They keep volunteering to be fleeced

I finished the book Theater Kid, a Broadway Memoir by Jeffrey Seller. He’s famous for being the producer of Tony winners Rent, Avenue Q, In the Heights, and Hamilton. He also brought other shows to the stage. Yes, he was a theater kid from an early age. He was born in the suburbs north of Detroit, adopted into a Jewish family, and grew up in a poor part of the suburb Oak Park. His father had been in a motorcycle accident and wasn’t a good provider. His mother worked at a drug store. His goal was to get out of Oak Park. He first got involved in a play at his temple. Then it was community theater, when there were parts for boys, and school theater. Then off to University of Michigan with summers directing kids at an arts camp. He got a job at a booking agency in New York, a company that books touring shows into theaters across the country. He did community theater at night. That’s when he realized he was not very good at directing and much better at producing. With a colleague they formed a production company focusing on musicals. One of their early efforts was Rent. In college he realized he was gay and had a steady boyfriend who was also into theater and also moved to NYC. It didn’t last. Through his experiences with Rent we learn what a producer does. This was at a time when there were few musicals on Broadway and those weren’t all that good. It seems the old formulas for musicals had run out of ideas and the older producers didn’t have any interest in new ideas. So he had a wide open field to find and develop the talents of the next generation of storytellers that brought a different kind of music and told stories of a different kind of people than previous Broadway musicals. Rent was definitely both of those. He, as a producer, recognizes, nurtures, and guides the shaping of a worthwhile story. He was blown away by Jonathan Larson’s one-man show that became Tick, Tick, Boom... (which eventually became a pretty good movie). So when Larson had ideas for his next show Seller was ready to help, as in providing feedback and signing up for workshops so others could provide feedback. The show that appeared on Broadway was at least the fourth version. He raises funding and manages the money. He determines what kind of theater is appropriate and books it. He figures out how many people will want to see the show, which determines the size of the theater. And when the show is ready for Broadway he books that theater too. In New York that means meeting with the big theater companies. He assembles the talent. That includes the director and perhaps actors to play important roles. He gets the designers and teams for the sets, costumes, lighting, and advertising (though Seller learned 90% of ticket sales are people telling friends a show is worth seeing). He hires the musicians. He makes sure everyone is paid. He arranges for the cast album and, when appropriate, the movie rights. I found the story to be fascinating and enjoyable. If you are someone who delights in theater and wants to know how it works this is a worthy story. However, I do have a quibble or two with the book. Seller says a lot about that first boyfriend and their relationship and then talks about years without a lover. But he says very little about the man who became his partner and helped him raise two kids, and we hear very little about them too. He says a great deal about the development of Rent, which is good, but he says a lot less about the other three shows that got him Tony awards. That was somewhat annoying because two of them are by the now-famous Lin-Manuel Miranda (and famous long before this book came out last year). Kos of Daily Kos wrote the nasty guy proclaimed himself to be the “crypto president.” Back in October of 2024, before his election, Bitcoin was at $60K. It rose from there to $120 last October. It is now back at $60K. The crypto industry was delighted the nasty guy took the Oval Office, thinking he would give them everything they want and there would be a crypto golden age. They did get a lot – friendly regulators, government backing, a proposed strategic reserve, direct access to the White House, even legitimacy. It just didn’t make anyone rich – except him. He made out quite well. I’ve heard the nasty guy didn’t make his money from buying and holding the various crypto currencies. He made it through the deals surrounding the buying and selling the currencies or through branding. The coins could fluctuate or lose money and he still raked it in. Kos’ conclusion discussing the crypto bros:

They mistook a salesman for a true believer. He didn’t see a financial revolution. He saw marks for a new grift. If you judge the crypto industry’s bet by political access, it has been a spectacular success. But if you judge it by investment returns, it’s more of a disaster. And if you judge it by who is actually getting rich, there may never have been a better investment than becoming the crypto president.

