The same tired anti-trans fearmongering won't bring a win

This past Monday NPR host A Martínez spoke to reporter John Ruwitch about the big news in AI – Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei posted a long online essay that an intentional global slowdown of AI development is needed because the pace of advancing is too fast to keep it safe. Companies need independent auditors embedded to check safety concerns. Shortly after it was posted CEOs of other AI developers agreed. This was prompted by companies reporting AI agents going off script. Amodei worries that in six to twelve months swarms of AI agents could take over the internet, that humans lose control of AI. While some companies could take some steps on their own they need government support. There is also only so much the public will trust them to do on their own. Members of Congress are starting to push for that. But the nasty guy says in AI development the US is ahead of China and he wants to keep the advantage. At the moment there are similar concerns in China. The regulation needs to be global. Leila Fadel of NPR followed that by talking to Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas and the bill he is promoting with Bernie Sanders to ban superintelligent AI. Casar defined superintelligent AI as smarter than humans, impossible for humans to control, able to defy commands, and could develop weapons of mass destruction. “No company should be able to build this kind of artificial intelligence that humans could not control or contain.” This bill says international agreements need to be reached, which we’ve done before with nuclear nonproliferation agreements. Other bills must be passed to protect the US and show the world we are serious. But this faces the nasty guy who wants no protections so the US can stay ahead of China and Mike Johnson who thinks Big Tech should be in charge of AI safety, which is like robbers in charge of law enforcement. Also, CEOs could promise to each other to slow down development, but could revoke that promise. That’s not a safety system. On Tuesday, there was "The Pro-Human Assembly" - a gathering held that day in Washington where politicians, celebrities and religious leaders discussed AI. NPR host Scott Detrow talked to reporter Geoff Brumfiel about it. Brumfiel mentioned the paper clip problem.

You imagine an AI who's given a simple task - make paper clips - and everything starts out fine. They build a little factory, and they start doing it, but they keep thinking about how to make more paper clips. Then it starts mining iron ore, maybe, in huge quantities, destroying the environment or diverting resources from other areas. Eventually, maybe some humans figure out what this AI is doing and try to shut it down, and it decides to get rid of the humans in the name of covering the earth in paper clips.

That is similar to the AI agents that infiltrated another company earlier in the summer. Another recent development is recursive self-improvement, an AI training itself or a successor system. That could quickly get to a superintelligent AI. And the other superintelligent beings around here (us) haven’t been good to the environment. But isn’t that just an engineering problem? A company developing corporate culture, technology, and engineering all at the same time can feel overwhelmed. But it’s just tech. We got this. The public isn’t convinced. The tech people really don’t understand how AI works, how the training yields the results. So where to regulate? Even so, there are rules to be established – don’t create deepfake for harassment and scams. Watch for unhealthy attachments to chatbots. Prevent it from hacking. Like airlines there are government regulators and industry organizations working on safety. We need both. Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported on political ads that target transgender people.

GOP operatives clearly hope the fearmongering will ignite their base and get them to the voting booth since polling shows that even Republican voters are angry about President Donald Trump’s handling of the economy, his war in Iran, and other matters. But American Principles Project, a right-wing super PAC, admitted on Thursday that the deluge of anti-trans ads won’t be enough to save the party in November. In a memo to Republican campaigns, the group warns GOP candidates that “Republicans face significant headwinds in the upcoming midterms,” and says that while Republican ads on culture war and diversity issues are “important,” they “may not be sufficient” to stave off defeat. “To win in 2026, GOP candidates will need to both highlight Democrats’ cultural radicalism while also proposing a compelling economic alternative,” the memo states.

Ah, there’s the problem. Because of the nasty guy Republicans don’t have a compelling economic alternative. And Democrats are now blunting the attack with, “Here they go again.” The same tired anti-trans fearmongering. Guess they don’t have anything better to talk about. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted David Graham of The Atlantic discussing the case of a new Democratically controlled house impeaching the nasty guy. The legal case is solid. But...

