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.

The user manual for the machine protecting the gun industry

March for Our Lives is the youth led organization created by survivors of the shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Their purpose is to reduce gun violence in America. They’ve had some wins and, thanks to the current Supreme Court, some losses. They have now put together a description of The Machine, a User Manual for the Gun Industry. It begins by saying:

The gun industry is not an accident. It is a system — built over decades by corporations, lobbyists, lawyers, and politicians — that manufactures profit from weapons and protects itself from accountability. This is its user manual.

They begin with the lobbying organizations. We’re familiar with the National Rifle Association, but that organization is waning due to scandals. They have been superseded by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR), and the Gun Owners of America (GOA). They are well assisted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative organization that creates model legislation and pushes it out to member state legislators. Next up are the manufacturers. Smith & Wesson (founded 1852); Sturm, Ruger & Co.; Sig Sauer, maker of handguns; Glock; Daniel Defense, who made the rifle used in the Uvalde shooting; and Remington (founded in 1816). There is a legal architecture, mostly created by the Supreme Court. The Heller Decision of 2008 established the individual right to bear arms, which dismantled handgun bans. The Bruen Decision of 2022 required gun laws to match the 1791 tradition. No, not a misprint. And the PLCAA, a law passed in 2005 that protects gun manufacturers and dealers from liability. They are funded by dark money wielded by the NRA Political Victory Fund, the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, and the Safari Club International. A section shows how The Machine is interconnected through money, messaging, and legislation. A section shows how The Machine operates. I mentioned the PLCAA, the liability shield. There are preemption laws that prevent cities and counties from passing regulations stricter than their state laws. At least 40 states have such laws at the urging of ALEC. There are Stand Your Ground laws that expand the legal justification for lethal force and caused gun deaths to rise. These are not applied equally – when a white perpetrator kills a black victim 36% of the time it is ruled justified, but when a black perpetrator kills a white victim only 3% are ruled justified. The Tiahrt Amendment, renewed annually, prevents the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) from releasing data to identify gun dealers who supply the crime gun market. Studies have shown 5% of dealers supply 90% of crime guns. The Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Trade Show – SHOT Show, the largest trade show for guns. 50,000 industry professionals attend. It is not open to the public. It is a way for the industry to discuss messaging, strategy, regulations, litigation trends, and political priorities. The 1996 Dickey Amendment to the federal spending bills bans the CDC from doing gun violence research. Now for a bit of good news. “Every machine has failure points. Here's where to apply pressure right now.” Much of this is at the state level and is geared towards: Restoring the ban on bump stocks. Regulating ghost guns (guns that cannot be traced). Repealing PLCAA. Passing safe storage laws to prevent children from accessing guns. Passing universal background checks. Restoring dealer accountability. Passing red flag laws that take guns away from people found to pose a risk to themselves or others. Funding gun violence research. This last section suggests ways to get involved, usually by telling your state legislators and members of Congress what changes you support. There is a way to list the legislation that is active in your state. Something a bit lighter. In the comments of today’s pundit roundup for Daily Kos are more memes playing off the nasty guy’s lie that he was carried by strong firemen out of the World Trade Center site after the 9/11 attack. My favorite shows him being carried out by Obama and Biden – both wearing tan suits. Marty Schladen, in an article for Stateline posted on Kos discussed why 720,000 people stopped working for work over the last two years. A big reason is a large number of them have been deported.

Eric Pachman used government data to determine that 2.1 million foreign-born, working-age men have left the country since the start of Trump’s second term. Eighty-eight percent of them were working when they left the country, according to the analysis. “Over the past two years foreign-born men’s labor force shrank by 1.4 million,” the report on Pachman’s website, Data 4 the People, says. “But in a normal pair of summers it would have grown by about 360,000 — so measured against trend, the swing is 1.8 million.”

Constructing masculinity consciously and intentionally

In an article for Between the Lines Kelli Dunham wrote about masculinity, as in assigned female at birth, but wanting to be masculine. Dunham was the youngest in a large farm family so grew up in the midst of masculinity. “It drove tractors. It fixed things. It wore work boots…” It seemed like a club but no one said whether admission was possible or where they kept the application. In 2008 the Butch Voices conferences were founded. Dunham could now discuss what it means to be masculine.

Suddenly, masculinity wasn't just something I wanted access to; it was something we could examine together. What parts had we inherited? What parts had hurt us? What did we love about it? What kind of masculine people did we actually want to be? For the first time, I was having those conversations with other masculine-identified people instead of just quietly standing near the power tools hoping gender would somehow eventually explain itself.

All these years later Dunham is in a position to mentor young trans people.

Watching young trans men construct masculinity consciously and intentionally is almost like watching a painter create a watercolor landscape. They aren't starting with a blank page exactly — the colors are already there, handed down by family, culture, every man they've ever loved or feared or wanted to become. But they get to decide which ones to use, which ones to dilute, which ones to let bleed into each other and which ones absolutely do not belong in this particular painting.

