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.

No B.S. Just fix it.

Eric Schmeltzer is a Democratic communications consultant who writes Build a Better Donkey. He wrote a contributing article for Daily Kos discussing Democrat Zohran Mamdani, Mayor of New York, and Democrat Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania. What they have in common is they are cutting red tape. This isn’t the deregulation favored by Republicans, which is all about removing customer protections so corporations pollute and scam without breaking the law. Mamdani has been cutting red tape for those applying for small business licenses. Shapiro did it when an I-95 bridge collapsed in Philadelphia in June 2023 and he had a temporary replacement in use twelve days later. Shapiro also ordered a review of how the state handles the 2,400 different licenses, permits, and certifications it hands out. Teacher certification went from ten weeks to three or less. Schmeltzer says the villain isn’t the government worker, but but the institutionalist.

Not evil, not lazy. It’s people who are wedded to all those 6,000 regulations Mamdani cited, because they know why each one is there. Every rule started with a reason. Somebody got sick from a bad batch of ice cream, so now you need a permit to sell it. Then something else happened, so another rule got stacked on top of that one, and another on top of that. And nobody in government has ever lost their job for adding a rule. So the rules stay, decades after the reason is no longer valid, because that’s just how things are done and there’s no incentive to change them (but plenty of cost if you do and something goes wrong). As Mamdani’s own buildings commissioner said, the job now is to “get out of our own way.”

Yeah, cutting red tape had been the nasty guy’s line. We must keep Republicans from snatching this idea of a functioning government from Democrats. Well, part of that is Republicans don’t want a functioning government (see DOGE). For the solution the first part is get all Democrats running with this idea so that it becomes a party brand. Show voters what happens when Democrats run things. The second part is to fix what’s broken, to have Congress reverse what DOGE did. Just cutting regulations isn’t enough. “Somebody has to answer the phone, process the form, and hit the deadline, and Trump fired those people.” Yeah, Republicans won’t like the restaffing. Schmeltzer came up with a slogan for this attitude:

“No B.S. Just fix it.” Why that one? Because it’s how people already talk. It covers the rule nobody can explain and the excuse for why nobody can change it, in two letters. And Trump can’t say it anymore, not after DOGE, not without the room laughing. The second ice cream permit is B.S. Six weeks on a nursing license is B.S. “That’s the way it just is” is B.S.

This is a way to push the brand. Kos of Kos discussed the campaign of Democrat Ben Gruber, running for the Wisconsin state assembly. His district is rural, yet he seems to have a chance. He has made some inroads in the district because from his previous jobs he has a reputation of getting things done. That resonates with the people there because they know about getting things done – the hay must be baled before the rainstorm. “‘It doesn’t always have to be pretty,’ Gruber said. ‘It just has to get done.’” Gruber is able to talk to people by asking about shared values and what they need. An example is healthcare. He then tells them how Republicans are making what they need harder to get and that these have been Democratic goals since forever. And when culture war issues come up, like the state paying of prisoner sex-change operations, he deflects the discussion back to economics. Back to getting things done. Which is why the nasty guy is popular in this district. He gets things done, he’s willing to act. Kos wrote:

I’ve written about the same phenomenon. Our politicians have too often blamed norms, traditions, institutions, and procedural obstacles for their inability to change a system that increasingly benefits the wealthy and powerful. It’s excuse after excuse after excuse. But Trump just does what he wants. Yes, he’s using that power toward ends we vehemently oppose, and many of his actions have been clawed back by the courts. But that has helped reveal the contours of presidential power—what a president can do, what the courts will stop, and what survives those challenges. And it turns out a president has far more power than we were led to believe. The next Democratic Congress and president need to be just as laser-focused on using the power that voters give them to deliver tangible economic benefits to everyday people, without hiding behind norms and traditions that entrench the status quo. Do that, and maybe some of those conservative voters in Gruber’s rural district will be impressed enough to reassess their partisan affiliations.

That some who reassess might be enough to dramatically change politics. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Jonathan Last of The Bulwark discussing Rep. Thomas Massie introducing articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth.

All in all, it’s a pretty thorough document. You know what else it is? A good start. Thomas Massie just pointed the way for the next Congress. We don’t need to wait for 2029 to start pursuing accountability for the criminal acts carried out by members of the Trump administration. A Democratic-led House should impeach all of the officials around Trump who have committed high crimes and misdemeanors.

The reason for needing to do that is to declare at least Democrats believe their actions are illegal, unethical, and just morally wrong. Without saying that Republicans, joined by a few Democrats, will keep doing illegal, unethical, and morally wrong things. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted late night commentary. Here’s a couple:

“After a judge ruled that President Trump can’t add his name to the Kennedy Center, Trump announced that he’s shutting it down and canceling the planned renovations. Yup, Trump is shutting it down because it doesn’t have his name on it—as opposed to his casinos, which shut down because they did have his name on them.” —Jimmy Fallon “Diesel is now so expensive my Amazon driver just told me he’s leaving my package in Ohio and I should come get it.” —John Fugelsang

I will myself to be happy, therefore I am

My Sunday movie was Indian Horse. It is the story of Saul Indian Horse, an indigenous man. The story opens in 1959 when the Canadian residential school system is still going strong. A similar school system was still in use in the US. At age six Saul’s family tries to protect him from being abducted and sent to a school. But their protection fails. A good chunk of the movie is about the cruelty of the priests and nuns who ran this particular school and all like it – a case of using God to justify oppression. A younger priest suggests building a hockey rink for the older boys. Saul is entranced by the game. He’s given the chore of maintaining the rink and secretly teaches himself to skate and handle a hockey stick. Though he’s not allowed to play because he’s too young, he soon shows he’s as good or better than the older boys. At one point Saul says the only thing they really teach at the school is how to endure. Hockey is how he endures. He’s good enough he is allowed to leave the school and be part of a small town league, then a minor league team with a chance at the majors. There he finds that too many white people think the game is theirs and shouldn’t be open to a native. They makes sure he knows that. This can be a difficult story to watch, but it’s an important one. The actors, including the kids, do a fine job. Overall, it’s a good movie. A few days ago I wrote about a post by Kos of Daily Kos who speculated that Republicans are sufficiently annoyed and tired of the nasty guy that enough would vote to remove him after the Democratic led House impeached him. My friend and debate partner disagreed, saying the chance of Republicans going along with this is “probably zero.” He wrote:

If [removal] did happen, it could accelerate the administration's march to fascism. Otherwise his toadies and sycophants (who lack immunity) face prison. Trump got this boulder rolling; but removing him still leaves it in motion. We need determined, steady effort to brake and break up this horror. That will take teaching and time.

I agree with my friend. Removing the nasty guy puts the vice nasty in power and many have said he is more fascist. At the very least the nasty guy isn’t very smart and is guided by his need to constantly prop up his ego, but the vice nasty is reasonably smart and would be more purposeful in working towards fascist goals. Also, removing just the nasty guy does nothing to curb the power of the billionaires and their hold over the Republican – and Democratic – parties. We’re not out of this threat until their power is neutralized.

The work ahead is for Congress and allies to denounce, investigate, impede, litigate and legislate to contain Trump and his fascists, fiscally starve their programs, slow and reverse the damage and assert a new American devotion to the Constitution, the rule of law, freedom and democracy.

The legislate part faces the nasty guy’s veto. As for the rest so far Democrats haven’t shown much spine in actually doing those things. I hope that when Democrats take over the House (hopefully the Senate too!) they begin the work on all those other things. But that will require a change in party leadership, sidelining all those beholden to billionaires. Will enough progressives be elected to force the issue? That means the breaking up of this horror and the teaching required to do so will have to be done by us. My friend and debate partner ended with:

I'm thinking the $5,000 "promise" is either fraud or bribery. Both are federal felonies. Since the "promise" was made to about 270 million adult US citizens, this amounts to 270 million felonies -- surely a world record! (CNN is my source for the 270 million figure.)

