Safety regulations by AI

Yes, I’ve been watching team, dance, and men’s figure skating all this past week. Tonight starts pairs, followed by women’s this week. I’ve been enjoying it very much. I’m thinking about how to portray the stats from the men’s long program results in which the fifth place guy (Mikail Shaidrov of Kazakhstan) ended up in first place (yes, his long program was flawless and beautiful), the second place guy (Yuma Kagiyama of Japan) bobbled a bit to keep second place, the ninth place guy (Shun Sato of Japan) ended up in third, and the first place guy (Ilia Malinin of the US, known as the Quad God) took eighth, well off the medals. I watched Malinin’s performance and his many stumbles and quad jumps that weren’t four rotations. Perhaps calling him the Quad God (he even wore a t-shirt with that on it) was too much stress. When watching these performances I wonder would they be more or less beautiful if the skaters did it because they loved what they do and the joy they give viewers and didn’t get scored or ranked? Back towards the end of January Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Daily Kos included a five minute video of Rachel Maddow discussing the protests of the ICE operations in Minneapolis. This was shortly after Alex Pretti was murdered. Her main idea is this: The people who are against democracy and in favor of the nasty guy as dictator believe they will win with intimidation, with guns, and through war. The people who believe in saving democracy, who declare “No Kings,” will win through flexing democracy, through speech, protest, and political power. A week ago Alexander Shur and the staff of Votebeat in an article posted on Kos discussed the nasty guy’s call to Republicans to “nationalize the voting” and “take over the voting in at least 15 places.” Thankfully, there are some Republicans who are pushing back, including from Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

Election officials say the lesson of 2020 was not that the system is invulnerable, but that it can be strained in ways that cause lasting damage long before courts step in. While it’s unclear whether Trump’s latest demands — and possible future actions— would lead to the same level of disruption, legal experts say some of the backstops that ultimately stopped him last time are now weaker, leaving election officials to absorb even more pressure.

Some election officials are stressing transparency, showing in real time the rules are being followed exactly. But that doesn’t help with the skeptic that say, “I don’t believe you.” Also, they recognize the assault is coming to more than the local jurisdiction. Another danger this year is the “charlatans” who created a business model of spreading conspiracy theories for profit. Election officials are also dealing with death threats. They’ve had to enhance security, yet turnover has increased dramatically. Members of the administration that pushed back against the claims of fraud in 2020 are not there this time. Courts are a great line of defense and have already halted many of the nasty guy’s election policies. But court challenges take time and “untold damage” can happen to public trust and public officials before their ruling. That gap is the current risk.

“It’s up to us to choose to believe him or not,” [said Justin Levitt, an election law professor at Loyola Marymount University]. Obedience in advance isn’t required, and treating Trump’s claims as commands would grant him authority he does not have, Levitt said, adding, “We have agency in this.”

Also towards the end of January (yeah, this is a chance to get browser tabs that have sat for a while) Lisa Needham of Kos reported that the Department of Transportation updated safety regulations by letting an AI write them. That should be good enough.

While [DOT’s top lawyer Gregory] Zerzan might just want “good enough,” most people actually do want the perfect rule when it comes to transportation safety. Regrettably, as ProPublica described, Zerzan “appeared interested mainly in the quantity of regulations that AI could produce, not their quality.” ... This is, to be blunt, terrifying. It’s not just the blind faith that somehow Google’s glorified chatbot is more knowledgeable than an entire agency of specialized experts, but also that complex safety regulations can just be generated in seconds.

This isn’t just DOT and Zerzan. The nasty guy, after firing a lot of employees, has talked about AI replacing everything. Nothing will go wrong! Especially if it is Musk’s Grok AI. A month ago Oliver Willis of Kos wrote that the nasty guy has been talking about America First. But the country that benefits the most from his policies is not the US, but China. China may have started surging ahead before the nasty guy took office, but he has made America’s competitive advantage worse and has paid more attention to is ballroom than doing anything about China. Also from a month ago is a cartoon from Clay Jones. About that time the nasty guy had commented that the only this that would constrain him is his own morality. So Jones reviews his morality: He was pals with Epstein (details still TBD), stole from a fake charity, grifted students through his fake university, weaponized the DoJ against his enemies, and monetized the Oval Office. Yeah, we understand his morality and how little that would deter him from anything. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Carron J. Phillips of The Contrarian on Substack discussing the nasty guy’s racist posts about the Obamas.

