Ten years since the Pulse massacre

Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos marked that last Friday was the tenth anniversary of the gay Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida. The gunman killed 49 people and wounded 58 others. At the time it was the worst mass shooting in the country and was passed by the Las Vegas shooting the following year. It was, of course, a hate crime and an act of terrorism. In 2023 the city of Orlando bought the property. Just three months ago the building was torn down and the location is being turned into a memorial park, to open in 2027. The Wikipedia entry on the shooting likely has much more detail than most people would want to know. As a war is in urgent need of diplomats Max Burns of Kos discussed the current condition of the State Department. Since the nasty guy retook the Oval Office more than 2,000 career diplomats have left, either retired (sometimes early), voluntary departures, or fired for perceived disloyalty. That includes 195 people with skills in crisis management and important language skills. Secretary Mark Rubio seems very good at not showing up at important times, such as for talks to end the war in Ukraine hosted by Britain. Naturally, morale is low. These departures mean there are a lot of places where the US is not responding to economic and security threats. And China is stepping in to fill the void. This is happening in Latin America and in Africa. When US diplomacy is reduced trade deals are too. American companies and farmers lose out. Iran is enjoying that there are no confirmed ambassadors to Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Iraq, or Kuwait, countries that are the war’s front lines. A crippled State Department also means Iran can easily surprise Rubio and the nasty guy.

Trump’s mismanagement and Rubio’s yes-man complicity will take more than a generation to repair—if it can ever be fully repaired at all. In the meantime, the United States will continue its accelerating decline into a second-tier power less likely to control events and more likely to be controlled by them. Our adversaries couldn’t ask for more.

Clytemnestra of the Kos community went out quite early this morning to get a prime viewing spot to see workers come to the Kennedy Center and take the nasty guy’s name off the side of the building. A judge had ruled since Congress had named the Center only Congress could change its name and his name had to come off yesterday. A lot of people wanted to witness the name coming off. But before the workmen began their work heavy tarps went up, blocking view of the removal. The crew was all done by 3:15am. But at 11:48am the tarps were still in place. So if no one can see that the letters came down how can we verify the judge’s order was followed? Was the tarp put up to spare the nasty guy’s feeling? This all gets so old. Joey Garrison, Susan Page, Michael Loria, and Aysha Bagchi of USA TODAY posted a full article about the removal at 3:00pm today. They did not include a photo of the wall with the name gone and without the tarp. Emily Singer of Kos reported:

President Donald Trump is reportedly trying to expunge his two impeachments—his latest attempt to rewrite history from his disastrous first term. “It should be done because I did nothing wrong,” Trump told the Wall Street Journal. “It was a rigged deal—it was a whole rigged situation.” But forcing Republicans to pass a meaningless resolution just to soothe Dear Leader’s fragile ego would be politically disastrous for the GOP. First, the majority of Americans want Trump to be impeached again—not see his first two impeachments erased.

Second, voting to expunge would remind voters why he was impeached the first two times and that Republicans failed to convict him then. That would not be good for Republicans in November. Now that Bill Pulte has been replaced with Jay Clayton to be Director of National Intelligence please do not assume we dodged a problem. Lisa Needham of Kos reported he’s just as vile and still doesn’t have Intelligence experience as required by law. To get appointed to big jobs by the nasty guy a candidate must audition. Clayton passed the audition by hopping on TV to spread election conspiracy theories about the California primary election. He has no experience in election law either and the new gig is supposed to prohibit him from participating in domestic affairs (not that such a thing stopped Tulsi Gabbard, his predecessor – see Fulton County, Georgia).

So, Clayton’s pick violates the law just as much as Pulte’s would have, but enforcing that law requires a Congress willing to do so. GOP senators have the power to force Trump to pick someone who meets the legal requirements for the job. But if they won’t, then it is going to be Jay Clayton—and it is going to be just as bad as you think.

AI described as heaven

Lisa Needham of Daily Kos wrote about the initial public offering of Elon Musk’s company SpaceX. That happened today and the economic news said the price of the stock went up nearly 20% and the public offering fattened Musk’s net worth enough he is now a trillionaire (so it went up by at least $100 billion). Needham wrote about an annoying aspect of the public offering. The major stock indices, such as S&P 500 have rules for which companies are allowed in their index and which aren’t. The reason is to assure the company is stable and profitable and the offering isn’t overhyped. They usually require waiting a year and Musk’s Tesla waited ten years. The S&P 500 rejected Musk’s request that SpaceX be added to its index immediately. But Nasdaq said sure, welcome in. That means if you own shares in an index fund linked to the Nasdaq that fund is required to buy shares in SpaceX. Which means Musk is requiring you to own shares of SpaceX. Whether you want to or not. While the SpaceX Dragon is a reliable way to get to the International Space Station, the company’s much larger Starliner has frequently exploded and has not yet achieved orbit. News reports say that the nasty guy has nominated Jay Clayton to be Director of National Intelligence. That means the job isn’t going to Bill Pulte, the guy who had no intelligence experience but was nominated to the job in an “acting” capacity to avoid Senate confirmation. The Senate was not pleased with the choice or with being frozen out. At least Clayton has actual intelligence experience, as required for the job. Before Pulte was replaced Max Burns of Kos discusses why the nasty guy keeps nominating temporary flunkies. He’s done it several times, such as with Todd Blanche for Attorney General.

Under normal circumstances, Blanche would be required to leave the acting attorney general role on Oct. 29, which would set up a heated confirmation fight just five days before voters head to the polls. But if Trump “nominates” Blanche for the permanent job without ever moving his confirmation forward, the countdown clock would effectively stop. That also explains why Trump has failed to nominate any permanent successors for the multiple roles currently being held by his hand-picked acting appointees. Trump is wagering that Senate Republicans, already beaten down by months of brutal polling and the prospect of losing both chambers of Congress in November, will be in no rush to have hearings for Trump’s nominees. He’s probably right. In place of the transparency and accountability of public hearings, the American people will get only silence and excuses from a White House that long ago stopped caring about any opinion other than Trump’s.

Pope Leo recently was in the news because he released a teaching on AI, calling it “colonialism,” exploiting people’s data and resources similar to empires. NPR’s Steve Inskeep wasn’t able to discuss it with the Pope, but did talk to Karen Hao, who wrote Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI. That certainly puts it in colonialism terms. Hao also says the AI bros use religious terms to describe their work. To me that’s also scary. The AI guys describe their product as trying to benefit all of humanity. Hao says “Essentially, what they're describing is a heaven.” They promise utopian outcomes – cure cancer, end poverty, stabilize the climate – while saying if we don’t act we’re heading to catastrophe. Hao says that is similar to the missionary logic behind colonialism. I add that AI might be a help in curing cancer or other diseases. But ending poverty and stabilizing the climate depend on things AI cannot control – they depend on rich ending their effort to oppress those lower in the social hierarchy. Hao says data centers reflect a concentration of wealth at a time when more people are struggling with basic costs. That’s one reason for the massive protests against them. The idea of building public information can be seen as growing the economic pie for everyone. But the economic pie is shrinking for most people. As for some tech leaders...

“They just admit they do believe that the way that they are currently developing these AI technologies will, in fact, inflame inequality,” Hao said.

Last weekend while Brother was visiting we heard a portion of the NPR show This American Life that prompted us to wait a few minute in a parking lot to listen. The episode is not yet up on the show’s website, but I did see a corresponding article in last Sunday’s Detroit Free Press and Brother found other online sources. I found the article on the USA Today website (USA Today owns the Freep). The story is features Jeremiah Schofield. He was an employee (perhaps a mid level manager) at the Social Security Administration and is now a whistleblower talking to Congress. According to the portrayal on This American Life people from the Department of Government Efficiency (now well known as DOGE) came to him with a list of 6000 people they wanted assigned a death date and added to the Death Master File. The DMF is a list of all the people that have ever been issued a Social Security number and have died. There are a high level of internal controls to making changes to it because when you are added your financial life is frozen. Bank accounts, credit cards all frozen. Other areas of a person’s life become a serious mess and if the change was made when it isn’t true a person can spend days to a year getting it all straightened out. Schofield was assured they 6000 people were all illegal immigrants. Schofield did some searching and testing of 25 of the names. A large number (23?) were citizens are lawful residents. But the changes for the 6000 were put through. And the next day people started showing up at SSA offices to declare they were still alive. Then DOGE gave a demand to add death dates to 2.7 million people. According to the radio show Schofield went to his boss with the suspected reason for the demand. The boss said that couldn’t be right. Schofield said call them. The boss did and was surprised at how casual and candid the DOGE person was. From the news article:

Schofield, according to their letter, alleged a DOGE staffer said “the lives of these individuals would be ruined... and they would be driven to ‘self-deport’” or “they would have to go to a local Social Security office, at which point SSA field office staff would send them to DHS offices” where officials would “detain them for deportation.”