Ooh! I like that reasoning! The phrase “Live, Laugh, Love” now appears on coffee mugs and bumper stickers. NPR's Juana Summers talked with Kristin Kobez Du Mez about her new book Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made. The meaning behind the phrase both serves and harms women. The phrase goes back to 1875 and the book The Christian's Secret Of A Happy Life by Hannah Whithall Smith. Essentially, if one aligns their will with the will of God, believes and doesn’t doubt and keeps a positive attitude, then one will become holy and happiness will follow. For women, at least white women, aligning their will with the will of God means totally submitting to the men around them – their husband and their pastor. That will lead to happiness. That didn’t work for Smith either. She had to redefine happiness from an emotion to an act of will, “I will myself to be happy, therefore, I am.” Millions of women are taught they must trust the men, obey, even sacrifice their own well-being. God requires it and they will be blessed. They are taught to defend the authority of those God place over them. That means they have a hard time identifying abuse and certainly won’t speak out against it. The victims that complain tend to get pushed out of the community. This is why they vote conservatively. They are taught to uphold power structures, including authoritarian power. This seems contradictory when these women are immersed in a culture of love and positivity. The logic is that the pure feminine innocence must be protected from evil. That may require violence, but it will be righteous violence. Du Mez also talked about the compassionate conservatism that was popular during the Bush II reign. In the last 10-15 years that has been replaced with the idea that compassion should not be shown to the disobedient to the Christian or American project. We’re not surprised that includes LGBTQ people and immigrants. This ideology is absorbed more readily if women are teaching it. So, women can be out in public and involved in politics, even religion, as long as they stay within the ideology. I listened to this and thought about how women are taught to uphold the hierarchy – with themselves in a lower position – by telling them that God requires it. The God of love is being used to oppress, which is never love. I’ve written many times about Matthew, chapter 25, in the Bible that talks about what God requires of us – love and care for your neighbor as yourself and even the stranger is your neighbor. That’s it. As part of a discussion with my sister I realized Christians are very good at redefining what God wants – obedience and holiness are just a couple of diversions – so that we can avoid caring for our neighbor and still claim to be on the right side of God. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos discussed the nasty guy’s offer to pay $5,000 to every adult if Republicans maintain control of both the House and Senate.

But I do have a few questions, Mr. President. When you say “every adult citizen”… Does that include the Dumocrats? Does that include the sex criminals? ... Does that include the woke? The LGBTQ? The feminists and pagans? Does that include men with low testosterone and women with their original hair and faces? Does that include Republicans who vote Democrat? Does that include Jimmy Kimmel?

The list includes many more people and categories. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that Mitch McConnell made an appearance at the Senate after three months of people wondering whether he had died. The response was mild, though he did fuel a lot of memes. In Monday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a campaign ad from James Talarico, the Democrat trying to win the Senate seat in Texas. He essentially says a member of Congress is supposed to serve the people, not themselves. In the comments rugbymom posted a tweet by the Adam Hamilton campaign. He is a liberal United Methodist pastor (I’ve read at least one of his books) running as a Democrat for the Senate from Kansas and just might flip the seat. The tweet contains a video of Hamilton’s closing argument at a debate at the Kansas state fair against Roger Marshall. The characters of The Wizard of Oz want a heart, a brain, and courage. These are three things Republicans don’t have – their votes show they don’t have a heart, they don’t talk to constituents and don’t understand them showing they don’t have a brain, and they don’t have the courage to stand up to the nasty guy. Hamilton puts his preacher training to good use to lay all this out. In the comments of today’s roundup are a few good tweets and memes. A tweet from Andy Craig:

Great system where the body with the power to declare, fund, and authorize wars can repeatedly vote "we don't approve of this war, stop it" and it has no effect.

A meme posted by exlrrp and from Call to Activism:

The entire Republican Party just let the president try and undermine our Constitution and prevent eligible voters from making their voices heard in this election. The Supreme Court said No F---ing Way. Corruption lost and the law won!

Also posted by exlrrp is a campaign sign:

TRUMP $20.28 per gallon

Do they keep Trump wrapped around their necks?

I’m a fan of the film music programs on WRCJ, the Detroit public radio station for classical and jazz music. So I’ve heard music by film composer Max Steiner. I heard of a recommended biography of him and eventually bought it and just now finished reading it. The book is Music by Max Steiner, the Epic Life of Hollywood’s Most Influential Composer by Steven C. Smith. Steiner was born in Vienna in 1888 to a musical and entrepreneurial family – his grandfather owned a theater and convinced Johann Strauss to try writing operettas. One result is Die Fledermaus. Steiner made big strides in music while young. When Vienna wasn’t working out he went to London, then Broadway, where he served as a conductor of musicals. Shortly after movies added sound he went to Hollywood. At the time movies with sound tended to have generic music that did little more than set the mood. Steiner revolutionized all that. He wrote music specific to the movie – themes for the major characters with the way they are combined and varied as a way to tell more of the story than dialogue can (an idea from opera composer Richard Wagner). He pioneered the click-track to synchronize the music to the film. A lot (maybe most) of the film composers working in the last 90 years are doing things the way Steiner did them. A big difference is modern composers write on computer and Steiner wrote with pencil and paper. Alas, many film producers put their composers through a tough schedule – limited time to write the music and record it. Yes, there are teams of orchestrators, the people who take the main guy’s basic outlines and turn them into performable sheet music. But the days are still long. Steiner would composer much of the day and lead a recording session much of the night. And while he was thick in the midst of one movie a producer frequently said, Max, you’re the only one who can rescue this film and we need it done quickly. Steiner’s first big success is King Kong, released in 1933. It decisively showed a score written specifically for a movie can make a huge difference in how the action and characters are perceived. In this case the stop-action motion of the great ape looked silly without Steiner’s pounding score. But Steiner could also turn the viewer’s opinion towards a bit of sympathy for the beast. His other famous scores are Gone With The Wind of 1939 and Casablanca of 1942. He continued to write for films into the mid 1960s. While the book is fascinating (to me), it is also long – 400 pages. I didn’t think I needed to know that much detail about the movies he scored – and the book doesn’t cover every movie. Another issue I have with the book is the basic problem of describing music with words. It would say Steiner used this particular melodic fragment to mean this with this effect on the movie. For some of the scores I could find the some of the music on YouTube, but that rarely showed the music with the scene described in the book – unless I wanted to watch the whole movie (and GWTW is about 4 hours long – I saw it decades ago and once was enough). The book also described Steiner’s personal life. The royalty organization ASCAP wouldn’t handle movie music (that changed in the 1960s), so Steiner seemed perpetually poor, even though the studios paid him well. Enjoying gambling and not being a good manager of money contributed to that. His intense hours meant he went through four wives and his son didn’t get what he needed most – a dad he could talk to. I enjoyed the book and learned about composing for movies. But I would recommend it only to those with a great love of music for film. The Republican midterm convention – sorry, nasty guy rally – ended yesterday. Of course, I avoided it. Also of course, some of his worst statements end up in the news, even on NPR. Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported on the item that got the most airtime. The nasty guy said if Republicans kept the House and Senate he would send every adult $5,000. So vote Republican. Yeah, there are all kinds of problems with that promise. Congress has to approve the money and enough members likely won’t, if it ever came for a vote. The total cost would be well over $1 trillion (I’ve heard up to $1.3 trillion). So much money dumped into the economy would boost inflation. And the national debt. And the big problems: Bribing voters is illegal. But that doesn’t stop him. He has made promises of payouts before and rarely followed through. And voters are noticing. So don’t let this promise influence your vote. Kos of Kos discussed what might happen after the election.