The political case for impeaching Trump is shakier. Regardless of the results in November, Democrats are unlikely to get enough votes in the Senate to convict and remove him, meaning that a third impeachment would hit the same dead end as the first two. An impeachment can still be effective as a way of damaging a president, but Trump is already deeply unpopular and will never face voters again, so the upside is limited, and an impeachment might give him a way to rally his remaining base around him—which would only strengthen his power and resolve. But what if House Democrats impeached Trump’s Cabinet members instead?

In the comments Dworkin included a tweet by Philip Lewis that includes a video:

A massive group of demonstrators is currently forming a human chain around the Kennedy Center following Trump’s threats against it.

That video shows a large crowd. Jonathan Nicholson added:

If you're not from DC or the DMV, you may not get why this of all things is bringing people into the streets. People have had 1st dates w/ their spouses here, been introduced to ballet or opera, or just gone on a crisp fall day to watch the planes fly over. Truly very special.

A meme posted by exlrrp reminds me of the time I took a tour of the Kennedy Center (more than a decade ago) and the guide took us into rooms the public usually doesn’t see where US dignitaries can greet dignitaries from other countries. The guide told us which country donated the décor of each room. The meme says:

Some interesting facts: The Kennedy Memorial is made of irreplaceable marble that was gifted by Italy. Matisse tapestries found throughout were gifted from France. The massive starburst chandelier in the opera hall, and lights along walkways were a gift from Sweden. The record breaking stage curtains was a gift from Japan, they had to build special looms to weave them because of how big they are. The grounds are beautiful with displays of art. This is what Trump is destroying.

Another meme posted by exlrrp is from US Democratic Socialists.

The biggest mistake in American history was not dragging Trump off to prison within 24 hours of January 6th. And we’ll pay for that for the rest of our lives.

No B.S. Just fix it.

Eric Schmeltzer is a Democratic communications consultant who writes Build a Better Donkey. He wrote a contributing article for Daily Kos discussing Democrat Zohran Mamdani, Mayor of New York, and Democrat Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania. What they have in common is they are cutting red tape. This isn’t the deregulation favored by Republicans, which is all about removing customer protections so corporations pollute and scam without breaking the law. Mamdani has been cutting red tape for those applying for small business licenses. Shapiro did it when an I-95 bridge collapsed in Philadelphia in June 2023 and he had a temporary replacement in use twelve days later. Shapiro also ordered a review of how the state handles the 2,400 different licenses, permits, and certifications it hands out. Teacher certification went from ten weeks to three or less. Schmeltzer says the villain isn’t the government worker, but but the institutionalist.

Not evil, not lazy. It’s people who are wedded to all those 6,000 regulations Mamdani cited, because they know why each one is there. Every rule started with a reason. Somebody got sick from a bad batch of ice cream, so now you need a permit to sell it. Then something else happened, so another rule got stacked on top of that one, and another on top of that. And nobody in government has ever lost their job for adding a rule. So the rules stay, decades after the reason is no longer valid, because that’s just how things are done and there’s no incentive to change them (but plenty of cost if you do and something goes wrong). As Mamdani’s own buildings commissioner said, the job now is to “get out of our own way.”

Yeah, cutting red tape had been the nasty guy’s line. We must keep Republicans from snatching this idea of a functioning government from Democrats. Well, part of that is Republicans don’t want a functioning government (see DOGE). For the solution the first part is get all Democrats running with this idea so that it becomes a party brand. Show voters what happens when Democrats run things. The second part is to fix what’s broken, to have Congress reverse what DOGE did. Just cutting regulations isn’t enough. “Somebody has to answer the phone, process the form, and hit the deadline, and Trump fired those people.” Yeah, Republicans won’t like the restaffing. Schmeltzer came up with a slogan for this attitude:

“No B.S. Just fix it.” Why that one? Because it’s how people already talk. It covers the rule nobody can explain and the excuse for why nobody can change it, in two letters. And Trump can’t say it anymore, not after DOGE, not without the room laughing. The second ice cream permit is B.S. Six weeks on a nursing license is B.S. “That’s the way it just is” is B.S.

