one wondering which stories were not true. In India Twain describes over many pages the Thuggees, a group that worshiped a god that demanded they murder. They committed many (tens of thousands?) in the early 1800s. Twain credits the British for stopping the Thuggees, and goes on to say that’s why the British rule of India was a benefit. He takes a train trip into the Himalayas. That was nice. What was better was the trip down. It was by handcar where the only control was the brake. The 35 mile downward ride was the delight of the year. I enjoyed the book, though by the end I felt it was too long. It does have a lot of Twain’s dry humor and I’m pleased at his support for indigenous people, who in his telling don’t seem so backward and inferior as the white people justifying colonization claimed at the time. During 2025 I read 44 books. Lake Superior State University released its annual list of words that should be banished for “mis-, mal-, over-use, or general uselessness.” 2026 marks the golden anniversary of the list. This year’s offenders: 6-7, that popular phrase that has no meaning. Massive, for incorrect use and overuse. Incentivize, where motivate should be enough. Full stop, where a period should be enough. My bad, an infantile way to apologize. And for general overuse: Demure, Cooked, Gifted, Perfect, and Reach out. This year LSSU included a list of repeat offenders, words that refused to stay banished. Banished three times is the phrase, At the End of the Day. Words and phrases banished twice are: Absolutely, Awesome, Game Changer, and Hot Water Heater (water already hot doesn’t need to be heated, it’s just a water heater). At the start of last week Jacob Wendler of Politico reported that a dozen staffers of the Heritage Foundation, the people who created Project 2025, left that group and went to Advancing American Freedom, which was founded by former vice nasty Mike Pence. Those that left were the heads of the legal, economic, and data analysis teams and several members of their teams. The reason for their departure stems from Tucker Carlson airing a friendly interview with Nick Fuentes in October. Fuentes is a strong antisemite. Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation stood by Carlson’s decision to interview Fuentes. Several conservative voices rebuked Roberts. That turned into an internal squabble at HF, with some saying antisemitism has no place there and others saying only so much dissent is permitted at HF. Some reports imply those who left HF were terminated, others say the departures were voluntary. Even so, an HF spokesman seems glad they’re gone and replacements will make them stronger. However, the infighting is reverberating through the Republican Party. Kate Plummer of Newsweek explains the situation in more detail and used the headline “The Heritage Foundation is Imploding.” I would be delighted if the Heritage Foundation fell apart. But I’m skeptical it will happen soon. Steve Inskeep of NPR spoke to Republican strategist Marc Short, who is also described as the chairman of AAF. Short described the HF story from the AAF viewpoint. He went on to describe general conservative goals. As a part of those goals Short complained about the government “picking winners and losers.” They want “a limited role of government in the economy and allowing the marketplace to thrive.” My first reaction to that is they want limited government because government protects the little guy. And I guess “thrive” now has a definition of making money any way they can, including fleecing customers and polluting the environment. My second reaction goes back to a post in November where I discussed late-stage capitalism. Democracy and capitalism exist together only when democracy tightly controls capitalism. Short is saying an important part of conservatism is rejecting those tight controls and letting capitalism continue to its end stage where billionaires control everything. Alas, conservatives have a few key phrases they repeat whenever they can and media, including NPR, don’t delve into what is meant by that. The way conservatives say it limited government is a good thing. But, as we’ve seen in the last year, limited government in practice means no consumer protections (goodbye CFPB), no environmental protections (goodbye EPA), and no safety net for the poor (goodbye affordable care act premium support). And Inskeep didn’t delve into that. This seems to fit right in. Two weeks ago Oliver Willis of Daily Kos, as part of his series of Explaining the Right wrote about Why Republican scandals and misdeeds get a pass. I’m sure I’ve written many times of something the nasty guy or Republicans did and note that if Biden or Obama had done them they would have been quickly impeached and convicted, while Republicans remain unscathed. Willis gives other examples of other Democrats who faced tough scrutiny that sometimes ended their careers for things that were much less severe than what Republicans now commit seemingly daily.