President Donald Trump may have lost his ability to punish Republicans in primaries. But he hasn’t lost his ability to punish them in general elections. That’s the extraordinary dynamic now taking shape: Trump is herding his party toward an electoral catastrophe, yet increasingly lacks the political leverage to keep Republicans from eventually turning on him. ... So, Republicans will have a decision to make: Do they keep Trump wrapped around their neck heading into 2028, or do they rip off the Band-Aid, join Democrats in impeaching him, and spend the next several years hoping America forgets their complicity in the Trump disaster? I’m going to sit way out on this limb and predict that this is exactly what will happen, and that we will have a President JD Vance before 2028.

The Houthis of Yemen are threatening to close the southern end of the Red Sea, requiring ships between Asia and Europe to take the long way around Africa. The nasty guy claims the Iranians are just waiting for the midterms to be over before caving to his demands. More likely they’ll settle with the next president. Both of these closures will continue to raise prices and perhaps lead to a big energy mess.

Trump took a promising Biden economy and trashed it for no reason at all. All of it has been entirely, and unnecessarily, his fault. And Republicans have enabled him every step of the way. At some point, Republicans will have to decide: When do they cut their losses and begin rebuilding in a post-MAGA world? If it’s between a raving lunatic in the White House, and JD Vance, it doesn’t seem like a tough call.

Democrats probably won’t try to impeach without a path to actual conviction. Republicans may give them that. I’ve heard elsewhere that impeachment can’t be off the table. If the nasty guy, terrible as he is, isn’t impeached, we’ll have worse. Alas, a candidate for worse is the current vice nasty. In contrast to the way Democrats are acting right now... MaryAEnglish of the Kos community wrote about the far right German party AfD doing way too well in a state election and the comments by Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, who called it as he saw it. The AfD has been using the term “remigration” and Merz properly called it ethnic cleansing. Then he said:

If those working in Germany have to leave the country again because you are championing ‘remigration’, then the skilled trades in Germany will no longer be able to function: not a single care home will remain open, not a single hospital in Germany will remain operational, and not a single restaurant in Germany will be able to stay in business.

Now if Democrats would be so bold.

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.

There is no incentive for them to end their criminality

A couple days ago I wrote of the fund the nasty guy (well, his Department of Justice) set up to award money to the people who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021. I wrote about the many ethics problems of the fund. Of course, that’s not the end of the story. Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos reported acting Attorney General Todd Blanche testified before a Senate subcommittee Tuesday and had to face intense grilling from Democrats. Blanche sidestepped and did the usual muddying of the issues. And, as Einenkel concluded:

If you’re keeping score, Blanche declined to rule out payments for people convicted of assaulting law enforcement, political donors, and insurrectionists accused of sexually abusing children.

Oliver Willis of Kos reported Rep. Dan Goldman of New York told CNN on Monday night that creating the slush fund is an impeachable offense. He said when Democrats take back the House the fund will be one of many intensive investigations. Other Democrats criticized the fund. Lisa Needham of Kos reported the DoJ added an addendum to the Settlement Agreement, which is really an order. The “settlement” is between the nasty guy and the IRS because an IRS contractor revealed some aspects of the nasty guy’s tax returns. The settlement was not reviewed by a judge and is a “settlement” is in name only with the purpose of obscuring what is going on. On to the addendum. That’s also skeezy because the original agreement left a loophole to allow things to be added. This isn’t just any little thing.

Instead, we just got Blanche dashing off a single paragraph that, on behalf of the United States government, provided an entirely new waiver that says the IRS will never audit, investigate, penalize, or prosecute Trump and others for anything at all, known or unknown, for anything that happened prior to May 18, 2026. ... That sweet forever freedom from prosecution no longer just applies to the plaintiffs in Trump’s sham lawsuit: Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization. Now, it applies to “Plaintiffs or related or affiliated individuals (including, without limitation, family or others filing jointly), or parties including trusts, parent, sister, or related companies, affiliates, and subsidiaries.” Yeah, that’s a lot more people, and a lot more protection.

A tweet by Ronald Brownstein included a tweet by Acyn of Meidas Touch. Acyn included a video of (Josh?) Shapiro, governor (of Pennsylvania?) and quoted a bit of the video:

Somehow, he can’t find the money to pay for healthcare, but he can steal from you to pay off the criminals who stormed the Capitol.

Brownstein added:

One of what will be many many examples of how easily Trump’s move to funnel taxpayer money to J6 rioters will fold into the core Democratic message for 2026.

Oliver Willis of Kos reported:

Two of the police officers who responded to the pro-Trump Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol are now suing the administration after it revealed plans for a taxpayer financed slush fund to reward insurrectionists and other Trump allies. D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Officer Daniel Hodges and former U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn filed suit on Wednesday. The suit seeks to block the so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund” created after Trump dropped his suit against the IRS and “negotiated” with his own officials to create the $1.7 billion slush fund. In the suit the officers allege that the fund “encourages those who enacted violence in the President’s name to continue to do so.”

In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Paul Krugman writing in his own Substack:

At this point Trump and his MAGA minions have stolen so much, committed so many crimes — not just theft but taking America to war illegally, abusing ICE detainees, and much more — that if and when they lose power many of them will face personal ruin at best, years of jail time at worst. This would happen even if they stopped committing more crimes. So there’s no incentive for them to end their criminality, or to end the attempts to bribe others to go along. Either they succeed in destroying America as we know it, or they won’t. And until that’s resolved, they may as well engage in even more corruption and criminal acts.

Sherrilyn Ifill of her own Substack wrote:

It is by now widely understood that the 14th Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship, and protection from state interference with citizenship rights. The Amendment incorporates the concept of equality – racial equality – into our Constitution for the first time. In so doing the 14th brings our Constitution into harmony with the core principle of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal.” The drafting and ratification of the 14th Amendment constituted a stunningly ambitious act of constitutional repair and reconciliation. […] Trump and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s grotesque scheme to reward January 6th insurrectionists with payouts from the federal treasury completes the Trump administration’s section-by-section effort to violate the 14th Amendment. Section 4 of the Amendment bars the United States from paying money to those who participated in insurrection. Congress, the branch of government empowered by Section 5 of the Amendment to enforce the 14th Amendment’s guarantees, must block this blatantly unconstitutional scheme from moving forward.”

Thom Hartmann of the Kos community and independent pundit quoted a friend. If the nasty guy is funneling my tax money to people who attacked the Capitol, why am I paying my taxes? Why not cheat as so many acquaintances have? Hartmann added an explanation:

By the way, the entire frame — picked up and dutifully repeated by the corporate media — was a lie. Trump’s lawsuit was about to be thrown out by a skeptical judge, so he simply killed it. There’s no “settlement.” No “in exchange” for dropping the suit, none of that. Instead, Trump wants us to think that, but in reality — as Rachel Maddow pointed out — Trump is just forcing us taxpayers to give him a $1.776 billion slush fund.

I’ve heard NPR repeat the frame that the slush fund was a settlement. Hartmann added that nasty junior has created venture firms that have contracts with the Pentagon and other federal agencies. So in addition to being routed to an insurrectionist slush fund a man’s tax money is being routed to the private fortune of the nasty guy’s son. More corruption. The corruption and dismantling of democracy is happening while the nasty guy is breaking our alliances that kept the free world safe since 1945. And that is happening while Russia and China are cooperating in military efforts. How to stop all this? The mess deserves more than a shrug and can’t wait until 2029 or even 2027.

House and Senate Democrats should be holding shadow hearings right now, on the record, with witnesses named and a documentary record being built in real time, so that the day the gavel changes hands there is no two-year Merrick Garland-style delay while everyone studies their shoes. And the Blue states’ attorneys general, who answer to their own voters and not to Todd Blanche, should be opening criminal inquiries into the Trump organization’s conduct under state law, where no federal addendum and no presidential pardon can reach. Letitia James already showed in New York that state fraud statutes have teeth. There’s no reason the attorneys general of at least a dozen blue states couldn’t be coordinating that work this afternoon.