Kos also wrote about the people who bought the nasty guy’s meme coins. The nasty guy made $2.3 billion off crypto, according to Reuters. That money came from his supporters. One might think that his income and their losses would enrage them. But the people Reuters interviewed think he’s such a wonderful businessman he’ll still change their losses into profits. Then Kos looked at the fine print of nasty guy’s crypto business and the various meme coins. They all say similar things: Buyers should not expect to make a profit. The coin has no real value. The coins are an expression of support for the ideals of the coin and are not intended to be an investment opportunity. You may experience substantial losses. They’re not pretending to have value. And still people bought. And still they voted for him.

No matter how much evidence people are given of Trump’s corruption, incompetence, or failed ventures, millions convince themselves that this time will be different. It never is. The remarkable thing isn’t that Trump keeps finding new ways to profit from his supporters. It’s that they keep volunteering to be fleeced.

To mark Independence Day Alix Breeden of Kos listed 11 times (only 11?) that the nasty guy and his cronies were unpatriotic. We could probably expand the list. I won’t list all 11. He cut care for veterans. He demonized immigrants. He pardoned those who attacked the Capitol. He is erasing history. He tried to get rid of birthright citizenship. He is making the America military partisan. Two weeks ago an Associated Press article posted on Kos reported a federal judge halted the nasty guy’s executive order to create a federal voter list which would be used to limit who could receive a mail ballot. The reason is the president has no role in national elections. Oliver Willis of Kos reported the nasty guy and his minions released its report attacking the Smithsonian National Museum of American History on Sunday.

The report, titled “Saving America’s Story,” claims that the widely celebrated museum has been the subject of “ideological capture” and says the institution is guilty of erasing “our heritage.”

This looks like one of those places where an accusation is actually a confession. Willis noted the report uses language long used by white supremacists. Examples are “heritage” to mean white culture and “degeneracy” for non white culture. Willis summed it up quite well:

Trump wants history rewritten to excuse abuses by white supremacy.

In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Dana DuBois of Blue Amp Media:

They call us hysterical. They always have. The word itself tells you everything. Hysterical comes from the Greek hystera — uterus. The ancient diagnosis for women who wouldn’t calm down, who felt too much, who saw things men didn’t want to see. The language they invented to dismiss us was named after the organ they wanted to control. This isn’t a coincidence. This is a blueprint. Women said Roe was going to fall. We were called hysterical. It fell. No one apologized. Women said the voting rights protections were fragile. We were called hysterical. The SAVE Act passed in the House and barely died in the Senate — for now. No one apologized. Women said birth control was next. We were called hysterical. The quiet legislative pressure on contraception access has been building for three years. No one’s apologized for that either. The pattern isn’t incidental. The pattern is the point. The consistent thread running through it all? The United States hates women.

Drew Sheneman posted a cartoon on Kos. One guy wears a MAGA hat, has a shirt that says, “Corporations are people,” and has a sign showing “Mamdani” with a line through it. The other guy has a shirt that says, “In DOGE we trust,” and has a sign that says, “Billionaires know best.” The first guy says, “I know I’m supposed to hate Democratic Socialism, but I don’t know why.” Mike Luckovich posted a cartoon on Kos commenting on the recent Supreme Court decision that allows corporations or at least their PACs to work more closely (I think share more money with) political campaigns. The cartoon shows a house labeled “US Elections.” In front the Supreme Court is posting a sign, “For Sale to Highest Bidder.” And here comes a rich guy with a bag of cash. Anastasia Tsioulcas of NPR reported on the premier of Philip Glass’ Symphony No. 15 “Lincoln” by the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Tanglewood Music Festival. The symphony includes a singer and has a text of Lincoln’s own words. The symphony was supposed to be premiered a month ago by the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. But when the nasty guy added his name to the side of the building Glass withdrew it, saying the current values of the Center were in direct conflict with the message of the symphony. I’m not a big fan of Glass’ music. But since he has now written 15 symphonies I, as a lover of classical music, thought I should listen to them. So I found his first symphony on YouTube and listened while working. It was boring. One was enough. My dislike for his music does not stop me from praising Glass for standing up for principles.