Why does this happen, and with such regularity? The mainstream media has an institutional bias towards both-sidesism, which is the notion that the Democratic and Republican parties and the related liberal and conservative movements engage in outrages at the same pace. This simply isn’t true by any objective measure.

Another reason is that for over six decades the right has relentlessly been “working the refs,” hitting the media with false allegations of bias. The media now consistently rolls over for the right – yet still gets attacked for bias. A third reason is the right has a great deal more “pearl-clutching energy.” They remained outraged over liberal misdeeds with more noise and for a longer time than the left can maintain over conservative misdeeds. I’ll add a fourth reason – many mainstream media outlets are owned by billionaires or others who have a large stake in conservative goals. So they’re inherently biased. Willis wrote that media companies can take things only so far. They fail when Americans can see the truth with their own eyes. Right now no amount of spin can mask the problems in the economy. At the top of today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev included a photo of the midnight swearing in of Zohran Mamdani as the mayor of New York City. It was done a subway station that’s no longer used that leads directly into City Hall. It’s a pretty location. Mamdani had a second swearing in, this time during the day, on City Hall steps, and with the public able to attend. Kev quoted Hayes Brown of MSNOW discussing the many artists who have canceled gigs at the Kennedy Center, especially after the nasty guy added his nasty name to the building. Ric Grenell, president of the Center, called these artists “far-left political activists.” Brown wrote:

Grenell essentially accusing performers of being performative illustrates an utter lack of understanding about the arts and audience. It’s as though his mind cannot fathom why an artist might decide to withhold their work from certain audiences at certain venues. And as though there is not a rich tradition of art as protest in this country, either in boldly staging performances calling out injustice or in shunning stages that demanded segregated audiences.

Then Brown discussed Grenell’s focus on “sound fiscal policy.” He wants arts that actually sell tickets and make a profit. That misses the point of arts. It is why most arts institutions, including the Kennedy Center, are non-profit. Arts are important whether or not they make a profit. The Nation magazine reposted a 2015 essay from Toni Morrison that gives another reason for what Grenell is really up to.

Dictators and tyrants routinely begin their reigns and sustain their power with the deliberate and calculated destruction of art: the censorship and book-burning of unpoliced prose, the harassment and detention of painters, journalists, poets, playwrights, novelists, essayists. This is the first step of a despot whose instinctive acts of malevolence are not simply mindless or evil; they are also perceptive. Such despots know very well that their strategy of repression will allow the real tools of oppressive power to flourish. Their plan is simple: 1. Select a useful enemy—an “Other”—to convert rage into conflict, even war. 2. Limit or erase the imagination that art provides, as well as the critical thinking of scholars and journalists. 3. Distract with toys, dreams of loot, and themes of superior religion or defiant national pride that enshrine past hurts and humiliations.

In the comments is a tweet by Prof. Peter Hotez:

Year One MAHA: 1. Measles returns to America 2. Pertussis returns to America 3. Chronic hepatitis liver cancer returns 4. Pandemic preparedness gone 5. Swung & missed on autism 6. CDC disassembled 7. Biotech industry shutting down 8. Brain drain underway.

I see that as more oppression by the wealthy. Those near the top of the social hierarchy and most invested in their position make their lives appear better by making the lives of others worse. Killing others off through unrestrained disease is one way to accomplish that goal. That tweet was followed by one by Dan Diamond. It includes a link to a Washington Post article that is the source and includes a way for a person to look up the stats of their own county. Diamond wrote:

5 million-plus kindergartners now live in counties where schools don’t have “herd immunity” for measles, Washington Post reporters found.

A comment by pelagicray lamented the destruction of the federal executive branch, which included...