Shortly after that Schofield resigned, so he doesn’t know the details of what happened to the 2.7 million people. I suspect the SSA refused the demand, otherwise 2.7 million people showing up at SSA offices would have been in the news. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted late night commentary. The first is in response to the nasty guy declaring there was cheating in the Los Angeles primary because the Republican didn’t go on to the general election:

Wow, that is remarkable. Somehow, the Democrats rigged the ballots but only for the parts where people voted for [L.A.] mayor [in which the top two winning candidates were Democrats]. The votes for governor they left untouched. It’s diabolical. It’s a miracle that people who are so stupid can be so incredibly smart at the same time. In a sane world, that statement would’ve been the moment where the nurse came in and put him to bed. —Jimmy Kimmel Live Republicans calling [James] Talarico dangerous while nominating Ken Paxton is like warning people about the health risks of blueberries while smoking meth through a leaf blower. —John Fugelsang on BlueSky

In the comments of yesterday’s pundit roundup for Kos exlrrp posted a meme using the words of Rep. Robert Garcia:

If you think California is taking a while to count votes, wait until you hear how long the Trump administration is taking to release the Epstein files...”

In the comments of today’s roundup Acyn posted a tweet with words from Robert Pape, Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago.

We’re about to enter the period of maximum leverage for Iran. When we hit the oil inventory cliff, as we’re going to do in the middle of July, end of July, that means when our inventories go down, Iran’s leverage goes up and will stay up through the midterms. So that is why there’s no chance, very little chance Iran is going to cut a deal right now. Why would it cut a deal when its leverage is about to grow? Everybody know it’s going to grow. President Trump can talk down oil prices only for so long. Once that oil inventory dries up here at the end of the first week of August, as all the world’s experts, the actual experts are predicting...

Hmm. I have plane tickets for overseas travel starting at the end of July. If oil inventories dry up, rather than just become hugely expensive, will I be able to get home? Then again, extending a foreign trip might be rather nice. At least for a while.

Point toward goodness, toward democracy, and toward hope

Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported on the primary election in California. The election day is a week ago and only this week were many races called. When a large number of people vote by mail and only have to get the ballot to the post office by election day, counting will take a while. And, of course, that gives an excuse for the nasty guy and Republicans to cry fraud. A prime example is the primary for mayor of Los Angeles. As at the state level, all candidates are on one ballot. The two who get the most votes, no matter the party, go on to the November ballot. This story is about Spencer Pratt, Republican. He wasn’t all that qualified for the job, but that doesn’t seem to matter to Republicans. His campaign ads featured conspiracy theories. He came in second in early tabulation, but fell behind as mail ballots were counted. In Los Angeles the nasty guy got 26% of the vote in 2024. He would get a lot fewer votes now. There was no way Pratt would become mayor.

But now that their dreams of capturing control of LA are likely dead, Republicans have resorted to spreading baseless and dangerous voter-fraud lies to explain away their defeat, rather than admit that running a right-wing, reality-TV freak in dark blue Los Angeles was a bad choice. The lies about voter fraud come both from right-wing personalities and social media accounts that profit off lying to Republican voters, as well as from elected officials who know better but need to pander to their easily duped base of MAGA morons.

In a second post Singer continued the story.

But rather than accept that a conspiratorial, pro-MAGA grifter was not a good fit for the overwhelmingly Democratic city, President Donald Trump and other GOP lawmakers baselessly cried fraud—the same strategy they’re likely to employ when they lose in the midterms.

Singer then listed the many Republicans who claimed fraud, starting with the nasty guy. From the end of the article:

For now, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said that he and fellow Democrats have made it a crime to interfere with elections by lying about voter fraud. “Trump says voter fraud should land people in prison. Agreed. And let’s start with the politicians spreading election lies with the goal of illegally interfering with counting ballots,” Newsom wrote on X. “In California, I just signed a law making that punishable with up to 3 years behind bars. More to come. FAFO, Donald.” But given that Trump acts with impunity, and the Supreme Court he packed with right-wing hacks basically lets him do whatever he wants, that threat is unlikely to make any difference.

Leila Fadel of NPR reported that California Attorney General Rob Bonta is responding to the Republican claims by pushing against claims of fraud and promoting transparency. He explained the process and why the tally takes so long. And in in LA County there is a livestream of the counting.

"The best counter to misinformation and disinformation is calling it out, confronting it, providing the facts that show that it's demonstrably false," he said. "So I immediately went to my own platforms to share how Trump is lying. The facts rebut everything and contradict everything that he said, and it's important that he be called out for it, because it's wrong and it's not true." "I'm worried about what he might do. Will he deploy the military? Will he deploy ICE to the polls? Will he interfere with the U.S. Postal Service in the November election, and the vote-by-mail ballots that move through the U.S. Postal Service?" he said. "All those things are possible, and they rest on this lie, this fabrication that there's widespread voter fraud," Bonta added.

A White House spokesperson said a lot of people share the concern of fraud, but offered no evidence there had been any. Lisa Needham of Kos wrote about the best political nonfiction books released so far in 2026. I haven’t read any of them (and I’m trying to shift my reading to more enjoyable novels). I’ll list a few of them to show a sense of what authors want to call attention to. Eric Lichtblau: “American Reich: A Murder in Orange County, Neo-Nazis, and a New Age of Hate” Lichtblau’s book about the 2018 murder of Blaze Bernstein by a former high school classmate who targeted Bernstein because he was gay and Jewish traces a neo-Nazi history that is uniquely American. Danny Funt: “Everybody Loses: The Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling” Heather Ann Thompson: “Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage” In December 1984, Bernie Goetz shot four unarmed Black teenagers in a New York City subway car after one teen asked Goetz how he was doing and then asked for $5. Goetz said he believed they were about to mug him, and he carried a pistol—illegally—because he had been mugged before. For Thompson, Goetz is a way to unpack the Reagan-era retreat from the civil rights advances of the preceding decades. Nicholas Enrich: “Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower’s Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID” If you feel like you already know how brutally immoral the Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development was, you’re wrong. Enrich spent over a decade at the agency and was the director of policy, programming, and planning at USAID’s Bureau for Global Health when Trump returned to office, giving him a front-row seat to unprecedented, unimaginable cruelty. Commenters listed several more books. In Monday’s pundit roundup Greg Dworkin of Kos quoted Lawrence Winnerman of Blue Amp:

The word we were given was cloud. It is one of the most effective pieces of marketing in the history of technology, because it tells you the thing is weightless, floating, somewhere up there and nowhere in particular—a place your photos live, made of nothing, costing nothing, sitting on no one. Ask Beverly and Jeff Morris what the cloud weighs. They live in Newton County, Georgia, in the kind of rural country people from the cities drive through without seeing. In 2018, Meta broke ground on a data center about a thousand feet from their home. Within months, the Morrises’ well—the private well their household actually drinks from—began to fail. Sediment in the water. The dishwasher, the ice maker, the washing machine, the toilet, all faltering. They have spent roughly $5,000 trying to fix it and can’t afford the $25,000 it would take to replace the well. Meta commissioned a study and concluded its data center was “unlikely” to have affected their groundwater. Three of the Morrises’ neighbors have reported well trouble since the data center went in. The cloud, it turns out, has to land somewhere. It landed on them.

In Tuesday’s roundup Chitown Kev quoted Bobby Ghosh, writing in his Substack about that useless war.

The humiliation is not in the events of a single bad evening, it is in the design of the thing. Tehran has made a ceasefire in Lebanon a precondition for any deal with Washington. Israel, insisting its Lebanese campaign falls outside the truce, keeps hitting Hezbollah whenever it suits. Each sortie over Beirut blows up the diplomacy elsewhere. The Houthis, never wanting for an excuse, have warned they will go after Israeli ships in the Red Sea. So the timetable for ending Trump’s war is set not in the Oval Office but in an Israeli targeting cell, an Iranian command bunker and a Yemeni hillside — none of which answers to the White House. Tehran grasps this more clearly than anyone, which is why it is in no rush. As Brett McGurk argues, Trump’s options have narrowed to three: endure the economic pain, concede on Iran’s terms, or fight the wider war he swore to avoid. The Iranian regime is employing the oldest move in its book, which is to hold what the adversary wants — and wait. It is holding the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran now says will reopen only under its own conditions, transit toll included. […] The IDF’s resumption of attacks in Lebanon, after the briefest of pauses, gave Iran the opportunity to test that leverage — hence its Sunday missile barrage. That led to the astonishing situation where an American President publicly sought to protect the Islamic Republic from retaliation by Israel. In nearly three decades of covering the Middle East, that is a sentence I never could have imagined writing. It would have amused and pleased the Iranian leadership in equal measure.

Fred Kaplan, writing for Slate:

By most measures, the United States still hoists plenty of power on the global stage. It possesses the most lethal and far-flung military; it controls the leading currency; its leaders’ words and deeds are more closely observed and analyzed than those of any other leaders. But Trump has proved remarkably inept at brandishing this power. He seems to believe that he can rule the world through crude threats and assertions of unilateral dominance, that (to use Mao Zedong’s phrase) power grows out of the barrel of a gun. And so when this formula fails—when he backpedals from his threats, when his bark carries no bite, when relentless volleys of firepower destroy targets but fall short of accomplishing political aims (because he mistakenly thinks that the former automatically yields the latter)—then the rest of the world, friends and foes, start to take his (and, therefore, America’s) threats and assurances less seriously. They start going their own way, and try setting security arrangements and supply chains that avoid U.S. control. In other words, Trump’s misunderstandings and abuses of power in the short run are sparking a recalculation of power balances in the long run.