Too often, the oppressed are asked to address their oppression, instead of the oppressed hearing from those who have the privilege of being unscathed. We see this a lot when it comes to activism in sports, which is why it was so refreshing to see a bevy of white American athletes being asked about the state of America during the Winter Olympics.

Those white American athletes declaring their opposition to the nasty guy’s policies are really annoying conservatives. Which is good. In the comments paulpro posted a meme:

Two things Republicans hate: 1. Being called racist. 2. Black people.

Joy is not a reward for success, but a way of living

Kos of Daily Kos discussed Latino culture and how it compares to American conservatism. Latino communities still put the church at the religious, social, and moral center. It is where they participate in community. Family is a lived reality and cultural expectation is a deep obligation to parents. There are still strong traditional gender roles (so stop with that “Latinx” nonsense). That is a part of why the nasty guy got 46% of the Latino vote in 2024. There was cultural alignment and many could assume his bigotry was aimed elsewhere and not at them. Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show depicted sugar cane fields to demonstrate Latinos are hard workers. The several small businesses showed their hustle culture. It showed extended families with children everywhere – when they party they don’t leave their children at home. Many images were highly masculine and highly feminine, but they were not sexualized. This was the only halftime show to feature an actual wedding. Even the moments of queer imagery showed them as belonging, part of the family. All of that (well, not the last one) depict conservative values promoted by American conservatives.

Where Latinos fundamentally break from American conservatism is joy. Joy is not a byproduct of success for Latinos. Unlike cultures that treat professional status or financial achievement as prerequisites for a meaningful life, Latino culture has long defined success more relationally than materially. To our occasional economic detriment, joy is not deferred until we have the house or the fancy car. It has nothing to do with bank balances. Joy is integrated into daily life and shared whether or not circumstances cooperate. That joy is not abstract or intellectual. It is physical. It lives in the body. It shows up in dancing that starts early and never really stops—children learning complex salsa steps, being twirled by grandparents right alongside them. Movement is not performance; it is participation. Joy is learned somatically, taught through rhythm, proximity, and repetition, embedded before it can ever be articulated.

Joy also shows up in touch – “affection is public and unembarrassed” – and in the music.

You did not need to speak Spanish to feel any of that radiating from that stage. The music, the movement, and the intimacy were the message. Joy was not a reward for success, but a way of living: collective, embodied, and freely offered to anyone willing to feel it. Even many MAGA conservatives begrudgingly admitted it spoke to them. Conservatism, by contrast, is dour, punitive, and obsessed with control. It treats pleasure with suspicion, happiness as frivolous, and celebration as weakness.

The joy on the stage was defiant and incompatible with American conservatism. I had written about AG Pam Bondi’s infuriating performance before the House Judiciary Committee that wanted answers about the Department of Justice’s obstructive release of the Epstein files. Walter Einenkel of Kos wrote about a couple bad moments. One of them was Bondi saying:

The Dow is over 50,000 right now. The S&P [500] at almost 7,000, and the Nasdaq smashing records. … That's what we should be talking about.

A record-setting stock market is terrible reason to not investigate pedophiles. Emily Singer of Kos wrote that Bondi’s performance was the “most dreadful” by any Cabinet-level official before Congress. She ranted and hurled personal insults at Democrats rather than answering fair questions. Anyone who tuned in to watch would have thought her antics embarrassing and wondered why she was doing it. Singer said Bondi was performing for an audience of one – the nasty guy. He gets pleasure when his enemies are insulted. Also, the nasty guy has dropped hints that she hasn’t been wielding her power as quickly as he would like, so this performance may have been an effort to save her job. The moment that proves the point was when Bondi demanded the Judiciary Committee apologize to the nasty guy for impeaching him. Jeff Danziger posted a cartoon of showing a cat labeled Bondi having spilled the trash, scattered papers, clawed up the furniture, and was now puling down the curtains. A guy in the doorway says to the nasty guy, “Sir... She’s getting more publicity than you!” He replies, “She must be stopped!” The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases job data monthly to get a quick, though maybe not so accurate, look at what the economy is doing. After the end of the year, they take time to go through more reliable statistics and revise the year’s numbers. Singer reported that on Wednesday the BLS announced their updated numbers for 2025. The estimates made during the year came up with 584,000 added jobs. The revised numbers say only 181,000 jobs were added in the year. That’s close to a 70% drop and a mighty small number. And tiny compared to 2024’s job gains of nearly 1.5 million. Yeah, the BLS is the agency that the nasty guy accused of lowering the numbers to make him look worse than Biden. So were these numbers falsified and the real numbers are worse? Singer also included statistics that show private education and health care added jobs and the entire rest of the economy lost jobs. Republicans are trying to save face by saying 130,000 jobs were added in January. That’s still low compared to the Biden years. And jobs haven’t really grown since April, when the nasty guy announced his tariff Liberation Day. An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported that the House voted on a resolution to end the emergency that the nasty guy declared to justify tariffs against Canada. This was brought by Democrats and enough Republicans voted for it that it passed 219-211. This is a symbolic rebuke of the nasty guy. Of course, speaker Johnson didn’t want it to come to a vote. But enough Republicans were worried about the high prices their constituents are paying. The measure goes to the Senate and the nasty guy will surely veto it. Besides, it’s a resolution, not a bill. In Friday’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Ali Breland of The Atlantic talking about how Jeffry Epstein helped revive the idea of “race-science” or the false idea that there is a genetic reason why non-while people are supposedly inferior. I’ll bypass that discussion for Kev’s comments on the article.