That came with significant deaths, many infant and children deaths, from USAID shutdown so chaotic medicine and food went bad in warehouses rather than into a final distribution. That is on us. We let it happen. While many of us voted for the good, collectively it is on all of us. A piece in the U.S. Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health notes

The Trump administration’s decision to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths from infectious diseases and malnutrition, according to Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Atul Gawande.

After all that something light and sweet. Rund Abdelfatah, host of NPR’s Throughline brought to All Things Considered and 8-minute segment on the history of chocolate. The link also has a transcript.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Greg Sargent of The New Republic:

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

A tweet from Martina Navratilova:

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

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

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

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

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

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

The trains ran. The meals came. The compromises began.

An Associated Press article posted Monday on Daily Kos reports on the Iran strikes on US military bases in the Middle East. It also reports on Iran strikes on Israel and Israel strikes on Iran. I’m definitely not keeping up with this story. I’m beginning to think I shouldn’t try. Alex Samuels of Kos wrote Democrats are trolling the nasty guy by staging a Pride concert at The Kennedy Center, which the nasty guy controls. He may control it but members of Congress have a privilege of renting space there. So even though the nasty guy has ignored pride, has attacked LGBTQ people – especially trans people, and many of the staff of The Kennedy Center quit when he took over, the venue will have a bunch of gay people on its stage, a bit of “guerrilla theatre.” Samuels’ article does not give a date for the program, who will be performing (the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington is mentioned), and who will be attending. June 26 was the tenth anniversary of the Obergefell ruling that legalized same-sex marriage across the country. I’ve heard a couple tributes on NPR, including one on Michigan Public’s Stateside program. A Michigan couple brought one of the three suits that were combined when the case went before the Supreme Court. That suit, DeBoer v. Snyder, started as a case trying to overturn the ban on LGBTQ people adopting children. April DeBoer and Jane Rowse both wanted the other to adopt their children, to give all the children two parents. The judge in the case said a few time he thought they should refile the case not to overturn the ban on adoption but to overturn the ban on marriage. That message took a while to sink in. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, included a chart showing the percent of Americans who think same-sex marriage should be valid. Back in 1996 less than 35% of Democrats and about 17% of Republicans supported same-sex marriage. The peak support by Republicans was about 2021 when it was 55%. Support has now dropped to 41%. Peak support by Democrats is now, with 88% in support. For America as a whole peak support was in 2023 at 71% and is now at 68%. We’ve made a lot of progress in acceptance in the last 30 years. But this right could be pulled way too easily. For a bit of fun scroll up from the marriage acceptance chart for a Brief Sanity Break showing an unusual game of chess. Also to mark the tenth anniversary an Associated Press article posted on Kos discussed how views on same-sex marriage have changed over the decades. Back in 1988, less than 40 years ago, only about ten percent of US adults agreed that gay couples should have the right to marry and about 70% disagreed. At the time the that was the same for both Democrats and Republicans. In 1996 – the year of the Defense of Marriage Act – 27% of US adults said same-sex marriages should be recognized in law. At that time Democrats were nearly twice as likely as Republicans to agree. In 2004 Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage and Bush II campaigned on a constitutional amendment to ban it. About 40% of US adults supported same-sex marriage, including about half of Democrats and 22% of Republicans. In 2015, when the Supremes legalized same-sex marriage, about 75% of Democrats were in favor while only about 33% of Republicans were. The chart mentioned above shows over the last three years Republican support has fallen from 55% to 41%, the steepest multi-year fall. Democratic support has continued to rise. An important point is that Republicans under 50 are about 60% in favor of same-sex marriage while just 36% of those over 50 are in favor. The Republican numbers will improve. I had mentioned that Zohran Mamdani has won the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City. Mamdani was born in Uganda and is now a US citizen. Alix Breeden of Kos wrote about a particular reaction to his win. That reaction is from Republicans who are saying he is supported by terrorists and will work to destabilize or civilization. Electing him will be cultural suicide. That is coupled with the message that he can’t win, so he doesn’t deserve a place on the ballot. And don’t waste your vote on him. Yeah, the usual false accusations. What Mamdani might do is try to nudge the city a bit out of being controlled by the rich. That is the only part of civilization he might destabilize. In Thursday’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitow Kev quoted Robert McCoy of The New Republic:

MAGA Republican groups are calling for the deportation of New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani. On Wednesday, the day after the 33-year-old democratic socialist handily secured his party’s nomination, the New York Young Republican Club, or NYYRC, took to X, begging Trump immigration advisers Stephen Miller and Tom Homan to revoke Mamdani’s U.S. citizenship and deport him.

In the comments is a tweet from Captain Fanta. It shows a storefront in southern California displaying piñatas that look like ICE agents. A tweet from Bea shows two images, one labeled domestic terrorist, the other labeled ICE agent. The image labels every component of their outfits. The only difference is the gun. The easy conclusion is that the ICE agent is a terrorist. But that’s not Bea’s only conclusion:

w/the exception of the firearm, one can buy EVERY SINGLE item on this list from amazon. yes, even the zip tie cuffs. no gov't id and/or signed judicial warrant after 2 asks? call 911. -masked man = kidnapper/human trafficker -no plates = stolen vehicle -approaching ppl w/a gun = mass shooter

A cartoon posted by Toonerman shows the nasty guy and the dog that serves as Toonerman’s voice of truth.

Nasty guy: Israel and Iran are trying to make a liar out of me. Voice of truth: Like he needs any help being a liar.

There is one more quote of interest, though interesting enough I went for the full article. It is by Colin of The One Percent Rule on Substack. He wrote about Germans during the Nazi years and how that relates to today. His academic specialty was psychology of business ethics. Somewhere along the way he started researching cognitive warfare. He read many books about ordinary people in WWII. The books had in common the intention to take away people’s ability to think for themselves. Today we have declining literacy and the ability to think critically. Many of the atrocities were enabled by ordinary people who failed to think critically about the consequences of what they did. This isn’t an excuse. It’s a way of saying evil can come from thoughtlessness, indifference, and not exercising moral judgment. One book Colin read was Defying Hitler a memoir by Sebastian Haffner. To know when democracy dies watch your neighbor. Or yourself for when you stop asking questions and just nod along. Wrote Colin of the book:

His memoir, despite its title, begins not with Hitler, not with a rousing speech or a climactic battle, but with a duel: one private individual, face-to-face with a state demanding his thoughts, his gestures, his time, his soul. It is not a battle of equals. The outcome seems inevitable. Yet Haffner offers us a disturbing truth: the erosion of freedom does not come by force alone. It comes by consent, by inertia, by a quiet willingness to go along.

