The idea of caring for the country is difficult for him to fathom

I finished the novel The Prospects by KT Hoffman. It is the story of Gene, who is transgender and gay. The story opens at the start of his second season with the Beaverton Beavers, a Triple-A minor league team under the Major League Baseball Portland Lumberjacks (yes, this is fiction). Gene used to be teammate and friend with Luis back when they were both playing for Stanford University, though Gene is annoyed that when Luis left school early to the majors Gene was forgotten. Luis wasn’t in the majors for very long before starting his own journey through the minor leagues. Now he has an emotional support dog. Gene was glad he faced Luis only a few times during the year when their teams played each other. But then Luis was traded to the Beavers. And given Gene’s position of shortstop. Yeah, we know where this is headed. The book’s cover is a big clue. But minor leagues, especially Triple-A, are known for people leaving – being called up to the majors, being traded to another team, being sent down to an even lower level, or seeing it is time to end a career. Can a relationship last when notice of a move can come just hours before it happens? Gene is well supported by the coach, Stephanie Baker, a lesbian. He’s also offered essentially free housing by team captain Vince and his husband. Gene feels comfortable with his teammates seeing him naked in the locker room. All that makes Gene feel he’s found a home with the Beavers. Yeah, that much support for a trans/gay athlete in professional sports is still a fantasy, but a guy can dream it could happen soon. I’m thankful to Hoffman, who is trans and gay, for providing a glimpse into that dream. Michael Lewis wrote the book The Fifth Risk, about how the federal government works. I think the fifth risk is the one nobody is even looking for. Calanbo of the Daily Kos community wrote about the book and what Lewis is planning next. Lewis, who wrote the books Moneyball and The Big Short, went to various federal agencies and asked them to tell him what they do as if he was part of an incoming presidential administration. What he learned from those conversations became The Fifth Risk. Calanbo shared some of what Lewis wrote about for the Departments of Commerce (including weather reporting), the Department of Energy (its primary job is maintain the nuclear stockpile), and Department of Agriculture (including the administration of SNAP benefits). All of these departments have dedicated employees who make them better at serving and protecting the people. Calanbo also discussed how America shifted from a government where every job was a patronage job, to one where most of the workers are dedicated careerists. The impetus for that change was President James Garfield being assassinated in 1881 by a guy who didn’t get a patronage job. Calanbo wrote:

Without understanding how our government works, without knowing what these agencies do, it may be difficult for people to understand how damaging Project 2025 would be. Our federal workforce over decades has become professionalized, with advancement based on merit, not patronage, and consequently less susceptible to corruption and abuse.

What Lewis is planning next is to guide a series of articles to appear in the Washington Post on every Tuesday from next week to election day. The six writers involved have gone into some part of the federal government to learn about it in the same way Lewis did for this book. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Zeynep Tufekci of the New York Times discussing the listeria outbreak originating in a Boar’s Head meat plant that has killed a few and sickened many.

It’s easy for companies to complain about excessive regulation, but consumers shouldn’t forget how hard it is to keep mass-produced food safe. Your food is kept safe quietly, day after day, because of extensive regulations born of experience and science. Eagle-eyed inspectors who notice even the tiniest bit of misplaced raw meat can save lives. As this tragic listeria outbreak reminds us, regulations don’t work without accountability. When companies shirk their responsibilities, swift consequences should kick in, before someone dies or falls ill. Reports by the U.S.D.A. so far show there were no enforcement actions against Boar’s Head in the past year, despite these reports. It is unclear what penalties, if any, the company will face. Whatever they are, one can only hope they will deter other failures.

Don’t call them regulations. Call them consumer (or environmental) protections. Kos of Kos wrote the nasty guy is changing his tune on IVF and abortion. Perhaps it is because he’s trying to align himself with what women want? Hard to tell. But we can see the effect of his words. He probably isn’t attracting pro-choice women, considering the way Harris has been hammering the reason why Roe was overturned was because of the nasty guy. And by changing his tune he is pissing off anti-abortion activists. They had already felt unease with the nasty guy’s performative position or “strategic ambiguity.” But his recent proclamations go much further and allies are starting to back away. Wrote Kos:

Trump is in a tough place now: He can’t backtrack without admitting he was wrong, nor would he be able to easily rebuild trust with evangelical anti-abortion voters even if he did. Yet he can’t move forward as a pro-choice champion without further angering and alienating the most committed foot soldiers of the conservative movement. And he did it all for what? Is there a single pro-choice voter who is going to trust Trump on abortion and choose him over Vice President Kamala Harris? He gains zero by trying to pander to a pro-choice constituency that’s long lost. This is just more evidence that Trump’s instincts have abandoned him.

As for the nasty guy’s declaration he wants insurance to cover IVF – Joan McCarter of Kos reported that Democrats have a plan for that. Now that their party’s head is for IVF perhaps Senate Republicans will vote for it? If not, this is a way for Democrats to get Republican opposition on the record through a vote. McCarter reported that actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt explained the nasty guy’s tax plans quite quickly. Gordon-Leavitt would benefit nicely from what the nasty guy proposes, but says no thanks. Wrote McCarter, referencing University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School:

“Do you want to talk about who’s going to really help most Americans? It’s Kamala,” Gordon-Levitt says in his video. And he’s right, according to Wharton. That bottom quintile of earners would see $2,355 in tax relief, and those in the middle, $2,165. The top 0.1% who would get a $376,910 gift from Trump, but would have to pay an additional $167,255 in Harris’ plan.

I’ve been avoiding talking about the nasty guy’s disgraceful attempt to use the graves of fallen soldiers in Arlington National Cemetery as a campaign photo op, which is illegal. John Harwood tweeted quotes from New York Magazine that sums it up well:

“Trump doesn’t actually care about the country.” “The whole idea of caring about the country is difficult for him to fathom.” “He believes in the gangster ethos that all people are selfish and those who claim to uphold higher values are merely hypocrites.”

This matches my understanding that a person fully invested in maintaining the social hierarchy, which the nasty guy is, that person assumes everyone else is as fully invested. They don’t understand that some people may not care about the hierarchy at all. An Associated Press article posted to Kos discusses what’s going on with special counsel Jack Smith refiling indictments against the nasty guy in the case of interference in the 2020 election. The new allegations are in response to the Supreme Court granting presidents immunity for official actions. Smith carefully rewrote his indictments to conform to the ruling, leaving out the parts that might be considered official actions (like consulting with the Department of Justice, though it was to convince them to help with his insurrection). This AP article explains what is now in the indictment and what is next for the case. Alas, there will be a lot of wrangling over whether each bit is also an official act – or no it isn’t. And that will delay the trial until well after the election. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, has several quotes from journalist Molly Ivins, who was good at lampooning the Texas Legislature and Republicans in general. Though Ivins died 17 years ago her comments are annoyingly still relevant. Here’s a comment from July 1994.

Jimmy Carter was a president the press just never cottoned to. Like the senators during the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings, they just didn’t get it. Actually it was pretty simple. Jimmy Carter has been out of office for thirteen years now. And every day for thirteen years, that man has gone out and behaved like a good Christian—for no money. Because that's who he is, and that's what he always was. But that was too simple for Power Town.

Again, the press was (and, alas, still is) strong supporters of the social hierarchy and Jimmy Carter wasn’t (and still isn’t). They didn’t understand that some people ignored or tried to subvert the hierarchy. When I wrote that Robert F Kennedy Jr. suspended his race for president I said I didn’t have sources ready. Since then I came across one, if you need it.