Democratic voters want someone as pissed off as they are

My Sunday movie was The Best Years of Out Lives, released in 1946. The story begins with three men on their way home from WWII, heading for the same city. Al had been in the Army, Fred an airplane bombardier, and Homer in the Navy. Homer had lost his hands in the war and has adapted pretty well to hooks as replacements. Al fits pretty well back into being a banker, though his seniors are concerned he’s giving too many loans to veterans through the GI Bill. He glad to return to his wife, daughter, and son. Before the war Fred was a soda jerk and his war experiences don’t translate to any other civilian jobs. He married his wife just before the war and she has come quite independent. They start to clash and he meets Al’s daughter. Homer had a steady girlfriend before the war. Now that he’s disabled he doesn’t want to burden her. The three have a lot to work out as they return to civilian life. According to IMDb trivia of the film:

The film deals with a hot-button issue of the aftermath of World War II: how to reincorporate traumatized war veterans into civilian life. The returning veterans of the film are struggling with PTSD-induced flashbacks to the war, alcoholism, life as amputees, and financial difficulties. They also struggle with finding jobs. A USAAF bombardier captain is reduced to working as a soda jerk, because he has no formal education or marketable skills. The film was reputedly inspired by a 1944 article of Time magazine about emotionally and financially struggling war veterans, who were facing constant hardships after being discharged.

Harold Russell, the guy who played Homer, actually did lose his hands in the war. He was spotted by the producer in an Army training video and given the part. The movie was made under the old Hollywood studio system and the bosses wanted Russel to have acting lessons. The director refused, preferring Russell’s natural talent. When the Academy Awards came around Russell was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. The Academy Board of Governors thought his chances of winning were low, so gave him an honorary award “for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans through his appearance,” as recorded by IMDb. And then he won for Best Supporting Actor, the only actor to win two Oscars for the same role. The studio system had an unusual effect on the movie, according to IMDb. The character who played Al’s son concluded his studio contract after a couple early scenes were filmed. That contract was not renewed. So the lad doesn’t appear in the rest of the movie – the son disappears. I learned of this movie through the filmscore by Hugo Friedhofer. It probably showed up in a radio program devoted to filmscores. I have a CD of it and play it every so often. It’s good music – it won Best Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture. This is the first time I saw the movie. Oliver Willis of Daily Kos discussed what mainstream media got for bowing to the nasty guy. Short answer: Very little. Media has been propping up the nasty guy since 2015 with uncritical coverage. But since his second term started many are compromising their independence and try to appeal to his most ardent supporters. Yes, some of this is driven by the nasty guy suing news outlets if they say something he doesn’t like, but such cases would be dismissed if actually taken to court. The result is the outlets that compromised a lot, such as CBS, have lost their previous customers. They haven’t attracted nasty guy supporters because they already have conservative outlets such as Fox and Newsmax and have no need to switch to CBS. Even when a network promotes the nasty guy he still lashes out at their “fake news” and encourages his supporters to do the same. So for bowing to the nasty guy and his threats all they get is lower ratings. Willis reported that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin got on Fox News to suggest immigrant women should be given a pregnancy screening. This is in response to the Supreme Court reaffirming birthright citizenship while conservatives still feel threatened by “birth tourism.” Mullin claimed travel in the last few months of pregnancy could be a health issue.

Neither Mullin nor the Fox panel explained how pregnancy would be determined. Would women have to be subjected to a pregnancy test before boarding a plane? Or would other, more invasive techniques be used?

Jenae Barnes started an article for The 19th posted on Kos with:

Anti-abortion advocates, including Republican lawmakers and state officials, want the EPA to review mifepristone as a water contaminant. Scientists say there’s no evidence it harms the environment or people. While there is no scientific evidence that abortion medication is contaminating Americans’ water supply, it has nonetheless become a central claim by the anti-abortion movement. Activists, Instagram influencers and Republican Party officials — including state and federal lawmakers — are doubling down on what experts describe as a disinformation campaign that mixes environmental policy and reproductive rights, and risks exploiting legitimate concerns about clean water.