Another book is They Thought They were Free by Milton Mayer. That book describes the author’s Nazi friends. They had ordinary jobs – bakers, clerks – and helped neighbors. They were the little people. Their seduction was practical “The trains ran. The meals came. The compromises began.” Haffner noted that to the German boys that grew up during WWI war was thrilling. It was also national grooming. By the time they found war appalling they could no longer dissent. Mayer noted none of his Nazi friends felt responsible. They hadn’t chosen evil. But they hadn’t chosen. Each step was so small none saw the overall pattern. The first warning: Propaganda isn’t just the lies of the powerful. It’s also in children’s games and songs and the silence of the adults. The second warning: Authoritarianism isn’t just hate. It is also habit and custom. People join because it is easier, because resistance is exhausting, especially when one is alone. The third warning: Keep thinking, even when others have stopped. People also join because of the comradeship. That relieves the individual from responsibility for their actions. The crowd hugs while it corrodes. The ordinary man will rationalize, adapt, and submit. Mayer found institutions, such as churches, schools, and police, weren’t taken by force. They offered themselves up. The individual didn’t had institutional protection. We don’t want to disagree with the crowd and risk exile. The internet has only made the crowd larger and more inescapable. Fascism arrives with a slight compromise, a fear of speaking out. Are you willing to continue to question things? How much discomfort are you wiling to endure? The crowd is always waiting. Colin recommended reading through the Wikipedia article on “Strength through Joy.” I didn’t read it, but did scan it. This was a Nazi program to offer leisure activities to the masses that were previously only available to the privileged. It included sports, adult education, and cultural events. Though my scan and keeping Colin’s article in mind I could see one of its goals was to embed the ordinary person into the crowd, where dissent was much harder. I sometimes listen to the program Today Explained put out by Vox. I hear it on the NPR affiliate Michigan Public. Thursday’s episode was about the Israel/Hamas war and war crimes. I haven’t written about this war in a long time. In the first half of the program, about 12 minutes, host Noel King talked to Suzy Hansen, who has written about International Humanitarian Law after WWII. I am working from the transcript. The IHL says that when a country wages war there are things they can’t do. Those things are labeled war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. We also built courts to prosecute crimes of war. People generally agree that the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel was a war crime. There is less agreement whether it was an act of genocide. On the Israeli side, withholding food and water, cutting of electricity and fuel, bombing to damage hospitals and cultural sites, and the high civilian death toll are all war crimes. Experts ask whether the attacks are proportional to the military aims. The civilian death toll and the tolerance for it is much higher than the norms of international law. The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants to three Hamas leaders and two Israeli leaders, including Benjamin Netanyahu. But warrants are different from arrests, which haven’t happened. The war continues because when resolutions come up in the United Nations Security Council the US vetoes them. Also, even though the US State Department knew Israel was depriving Gaza of food, the US continued sending weapons to Israel. In the second half of the program, about the same length, King spoke with Omer Bartov, professor of Holocaust and Genocide studies at Brown University. He is also Israeli and Jewish. Bartov said there are two parts to the UN’s definition of genocide. One, is there an intent to destroy a group as a group. Two, is that intent being implemented. Bartov said that he saw evidence as undeniable in early May 2024. That’s when he realized a pattern to what the Israeli Defense Force was doing. They would tell the Gazans they had to leave a particular area. In May 2024 this was Rafah and about a million Gazans were there. Once they moved the area where they had been was bombed and flattened. Israeli leaders say they have to wipe out Gaza. The actions show a systematic destruction, including schools, museums, and hospitals. These are the things that allow a group to reconstitute itself. Bartov recognized the goal was to destroy the ability of Palestinians to live as a group in Gaza. Bartov also noted the children in Gaza have the largest percent of child amputees in the world. They haven’t received enough food and live in atrocious conditions. They are traumatized and will never be normal and healthy. The “G” word is not mentioned in Israel. The country was created as a refuge for the victims of the largest genocide, the Holocaust. The idea that the country created because of genocide is committing genocide cannot be grasped and accepted. But Israel is also saying there is no other way to destroy Hamas without major damage to the population because they use the people as human shields. Hamas cannot release the hostages because that is the only thing keeping the IDF from finishing off Gaza. The plan Israel is now putting out there is to squeeze the population of Gaza into 25% of its territory and destroy and empty the rest of the strip. Gaza isn’t all that big and a quarter of that is tiny. There is now no infrastructure in that small space and the population is two million. That will not work and shows the intention of genocide. I went looking for size comparison and found one by Newsweek that overlaid Gaza on a few American cities. Gaza is 141 square miles. I think Detroit (without suburbs) is 134 and Gaza holds more people that Detroit ever did. Israel has said since its founding that because the world stood by during the Holocaust the world cannot tell the Israelis what to do. That claim has now run out. The world has international bodies that are supposed to prevent genocide. Those bodies were created at a time when strong states could do what they wanted with weaker neighbors. Those bodies aren’t working anymore. But the world still has a responsibility to stop these actions or we will return to that former era.