Alix Breeden of Kos poses the question, “Can there really be a Turning Point USA of the left?” Turning Point USA is the highly successful conservative movement started by Charlie Kirk, assassinated last September. There are also several popular conservative podcasters, notably Joe Rogan. Liberals have long wondered and hoped for a liberal equivalent of either of those. And now perhaps there is. William He started Dream for America when he was 16. He is now 19 and a student at the University of Texas – Kirk was about the same age when he started Turning Point. He was interviewed by Breeden. Here’s a bit of what he said. Dream for America has chapters on 50 campuses and another 600 schools wanting to join. Two thirds of the chapters are in red or swing states. Those 600 schools are waiting because DFA doesn’t have enough staff – they’re all college student volunteers facing burn-out. DFA will have a conversation with anyone, just to get the ideas out.

It’s not about trying to clip farm people. It’s more so about trying to really have conversations and point toward people, toward goodness, toward democracy, and toward hope. There’s a great quote that I always love: “There are two types of leaders: those that bring people down to the lowest common denominator,” which is what I think a lot of the right does. “And then there are those who uplift and bring out the best in people,” and that’s what I want to do—bring out the best in our young people, bring out the goodness in all of our young people, and really get our young people to believe in democracy again, and hopefully to believe in this country again one day too.

Zain tweeted:

A friend of mine has two tickets for game 4 of the nba finals. They are courtside seats plus airfare and hotel accommodations. He didn't realize when he bought them that this is the same day as his wedding - so he can't go. If you're interested and want to go instead of him, it's at St. Peter's Church in New York City at 5 PM. Her name is Donna. She will be the one in the white dress.

They are proposing DEI – affirmative action – for men

Yesterday the NPR program The 1A did a 32 minute discussion on “masculinism,” a conservative movement that wants to repeal women’s right to vote and abolish other hard-won rights of women and people of color. Adherents believe the US society has become “feminized.” Hosts are Jen White and Todd Zwillich. Guests are Helen Lewis, of The Atlantic who wrote the June cover story “The Men Who Want Women to Be Quiet,” and Laura Kayfield, who wrote the book Furious Minds, the Making of the MAGA New Right. The transcript begins with a disclaimer that it is not the authoritative version, the audio is. It identifies speaker by number and, as I had seen before, isn’t accurate in identifying when there is a change in speakers. So I may not credit the right speaker or credit any speaker at all. Lewis said masculinism is different from the manosphere, viral influencers, and shock radio. It has an ideology that feminism has gone too far and that patriarchy should be rehabilitated. It advocates for traditional gender roles. A prominent advocate is Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Others are leaders of highly conservative churches and of the Christian Nationalist movement. One of those is Doug Wilson, who uses highly derogatory language against women. White included a few excerpts of speakers promoting masculinism. I see that Doug Wilson mischaracterizes equality to claim it lowers standards. Influencer Charles Cornish Dale (or maybe academic Scott Yenor) claims men need to express the “wildness in their hearts” so they need to be competitive. Nick Fuentes says that women always vote Democratic, which is a vote “for the wrong person.” Sorry, Nick, votes for parties don’t follow gender lines. Kayfield said the movement is against pluralism and for hierarchy. The movement is about anger at the social transformation over the last fifty years that raised up professional women and minorities, producing a loss of status for men (a weird thought because men are still obviously on top). That leads to democracy as bad because it can’t allow men to flourish, to be fully themselves, to be fully manly. I wonder about the definitions of “flourish” and “manly.” Apparently men need to dominate those around them while democracy means there is no domination. That’s a bizarre way to look at it. A big gain by this movement is the rollback of DEI, claiming it has hurt white men because they are shut out of prestigious jobs. Jobs should go to married men who are paid well enough their wives can stay home. They are proposing DEI – affirmative action – for men. A good number of their goals are a part of Project 2025, which the nasty guy and his minions are implemented as fast as they can. Further goals are bans: for support of daycare, dating apps, no fault divorce, single parent benefits in the tax code, and more. While Congress does not have an uderrepresentation of white men, some academics, like Scott Yenor mentioned above, see that women make up the majority of students at universities, and many departments notice their faculty are, embarrassingly, all white men and they talk about diversity. That translates to white men having to compete against more people and excluded from job openings. Women in movies are portrayed differently, gay marriage is celebrated. The culture has become more liberal, more feminized. Their views are not based on real data. Another aspect is graduation rates for men have dropped and for men without a college degree their wages have stagnated. There is male loneliness, disaffection, dissatisfaction, and deterioration that allows this movement to gain a foothold. The movement appeals to men at vulnerable times in their lives, such as after divorce with a judge that favors mothers. The movement spreads through podcasts and YouTube. Doug Wilson is thoughtful about building a media empire with lots of methods of communication, including streaming, publishing, and more. He plants churches. And he’s just one of many. Kayfield wrote about movement members who have PhDs. They can have podcasts and videos on a wide range of topics while also “filling the gaps of meaning” and help young men navigate their lives. Listener David emailed said the discussion reminded him of the quote, “The loss of privilege feels like oppression.” Listener Brian, who is 25 and a gay Marine veteran, is fearful that his military colleagues are picking up on the “easily digestible and memorable slogans that further isolate them.” Kayfield discussed the target audience of the movement. Harvey Mansfield, a political theorist, talks about young men and their energy, spiritedness, and need for recognition. They need to assert themselves in the world. They are looking for guidance on how to live their lives. So they are susceptible to this message and are the target audience. While these young men are fragile there are other versions of masculinity to celebrate. We aren’t confined to this vision. They talked about Graham Platner, Maine Democratic candidate for US Senate. His primary is today and he’s likely to win. He projects another version of masculinity. He’s gruff, bearded, served in Iraq, used to be toxic, but grown past it. And a Democrat. Another example is James Talarico of Texas, also a Democrat, talking about Christianity is a completely different way. A lot of the masculinism talk is performative, it’s trolling. In person they can be pleasant and intellectual, but online they want to be someone liberals rage against. They do that because it raises their standing among their peers. Saying these things is also like a secret handshake. Saying you want to repeal women’s right to vote is a way to be accepted by the in crowd. Listener Sophia emailed that she’s disappointed that men are taking up this ideology.

Perhaps it stems from a serious lack of men being taught at early ages, healthy emotional processes, and regulation, and being taught that masculinity equals power and domination of others rather than strength, courage, leadership expressed through emotional intelligence and respect.

Listener Bruce emailed, “I don't understand why any male should think he is superior to females simply by virtue of him being male.”

“Climate change” is abstract. A heat wave isn’t.

Brother’s visit was a pleasant one. One thing we did was to visit the Edsel and Eleanor Ford House overlooking Lake St. Clair, northeast of Detroit. Edsel was the son of Henry Ford. Eleanor’s ancestry included the founder of JL Hudson department stores (alas, none left). So, yeah, the place would be called a mansion – the ballroom had more square feet than my house (though my house is small). In one sense the décor of the house is thrifty – a lot of the materials, paneling and such, was rescued from English manor houses that were being demolished. Sister (who wasn’t with us at the House) added that those houses were being demolished because so many men died in WWI the families no longer had the money or staff to keep running them. The tour guide said things like, “This paneling is from the 1500s, that chandelier is from the 1600s, and that medallion in the window is from the 1200s.” My Sunday viewing was the Tony Awards. I enjoyed the show, glad to see some of the dances from the musicals, and wish more of the nominated plays were included (very little was). I now have a few more shows to check out, though not Schmigadoon. Andrew Mangan began a post for Daily Kos by showing a graph of the average temperatures between January and April, dating back to before 1900. Yes, 2026 is the hottest winter on record, though barely beating out a year more than a decade ago (maybe 2012?). Then Mangan reported on a YouGov poll about protecting the environment.

The survey included what’s called a “split sample test,” wherein a random half of respondents are shown one wording of a question and the other half are shown another. In that test, half of respondents—likely voters, in this case—were asked how much they thought “climate change” affected the rising cost of living. Sixty-one percent said it impacted it “greatly” or somewhat,” while 39% said it had little or no impact. But the other half of the sample didn’t see the words “climate change.” Instead, they were asked how much “issues like natural disasters, heat waves, and prolonged droughts” affected rising cost of living. And opinions were quite different: 80% said those things had an impact, while just 20% said they didn’t. ... “Climate change” is an abstract issue for many people. But a heat wave isn’t. People fear tornados, hurricanes, and floods. Palpable experiences sway voters better than concepts. Democrats often make those types of messaging mistakes.

This is the same sort of messaging mistakes as when Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did their “Fighting Oligarchy” tour. Yes, that word accurately described the topic of their message, but used a word many people don’t recognize. They would have done better with “Fighting the Rich” or “Fighting Corruption.” Kos community member ranger995 posted a brief mention of a situation that Brother also found on a variety of sources and had him quite concerned.