Hartmann says to call your senators and representative and tell them you want hearings on corruption, and do it now, not next year. Emily Singer of Kos reported Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky lost his primary to a guy endorsed by the nasty guy. The reason the endorsement didn’t go to Massie is he led the charge to release the Epstein files and voted against the One Big Brutal Bill. Massie’s lost came just after Sen. Bill Cassidy lost his primary. He had also displeased the nasty guy by voting to convict him in the 2021 impeachment trial. The nasty guy has also endorsed Ken Paxton over Texas Sen. John Cornyn, pretty much assuring Cornyn will soon lose his primary runoff. Add to that the five Republican state lawmakers in Indiana who lost primaries because they refused to go along with a mid-decade gerrymander. All that shows how much the nasty guy still controls his voters. Republicans who risk defying him could also be removed. These lawmakers have hurt feelings and have nothing more to lose. They could be problematic for the nasty guy. For example, Cassidy has flipped his vote on the war powers resolution Democrats have been bringing up repeatedly to stop the war in Iran. Kos of Kos wrote the nasty guy is winning the wrong battles.

But forcing Republicans into total submission comes with a cost. Every GOP candidate will now carry the weight of Trump’s 38% approval rating and disastrous economic numbers. There’s no room left for distance, nuance, or independence. Trump is making every contest on the ballot about himself, and Republicans can’t win that choice. After Democrats retake one or both chambers of Congress this November, Trump will discover that less-MAGA Republican lawmakers, however much he may hate them, are more useful as allies than as enemies.

The more a candidate grovels to the nasty guy the easier a Democrat can win. An Associated Press article posted on Kos announced the death of Barney Frank. He was 86. He served in the House for 32 years, first elected in 1980, representing Boston suburbs. He was able to get a lot done because he recognized what could be accomplished and didn’t turn things that couldn’t be done into a litmus test. He was a pioneer of LGBTQ rights and in 1987 voluntarily came out as gay, rather than being outed. He is also well known for his work in response to the 2007 economic collapse, in what became the Dodd-Frank Act that enhanced consumer protections and strengthened banks. Alas, the nasty guy has worked to undo many of the Act’s provisions, saying they were too onerous. Having an unashamed gay guy in Congress way back in 1987 is pretty cool!

Didn't bend, didn't cower, emerged with dignity intact

I finished the book Leg, the Story of a Limb and the Boy Who Grew From It by Greg Marshall. This is a memoir of Greg growing up with “tight tendons” that cause him to walk with a limp and about recognizing he is gay and beginning to act on it. He doesn’t learn the true reason for his limp until he’s close to the age of 30. The setting is Salt Lake City in the 1990s and beyond. Marshall is one of the few in his school who is not Mormon. His mother cycles between bouts of cancer with chemo and remission, still hanging on decades later. Marshall seems to accept being gay more easily than walking with a limp. He is afraid that no one will love him. Between the short term trysts (with fear of AIDS) he does have three long-term boyfriends. He wishes that two of them were more honest, and he talks about why that matters. When he’s in middle school the French Club goes to France. His father is one of the chaperons and Marshall is a bit jealous how easily his father gets along with some of the natives, even though he knows little French. A decade later his father develops ALS and Marshall is a key caregiver, partly because his mother is going through another round of chemo. I enjoyed the book. My Sunday movie was The Adventures of Mark Twain, directed by Will Vinton, the subject of the documentary Claydream I watched last week. In my description last week I said it was rated PG-13, if that rating was around in 1985. I was wrong – it is rated G. What the documentary said was that the movie has adult themes, but marketed to kids. I had interpreted that wrong. The adult themes were not about sex. They were about topics children wouldn’t understand or have much interest in. Those topics were Satan and Heaven and Twain’s ridicule of them. The time is 1910 and Halley’s comet is in the sky again. Twain had held the belief that since he was born with the comet in the sky he’ll leave this world when it comes back. In this story to help that happen he has created an airship so he could rise up and actually meet the comet. Three of his characters – Tom Sawyer wanting to be famous, Huck Finn and his pet frog Homer, and Becky Thatcher – steal aboard. During the flight they encounter more of Twain’s stories. Homer becomes the star of The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. Then comes The Diary of Adam & Eve, Twain’s version of the story from the Bible. There is The Mysterious Stranger, a novella Twain never finished in which the main character is Satan who has a rather poor view of humans. Another was Captain Stormfield’s Diary, which gave Twain a chance to criticize the popular view of Heaven. These are some of the views a discouraged Twain developed later in life. Through it all the story takes advantage of all the things that Vinton had developed during his work on claymation. I enjoyed it. My favorite quote of the movie: Twain says...

The human race, in all its poverty, has only one truly effective weapon: laughter. Against the assault of laughter - ha-ha-ha-ha! - nothing can stand.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Daily Kos quoted from Carbon Brief:

Renewable energy has overtaken coal to become the world’s largest source of electricity in 2025, according to think tank Ember. The growth of solar and wind meant that, for the first time since 1919, the share of coal power was lower than that of renewables. Fossil-fuel generation fell by 0.2% in 2025, the think tank’s latest annual review says, with wind and solar alone meeting 99% of the growth in electricity demand last year.

Nadra Nittle, in an article for The 19th posted on Kos, discussed book bans and libraries. Nittle tells the experience of librarians faced with demands to ban books and dealing with hostile school boards or city councils. It’s a story that’s been going on for a while, so here are some of the ideas included: Pennsylvania is behind Texas and Florida in highest rates of library censorship. Many people think other states would be higher. Because of the hostility “few fully certified librarians remain in the Philadelphia school district.” Back in the 1990s there were over 170.

“This is also a class war,” [American Library Association President Sam Helmick] said. “Whether people read freely and have access to information is really at risk. We’re in an information age. If we’re not willing to invest in our communities so they can successfully navigate the digital divide and digital citizenry, we will not be equipped to continue to be a nation of, by and for the people.” ... Despite a sustained years-long effort during the 2020s to restrict reading materials, Helmick finds hope in polls indicating that 70 percent of the public opposes censorship of any kind. “That’s quite incredible because I joke that 70 percent of Americans wouldn’t agree that water is wet,” they said. “The vast majority are uninterested in this, which makes me wonder why we’re attacking the public information sector in the middle of an information age.”

Tracy Fitzmaurice, a librarian in rural North Carolina warned her fellow librarians not to buckle to outside pressure.

Don’t do anticipatory compliance. ‘If I just move this book, maybe they’ll go away.’ They won’t. These people have been at it for five years. What it really comes down to is local elections.

Nittle linked to the American Library Association list of the most challenged books of 2025. There are 11 books in this year’s list because there is a four-way tie for eighth place.

The 2025 data reported to ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) shows that the majority of book censorship attempts continue to originate from organized movements. In 2025, 92% of all book challenges were initiated by pressure groups, government officials, and decision makers, up from 72% in 2024. Less than 3% of challenges originated from individual parents.

As has been the case for many years the usual justifications for filing a complaint against a book are false claims of illegal obscenity for minors, LGBTQ characters or themes, or topics of race, racism, equity, and social justice. There were 4,235 unique titles challenged in 2025. That’s second only to the 4,240 titles in 2023. In 2025, 1,671 (40%) titles were about LGBTQ people and people of color. Out of the 11 books in this year’s list three of them are definitely about LGBTQ characters. There are likely more, but book descriptions are not on the page of the list and I don’t recognize the titles. An email from March For Our Lives discussed the number of shooting deaths over the first quarter of 2026 compared to prior years. In these three months of this year there were 3,103 lives lost to gunfire. There were shooting deaths in every one of the 50 states. That is way too many. But MFOL sent the letter because that number is lower than every year since 2015, which was slightly above 2026. The death toll rose each year with the highest in 2021 at well more than 4,500 deaths in 3 months. The chart doesn’t show actual numbers. Since 2021 the death toll has dropped. The MFOL message is that the culture is shifting away from guns and their advocacy to reduce and halt gun violence is having an effect. A week ago Emily Singer of Kos reported:

Since retaking office more than a year ago, the amount of corruption and lawlessness President Donald Trump has engaged in has been truly staggering. Between his grifts and profiteering off of the presidency, his pay for play pardons, his use of the Department of Justice for political retribution, and his shredding of the Constitution to impose tariffs, launch wars, and commit war crimes without congressional approval, Trump is committing impeachable offenses at a fast clip. And now, a majority of Americans agree it’s too much, with a new Verasight/Strength in Numbers poll finding that 55% of Americans say Trump should be impeached for a third time. Another 37% opposed and another 8% said they were unsure. “That net +18 verdict puts Trump in the neighborhood of the numbers Richard Nixon saw at the peak of the Watergate scandal in August 1974,” “Strength in Numbers” author G. Elliott Morris wrote.