~35% of the world’s population is either Indian or Chinese and I think that official number has been over the 30% mark for at least decades (and probably centuries). When you think about it, “white people” have always been a minority of the world’s population. If “non-whites” wanted to “slaughter” white people, we have the numbers to do so.

Óscar Gutiérrez of El País in English:

The Kiel Institute for the World Economy, founded in Germany more than a century ago, has been monitoring aid flows since the start of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In its latest assessment, published Wednesday, the think tank states that “Europe has almost offset the collapse in U.S. support.” Specifically, U.S. contributions plummeted by almost 99% last year; those from European partners increased by 59% in financial and humanitarian assistance, and by 67% in military aid. “As a result, total aid in 2025 remained close to previous years,” the institute notes. [...] With the numbers in hand, it’s clear that Trump has achieved his goal. The Republican leader reiterated in the first months of his presidency that it was Europe’s responsibility to defend Ukraine. He even demanded that Zelenskiy reimburse the money the United States had spent during the first three years of the Russian occupation, a demand he softened with the signing of the minerals trade agreement. […] The distribution... is uneven. The Kiel Institute points out that Scandinavian and Western European countries, with Germany and the United Kingdom leading the way, account for almost 95% of military aid, far ahead of the southern region where Spain is located — the Spanish government pledged €817 million ($970 million) last November, 75% of which was for military equipment — and Ukraine’s eastern neighbors.

In the comments Jimmy Margulies posted a cartoon of two workmen adding to the side of the Kennedy Center a sign that says “ICE Detention Facility.” One workman says, “Trump remains confident he can fill the seats here.” The nasty guy held up money for another tunnel under the Hudson River into New York, then said he would release it if Chuck Schumer would rename Penn Station as Trump Station and Dulles Airport near Washington as Trump Airport. RJ Matson of e pluribus cartoonum created a cartoon of “Chuck Schumer’s The Art of the Counteroffer.” It shows “The Donald J. Trump Memorial Long Term Parking Lot” at Dulles Airport and the “Donald J. Trump Taxi Stand at Penn Station.” A cartoon posted by paulpro and created by Jeffrey Koterba shows Bondi with a smile on her face at the doctor’s office as a nurse show her chest x-ray to the doctor. The nurse explains, “She redacted hear heart x-ray... So we don’t actually know if she has one...” Daniel Boris posted a cartoon of Bad Bunny saying, “Release the Epstein files in Spanish. Maybe then MAGA will get upset about them.” In today’s roundup Greg Dworkin included a pair of tweets about the six Democrats who recorded a video telling military personnel they had a duty to refuse to obey orders that were illegal. A grand jury refused to indict them. Kyle Griffin tweeted:

*None* of the D.C. grand jurors who heard the Trump admin's pitch on why they should indict the Democratic lawmakers who recorded that illegal orders video believed the Justice Department had met the low threshold of probable cause, two sources familiar with the matter told NBC.

Joyce Alene added:

I have never heard of a situation where every single grand juror rejected an indictment. Every single one.