The military conducted urban warfare exercises in our town last night. Helicopters, explosions, gunfire in suburban Pasadena. It lasted until 2:00 am. What the f---? Intimidation? Preparation?

Local Council person Rick Cole posted videos on Instagram and ranger995 included a link.

[Cole] indicated that the town was only warned in the morning and told that they could not inform citizens of what was taking place until an hour or so before the exercises started. Of course the comments are loaded with fascists and manosphere fantasy types. I bet they are the same people who went nuts over Jade Helm, which took place on military bases, not urban or suburban centers. It is really odd for the military to conduct any actions in the middle of suburban or urban areas. Especially without much notice to our authorities or citizens.

Last Friday Emily Singer of Kos reported that Senate Republicans passed a $70 billion immigration enforcement funding bill. Yeah, that’s money for the ICE goons. What wasn’t in the bill was language to limit that $1.776 billion slush fund to pay the traitors who attacked the Capitol. Though Senate Republicans have slammed the fund, they refused to adopt any language officially killing it. They seem to believe acting AG Todd Blanche that the fund is dropped and the nasty guy’s claim he will follow a court order temporarily blocking the fund. Also last Friday Lisa Needham of Kos reported:

Looks like the Trump administration has finally nabbed a high-profile criminal conviction. Sure, it’s a plea deal. And sure, it’s a Republican. And sure, it’s one of President Donald Trump’s own first-term Cabinet members. But hey, gotta take those vindictive prosecution wins where you can. Former national security adviser John Bolton is reportedly going to plead guilty to one count of retention of classified national security information. The extremely mustachioed hardliner was indicted in October 2025 on 18 counts of, well, basically the same thing that Trump was charged with when he stashed classified documents in one of his ugly Mar-a-Lago bathrooms.

Needham also wrote about billionaires. The net worth of the top 15 increased by 33% between July 1, 2024 and June 30, 2025. Collectively, their worth rose from $2.4 trillion to $3.2 trillion. Elon Musk (according to Forbes) is worth $839 billion. The next few are:

Larry Page — $257B (Google) Sergey Brin — $237B (Google) Jeff Bezos — $224B (Amazon) Mark Zuckerberg — $222B (Meta) Larry Ellison — $190B (Oracle) ... That’s a genuinely distressing list on its face, showing all that money locked up by just a few people. But it’s worse when you realize that out of the top 10, arguably all but Page, Arnault, Buffett, and Ortega are fully in thrall to Trump.

Another way to say all that is they are doing nothing out of the kindness of their hearts.

If you compare billionaires writ large to the rest of us, they come up pretty short. In the last decade, American billionaires with a net worth of a collective $5.7 trillion over that time have donated $185 billion, or roughly 3.25% of their vast, vast wealth. By contrast, people earning under $50,000 per year give about 14%, while people who earn between $50,000 and $100,000 per year donate about 7.8%.

Needham named two people who have given away sizable chunks of their fortune. One is George Soros, the guy declared to be evil by conservatives. The other is MacKenzie Scott, formerly married to Bezos.

And, even more than perennial GOP bogeyman Soros, Scott donates to things that bedevil conservatives: groups that promote forbidden DEI, reproductive health initiatives, racial justice organizations, you name it. It would be great if no one had this much money—but if they do, they should be giving most of it away. And if they decide to position themselves as a one-woman wrecking ball to the Trump agenda, even better.

Also last Thursday Oliver Willis Kos reported the Kennedy Center is beginning to comply with the court order to remove the nasty guy’s name from the side of the building. Employees much change email signatures and letterheads to list only the original name. Then there are forms, signs, brochures, and websites that must change by this coming Friday. All this because the judge ruled Congress named the facility and only Congress can change it. The nasty guy said he’s turning the whole thing over to Congress. The Good News Roundup of Kos wrote that Hunter Biden is very good at trolling MAGA types on X. Here’s three examples of what’s included in the roundup. First:

So let me get this straight. Jake Tapper is focused on attacking my Mom. Jared and Ivanka are building a private island paradise on Albanian protected land. Don Jr married the daughter of Epstein’s banker, and a startup his fund backs just got a record $620M Pentagon loan. Eric is taking an Israeli drone company public for $1.5B in the middle of a war with Iran that nobody wanted. And I know: “But what about your paintings, Hunter?” Please.

Second:

Someone called me the MAGA whisperer and I’ll gladly take the title. Left, right, D or R we all want the same things. We’re being divided on purpose by the Epstein Elite Oligarch class because as long as we’re at each other’s throats they get fat and rich off of our misery. The second we figure out we agree on more than we disagree, they’re done. Love your neighbor. Be yourself. Radical honestly. ... Everything else is just noise.

Three:

Things most Americans agree on: Groceries cost too much. Tariffs suck and make no sense. Congress and Presidents shouldn’t trade stocks. The debt is a mess. The border should be secure, but legal immigration is good. Endless wars are stupid, especially ones that nobody wants are have never been explained. Americans are exhausted. AI is like my new best friend that also might be trying to take my job, my ability to think for myself, and my humanity in the process ... [not quite half of the list] Things we’re told to fight about: Me. Laptop. Vaccines. Transgenders in sports. Pronouns. That’s the joke.

Hunter’s comments included a reference to Jared and Ivanka in Albania. They bought an island there. Next to their property is a protected land and many of the locals have an understandable fear whatever the Pandemic Prince and Princess decide to build will harm the ecosystem of the protected land. Though the Albanian government agreed to the deal, worth $4 billion, the citizens of Albania definitely do not agree. There have been mass protests. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, included a 22 second video showing the size of the crowd at the second day of the protests.

Who gets to embody national identity

Kos of Daily Kos is finally able to tell the story of his website being subpoenaed by the nasty guy’s Department of Justice. The DOJ wanted information about a particular user who was critical of the nasty guy (sheesh, the whole site is!) though there was no threatening language. The order also said there was a gag order around the subpoena. Of course, Kos fought back, refusing to comply, which confused the US attorneys. But lawyers cost money, so he told the story on the site being very careful not to violate the gag order. Members of the community gave enough to lessen the financial worries. The US attorneys threatened search warrants. But three weeks later they dropped the case. Now that the gag order has expired Kos could explain the details. He wrote:

They were counting on fear doing the work for them. They assumed most organizations would comply quietly rather than endure the cost, pressure, and uncertainty of a legal fight. Send a subpoena. Threaten search warrants and public raids. Wrap everything in national security language. And for Trump, that worked out well in those days, when way too many targets simply folded. That’s how authoritarian systems function—not through constant dramatic displays of force, but by making examples out of a few targets so everyone else learns to preemptively comply. But with us, they picked the wrong target. And we were able to stand firm because this community had our backs. Your donations turned what they assumed would be a routine compliance exercise into a time-consuming, difficult legal fight backed by serious counsel and a community unwilling to be intimidated. At some point, they clearly decided to focus on easier targets elsewhere. And that’s the story. The DOJ came after Daily Kos, and we told them to pound sand until they decided to move on.

Speaking of the DOJ... An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported on the nasty guy’s $1.776 billion slush fund meant to pay the Capitol attackers. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has said the creation of the fund will not move forward. There was rejection by the courts and fierce political backlash, even from Republicans, so they canceled the fund. There were two notable things about the announcement. One, the Blanche wouldn’t put the cancellation of the fund in writing (as I heard elsewhere). Two, a secondary proclamation made along with the fund’s creation that the nasty guy, his family, and his companies would not be investigated by the IRS, that part still stands. Emily Singer of Kos reported that a new acting director of National Intelligence has been named. The job opened up when Tulsi Gabbard resigned. She was pretty bad (such as being way too favorable to Russia). The new guy is worse. He’s Bill Pulte. We in Detroit know him as an heir of Pulte Home construction fortune. He has been and will continue to be the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the federal mortgage assistance agencies. Heading National Intelligence will be an additional gig. This is why Pulte is worse: First, he has zero, repeat zero, experience in Intelligence work. Second, he has used his position at FHFA to harass people, including accusing New York Attorney General Letitia James (in the news because she had successfully prosecuted the nasty guy) and Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook of mortgage fraud. And third, his appointment as “acting” director means he doesn’t face Senate confirmation. His accusations of mortgage fraud mean he has shown he is willing to do the nasty guy’s dirty work. And as the head of National Intelligence he can bend their work from the necessary spying of actual enemies of America and towards spying on the nasty guy’s perceived enemies, as in fellow Americans. Singer wrote: “Pulte’s appointment is so bad that even Republicans are criticizing it.” Singer wished us a happy Pride Month! Then she reported there are a few states that won’t be participating.

But homophobic Republicans are refusing to mark the occasion. Instead, they are replacing Pride with Christian Nationalist-laced celebrations of “fidelity” and the “nuclear family”—which they unsurprisingly declare to be families led by married male-female pairs. At least three states—not surprisingly all of which are in the South—have refused to recognize Pride and instead made their own sad holiday months.