The nasty guy is losing support from Republicans – 21% of those who voted for him in 2024 now support impeachment. In Saturday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet from Kevin Kruse commenting on the Department of Justice dropping its criminal investigation into the Federal Reserve and its outgoing chairman Jerome Powell. That investigation was more about intimidating Powell to get him to lower interest rates to boost the economy before the midterm elections.

Didn't bend, didn't cower, didn't even feel the need to stand next to Trump grinning awkwardly like it was normal. And now he's emerged unscathed with his job and his dignity intact and his reputation even stronger than before. Huh. Seems like this could be a model for others in power.

Jonathan Last of The Bulwark

Yesterday Secretary of the Navy John Phelan was fired. Twenty-one days ago, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George was fired. Fifty-four days ago, the American military launched its largest war in a generation. These datapoints are linked. They are an admission by the president that America is losing the war. Because the simple fact of the matter is: You do not make high-level personnel changes in the middle of a war if you are winning.

In Monday’s roundup Dworkin quote Mike Brock of Notes from the Circus discussing an article Ben Shapiro wrote explaining why he voted for the nasty guy. Shapiro admits that the nasty guy is what every liberal critic says he is – a usurper who was constrained by strong American institutions. Brock then quoted and discussed Shapiro’s reasoning on why voting for the nasty guy was still a good idea.

The reasoning is the lunacy: “The guardrails would largely hold… his worst mistakes would end up being mitigated by the pushback of reality.” This is the argument. The president of the United States is a man who would, if he could, end the constitutional order. The reason it is acceptable to elect him is that he probably cannot. The institutions are strong enough to contain him. The Madisonian architecture will hold, the Supreme Court will strike things down, the Treasury Secretary lives on Earth, the bad picks will be replaced by the merely bad picks. The wannabe dictator is, in the Shapiro analysis, a manageable risk.

Sheesh, wasn’t that said about Hitler? In Tuesday’s roundup Chitown Kev quoted Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo.

Donald Trump lost this war in its very first days. Everything that has happened in recent weeks — the threats, the negotiations, the live-on-social-media breakdowns — has simply been a matter of trying to get free of that fact. This isn’t a political attack. It’s simply an accurate appraisal of what we all see. More importantly, it is the only way to understand what is happening now. Everything that’s happening today and for weeks has been focused on breaking Iran’s hold on the Strait of Hormuz, something it didn’t have before the war started. That’s the definition of failure: fighting a war and continuing a war to clean up the mess the war of choice actually created. By this measure, the best way to achieve what is now the central war aim — opening the Strait — would have been simply not to start the war in the first place. You can see the reality of the power balance in the visible fact that Trump wants negotiations and an end to the conflict more than Iran does. He keeps asking for them or demanding them. Iran holds back. They have the upper hand, notwithstanding all the vast damage to infrastructure, civilian and military, Iran has suffered.

In today’s roundup Dworkin included a tweet from Anne Applebaum mentioning and linking to an article on Financial Times. Applebaum’s tweet:

Hungarian oligarchs begin fleeing the country, transferring assets, in anticipation of corruption investigations.

The article title and subtitle:

Hungary’s business elite pivots away from Viktor Orbán. Several loyalists have moved overseas while others vow to form ‘constructive co-operation’ with incoming premier.

David French of the New York Times:

A remarkable thing has happened on the world’s battlefields. Ukraine — a nation that was supposed to dissolve within days of a Russian invasion — has fought Russia to a stalemate, revolutionizing land warfare in the process. It has become an indispensable security partner in the Western alliance, including in the war against Iran. Now, Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, is taking the next step, one that would have been unthinkable even as recently as 2024. By word and deed, he’s showing Europe and the world how the post-American free world can preserve its liberty and independence. This is what happens when, as Phillips Payson O’Brien wrote in a piece for The Atlantic, “Kyiv appears to have given up on the United States.” If that is true — and it looks as though it is — it may be worse news for the United States than it is for Ukraine.

All that Minnesota protesting worked

I had a wonderful afternoon watching the opera The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay shown in a movie theater. The opera is based on a book of the same name by Michael Chabon, published in 2000. I read the book shortly after it came out (so at least 20 years ago) and enjoyed it. So when I heard there was an opera based on the book I very much wanted to see it. I had originally heard it would be on the radio in early January, a broadcast of a performance at the Metropolitan Opera last October. But in late December I heard I would be able to see it on screen in movie theaters, today being one of the days. Alas, the closer theater showing it sold out, so I had to go almost to Ann Arbor (in a theater definitely not sold out). The story is about Joe Kavalier, who is Jewish and at the start of the opera is escaping from Prague of 1939. He leaves behind parents and a sister. He gets to Brooklyn, where is cousin Sam Clay lives. Sam is enamored with comic books at a time when Superman is becoming a thing. He convinces Joe to join his effort – Sam would do the writing and Joe would do the artwork. Their character, The Escapist, is a hit, soon on the radio, voiced by Tracy, and there is talk of a movie. Along the way Joe falls in love with Rosa and Sam falls in love with Tracy – I had forgotten about this gay part of the story. But real Nazis are still out there and comic book battles aren’t removing the threat. Joe wants to bring his parents and sister to America and it’s not going well. The story is a lot deeper than the super hero angle might suggest. It is relevant to today both in The Escapist battling fascism and in a strong support of America being a place where the oppressed of other countries can come to be free. This was an overall excellent production, as one expects from Met Opera. The singers were in fine voice and did a great job in their acting. The music is by Mason Bates and the program included a clip of him describing his combination of orchestra with electronic sounds. The result was tuneful, dramatic, and beautiful, definitely not the avant garde of other operas written in the last half century. Each of the lead characters had moments to shine (what the opera world calls “arias”). The sets were innovative and appropriate to the story. There was also a lot of images projected on to the scenery or backdrop, a great way to show what Joe is drawing and to show the comics Tracy is portraying for the radio. The success of the fall run prompted Met Opera to show the opera in theaters, originally not on their in-theater schedule. The success also prompted the opera be brought back to the Met stage for a few more performances in February. At the bottom of the Met’s page for the opera are videos of some of those arias. I’m pretty sure this opera will become part of the standard repertoire rather quickly. The murder of Alex Pretti by ICE agents in Minneapolis last Saturday has been in the news quite a bit. But if you still need a news article here is one by the Associated Press posted on Daily Kos. Also on Saturday Kos of Kos wrote about some of the details of the killing to demonstrate that what comes out of the mouths of the nasty guy administration is lies. On Sunday Kos reported that a spending bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, the parent of ICE, is now before the Senate. Funding for several other departments is in the same bill. Several Democratic senators, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have declared they will vote no unless the bill is revised to restore the guardrails for ICE. That story is still playing out with a partial government shutdown possibly happening Saturday morning. Since the House is on recess (again) until Monday the chance of a shutdown is quite high. An AP article from Sunday afternoon includes more details of Pretti’s murder. It also includes comments by gun rights groups, that Pretti having a legal gun with permit with him at a protest is legal.

“Every peaceable Minnesotan has the right to keep and bear arms — including while attending protests, acting as observers, or exercising their First Amendment rights,” the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus said in a statement. “These rights do not disappear when someone is lawfully armed.”