Singer reported that Tom Homan, the “border czar” who was put in charge of ICE in Minnesota, said federal agents are already leaving the state and the rest will leave through next week. Homan said the reason was the operation was a “success.” Others say this was an admission the thuggish methods were hurting the popularity of the nasty guy and Republicans. Many people in this administration are very good at lying. Are they doing that now? Elliott Payne, the president of the Minneapolis City Council, said, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Meanwhile the community will keep up their patrols. Perhaps this is a way to get headlines to get people to think the problem is over so they look away. That way ICE can continue to violate people’s rights with less public attention. They did that kind of thing before when Homan took on oversight in Minnesota, giving the impression the brutality was ending, but nothing changed. Bill of Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted late night commentary:

"This whole culture war [against Bad Bunny] last weekend has demonstrated one thing: for all of MAGA's triumphalism, it's not a movement that seems confident in its position. These people, who control every branch of government, are so triggered by someone singing in Spanish for 20 minutes that they need to create their own 'safe space' alternative halftime show, where 'Trad Bunny' over here is singing songs about how he can't even enjoy sitting in his truck and drinking beer because knows that somewhere out there is a trans person. It's actually f---ing pathetic. The gap between the power you all wield, and the victimhood you all claim, is the real offense. If you didn’t actually have the power to do so much damage in our country, I think we'd all dismiss it as a weak and pathetic pity party." —Jon Stewart, on the fake MAGA tantrum over the Big Bunny halftime show

Randy Essex, retired journalist, wrote an opinion piece for last Sunday’s Detroit Free Press. Alas, the online version is for subscribers only. In it Essex described the vice nasty’s view of manhood is sad and absurd. The vice nasty called on white men to call the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to report incidents where they were passed over for a job that went to a minority person. Yes men face challenges – see the suicide rate. We tell boys highly mixed messages to be both tough and sensitive. Essex (a white guy) wrote that DEI made him better and appreciate a variety of experiences and perspectives, critical to complete news stories and being an empathetic human. He also grew up poor as the vice nasty claims to have done. There were jobs he wanted and didn’t get. He was told to get over it.

Diverse voices simply are needed for organizations to cope effectively with our dynamic society. Diversity of leadership is an even greater need to challenge institutional bias. ... To my fellow white men, I say that not getting a particular opportunity isn’t discrimination. It’s both a part of life and a chance to be better next time. Man up.

Drew Sheneman posted a cartoon on Kos showing a man looking at another man labeled Corporations sitting in piles of money. The corporation man says, “Congress let your Obamacare subsidies lapse? That’s odd, my subsidies came as scheduled.”

Refusing to hate confuses and disorients the hateful

I didn’t watch the Superbowl. I heard a lot of good things about Bad Bunny’s halftime show. So when I saw a link to it on YouTube I watched it. My general impression: Those other people are going to hate. We’re going to party. Please party with us. An Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos before the game was a discussion about what the show might contain and what the elements might mean. Afterward, Alix Breeden of Kos explained the symbolism of many of the things in the show. This includes: The sugar cane fields surrounding the house where many Puerto Ricans worked as slaves (this is one thing I recognized). The taco stand. The child sleeping across several chair. The dancers hanging from utility poles representing the huge blackout after Hurricane Maria. The video briefly showed a wedding, which was an actual wedding. A couple who are superfans invited Bad Bunny to their wedding. He turned it around – would they like to get married as part of his Super Bowl show? Kos of Kos discussed a thread by Ross Douthat, conservative and columnist for the New York Times. Douthat listed things the nasty guy and his administration could do over the next eight months that would improve his political position.

It’s actually a great question. Under normal circumstances, it could spark a real debate. With Donald Trump as president, however, there is only one answer: His administration can’t improve its political position. Because the problem isn’t the tactics. It’s the man.

Kos then supplies a rebuttal to each of Douthat’s suggestions, explaining why the nasty guy would never do it. A couple of the suggestions: “Don't issue any more gross pardons.” And, “Pressure allies by all means, but don't threaten to use the U.S. military to seize their territory.” Kos wrote:

Sure, he’s not wrong. But what Douthat is really offering is a fantasy in which Trump stops being Trump long enough for Republicans to survive him. That’s like asking a tiger to pretend it isn’t a predator until dinner is over.

In Saturday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included tweets by Logan Phillips responding to Interactive Polls. First, what Interactive tweeted:

For the first time, GOP strategists are telling Axios that losing the Senate — where Republicans have a 53-47 majority — is a distinct possibility. According to GOP internal polling, even deep-red states like Alaska, Iowa, and Ohio are now in play

Phillip’s response:

Republicans shouldn’t be so surprised. They won the 2024 election by convincing Americans they’d make life more affordable - then used their hard-earned power to cut Medicaid, reduce food stamps, and raise everyone’s prices with tariffs. The worst thing a party can do is break the central promise of its campaign. The GOP has spent the last year pushing policies that made life even less affordable. Voters noticed.