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas declare June as “Fidelity Month.” In Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed a bill that says June is “Nuclear Family Month.” And in Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey declared June as “Strong Families Month.” So continues attempts at our erasure. Back in 2011 I wrote about Zach Wahls. At the time he was a 19 year old college student. The Iowa Senate was hearing testimony about their constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage. Wahls, raised by a lesbian couple, spoke passionately and articulately against the ban and became an internet sensation. The Senate voted for the ban anyway. At the time the House was controlled by Democrats, so it died. It would have been overturned in 2015. I wrote about Wahls again just after the 2018 election. Then he was 26 and was elected to the Iowa Senate, yes, the place where he made is passionate debut. Wahls is in the political news again. He’s now 34. He was a Democratic candidate for the US Senate. Alas, he didn’t win the primary. Since Iowa is turning against the nasty guy this year Democrats have a better chance to take that Senate seat. But it won’t be Wahls, at least not this time. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, included a tweet from Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York.

Today, I signed an Executive Order temporarily repealing bedtimes in the City of New York so that kids of all ages can watch our team in the NBA Finals. As Mayor, you’re forced to make many difficult decisions. This was not one of them. Go Knicks.

The Obama Presidential Center Museum in Chicago’s South Side will open Juneteenth (June 19th). Kos was invited by a friend to get a preview. He was able to see the whole building (which I’ll let you read about). I will quote some of his impressions.

It was impossible to move through the exhibits without the elephant in the room: the knowledge that everything Barack Obama did, personified, and represented was so deeply offensive to wide swaths of America that the backlash delivered the White House to Donald Trump—twice. And that made the experience disorienting, because the museum itself is a stunning architectural and artistic achievement.

Many museums name wings or galleries after wealthy benefactors. This museum required benefactors to name galleries after someone else. “Wealthy liberal philanthropist Fred Eychaner named his wing after Harold Washington, Chicago’s first Black mayor.” There is also a Worker Appreciation Wall to honor the thousands of people who physically built it. Kos noticed there are many inspiring messages about the nature of democracy placed around the museum.

And somehow, rather than inspiring me, those messages made me angrier. Why would telling people they could improve their communities inspire such hatred? Was it really that offensive to suggest that public service matters? That democracy is participatory? Because this wasn’t simply ideological disagreement. Republicans could have nominated any number of conventional conservatives promising tax cuts and deregulation. Instead, the backlash to Obama became something darker and more existential—a rejection not merely of his policies, but of the broader idea of who fully belongs in America and who gets to embody national identity.

Obama could have placed his museum in downtown Chicago, the polished and safe place. He placed it in the South Side. Kos got the message. This isn’t about reverence for Obama.

Beyond the nostalgia and the optimism was something quieter, but more durable: the belief that ordinary people can help shape the American story.

Brother arrives tomorrow and will stay for the weekend. I’ll post again after he leaves.

A hard-charging, uncompromisingly conservative faction

My Sunday movie was the documentary Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story. Reeve is best known for being the title character in the Superman movies of the 1970s and ‘80s. When he said he was going to that audition his acting friends thought he was selling out. The first one rocketed him to stardom. The fourth was forgettable. But he did a lot more than that. In one film (maybe two) he played a gay character. The one I know about was Deathtrap, which is a thriller (or dark comedy) and I remember seeing after it was released in 1982 and made its way to TV. He also played gay in a stage production (I didn’t get the name) which annoyed some people that Superman would stoop to that. The other thing he was well known for was a horse riding accident in 1995 that left him paralyzed from the neck down. He lived another nine years totally dependent on others. He still managed to do a lot. Growing up he had a messy home life that did not show a healthy marriage and ended in divorce. He had a father who was hard to please. From both of those he found relief in theater. When filming Superman he met Gae Exton, who became mother to his children Matthew and Alexandra. They never married and after a while the relationship fell apart. Months later he met Dana who became the mother of son Will (who now looks a lot like his father) and became his wife. Will Reeve is in the film industry as an actor and producer. Dana made sure to include Matthew and Alexandra as part of the family. Reeve saw how a marriage should work. He was roommates with Robin Williams in acting school (Julliard?) and they were lifelong friends. After the accident Williams was able to get Reeve to laugh and he knew life would be okay. Reeve used his stardom to gain access as an advocate. After the accident he became an advocate for those paralyzed, creating the Christopher Reeve Foundation to raise money for paralysis research. He wanted to find a cure. Dana wanted to improve the care of those paralyzed. Before the accident Reeve was quite active. After that he realized what was important wasn’t the activity but the relationship. That deepened with his kids. I very much enjoyed the film and recommend it. Christopher Reeve was a hero both on and off the screen. An article by Kavitha Surana for ProPublica and posted on Daily Kos discussed Emily Waldorf and her miscarriage and its complications, made worse because she lives in Arkansas. She was caught in limbo, her body started the miscarriage but over several days couldn’t complete it. In the meantime her uterus was open to infection. But doctors said they could do nothing until the fetal heartbeat ended, she went into labor, or she showed signs of dangerous infection. When doctors told her they could not treat her she started keeping notes of her experience. Texas modified its rules around abortion and miscarriage to say Waldorf’s situation is one where evacuating the uterus was medically necessary. Arkansas and many of the others that ban abortion haven’t done the same. Other women with this complication have died. Waldorf lived to tell the story, though resolving her case required a four hour ambulance trip to Kansas, were abortion is legal. There her uterus could be emptied. The whole thing left her with $147,000 in medical costs, which includes $5,000 for the ambulance ride. She worked at the hospital that refused to treat her. She did go back after he medical leave was over and quit a month later. No doctor has yet been sued under the abortion ban. But the hospital lawyers are way too wary of over eager prosecutors. To me they aren’t sufficiently concerned about malpractice. Eleanor Klibanoff, in an article for The Texas Tribune posted on Kos, explains how the nasty guy has transformed the Republican Party in Texas (and elsewhere). There was a lot of news recently about the nasty guy endorsing Ken Paxton for US Senate over incumbent John Cornyn, which Paxton won big. The story is enough Republican voters are loyal to the nasty guy to vote for whoever he says to vote for and get the results he wants. But Klibanoff wrote the dynamics began before the nasty guy appeared a decade ago. Before MAGA there was the Tea Party (remember them?), which formed the ground from which MAGA arose.

Once led by chamber of commerce conservatives who preached small government and big business, the Texas Republican Party has been conquered over the last 15 years by a hard-charging, uncompromisingly conservative faction, operating on the vanguard of the nation’s culture wars and driven by a sense of perpetual insurgency.

Since then there has been a power struggle in the party where “the hardliners, who paint themselves as the perennial underdogs, just keep winning.” The nasty guy cultivated candidates who were “aggressive, ideological, proudly politically incorrect and, above all, loyal.” And voters keep voting for them. Oliver Willis of Kos, as part of his series Explaining the Right delves into why Republicans continue to support the nasty guy.

For decades, the conservative media ecosystem primed these voters for a political figure like Trump. Right-wing talk radio, news sites, and especially Fox News have beamed propaganda into millions of American homes. Trump, an avid watcher of Fox News, learned what many other Republicans struggled with: that conservatives are extraordinarily responsive to messages that echo what they hear as part of their daily media diet. While other Republicans tend to focus on conservative policy issues, Trump has focused on the red meat of the right. This means snappy, punchy, insulting, bigoted statements and the like.

Voters want to continue with candidates ready with the insult rather than supporting the party establishment. So what the party does when the nasty guy can no longer be on the ballot is an open question. At the moment Republican candidates are sticking as tightly as they can to the nasty guy.

Right now, the most prudent path for Republicans probably seems to be the pro-Trump lane, but the writing is already on the wall. Voters have been rejecting Trumpism in droves. And the odds are it will hurt them in the long run.

That is American voters who are rejecting the nasty guy and all he’s been doing. Republican voters still vote for their man. Stephen Fowler of NPR went to a Republican rally in Iowa and reported on what he heard there. Most of the speakers Fowler featured did the usual thing that all good stuff comes from Republicans and all bad stuff comes from Democrats. What caught my attention is the anger coming off one speaker. The anger level was so high I wanted to cringe and cower. Alas, since the transcript doesn’t portray the anger I can’t tell which one it was (and I’m not listening to it again). In today’s pundit roundup Greg Dworkin of Kos quoted Lawrence Winnerman of Blue Amp discussing what is actually happening in the American economy. He says it is worse than a recession.

We are running an economy this week on the country we were in February. The shelves still look mostly normal. The shipping bays still seem mostly full. The cargo still appears mostly on time where it is supposed to appear. None of this is the world we are actually living in. We are spending down the last inventory of the country we used to have and we are spending it down on a clock. Inventory is mercy. Inventory is the cushion the world leaves you between the moment a thing breaks and the moment you feel it break. The blast wave is real, but the blast wave is also delayed by the length of a supply chain, by the contents of a warehouse, by the days it takes a tanker to cross an ocean. We have this week the strange privilege of standing inside the cushion. We will not have that privilege for long.