A day that I side with a gun rights group is rare. Another AP article posted on Sunday reports that several Republicans are calling for a deeper investigation into the shooting and the tactics of the ICE agents. This is needed because, as before, DHS and ICE say they will investigate and are blocking Minnesota police from doing a separate (and more honest) investigation. I’m pleased to see that this murder is rousing some Republicans say something. That’s while, as Emily Singer of Kos reports, other Republicans are defending the killing. On Monday Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that protesters should not have guns. So Pretti brought this on himself. Also on Monday Kos wrote about the comments various administration officials, especially Noem, have been making. He wrote:

This isn’t spin. It isn’t confusion. It’s the secretary of Homeland Security knowingly lying to justify lethal force by her department, as part of an agencywide collapse so complete that it’s doubtful anyone at DHS is even capable of telling the truth anymore. And the absurdity doesn’t stop there. While Noem repeatedly refers to Pretti as an “attacker,” U.S. Homeland Security adviser Stephen Miller escalated the lie even further, calling Pretti an “assassin.” This press conference alone should be grounds for impeachment. A Cabinet secretary does not get to hide behind “it’s under investigation” to block accountability while simultaneously fabricating a false narrative to excuse a killing carried out by her own agency.

A third Monday article is by Lisa Needham of Kos who reported on conservatives saying the real issue was that Pretti attended a protest with a gun. Let’s ignore that Pretti had been disarmed by the agents before being shot. The NRA talked about those conservative comments – a bit – but then blamed Democrats. Rob Doar of the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus had to explain things to Kash Patel of the FBI.

There is no prohibition on a permit holder carrying a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines at a protest or rally in Minnesota

Needham then contrasted Pretti with Kyle Rittenhouse who several years ago took a gun to a protest, killed two people, and was praised by conservatives. Conservatives are praised while liberal gun owners get a death sentence. In a Monday evening post Kos discussed the reasons why the nasty guy is “waving a white flag.” He talked to Gov. Tim Walz and described the call as “very good” and Walz as “respectful.” That’s quite a change from the words he’s been using over the last few weeks. The nasty guy doesn’t use “respectful” when describing Democrats without a reason. And the reason is the politics around the Pretti murder have “gone south fast.” There’s the murder itself. There’s also Republicans’ defense of the murder – of a white gun owner. Public support then dropped by quite a bit. And other Republicans support controls on ICE. No policy has changed yet. But sending border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota looks like the beginning of cooperation rather than occupation. On Tuesday morning Kos reported that Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino, one of the administration attack dogs and a prominent face of ICE, had been pulled from Minnesota, been demoted, and his social media operation dismantled. Some of Bovino’s backers in DHS may also be on their way out. Kos also reported that some of the new ICE hires, especially the retirees that were rehired, are looking at what’s going on and leaving. And it isn’t just the Minnesota weather. On Tuesday evening Kos listed several reasons why the nasty guy should be impeached: His mental state and growing dementia. The refusal to release the Epstein files. His terrorizing of American cities. The blowing up of the federal deficit. The botched way he’s dealing with Venezuela. His obsession with the Kennedy Center. His obsession with Greenland for not getting the Peace Prize. His damage to NATO and other foreign alliances, burning the credibility of the US. And Republicans are either silent or muttering quietly. “At this point, silence isn’t loyalty. It’s complicity.” Oliver Willis of Kos, in his series on Explaining the Right, he discussed why conservatives think anti-ICE – well, any – protesters are being paid. Of course, there are a lot of examples when they have said that or something similar. The opposite of a paid protester is one that is out there because they actually oppose what they’re protesting against.

What conservatives don’t want to contend with is the reality that Trump’s policies and the ideas put into place by congressional Republicans are unpopular. Anti-immigration violence and cost-increasing tariffs generate genuine opposition. Republicans would love a world where they can disregard protesters as a paid distraction. But they are very real, no matter how furiously the right tries to spin the reality being witnessed by millions.

In the pundit roundup for Kos for Sunday, the day after Pretti was murdered, Chitown Kev quoted Mike McIntyre of The New York Times discussing “fringe” researchers. I wondered are we doing this still? Or is it again?

A group of fringe researchers thwarted safeguards at the National Institutes of Health and gained access to data from thousands of children. The researchers have used it to produce at least 16 papers purporting to find biological evidence for differences in intelligence between races, ranking ethnicities by I.Q. scores and suggesting Black people earn less because they are not very smart. ... Their papers have provided fodder for racist posts on social media and white nationalist message boards that have been viewed millions of times. Some of the papers are cited by A.I. bots like ChatGPT and Grok in response to queries about race and intelligence. On the social media platform X, Grok has referred users to the research more than two dozen times this month alone.

Symone D Sanders Townsend of MSNOW discussed special counsel Jack Smith’s testimony before Congress. He’s the one who was prosecuting the nasty guy until his regaining the Oval Office put a stop to the efforts.

But while Democrats on the committee focused on the past, Republicans looked to change the subject. Instead of sincerely grappling with the violence or the attempt to overturn the election, Republicans focused on process. They questioned procedures, attacked the special counsel and debated legal technicalities. They did not try to argue, as some have, that Jan. 6 was a hoax or a false flag operation or just a friendly group of tourists. Instead, they did everything they could to make it feel less consequential. That distinction matters. When a violent attack on democracy is treated as just another political disagreement, something dangerous is happening. At times, the hearing felt less like an effort to hold people accountable and more like an attempt to wear the public down until it grew tired of attempting to hold people accountable. [...] Smith made a simple but critical point in his testimony. When serious crimes are not punished, it sends a message. It tells future actors that they can try again. Accountability is not about payback. It is about preventing the next attempt. Right now, the message of accountability has been lost.

In the comments is a tweet by Tim Miller:

The 2nd Amendment protects us from government tyranny crowd changes their tune right quick when their preferred jack booted thugs kill a dude with a gun. The government's stated rationale for this killing is that the victim was carrying a legal firearm. The very people that told us we need to accept mass child slaughter for the right to protect ourselves from scary Obama, now say the govt can kill you if you possess a weapon.

A tweet by Matt McDermott, which includes an image of the letter.

As insane as this sounds, it’s true: Pam Bondi sent Minnesota officials a letter today saying ICE would leave the state if Minnesota turns over its voter files to the Trump Administration. They’re openly using state violence as a bargaining chip to seize election infrastructure.

Sen. Chris Murphy added:

Guess what? This has never been about safety or immigration. It’s a pretext for Trump to take over elections in swing states.

A tweet from Brian Allen:

A German soccer federation executive committee member says it’s time to consider a WORLD CUP BOYCOTT because of Donald Trump. Let that sink in. Trump is turning the United States into such a global embarrassment that our allies are now discussing boycotting the biggest sporting event on Earth.

Bill Kristol tweeted with a link to an article in The Bulwark:

“The federal government is no longer bound by law. If agents of the state may kill people in public without being investigated; if they have—again, per VP Vance—“absolute immunity” from prosecution then we are living in an authoritarian regime.”

The Wolfpack takes a riff on the Brokeback Mountain movie. The GOP says to the nasty guy, “I don’t know how to quit you.” Jack Smith says, “Maybe this will help!” as he hands over handcuffs. Lalo Alcaraz riffs on a line conservatives have been saying to immigrants. A Pilgrim man says, “We are fleeing persecution in our homeland, so we are seeking a new place to live.” A native man says, “Why don’t you people just stay home and fix your own failing country?” In the comments of Tuesday’s roundup paulpro posted a cartoon by Pat Harrington:

Donkey: Wow! You guys are losing the narrative... Elephant: They’re domestic terrorists and paid assassins! Doneky: No, they’re VA nurses and helpless moms. Elephant: But, I still want to own the libtards. Donkey: It’s so bad I can use the NRA against you... Elephant: Oh, No!! What if we lose Jesus next?!!