Simon Van Zuylen-Wood of New York Magazine:

QAnon is premised on the idea that a global cabal is engaged in the rampant sex-trafficking of minors, and one takeaway from the never-ending Epstein blowback is that we really are governed by an overclass of degenerate elites.

In the comments The Geogre posted a 19 minute video of Jon Stweart discussing the release of the Epstein files.

Today is Groundhog Day. If Trump sees his shadow we’ll have six more weeks of not knowing who the co-conspirators are.

Jon Stewart is in the files. It’s not because he was a friend of Epstein, but because someone suggested a video could be narrated by someone like him. The sanctuary cities of concern aren’t Minneapolis and places like it. The big one is Washington. Stewart doubts those who appeared in the Epstein files will be held accountable. This video is Stewart is at his outraged comedic best. Roxane Gay tweeted a response to the nasty guy’s racist post about the Obamas.

1. It was not an accident. 2. It was not a staffer. 3. While the president may have dementia his racism is not due to dementia. 4. He isn’t sorry. He means every racist thought he shares. 5. His base agrees with him. 6. He will do it again. 7. No one in power will hold him accountable.

Bill Bramhall posted a cartoon of a news anchor saying, “We can now confirm that 100% of the 1% are in the Epstein files.” In Wednesday’s roundup Dworkin quoted Cliff Schecter of Blue Amp Media:

For years, we’ve been sold a comforting fairy tale: America’s worst predators come in different species. There are those predators; sex traffickers, monsters, villains in Netflix documentaries and then there are these predators; the respectable ones in fleece vests who “optimize” companies, “disrupt” democracy, and somehow always end up with your pension money in their carry-on. ... This week blew the lie straight to hell that those with bloodlust for bankrupting their neighbors and our country are different than those who prey on young girls. The only difference is we’ve allowed the first to become respectable since the Reagan days (remember when they were called “corporate raiders?” Private equity sounds more thoughtful. Kinder.). It turns, out destroying people’s lives and livelihoods with no allegiance to anything but your own wealth and power is always evil. So, it turns out, it’s the same guys. Same billionaires. Same vibes. Same moral black hole—just different crimes on different days.

In the comments The Wolfpack posted a cartoon of Charlie Brown speaking to Linus.

If you believe that teaching about God in public schools will improve people’s morality, you first need to explain why it doesn’t work in churches.

The New Republic posted the text of a sermon by Rev. Michael Delk of St. Thomas à Becket Episcopal Church in Morgantown, West Virginia. This is a time of those in power mocking, beating, and killing those they don’t like or who get in their way. Are we being desensitized to worse that is to come? Those in power also mocked, beat, and killed Jesus. How do we be faithful to Jesus in such a time?

Those who oppose the truth of love, who rely on lies and cruelty and brutality, strive to induce us to abandon our principles, and they do it slyly by contriving to make us hate instead of love. We all know the temptation. We watch the videos and read the stories. Our outrage rises rightly at the injustice, and before we know it, the consuming fire of hatred surges in our hearts. We despise the people responsible, and maybe even fantasize about vengeance, which is precisely what the hateful in our world want most from us and for us. The hateful want us to hate so that we can be miserable and puny just like them. It’s also the only game they know how to play. Refusing to hate confuses and disorients the hateful. We must stay disciplined in Christ’s unconditional love, disciplined in prayer for those who persecute us and others, disciplined in our desire for the repentance and redemption of the hateful and cruel and brutal, disciplined in our witness that there is a different way, a way of forgiveness and reconciliation given to us by Jesus.

Lauren Hodges of NPR went to the retirement ceremony of several transgender military members who were forced out by Secretary Pete Hegseth’s anti-DEI efforts. The ceremony wasn’t put on by the Pentagon, but by the Human Rights Campaign. Officiating was General Stanley McChrystal, known for his leadership during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Of those forced into retirement one was a Colonel, the highest-ranking trans member of the US armed forces. In the nasty guy’s first term he said that transgender people already serving can keep their job by getting a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. So many did. In his second term that same diagnosis was designated as disqualifying for service. The nasty guy and Hegseth say pushing out trans people is necessary for mission readiness, cost issues and unit cohesion. Army Major Kara Corcoran, one of those who did what she was told and got that diagnosis, disagrees that being transgender harms mission readiness – she served well and in combat for 17 years. As for the cost – transgender surgeries take less recovery time than things like shoulder or knee surgery. They’re back in service faster. It seems unit cohesion suffers more from having to protect service members from being outed than for dealing with an out member. Hodges:

General McChrystal says the separations are a mistake and that they're affecting mission readiness, one of the listed values that Secretary Hegseth claims as a priority for his Department of War amidst several simmering global conflicts.