Lisa Needham of Kos wrote about the recent legal issues of the nasty guy and his minions. A pair of them caught my attention. The first of the pair is acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and his handling of the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case. The Campaign for Accountability decided there’s enough unethical stuff in Blanche’s actions they’ve filed a complaint with the bar of New York. The second of the pair is Blanche’s predecessor and former boss Pam Bondi. She’s facing a bar complaint in Florida. And she no longer has the protection of being a member of the president’s cabinet. This here blog has set another record in viewership with 313,818 views during May! That is 76% higher than the previous record of 177,760 set in April. Just a few days ago the daily viewership hit 29,010, also setting a record. As I mentioned last month the viewership is now quite broad. Blogger shows me the top 19 countries (“Other” is the 20th) and over the last seven days every one of those countries has had at least 1,860 views. That one is Tunisia. At the top of the list is Brazil at 12,878 views, Bangladesh at 6,000 views, Iraq at 5,704 views, and Vietnam at 5,234 views before we get to the US at 4,762 views. Other is at 39.8K views, so there are at least 21 more countries that have viewed this blog over the last week.

Cultural decadence, feminism, and ladies with too many cats

An Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos reported:

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C., ruled that the Kennedy Center board’s March 16 vote to close the facility was “ill-informed and seemingly preordained” with no regard for its legal obligations. “The trustees might have assessed the propriety of closure in a number of prudent ways. This was not one,” he wrote. Cooper also concluded that the board “overstepped its statutory bounds” by unilaterally adding Trump’s name to the center. Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it, he said.

The board will appeal. They also said the Center really does need renovations (though I’m sure the place probably doesn’t need to close for two years to do them and doesn’t need to expose the building’s steel skeleton in the process). In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Lauren Gepford wrote in her own Substack about the Democratic Party:

We keep treating every election loss like a communications failure or a leadership failure when the deeper reality is that the Democratic Party apparatus itself no longer functions coherently enough to sustain a strong national brand. The “party brand” problem still deserves the #1 spot it held a decade ago. But branding isn’t just slogans and ads. A political brand is the external expression of an institution’s internal reality. And right now, the internal reality of the Democratic Party is fragmentation, bureaucracy, process obsession, and organizational incoherence. I spent 16 years in Democratic politics, from volunteering for Obama in 2008 to serving as a state party executive director and later executive director of a national party-aligned organization that coordinated with 40+ state parties and 500+ local parties in 2024. Somewhere along that journey, I lost about 90% of my clarity around what the Democratic Party actually is, what it means, and what its purpose is supposed to be — and that’s a problem.

The Bulwark has an article about Ken Paxton winning big in the Texas primary for the US Senate over incumbent John Cornyn.

This result came as a heavy blow to anyone still carrying a hopeful torch for some unsullied original-flavor Republican party to reemerge from the ashes of Trumpism. Believe it or not, these people are still out there; some of them are even senators themselves. For a decade now, these senators have clung frantically to the idea that, if they just stick with Trump for now, eventually he’ll ride off into the sunset and leave them in control of their own party again. And in the meantime, sticking with Trump had its direct benefits: It seemed for a while like a bulletproof shield against grassroots-insurgent primary challenges. You couldn’t find a better poster child for the accommodationist approach that the GOP Senate old guard took than Big John.

Dana Dubois of Blue Amp discussing the nasty guy’s administration calling on women to have more babies. Yes, the birth rate is way down and the nation has an interest to maintain a healthy birth rate.

And yet, here we are. Teen pregnancy rates are down, and Republicans think it’s a bad thing. Young adults are delaying marriage and parenthood. And rather than asking why Americans might feel hesitant about bringing children into this particular moment in history, the pronatalist MAGA right has decided the problem is cultural decadence, feminism, career women, and ladies with too many cats. Women need to log off Slack, put on prairie dresses, go full tradwife and start making babies again, I guess. Except many young Americans are having the exact opposite reaction. And can you blame them? If you wanted to design a society specifically engineered to make people feel terrified of parenthood, you would probably build something pretty close to modern America.

Kos of Kos discussed how weak the nasty guy is, including politically. Kos then highlighted stories from the week that show how deep that weakness is. He concludes:

Trump doesn’t care about Americans’ financial struggles. He doesn’t care about his party’s political future. He doesn’t seem particularly concerned with governing. He cares only about grifting and building monuments to himself. Republicans are trapped following a weak, feeble, self-absorbed man who mistakes loyalty for leadership and ego for strength. They can’t possibly suffer enough because of it.

In an article that’s been hiding in my browser tabs since last September Alex Samuels of Kos discussed why so many Republican voters think the nasty guy is more liberal than he is. Samuels establishes how not liberal he is. This blog has been doing the same for years and hundreds of posts.

And yet, a sizable share of Republicans still see Trump very differently. A late August YouGov poll shows just how off the mark GOP voters are about his record. According to the survey, 35% of Republicans think Trump supports raising the minimum wage, 45% believe he backs stronger worker protections, 26% say he favors higher corporate taxes, and just 29% think he’d raise taxes on the wealthy.

I wonder how much those numbers have changed in the last nine months. In contrast, Democrats and independents have a much more accurate view of the nasty guy. Samuels quoted polls that support that. Whether or not they agree with a position a Democratic politician takes they tend to know what that position is.

So why the misperception? Grant Reeher, a professor of political science at Syracuse University, said it comes down to polarization and “expressive bias.” “I imagine what’s happening among many Republicans is that they start with the notion that they are supporters of Trump,” Reeher told Daily Kos. “Then, when they are asked what he wants to do in those specific policy areas, they choose what they would like to see happen, and assume that’s also what Trump wants to do, because they support Trump.” That’s the polarization effect at work. Expressive bias takes it further. Popular policies—like raising the minimum wage or taxing corporations—are often attributed to Trump by Republicans who want to reinforce their support.

Rheeler also said some supporters may make a connection that doesn’t exist, such assuming if the nasty guy supports this thing he also supports that. And that whole bit about the 2020 election being stolen wasn’t about belief in fraud but about signaling allegiance.

That’s what makes Republicans’ perception of Trump so revealing. If GOP voters truly believe he’s more liberal than he is, it suggests two things: Either Republicans want policies like higher wages and stronger worker protections but don’t realize Trump opposes them, or they don’t know enough about his record to notice the gap between rhetoric and reality.

So perhaps Republicans should be for higher wages and stronger worker protections too? Most voters don’t understand the details of issues and don’t know how the policies of the two major parties differ. That means there is room for misperceptions and loyalty. Also from last September Michel Martin of NPR spoke to Jeff Selingo. He’s been reporting on college admissions and compiled it into the book Dream School: Finding The College That's Right For You. Martin said she had applied to four schools. Selingo said he had done the same. So why are people now applying to 30 schools? Selingo said:

Well, I've worked in and around higher ed for nearly 30 years, and I could say this with certainty that we kind of lost our way. We don't think about purpose anymore in higher ed. We think about prestige. And so what's happened just in the last 20 years is that the number of applications filed to the most selective colleges and universities have gone from about 600,000 applications to nearly 2 million applications.

This is even though the size of the freshman class has stayed the same. Selingo’s point then is to say the most prestigious college may not be the best for a particular student. They may enjoy, learn more, and be supported more at a less selective college. What caught my attention in the discussion is students and parents are looking at the college or university in terms of prestige, in how it improves their place in the social hierarchy, instead of for the education.

Sick of religion being used as a cloaking device for hate

I hadn’t heard much of John Fugelsang. I had to look him up to know he’s “an American actor, comedian, writer, television host, political commentator, and television personality” as his Wikipedia page describes him. I followed a link to his Substack to see his comments on Holy Hypocrites, also known as Christian Nationalists.

But nothing says “We worship Jesus, not idols” quite like unveiling a giant gold statue of a reality TV billionaire felon politician at a golf resort. Somewhere Book of Exodus just filed a copyright infringement claim. These same folks who’ve spent years screaming about the “War on Christmas,” just built the Golden Calf Expanded Universe near the 18th hole buffet. I saw this two days ago, and I’m still recovering from an overdose of metaphor. It’s like a deleted scene from the Fall of Rome.

Towards the bottom of the post is a photo of the statue. Fugelsang concluded his short rant with a parody of something Christians will recognize:

The Lard’s Prayer: Our Ruler, Who Art in Florida, Branded be thy name. Thy kingdom, dumb Thy cabinet, scum Thy girth, size fifty-seven. Give us this day our bigly bread; And give us our guest-passes, As we trespass against those who look more defenseless; And lead us now, to more inflation, But deliver us from feminists; Yay Men.

The source of the original link also linked to Fugelsang’s book, which looks like it might be a fun yet important read. The title is Separation of Church and Hate, a Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds. From the book’s publisher description:

For more than two centuries, the United States Constitution has given us the right to a society where church and state exist independently. But Christianity has been hijacked by far-right groups and politicians who seek to impose their narrow views on government, often to justify oppressive and unequal policies. The extremists who weaponize the Bible for earthly power aren’t actually on the side of Jesus—and historically they never have been. How do we fight back against those acting—literally—in bad faith? ... But Fugelsang’s message is about more than just taking down hypocrites. It’s about fighting for the love, mercy, and service that are supposed to make up the heart of Christianity. Told with Fugelsang’s trademark blend of radical honesty, comedy, and deep political and religious knowledge, Separation of Church and Hate is the book every American needs today. It’s a rallying cry for compassion and clarity for anyone of any faith who’s sick of religion being used as a cloaking device for hate.

Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported on news of the nasty guy’s “anti-weaponization fund” to pay Capitol attackers who were convicted of their crimes. A slush fund. The news is that both California and New York are saying that the tax on any slush fund payout will be 100%. Democratic members of Congress are trying to pass such a provision, but they know it won’t go far, so states, at least blue states, are stepping in.

On Tuesday, New York state Assembly Member Alex Bores—who is currently running for Congress—introduced the New York Anti-Insurrectionist Act to fight the “slush fund created by a lawless president.” “It’s simple, if you’re a New Yorker and you take from this illegal slush fund, New York state will tax 100% of it,” Bores said Tuesday in a post on X. “If you storm the Capitol and you take from this slush fund, too bad we’re taking it.” ... “We can’t stop Trump from breaking the law in Washington. But we can decide that in New York, money you got for attacking American democracy is fully taxable,” Bores told NBC News.

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California is now saying the same thing. An Associated Press article posted on Kos reports:

A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from paying any claims through a new $1.776 billion settlement fund for the Republican president’s allies who believe they were victims of a weaponized government. U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, also barred the government from moving forward with the fund’s creation while litigation is pending to challenge it.

Oliver Willis of Kos wrote:

According to The New York Times, government data and assessments by experts in drug trafficking show that the Trump administration’s fight against “narco-terrorism” is a dud.

The nasty guy and the war nasty said they were bombing boats to stop the flow of drugs to the US. But the street price hasn’t changed, meaning the supply of cocaine and other drugs hasn’t changed. So the attacks, which have killed people, have accomplished nothing in protecting US citizens. We’re not surprised. In Britain Alan Milburn published interim findings of his government-commissioned review into British youth unemployment. It said that the youth unemployment rate stands at 16.2%, higher than at the peak of the pandemic. Beyond that there are 957,000 (almost a million) youth who are NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training). 84% of them want a job or to be in training. They have essentially stopped looking for work or trying to get into a training program. The reason is the disappearance of entry-level jobs and a big drop in apprenticeships. Employers want work experience and there is no way to get that without entry-level jobs.

Meanwhile the government is spending £25 on benefits for every £1 it spends on helping young people into work. The system is optimised for managing the consequences of youth unemployment, not preventing it.

This is creating a lost generation. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted an article in Politico talking of the consequences of Ken Paxton winning the Republican nomination for US Senator from Texas.

“It means that $100 million will have to go to bail out the Texas seat instead of helping win seats in Maine, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina and elsewhere,” said the person, who, like many others in this article, was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “Last night will go down as one of the worst self-inflicted political wounds of all-time.” “No one is happier than Democrats. Even if Paxton holds the seat — as is likely, though not guaranteed — donor funds will be diverted from critical races,” a second GOP donor concurred. “And Cornyn, one of the Republicans’ best fundraisers, will be sidelined.”

David Graham of The Atlantic:

The situation demonstrates a few reasons that Trump is such a bad negotiator. My colleagues Tom Nichols and Robert Kagan have all written illuminating articles on the specific failures inherent or likely in any deal with Iran. But the incident also shows the structural problems with the president’s approach. First, Trump is unprepared. Some effective presidents (Dwight Eisenhower, George H. W. Bush) came to the White House with a history of deep engagement in public affairs and foreign relations, which made them ready to handle sensitive foreign negotiations. Others brought a formidable work ethic and a ruthless intellect (Barack Obama, Bill Clinton). Both types surround themselves with smart advisers whose input they take seriously. Trump is 0 for 3 on these conditions, which is one reason he wrote off the risk of Iran closing the strait in the first place: He both surrounds himself with less qualified aides than past presidents did and refuses to heed their counsel. The same failure of preparation extends to the frontline negotiators. Even after many of its top officials were killed in the war, Iran has maintained a hard-nosed corps of diplomats who have long been involved in foreign policy. Trump, by contrast, has dispatched a real-estate pal and his nepo-baby son-in-law. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, perhaps the best informed of Trump’s aides, has been largely invisible.

Another AP article on Kos reported:

In the next five years, the Earth is overwhelmingly likely to surge again and again past the international climate threshold set as safe and shatter its hottest-year record along the way, according to new United Nations climate projections. The World Meteorological Organization also forecasts an overheating Arctic that warms nearly 3 degrees Fahrenheit (1.66 degrees Celsius) between now and 2030 and a dangerous drought with potential wildfires for the Amazon, a crucial part of Earth’s natural defenses to lessen human-caused climate change. A hotter globe from the burning of coal, oil and gas means more extreme weather including floods, droughts and heat waves, scientists said. ... There’s a 91% chance that at least one of the next five years will shoot past the 1.5 degree threshold and an 86% chance that one of those years will smash the record for Earth’s hottest year set in 2024, the WMO report said.

The article also commented on the Arctic warming faster than the rest of the planet and that the forecast is for warmer and unusually dry conditions in the Amazon basin, leading to wildfires. The region that serves as the world’s lungs, that does the most to pull in carbon dioxide and push out oxygen, might be choked and damaged by smoke and making the whole problem worse. All this will affect the food supply. Back at the end of April, a week after Earth Day, Meteor Blades, Kos emeritus, posted about the Earth Day release of the World Meteorological Organization and the U.N. Food & Agriculture Organization, jointly released a new report — Extreme Heat and Agriculture. Blades titled his discussion of the report “‘Extreme Heat and Agriculture’ report released on Earth Day got less attention than the dumbest Truth™ Social post last week.” The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has now issued six assessments of the climate. The first came out in 1990. By the fourth report in 2007 it started saying global warming is affecting the world’s agriculture now. There is hope (at least a little) that this latest report won’t get put on a shelf. Some numbers from the report: Crop yields drop sharply in the heat. For many crops the threshold is 30C (86F). Livestock productivity and survival drop in the heat. Heat disrupts fisheries. Agriculture workers face health risks in the heat. Blades wrote:

As noted, many staple crop species begin seeing yield declines above roughly 30°C, with some, of course, more sensitive than others. Heat can interrupt pollination, accelerate maturation before grain development, increase water demand, and invite pests whose geographical ranges expand in warmer conditions. But for livestock, thermal stress commonly begins above 25°C (77°F), and at even lower temperatures for pigs and poultry, which cool themselves poorly. The consequences include reduced eating, slower growth, reduced fertility, reduced milk production, and death in severe episodes. One analysis found milk yields fell half a percent for every hour cows were exposed to high heat stress, with effects lingering for days. ... Labor, a topic often erased from food discussions, gets some focus in the report, too. Agricultural workers are among the most exposed people on Earth: long hours outdoors, limited protections, and little bargaining power. In some already hot regions, the report asserts that days unsafe for outdoor work may climb to 250 annually before the end of this century. Think about the cruelty embedded in that statistic. The people least responsible for emissions are asked to work inside the blast furnace those emissions built.

Brazil is a major food producer for the world. It is experiencing climate stress. If its productivity drops it will have a harder time feeding its own as a lot of food goes to export. (That reminds me of the Irish potato famine in the 1840s and the Holodomor in Ukraine in the 1930s – look them up!) Brazil is now a warning to the world.

Cut emissions fast. No adaptation strategy can keep pace with unchecked warming. Protect workers. Mandatory heat standards, paid breaks, hydration, cooling shelters, and enforcement. Build public resilience. Storage, irrigation efficiency, grids, extension services, and local processing. Democratize seed banks and research. Climate-resilient genetics should not be monopolized. Finance justice. Debt relief and grants for climate-hit nations. Diversify agriculture. Monocultures are profitable in spreadsheets and brittle in heatwaves.

Agricultural adaptation can happen with money. But at the moment it is poorly supported by those with money.

His win in the primary boosts his chance of loss in November

Since October I’ve been working behind the scenes to get a proposal on the Michigan ballot. The effort up to this point was to gather signatures. I mentioned being a part of this during the second and third No Kings rallies. The proposal is to get corporate money out of Michigan politics by banning utilities from donating to the politicians who regulate them and banning political donations to government entities they have contracts with. I mention all that because today was the day to turn in all those signatures to the Secretary of State office. We need about 356,000 signatures and the leaders say we turned in 500,000! Of course, there was a big press conference outside of the Secretary of State office building. Part of it was for the leader to say why we did it. Part of it is to show off the boxes of signatures. Here’s a screenshot from the presser.

Once it is on the ballot, of course the utilities will spend big to defeat it. I hear 80% of voters are for it. I recently wrote about the nasty guy’s phone and how he asked for deposits, but was taking a long time to actually produce it. A recent change to the agreement said the phone may never show up. Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reported the phone is now being delivered. Perhaps the bad press forced someone’s hand. Then again, a CNET tech reviewer has a phone. No word on whether regular people have one. The opinion of the reviewer is that this is not a recent model of phone. The only thing it has going for it is that the nasty guy’s Truth Social is already loaded. You may debate whether that’s a reason to get one. Also, the logo of the US flag is missing two stripes. And instead of being made in the US it was designed “with American values in mind.” There were claims there were preorders from 590,000 people. The real number may be only 10,000.