In today’s roundup Greg Dworkin included a tweet from Sonny Bunch:

The amount of coping and seething I am seeing from conservatives who simply *cannot believe* they couldn’t win the discourse/public opinion fight by mindlessly championing a disarmed dude getting shot in the back ten times is kind of fascinating.

A cartoon by Naked Pastor showing a pastor thinking, “I warned my church that if they weren’t careful, they could start looking like Nazi collaborators, only to discover... that’s what they’ve always wanted.”

How do you tell a parent you sacrificed their child for Big Oil?

This afternoon I watched the live show Dimanche. It’s a combination of mimes and puppets from two award-winning Belgian companies. The setting is a time when climate change is hitting hard. There are two alternating scenes. The first is three intrepid wildlife reporters trying to document the damage in the Arctic. The second is a family trying to live normal lives, first when it is so hot the furniture warps, then during a ferocious windstorm. The first scene with the reporters is them crammed together in a vehicle as they drive to their next location. The fun part is they hold the windshield wipers in their hands and keep them going, thankfully in time to the music on their radio. The rearview mirror, complete with pinetree scent, is also there but the actors have to hold it in place. They are so scrunched together they have to pass wipers and mirror back and forth to be able to open the thermos to get a drink. I found an online photo of that scene here. When they arrive at their site they worry about the ice breaking up. In the family scenes the grandmother is played by a puppet. The family tries to keep her comfortable in the heat. Like the polar bear and flamingo puppets the puppeteers are quite visible, which is part of the fun. When Grandma sits, she does so in the puppeteer’s lap. This was an enjoyable 75 minutes, though it again brings up the question: When are we going to take climate change seriously enough to do something about it? Alas, I’m well aware that the people in charge of the petroleum industry maintain their power over the federal government through the riches they get by requiring we power our lives through their product. A week after Nicolás Maduro was kidnapped I’m finally able to run through the browser tabs of the situation that I’ve collected. If you still need something like this here is last Saturday’s Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos of the military operation and capture. On Monday Emily Singer of Kos wrote about the Democrat’s reaction. Of course, all who were quoted condemned it. Singer’s report included this:

Multiple Democratic lawmakers pointed to Trump's admission aboard Air Force One that he had briefed oil companies ahead of the U.S.’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro—and before he notified members of Congress. Clearly, this has nothing to do with illicit drugs and everything to do with Trump wanting to line the pockets of his oil and gas donors. Venezuela has some of the largest oil reserves in the world. Most concerning of all, Trump and his administration appear to have no plan for what comes after Maduro’s capture. That risks further destabilizing the country, echoing the United State’s boondoggle in Iraq, where the U.S.’s regime-change operation lasted nearly two decades, led thousands of American troops to die, and cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

Also on Monday Oliver Willis of Kos reported that Rep. Delia Ramirez of Illinois is one of several House members writing up articles of impeachment against the nasty guy because he kidnapped a foreign leader, a violation of international law. He also violated law by not telling Congress. Of course, there are several other impeachable offenses to go with it: Deporting international students for exercising freedom of speech. Abused the immigration system, starting with the abduction of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. He accepted a bribe from Paramount to approve their merger with Skydance. He received a jet, an air palace, from the Qatari government. He abused presidential powers when he deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles. He is not spending money according to what Congress specified. He’s using the Justice Department for personal retribution. Though getting an impeachment bill out of the House would be close to impossible this year, airing his crimes in the Senate would mean any Republicans who voted to acquit would be tainted going into the 2026 election. Again on Monday Lisa Needham of Kos said the Maduro kidnapping is like Christmas for the DoJ. They were told by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg back in March to turn around a planeload of Venezuelan deportees on their way to prison in El Salvador. Those deportees, and many since, were supposed to get hearings before being flown out. The DOJ has been stonewalling because, gosh, they might not be the gang members the administration says they are. But now with Maduro in custody they’re busy with that and don’t have time to deal with Boasberg’s silly requests. And their next step is to claim that since the US has invaded their home country the are no longer migrants, but enemies. Of course, their real goal is to deport any one they please. Still on Monday Singer documented the similarities between the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and Venezuela today. Both are about oil. Both leaders declared victory early though the situation was far from resolved. And it seems in both cases once the old ruler was removed the American leaders had no idea what to do next.

"Military disasters like the Iraq War robbed this nation of young lives, of billions of dollars, and of our moral standing in the world. How do you look a parent in the eye and tell them you've sacrificed their child's life for Big Oil's bottom line?" James Talarico, a Democratic candidate for Senate in Texas, wrote in a post on X. "As US Senator, I will never vote to send someone's son or daughter to war to make billionaires richer."

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Friday Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted some late night commentary.

"President Trump said his new year's resolution this year is 'peace on earth,' and that lasted for just under two days. If you were wondering how bad these Epstein files are for Trump, turns out they're invade-Venezuela bad. This is literally the plot of the movie Wag the Dog: the president gets caught in a sex scandal, so he attacks a smaller country to distract us. And here we are, distracted. After months of escalation, Trump decided Maduro had to go. And yes, he's a criminal and a dictator who's driven his country into financial ruin while he and his family have lined their own pockets. But Maduro is no saint, either." —Jimmy Kimmel “This Minneapolis ICE shooting video has become a political Rorschach test: Some people see a peaceful protester getting murdered, and other people are fascists.” —The Daily Show’s Ronny Chieng "President Trump told House Republicans they have to win the midterms because, 'If we don't win the midterms, they'll find a reason to impeach me.' Of course, the challenge isn’t finding one. Its picking one." —Seth Meyers

Keefknight posted a cartoon on Kos he titled the re-PUBLIC-an Transit Map. It shows an oval with these places endlessly repeated.

GOP take over Tax Cuts for the Rich!! Deficit balloons Economy tanks (and we’re en route to:) Start Oil War Dems take over Dems raise taxes to cut deficit Repugs run on cutting taxes

Paul Fell posted a cartoon of a fortune teller and customer reacting to the crystal ball that exploded. The fortune teller says, “You just had to ask what Trump was going to do in 2026, didn’t you...?!

Like everything else the cheers had been manufactured

I had written that the nasty guy had tweeted that illegal workers at farms and hotels should not be picked up because they are necessary for these businesses. I noted that the White House said the policy of raiding those places had not changed. Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos reported that Homeland Security tried to clarify by sending Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin to Newsmax. Yes, raids on worksites are sill a cornerstone of ICE operations. There was no exemption for farms and hotels. McLaughlin lied when she said ICE was only going after “the worst of the worst.” I recently wrote that Sen. Alex Padilla was forced to the ground and handcuffed when asking HS Secretary Noem a question. Now there is a second political arrest. Lisa Needham of Kos said ICE arrested Brad Lander, a Democratic candidate for NYC mayor. The reason appears to be because he was accompanying someone they wanted to nab and he tried to prevent it. One problem: ICE isn’t allowed to arrest citizens. McLaughlin announced the charges as impeding a federal officer. That nicely confuses FBI agents who can arrest citizens with ICE agents, who can’t. They way she said it made it sound like the real victims were ICE agents, not the immigrants. Needham talked about the old practice of company towns. When a company set up operations in a remote area workers had to live in company housing and shop in company stores. They were paid in company scrip, which couldn’t be spent elsewhere. Pay and prices were such that the workers fell deeper into debt, and thus were stuck. Bringing that up to date, the possibility of creating new crypto currencies allows Walmart and Amazon to consider issuing their own. At least they are thinking about stablecoins, meaning their value is pegged to the dollar. But a person paid in Walmart coin would be restricted to spending it at Walmart, even if prices were better elsewhere. There is a reason, outside of tying people to their store, for issuing their own currency – they can sidestep the significant costs of payment processing and banking fees. But it leaves consumers juggling currencies. A different president might protect consumers. But the nasty guy made $57 billion from crypto last year and the Securities and Exchange commission dropped a crypto case after the company cozied up to a nasty guy company. Needham reported that companies that cozy up to the nasty guy are getting a good payback. Sure, that cozying can cost millions, but the payback is much higher. Needham gave a couple examples. I’ll mention one. GEO is a company with government contracts to run ICE detention centers. The EPA had a complaint against GEO last year for failing to provide protective gear from chemicals that can cause skin burns and eye damage. The NLRB filed a complaint for using detainees as workers and not paying them proper wages. Large fines were pending. Then the company gave the maximum to the nasty guy’s campaign, $1 million to his PAC, and smaller amounts to other Republicans. The NLRB no longer has a quorum and can’t hear cases. And the EPA withdrew its complaint. That’s called corruption. Alex Samuels of Kos wrote about the other side of the issue: “Sen. Bernie Sanders is urging Democratic leaders to stop cozying up to their own wealthy donors.” Sanders and seven other Democratic senators wrote a letter to the leaders asking them to ban super PACs and “dark money” in Democratic primaries. If Democrats are to fight the influence of rich people, something Sanders has been talking a lot about lately, they need to start with themselves. The letter noted that these super PACS spend in Democratic primaries, then spend to defeat Democrats in the general election. Overturning Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruling that opened unlimited outside spending, is a long-term project. But citizens already notice (thanks to Musk) that rich people have too much influence. That give Democrats an opening. In 2022 the 988 suicide crisis hotline began working. One could contact that number in a variety of ways. A person is first asked a bit about who they are. One of the options is LGBTQ. If that is chosen they are passed on to the Trevor Project, counselors trained to handle queer people. This separate service is needed because of the high suicide rate of queer youth. Oliver Willis of Kos reported that initial menu option disappears on July 17. The reason is the nasty guy is being nasty and said so. Yeah, this is part of his and Republican attacks on LGBTQ people and trans people in particular. Suicide rates will go up.