McChrystal:

God forbid, if we had a major war and we need to start calling everybody up, I would hope that we would not suddenly say we are only going to draft people of a certain type. Because we wouldn't have enough.

In today’s pundit roundup Dworkin quoted Greg Sargent of The New Republic. I’ll get to his quote in a moment. The Michigan NPR news said a lot about the nasty guy’s threat to block the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. This bridge has been in the news for a couple decades. It’s the second one across the river, the other being the Ambassador Bridge (there’s also a tunnel). The Ambassador Bridge is frequently backed up and dumps traffic onto Windsor streets for a couple miles. The new bridge connects freeway to freeway and is to open later this year. One of the nasty guy’s demands is to require more US steel, rather than Canadian steel, be used. That prompted the mayor of Windsor to say, hey, the bridge is built, it doesn’t need any more steel. Also much in the news over the decades I’ve live here, is that the Ambassador Bridge is privately owned. It is not owned and run by the local, state, and national governments on either side. The owner is Maddy Maroun, who has demonstrated he can be a real pain when he wants to. He also owns a lot of property in Detroit – which had included Michigan Central Station in Detroit that was a poster child for ruin porn until Bill Ford bought it and renovated for a beautiful result and wide acclaim. Maddy and his son Matthew opposed the Gordie Howe bridge because they saw it eating into the profits of their own bridge. Thankfully, the Marouns have been quiet during much of the time the bridge was built. But Matthew is the billionaire in Sargent’s quote:

It turns out a billionaire Trump ally who owns another bridge linking those locations—which will face competition from the new project—privately met with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick this week, according to The New York Times. Lutnick spoke with Trump after the meeting and just before Trump’s threat. Maybe, just maybe, Lutnick whispered to Trump that it would totally own Canada and supercilious Prime Minister Mark Carney if Trump blocked that bridge.

Why was the bridge named for Gordie Howe? He was a Canadian who played hockey for the Detroit Red Wings for 25 years. Julie Brown, in her own Substack, discussed AG Pam Bondi’s appearance before a Senate Committee yesterday. Other sources have mentioned her pleasing and flattering demeanor when answering questions posed by Republicans and quite nasty when answering Democrats. When accused of exposing Epstein victims Bondi blustered back that no one has been more helpful to victims than she has. Brown wrote:

Fact Check. Bondi dropped the ball on investigating Epstein and his abuse of children in Florida a long time ago. She was Florida’s attorney general — the state’s top prosecutor — as more and more Epstein victims came forward in the years after Epstein received federal immunity in 2008. She was in office from 2011 to 2019. During that time, there was an ongoing federal lawsuit on the case, brought by Epstein victims. There were also some 22 other civil lawsuits filed, by victims, all of whom were abused as teenagers by Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, in Palm Beach. There was coverage in the media about how Epstein’s victims were fighting to undo that plea deal, and how Epstein flaunted his freedom by leaving his private jail every day via chauffer to work in an office he set up in West Palm Beach. The irony is as Florida attorney general, Bondi tried to position herself as an advocate for victims of sex trafficking, and created a statewide panel on human trafficking. But she remained silent on the most famous sex trafficking case in Florida’s history.

Bondi’s claim of being the best for victims is like the nasty guy proclaiming he’s the least racist occupant of the Oval Office ever. In the comments the Naked Pastor posted a cartoon about the Parable of the Sower. That parable talks about a farmer who sows seed, some on rocky soil where it doesn’t grow, some on the path where birds eat it, and some on good soil where it produces a bountiful harvest. This cartoon shows Jesus with a satchel of hearts sowing them widely. The Naked Pastor wrote:

I think the original point of the parable of the sower was that the seed was thrown indiscriminately everywhere. It illustrates how love is everywhere for everyone. Like the sun and rain falls on everyone indiscriminately, so does love. Sow love, so love.

A couple memes by Liberal Jane. The first shows a woman with a variety of pride buttons plus a BLM pin. She holds a sign saying, “I’d rather be hated for who I include than loved for who I exclude.” The second shows a man in ratty clothes sitting on a sidewalk. His sign says, “You are always closer to being unhoused than you are to being a billionaire.”