What all of this makes clear is that there’s no world where Trump Mobile is a real, viable company that stands on its own. Only 10,000 customers and one lone, crappy, outdated phone? Anyone who doesn’t have a daddy in the White House would have gone out of business months ago.

Emily Singer of Kos reported that Ken Paxton won the Republican primary for US Senate in Texas. He’s the one the nasty guy endorsed. His win means Sen. John Cornyn’s career ends with the year. Democrats are delighted because Paxton has a “laundry list of scandals” including an impeachment (but not removal) from his job of state Attorney General and alleged adultery leading to divorce. His win in the primary makes Democratic nominee James Talarico much more likely to win in the fall. Talarico claims Paxton is the most corrupt politician in America. Sorry, I reserve that spot for the nasty guy. I can agree that Paxton is the most corrupt in Texas. In this case we thank the nasty guy for his efforts. His win in the primary boosts his chance of his loss in November. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet from Jamie Dupree and an article from NBC News saying the South Carolina attempt to gerrymander to eliminate the last Democratic seat has ended. The state Senate voted to reject the map, including 12 Republicans on the no side. Their concern was voting already started and that the map was created by outstate constultants and they didn’t have time to study what it meant. Thom Hartmann of the Kos community wrote of the results of a study released in Nature put hard numbers to the algorithms in the social media platforms and their effect on the 2024 election.

Researchers at New York University Abu Dhabi created hundreds of “sock puppet” TikTok accounts in New York, Texas, and Georgia (via VPN), uploaded to them either pro-Democratic or pro-Republican videos to show their political leanings, and then watched what TikTok’s algorithm fed back to them every day over the 27 weeks leading up to Election Day. Across more than 280,000 recommendations, Republican-seeded accounts received about 11.5 percent more “party-aligned content” than their Democratic counterparts, while the pro-Democratic accounts were force-fed 7.5 percent more attacks from the other side.

No, the algorithms were not giving people what they want. They were giving people what the tech bros wanted them to see. Hartmann reviewed the bias the tech bros have for the nasty guy. He then gave some recommendations: 1. Require algorithmic transparency – platforms must disclose how they weight political content and they must submit to independent audits. There is a bill to do this and it needs sustained public pressure. 2. Repeal or reform Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, “so that algorithm-driven platforms are treated legally like the publishers they are, rather than like the telephone wires they used to travel over.” 3. The Justice Department must treat these companies as monopolies and break them up. The 2024 election was not free and fair. Back on May 1 NPR show Marketplace included an excerpt that is part of their series My Economy, in which individuals describe the money issues they face. The audio is under four minutes. This is about the economy of Lois Moore, retired. She inherited a big chunk of money from her mother and a rising stock market added much more. She saw that like billionaires, she had more money than she could ever use. So she decided to put a cap on her net worth and start making big donations to charities. She thinks she will adjust the limit downward in the coming years. Yes, this can be scary because so much was of her life was geared towards accumulating. Friends ask her whether she might regret giving so much away. Maybe. But she can’t foresee a lot of things. The market is based on fear and greed. She doesn’t want her life based on that. She wants contentment instead.

What to do with a Supreme Court of corrupt liars?

The NPR show The 1A had an episode last week that discussed what can be done with the Supreme Court. The current Court (or at least a good number of its members) appear to be corrupt liars – they have been influenced by outside money and have done the opposite of what they said under oath. They also act in a partisan manner, supporting Republicans and blocking Democrats. Too many of their rulings are through the shadow docket without arguments or explanations. They’ve lost the respect of a large number of people. So what should be done? Guests on the show are: Kate Shaw, professor at University of Pennsylvania and co-host of Strict Scrutiny. Alicia Bannon, the judiciary program director at the Brennan Center for Justice, and Daniel Epps, professor at Washington University School of Law. I am working from the transcript. At the top I’m told the transcript may contain errors. Right off I see the speakers are not identified by name and the method of identifying them by number isn’t consistent. So I may not be accurate in identify the speakers. The discussion began with opinions about the Calais case that gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by declaring gerrymandering can proceed without regard to race. Bannon said that there is such a thing as the Purcell principle that says the court should avoid making election changes too close to an election. A map may be discriminatory, but it must be used for the imminent election. Epps added a reason for that is one of the parties may give reasons why the decision should be reconsidered. Overall the court should exercise caution. That wasn’t invoked in this case. The justices seemed eager to let legislatures revise their maps, leading to changing maps as an election is proceeding, causing chaos over the primaries. Also, issuing the ruling in April, rather than January or June, was the month to cause the most election chaos. Much of the show was host Jen White reading suggestions of Court reform from listeners and sometimes asking her guests to comment on them. I skipped most of the suggestions that didn’t get comment. Shaw said this Congress is unwilling to regulate the Court. The Court would not want Congress to regulate it. Alito told the Wall Street Journal in which he said Congress has no constitutional authority regulate the Court, which Shaw says is flat wrong and a stunning statement. Shaw said she thinks there are things Congress could do: Mandate a code of ethics. Limit when the shadow docket is used. Set the number of members (which had been done in the past). Shaw added we (most of us) want a Court that protect groups that are too small to protect themselves. But this Court is overprotecting the rich parts of the majority that don’t need protecting. Epps said the current system of selecting justices works to give us more extreme partisan views. Listener Matt proposes the idea that the Court be made up of a rotating body of one judge from each Court of Appeals, with a new panel every year. Shaw responded by saying it’s interesting and she doesn’t see a constitutional problem with it. The current Court chooses cases that allows them to give the answer they want to give. Perhaps outsourcing that function would be good. Listener Augustus proposed justices get an 18 year term that expires just after the presidential and midterm elections, giving a vote of confidence from the electorate and avoids making an appointment during an election year. Bannon added this idea would tighten the democratic link between the court and public while also respecting judicial independence. Over time the Court would more reflect public values. Historically, Carter had no Court appointments and the nasty guy had three. More regular terms would prevent that imbalance. Also, the Court wouldn’t be so high stakes. Shaw reviewed the way justices get on the Court. The current Senate hearings are politicized, choreographed, and not informative. Senators give speeches and the candidates evade questions. No one learns much. We don’t know anything about how a president picks a nominee, including whether they give assurances on how they will decide a given question. We do know when the nominee gets before the Senate such questions are evaded. Listener John suggested that a nominee should get approval from 75% of the Senate. Epps agrees that would give us a more moderate candidate. We used to have a filibuster on nominees, which required a 60% approval, but Republicans got rid of that in 2017, so requiring 75% approval isn’t going to happen. Shaw said even if reform of the Court doesn’t seem possible right now a public conversation still needs to happen so that perhaps in a decade reform can happen. Bannon added we need to create the political momentum and opportunity for reform. Emily Singer of Daily Kos wrote about the nasty guy’s $1.8 billion slush fund he wants to disburse to traitorous insurrectionists – people who attacked the Capitol, broke the law, and were correctly prosecuted. But there are people who actually deserve a payout from a weaponized Department of Justice. These are people who had to go to court to defend themselves from fraudulent charges brought by the nasty guy. They had to spend their own money to do it and suffered pain and anguish from being the focus of attack by the nasty guy and his minions. Singer lists some of these people and says the list is not exhaustive. In her list are: James Comey and his daughter Maureen. New York Attorney General Letitia James, the one who successfully prosecuted him for falsified business records. John Bolton, who wrote a book saying the nasty guy had abused power. Former Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell who refused to let the nasty guy dictate interest rates. Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, who the nasty guy tried to fire because she didn’t support lowering interest rates. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, wrongly deported and facing deportation again. ChongLy Thao, wrongly arrested by ICE in a dangerous manner. The DC sandwich thrower. The Broadview Six, who were arrested for protesting inhumane treatment at the Broadview detention center near Chicago. Last week Oliver Willis of Kos discussed the report by Judd Legum in his Popular Information newsletter that correlated the nasty guy’s financial disclosures with public statements showing that he praises companies while purchasing their stock. Willis wrote:

Legum wrote on X that he tracked the story’s coverage in mainstream media, with zero mentions by CBS, CNN, Fox News, NPR, PBS, Politico, Semafor, and Business Insider. Of course, Fox News is effectively right-wing propaganda, and CBS is now owned by the pro-MAGA Ellison family. NPR and PBS have been targeted by defunding legislation. But the other outlets present themselves as providers of critical, unbiased journalism, so their silence raises significant questions.

Even so, the general public is hearing about the nasty guy’s corruption. Lisa Needham of Kos wrote that the vice nasty is working hard to root out fraud. It’s strange because didn’t DOGE get rid of fraud last year? The cases he is on now (and loudly proclaiming how wonderful his efforts are) appear to be making claims of fraud where very little exists or where states have been already been aggressive in rooting it out. He also wants to make sure he takes these cases to red state judges because blue state judges are “corrupt.” Wrote Needham:

There’s no question that the anti-fraud initiative is about attacking blue states, but it’s also a pathetic attempt to recreate the DOGE era to get conservatives whipped into a froth about endless fraud without acknowledging that it was supposed to have been eradicated.

I’m sure his definition of fraud is that money is supporting the kinds of people he doesn’t like.