Dunham’s brother is career military and the picture of masculinity. Yet, he cares deeply for his children.

I used to think healthy masculinity meant removing the bad parts: Don't suppress emotion, don't dominate, don't confuse anger with strength. But maybe that's only half the work. Maybe we should also notice what's already there.

Such as empathy and caring. EagleOfFreedom of the Daily Kos community wrote:

Climate Change has always been an anondyne phrase that does not offend. Maybe that was a good option when things were not dire as they are now. But just look out your window, if they haven’t been blown out by high winds, to know that a non-descript “change” is not what we are experiencing. What humans are doing to the planet is Climate Disruption. And what humans are experiencing right now is a rolling, widening Climate Catastrophe. ... Climate Disruption? This is something different. It evokes what happens when a supervolcano blows and suddenly disrupts the atmosphere and thus also the climate. It evokes what happens when an asteroid or comet impacts the planet and kicks up so much debris that it disrupts the climate, creating a global catastrophe. ... So I’m not going to call it Climate Change. That’s simply not enough.

Kos of Kos wrote that the United Nations voted 164-1 to, as Kos wrote, “encourage the use of world maps that more accurately represent the relative size of nations and continents, moving away from the familiar Mercator projection.” The frequently used Mercator projection shows far northern countries, such as Greenland and Russia to be much larger than they are in comparison to African countries. Greenland is seen as about the same size as Africa when Africa is actually 14 times larger. That single no vote? It wasn’t Russia, which benefits considerably from the Mercator projection yet approved the resolution. It was the US.

“While this initiative is presented as an anodyne effort to update cartographic proportions, the United States clearly sees it cannot be separated from the much larger and more radical ideological project it belongs to—as its most vocal and committed proponents plainly and openly state,” explained the U.S. mission to the U.N.

That “radical” ideological agenda is “cognitive justice” and refers to the way knowledge is produced and presented which can privilege some perspectives over others. That includes which projection is used to create a map as that influences how we perceive different regions of the world. The resolution endorsed the Equal Earth projection because it preserves the relative size of landmasses. The size of Africa is in proper proportion to the size of Russia. About the same time the nasty guy tweeted a map of North America showing everything from Nicaragua to northern Canada plus Greenland and Cuba under an American flag. Kos wrote:

So would Greenland hold quite the same fascination for Trump if the map he grew up looking at didn’t make it appear nearly as large as Africa? Would Canada? That’s the fascinating part of this entire controversy. The African nations pushing this resolution argue that distorted maps aren’t merely cartographic curiosities—that maps shape how people perceive the importance and power of different places. And here comes Trump, essentially volunteering as Exhibit A.

Of course, map geek that I am, I had to learn more about the Equal Earth projection. A page from Sakshi Education shows Mercator and Equal Earth side by side. It also covers the vote in the UN, then gets into the differences between the two projections. It also explains why the Mercator has been in use since it was created in 1569 – it is great for maritime navigation. I add the mathematics of converting from latitude and longitude are much simpler than many other projections. Sakshi notes what the UN passed is a recommendation. It is not mandatory. A page from Equal Earth explains the projection, compares it to a few others, and gives the mathematics. One could even download a map. In the comments of Tuesday’s pundit roundup for Kos and after a tweet of another nasty thing done by the nasty guy Raelerin wrote: “I sure wish I understood why no one is willing to tell him “NO!’” RandomNonviolence replied:

Some like what he is doing, some have been bought, some are afraid. Trump is a mob boss who has no empathy for others. He is willing to do anything to get his way and now that he controls the government, he has a lot of power to give people gigantic gifts, make or destroy careers, and physically hurt people. He shows us this every day with his grifting, the detentions and deportations, his attacks on Republican politicians, etc. There has always been a lot of grift, fraud, and corruption in our society and in Washington. Trump is a master at seeing that and using it for his own benefit. Trump is completely ignorant and incompetent at being a normal human being, but he is a genius at being a sociopathic mobster.

In the comments of today’s roundup exlrrp posted a tweet from GOP Ls:

Trump is now single handedly responsible for 27.7% of the national debt. This is dramatically more than any President in American history.

Politics in the Wild added:

Huge congratulations to President Donald J. Trump for achieving his 7th bankruptcy.

With the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on Friday the nasty guy said he was at the World Trade Center and that “Two firemen, big strong guys, I’m not the smallest guy in the world, they grabbed me under the arm, said, ‘Got to get out of here,’ and they literally lifted me up.” No, he was a few miles away in his own tower. But the comment was great for meme creators. Several of their images are in these comments: Being guided out by state mental hospital orderlies. Being carried out by really buff firemen and giving them longing looks. Being carried out by Jeffrey Epstein. Being carried out by Hulk Hogan. A cartoon by Nick Anderson posted on Kos shows the triumphal arch the nasty guy is planning to build.

Woman: Triumph over what? Man: Congress, the Supreme Court, the Constitution, common sense, taste...