The claim has been around for decades. It says mifepristone pollutes the water and puts the health of pregnant people at risk.

Environmental health experts dismiss these claims. These experts consistently point out that there is no scientific basis for treating mifepristone or other abortion medication as a water contaminant.

Experts point out that a small number of women take one dose compared to many other drugs taken far more frequently by a much larger number of people. The Environmental Protection Agency (at least under responsible presidents) has screened 700 medications for potential water contamination concerns. Mifepristone was not one of them. What this is really about is attempting to restrict abortion access. The claim distracts from actual pollution threats, such as PFAS chemicals. As for that birthright citizenship case, Kos of Kos wrote about conservatives who have spoken against the ruling. He ended with:

It’s especially rich to call faithfully reading the Constitution “lawless.” If the authors of the Fourteenth Amendment intended something different, they could have written something different. It’s crazy. Conservatives have spent decades attacking the idea of a “living Constitution,” arguing that judges shouldn’t reinterpret the Constitution to fit changing times but should instead follow the text as originally understood. Now they’re asking judges to disregard the plain language of the 14th Amendment because the modern world has produced outcomes they don’t like. That’s not originalism. It’s outcome-based jurisprudence.

Willis wrote about why Republicans hate the Constitution as part of his series on Explaining the Right. He begins with:

The right has spent decades associating itself with traditional imagery of the Constitution. That means years and years of Revolutionary War cosplay, references to the “original intent” of the Constitution, and right-wing figures claiming to be the last remaining defenders of constitutional order. But it’s all a lie.

Willis then gives many examples of the cosplay and the hatred that started well before the nasty guy. And the main point:

When it comes to the right and constitutional law, what matters is not the document they purport to revere, but rather the pursuit of power. ... The right’s actions show that securing, increasing, and attaining their own political power is more important than sticking to principles and tradition.

In Saturday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark discussing why Democratic Socialist candidates are winning. And the reason is simple.

DSA candidates are seizing on voters’ primal scream for Democrats to Do Something. In this climate, one of the worst things a candidate can do is act like these are normal times. Democratic voters want someone who seems as pissed off as they are and who is focused on fixing the problems that impact their material well-being.

Matt Royer tweeted a response to a tweet from Homeland Security that uses the words of Theodore Roosevelt to condemn immigration. Royer says they left out the following sentence from a speech in 1915. What Homeland Security tweeted:

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism... Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance.

The rest of the quote:

But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else. ... any discrimination against aliens is a wrong.

The American anniversary festivities were set up by Congress into the organization America 250. The nasty guy seems to have sidelines the official group, at least in DC, with his Freedom 250 organization. MSNOW reported:

Most notably, the authors of the report — Democrats on the Natural Resources Committee — raise questions about whether Freedom 250’s fundraising practices could amount to “potential wire fraud and charitable solicitation fraud.”

I’m not at all surprised. Ronald Brownstein quoted some nasty guy officials claiming Gen Z people don’t have real jobs, which is why they complain that everything is so expensive. Brownstein replied:

Yes the reason young people are not getting ahead, or reaching life milestones nearly as fast as their parents, is because there is a massive epidemic of sloth. No structural headwinds-just personal failure. Great messaging strategy as Gen Z reaches 1/6 of eligible voters in 2028.

Laziness has been a messaging strategy of Republicans ever since Reagan and the welfare queens. Down in the comments exlrrp posted a tweet from Robert Reich:

Just one day before he announced a 90-day pause on his sweeping tariffs, Trump’s investment accounts made stock purchase worth as much as $12.8 million. Then when Trump announced the pause, the S&P soared nearly 10% -- one of the biggest single-day gains in the index’s history. Trump pulled in at least $2.2 billion last year through schemes like this plus his crypto business. How are you doing?