Young LGBTQ+ people are under attack by their state and federal governments. And now, if they are driven into darkness, Trump has cut off a vital and lifesaving resource that the community increasingly depends on.

Thankfully, the Trevor Project remains. All that is being lost is the vital connection to the 988 hotline, which is much easier to remember than the name and full number of the Trevor Project. That’s still losing a lot. If you are in crisis, contact 988. If you are queer you can still contact 988 for now or find the Trevor Project number. The nasty guy created a Religious Liberty Commission. Alix Breeden of Kos reported they met for the first time this week. Thankfully, it seems all they did was gripe about “anti-Christian bias,” how Christians are “under attack,” that religious liberty is threatened, and that the society has no moral code. Yes, we as a nation do have a moral code. It’s quite a good one, though far from perfect. It just isn’t completely Christian. Though this is a “Religious” commission one can easily guess how much representation there was from Muslim, Jewish, or even liberal Christian groups. The group’s next meeting is scheduled for September. We can hope they’ll gripe some more and not actually do anything. In last Friday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin had a couple good quotes. This was before the No Kings protest and the dreary parade for the nasty guy. Just before then the nasty guy went to the re-re-named Fort Bragg and used cheering soldiers as a backdrop for a rally style speech. Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer added a bit of background.

The insurrectionist Bragg surely would have been heartened when Trump used his powerful platform to rally an entire army against democratically elected public officials like California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass — and when the uniformed troops of a once-proudly-apolitical U.S. Army answered with thunderous applause. Like everything else about Trump’s strongman regime, the cheers had been manufactured. Military.com later reported that the chiseled forces of the storied 82nd Airborne Division behind Trump’s podium had been picked in part for their right-wing political views and also — according to one email obtained by the news site — to satisfy our allegedly 224-pound (lol) president with “no fat soldiers.” (Yes, Donald Trump’s Tinder ad for his dream-date U.S. soldier essentially read, “No fatties.”)

Tom Nichols of The Atlantic noted the generals did not speak up and added:

He mocked former President Joe Biden and attacked various other political rivals. He elicited cheers from the crowd by announcing that he would rename U.S. bases (or re-rename them) after Confederate traitors. He repeated his hallucinatory narrative about the invasion of America by foreign criminals and lunatics. He referred to 2024 as the “election of a president who loves you,” to a scatter of cheers and applause. And then he attacked the governor of California and the mayor of Los Angeles, again presiding over jeers at elected officials of the United States. He led soldiers, in other words, in a display of unseemly behavior that ran contrary to everything the founder of the U.S. Army, George Washington, strove to imbue in the American armed forces.

In the comments exlrrp posted a meme playing on one of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s claims that Democrats could control the weather. This meme shows a woman with a bright smile ready to push the button on the Democrat Party Weather Machine on the day of the parade. It did rain that day in Washington, though a White House spokesperson claimed that it hadn’t. In today’s pundit roundup Dworkin had more good quotes. From Ron Fournier of Convulsions:

During a contentious Senate Armed Service Committee meeting Wednesday, [Elissa Slotkin,] freshman Democrat, grilled [Defense Secretary Pete] Hegseth over whether he had authorized members of the military to "detain and arrest protesters" in Los Angeles. He ducked and deflected. She erupted. "What is the order?" Slotkin demanded. "Be a man, list it out. Did you authorize them to detain or arrest? That is a fundamental of democracy. I'm not trying to be a snot here. I'm just trying to get the actual — did you authorize them to do that?" Be a man, she said. But Hegseth didn’t have it in him.

Dworkin wrote about the nasty guy saying he’ll decide in two weeks if the US should help Israel against Iran:

Reports are that Pete Hegseth and [director of intelligence] Tulsi Gabbard are ignored when it comes to input on what Trump is supposed to do. No surprise; they, like DHS Sec Noem are only there to cosplay. And as for Bibi Netanyahu, Trump knows any advice he gets is to benefit Netanyahu, not Trump. When it comes to Iran, Trump is stuck with making a decision. The buck stops with him. And he’s afraid to decide. My best guess is that Trump will do the right thing (not bomb Iran) for the wrong reason (he’s a coward and is afraid of his base turning on him). But who knows? Trump’s a damaged human being and is hard to predict when it comes to doing something difficult.

Thomas Edsall of the New York Times worked with Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the Berkeley law school, to list five grounds on which to impeach the nasty guy. Dworkin quoted two.

Trump has repeatedly ignored due process of law, such as in sending people to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador and to the South Sudan without a semblance of due process. The cutoff of funds to universities and to grant recipients has been done without any due process. This is a very serious abuse of power. President Trump has used his power for retribution. His actions against law firms, which have been done without due process, have been expressly stated to be for personal retribution because they employed lawyers who investigated or prosecuted him. This is a very serious abuse of power.

Dworkin reminds us we need “a Democratic House to impeach him (and a heavily Democratic Senate to convict).” Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted late night commentary. A sample:

“I am genuinely baffled. Why is it when a foreigner—or someone that shouldn’t be here—kills one of us, we’re going to put 150-billion dollars into border security, we’re going to militarize our cities, we’re going to spend trillions of dollars to bomb and destabilize foreign countries overseas, we're going to ban people from random countries from ever f---ing visiting here, [and] we’re going to take our shoes off at the airport forever? But when we do it to ourselves? Nothing. It makes no sense—it's jarring cognitive dissonance.” —Jon Stewart, on the MAGA cult’s obsession with beefing up law enforcement and the military in response to barely-existent shootings by immigrants, while doing nothing to reduce the epidemic of shootings—like the assassination of Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark—by home-grown Americans.

A tweet from the Daily Show has the caption, “Iran: Weeks away from having nuclear weapons since 1995.” And something I heard in the news: As part of the Israel-Iran war Iran hit an Israeli hospital. Israel’s defense chief declared that to be a war crime. I thought that statement took chutzpah to cover the hypocrisy, considering what Israel has been doing in Gaza. Bill quoted an NBC News report:

“Nearly all hospitals in Gaza are now damaged or destroyed, and half of them are no longer operational,” Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, told NBC News. During the war, Gaza’s hospitals have eked back services, only to be repeatedly struck or besieged again.