A meme posted by exlrrp has the caption under a chart, “Here’s how many stock trades each president made during their term. Notice anything?” The chart shows Clinton: 0, GW Bush: 0, Obama: 0, Trump 1: 50, Biden: 0, Trump 2 (so far): 3642. By may quick calculations that’s 9-10 trades a day (excluding weekends). That sounds more like a day trader than an occupant of the Oval Office. In Sunday’s roundup Chitown Kev quoted Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times.

As much as nationalists today imagine a whites-only world in 1776, that was the leadership, not the people. A fifth of Americans in the revolutionary era were Black — most held in slavery in the South, but still there. What would bind our nation together, sort of, eventually, was not race or faith, but the words on this document. “Certain nations are grounded in ethnicity or common religion, or a common language,” said Slauter. “But that has never been true of the United States. From the beginning it is a nation bound together by documents. Ink on paper is the medium of the United States.” That is really what we are celebrating on the 4th. A written promise. A check to be cashed. Not an end result — Americans had five years of bloody battle ahead of them before victory at Yorktown.

In the comments exlrrp included a tweet from The Politburo discussing the DC fireworks delayed by weather:

A bombastic display so ill conceived and delayed to placate his fragile ego until 1 in the morning on the 5th, the 850k fireworks vastly outnumbered the spectators and created so much smoke and haze to obscure itself. The obvious end to this poorly executed celebration.

In today’s roundup Dworkin included a tweet by Barry Malone that includes a photo taken by Cheney Orr. It shows the inside of a Washington Metro car packed with members of the Patriot Front (a white nationalist group) with shirts and caps with patches and faces wrapped in white – and one lone black person. Dworkin then quoted a thread by Adam Cochrane posted on Threadreader. I went to the whole thread that discusses far right groups grooming young converts.

They give them scholarships, internships, references and all kinds of support to help up their pedigree while exposing them to their specific school of thought. Then through donor networks, they call in favors to get these individuals placed as staffers on the hill. Young Republican staffers have a higher concentration of extremist views tied to lobbying groups and thinktanks than ever before. You can see it in office decorations and comms accounts, countless subtle callouts to white nationalist movements. And many times, this is all entirely unknown to the Congressional representative. These staffers don't really report in to the Congress person. They answer to a now indoctrinated ideology from their lobbying group - often with their own handler. The reason the Patriot Front wears masks isn't because they fear losing their jobs. It's because lobbying groups know if you knew what percentage of them were staffers, you'd realize just how deeply compromised the government is.

This is how they can quickly get 400 Patriot Front members to a protest. Dworkin quoted a tweet by Jonathan Martin:

There’s a growing recognition that the country’s soaring concentration of wealth and declining social mobility can’t be separated from America’s civic ills. Democrats as different as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, potential presidential candidates from opposing factions and generations, both say as much. “Economic instability and the collapse of democracy are intertwined,” Ocasio-Cortez recently told MSNOW’s Jen Psaki. “The moment the American dream became unaffordable, American democracy became unstable,” Emanuel has said for months as he scampers around the country, proposing a roster of targeted reforms on healthcare, education, housing and retirement.

They decided a republic was worth more than their own comfort

I did not go out to see fireworks this evening, partly because my city isn’t putting on a display and I don’t want to search the schedules of neighboring cities. I am hearing a lot of fireworks shot off by neighbors. I did listen all day to the weekend classical station that featured American music – I think I heard The Stars and Stripes Forever about four times. And some of the commentary between pieces and on NPR got me to stop and ponder the day. And this evening I spent time as a patriot writing about what is wrong with the country and how it could be better. Andrew Mangan of Daily Kos discussed the Independence Day festivities.

In his second term, Donald Trump scored one of the biggest gimmes in presidential history: His term included America’s 250th birthday. How easy it should have been to unite the nation—at least a little, at least briefly—under a common star-spangled banner. Instead, he has failed to find popular support for the key events in his semiquincentennial project.

An aside: The best Latin can do in naming the anniversary is “Half-Five Hundred”? I’ll admit I don’t know the Latin rules for how to name numbers. Why bother with the Latin? But onward.

Excitement isn’t matching the occasion, and Trump is the most to blame. He doesn’t know how to throw a party.

There’s the fight on the South Lawn of the White House. Only 8% of Americans follow mixed martial arts, compared to 40% for football (that’s American football). The concert was a bust when so many unknown artists pulled out. The Great American State Fair is a bust. So many states refusing to participate and the rest favoring the nasty guy and conservatism was part of that. The nasty guy is doing quite well at degrading America’s view of itself. Those who are proud to be American is at 53%, down from over 90% in 2004. One part might be because he doesn’t know how to throw a party. Another part, likely much bigger, is that people recognize his party isn’t about America, it’s about him. Thom Hartmann of the Kos community discussed several signers of the Declaration of Independence who lost quite a bit to the Redcoats in the War of Independence. Are the Redcoats (or the Redhats) ruling America again? How did that happen? Hartmann points to the Reagan Revolution fueled by the Powell Memorandum. This was led by a group of rich people and industrialists fed up with the gains made by Labor and the Middle Class since Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. They wanted to reassert their dominance.

For the morbidly rich and big corporations back in the 1970s, this average American’s trust in a government that was then maintaining high tax rates and — through the newly-created EPA, Clean Air Act, and Clean Water Act — holding corporations accountable for their pollution and poisonous products, was, they believed, an existential threat to their wealth and power.

Powell described it as a hatred of corporate power, an assault “on our government, our system of justice, and the free enterprise system.” This is an example of portraying their opponents not as someone who disagrees, but as an enemy. I’m sure many middle class people liked corporations because they funded their middle class lives. The response of the rich was to create think tanks to alter public opinion, pack the courts, create conservative media empires, repeal bans on corporate donations to candidates, replace trust in the government with cynicism, and to fill schools and colleges with conservative educators while pushing out the liberals. Yeah, all that began back then. The goals included reducing the tax rate. If I understand it right (it’s not mentioned in this article) a high tax rate meant the bosses didn’t ask for big salaries because they would be taxed anyway, which left more money for the workers. That bit about trust in government was to get Americans to reject government programs in favor of corporate sponsorships of research centers, health centers, and civic centers. Medicare was partially privatized through the “Advantage” scam. There is an ongoing attempt to privatize education through vouchers and charter schools. Public parks, stadiums, museums, and more are encouraged to turn to billionaire charity (and naming rights) instead of tax dollars. All that to say government bad, rich people good. The effort of those think tanks shows up in college textbooks and thousands of opinion pieces in media outlets and social media every day. Conservative talk radio provides a steady stream of stories that “government can’t do anything right” as the hosts get millions in subsidies. That’s a gusher of political poison. All that to say don’t trust the government your ancestors fought to establish. Reagan and his VP Bush I negotiated trade deals that moved 15-20 million good-paying union jobs from America into low-wage countries. There goes the middle class. And their campaign has been and continues to be effective. The number of billionaires and the size of their wealth has jumped considerably. Fox News is quite influential and half of Republican voters are ready to reject democracy. Voter suppression gets lots of effort. The head of the Heritage Foundation said the Republican Party is willing to slaughter Americans who oppose Project 2025. The party no longer believes in democracy, “equality before the law,” and a government whose power comes from the “consent of the governed.” They’ve sworn their fealty to the rich. Many people believe we’re headed to another Civil War because many conservatives say that’s what they want. They believe democracy was a dangerous mistake and the rich (the modern version of the white male landowner) should run everything, suppressing all dissent. Some individual thoughts:

A political network run by a group of right-wing billionaires has a larger budget and more employees than the entire Republican Party. The single largest source of threats of violence and murders by terrorists in America today are committed by white-supremacists aligned with the GOP who hate and fear the idea of a pluralistic, democratic society. Tragically, for the third time in our nation’s history, patriots who believe in the ideals of July 4, 1776 must defend America against those who don’t. We had our third chance in 2024, and we let it slip. Trump won, and he came back not chastened but emboldened, surrounded by the same billionaires who bankrolled his rise and are now getting their return on investment in spades. Everything the Loyalists and the Confederates and the Redcoats ever wanted — rule by the rich, contempt for the ballot, a leader who answers to no one — is being assembled in front of us in real time.

All that means is getting rid of the nasty guy and voting out Republicans isn’t enough. We must also rein in the rich. The people who signed the Declaration were not the big guys.

They were outgunned, outspent, and written off. But they won anyway, because enough of them decided a republic was worth more than their own comfort.

We must do the same. Will Democrats? Will they reject “big, dark, and foreign money”? Will they agree a republic is worth more than their party, their reelection, and their own comfort? When they win at least one chamber of Congress will they work to throw off the control of the rich, or join it? That’s a big reason why Democratic Socialists are making big gains. From Thomas Paine in The American Crisis, “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.” In last Tuesday’s Pundit Roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Colby Smith and Tony Romm of The New York Times discussing the Supreme Court ruling that prevents the nasty guy from firing Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook just because he wants to.

But the Supreme Court left much unresolved. The justices did not clearly articulate the full legal criteria that would allow Mr. Trump to fire Ms. Cook, who denies any wrongdoing and has never been charged with a crime. Nor did they wager an opinion on the exact allegations against her. And the court majority did not even prescribe the exact venue in which Ms. Cook should be allowed to respond to the allegations. […] The president did not hesitate to seize on that legal ambiguity. In a social media post, he described the decision as merely a “procedural” matter and vowed to “take appropriate action immediately to make sure that someone who has committed wrongdoing will not be making vital decisions concerning the Welfare of the United States of America!”

Joshua A. Douglas of Washington Monthly wrote about an aspect of another Supreme Court ruling that allows states to count ballots that were postmarked by election day but received a few days later. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the majority opinion, affirmed 5-4.

Instead of affirming the security of our election system, however, Justice Barrett seemed to accept the premise that absentee ballots might lead to the appearance of fraud. She wrote, correctly, that “even under plaintiffs’ interpretation, last-minute flips are possible, because the election-day statutes set no deadline for counting ballots or certifying election results.” Yet there is no such thing as a last-minute “flip,” and speaking in terms of “flipping” the results during the election night count is improper. Leads may change as ballots are counted, but no results are “flipped” because they are not final until the state has counted all ballots and election officials have certified them. It’s the same as saying the result in a World Cup match is “flipped” by a last-minute goal; although one team might have had the lead, there is no winner until the final whistle blows. So, while the Mississippi decision was good for voters, it was concerning for the underlying message about voter fraud and the leeway the Court may give to states to combat it.

The word “flip” also implies individual votes were switched. That also fuels the appearance of fraud. In Friday’s roundup Greg Dworkin included a tweet by Bill McGuire discussing the El Nino weather system developing in the Pacific Ocean.

This is absolutely terrifying. The Nino 3.4 forecast temperature anomaly mean is now at 4C, when even the biggest historical super ninos have seen less than 3C. I really have no idea what this is going to bring over the next 12 months, but it will be very, very, grim.

Might we have massive crop failures this year or next? In the comments exlrrp posted a meme: “The saddest part of Trump’s historically corrupt 2nd term is witnessing the impotence of our entire political system to do literally anything about it. Another meme posted by exlrrp:

The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool had aging pipes and filtration issues. Trump’s administration spent $14 million. Not on fixing the infrastructure. On painting the pool dark blue. Now it is covered in algae. It’s the perfect metaphor for modern Republican governance. Paint the surface. Ignore the problem. Blame somebody else.

I watched another video from Broadway Backwards, the annual show that raises money to combat AIDS. This one was from 2023 and is a reinterpretation of “One Day More” from Les Misérables as a group of LGBTQ activists preparing for a march in Washington. This one wasn’t just the song, there was a scene to introduce the characters – a newly out man afraid to be seen protesting, a mother who lost a son to suicide. The whole thing was nine minutes and it’s well worth watching.