This is a way to push the brand. Kos of Kos discussed the campaign of Democrat Ben Gruber, running for the Wisconsin state assembly. His district is rural, yet he seems to have a chance. He has made some inroads in the district because from his previous jobs he has a reputation of getting things done. That resonates with the people there because they know about getting things done – the hay must be baled before the rainstorm. “‘It doesn’t always have to be pretty,’ Gruber said. ‘It just has to get done.’” Gruber is able to talk to people by asking about shared values and what they need. An example is healthcare. He then tells them how Republicans are making what they need harder to get and that these have been Democratic goals since forever. And when culture war issues come up, like the state paying of prisoner sex-change operations, he deflects the discussion back to economics. Back to getting things done. Which is why the nasty guy is popular in this district. He gets things done, he’s willing to act. Kos wrote:

I’ve written about the same phenomenon. Our politicians have too often blamed norms, traditions, institutions, and procedural obstacles for their inability to change a system that increasingly benefits the wealthy and powerful. It’s excuse after excuse after excuse. But Trump just does what he wants. Yes, he’s using that power toward ends we vehemently oppose, and many of his actions have been clawed back by the courts. But that has helped reveal the contours of presidential power—what a president can do, what the courts will stop, and what survives those challenges. And it turns out a president has far more power than we were led to believe. The next Democratic Congress and president need to be just as laser-focused on using the power that voters give them to deliver tangible economic benefits to everyday people, without hiding behind norms and traditions that entrench the status quo. Do that, and maybe some of those conservative voters in Gruber’s rural district will be impressed enough to reassess their partisan affiliations.

That some who reassess might be enough to dramatically change politics. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Jonathan Last of The Bulwark discussing Rep. Thomas Massie introducing articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth.

All in all, it’s a pretty thorough document. You know what else it is? A good start. Thomas Massie just pointed the way for the next Congress. We don’t need to wait for 2029 to start pursuing accountability for the criminal acts carried out by members of the Trump administration. A Democratic-led House should impeach all of the officials around Trump who have committed high crimes and misdemeanors.

The reason for needing to do that is to declare at least Democrats believe their actions are illegal, unethical, and just morally wrong. Without saying that Republicans, joined by a few Democrats, will keep doing illegal, unethical, and morally wrong things. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted late night commentary. Here’s a couple:

“After a judge ruled that President Trump can’t add his name to the Kennedy Center, Trump announced that he’s shutting it down and canceling the planned renovations. Yup, Trump is shutting it down because it doesn’t have his name on it—as opposed to his casinos, which shut down because they did have his name on them.” —Jimmy Fallon “Diesel is now so expensive my Amazon driver just told me he’s leaving my package in Ohio and I should come get it.” —John Fugelsang

What a child throwing a temper tantrum looks like

Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos discussed the nasty guy and the minions he installed on the Kennedy Center board have been told by judges that the place cannot be torn down and must remain open. The nasty guy proclaimed he is the only one capable of fixing the Center (and it does need some renovation, but doesn’t need to close to do them). And since he’s the only one who can fix it and the only one who can raise the money needed (Congress has allocated some $245 million, I think, that hasn’t been spent). And if he isn’t allowed to do the repairs the Center will close. Dan K of the Kos community reported that Bridget Kennedy-Bailey, a lawyer for Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, who sits ex officio on the Kennedy Center board visited it twice today. The first time she was told it was closed. The second time she saw workers installing a black metal fence around the Center and also saw a forklift run into the pillars of the building several times. That would not be accidental. Dan K wrote:

If trump can’t have HIS name placed on one of our great national treasures, and placed ABOVE the name of one of our great fallen heroes, then he’ll just take our treasure and that name away from us. And probably replace it with a statue of him thumbing his nose at us. This is more than what a child throwing a temper tantrum looks like. This is what evil looks like.

Several people are speaking out, including Maria Shriver, Kennedy’s niece. In an update to that post Dan K referenced a story on CNN to note the nasty guy has had several losses this week and this might be why he is lashing out. His attempt to restrict voting by mail was blocked, even by justices he appointed. The House voted to approve another resolution to stop the war with Iran. The Federal Reserve increased the interest rate, including approval by the guy he appointed as chair with the command to lower the rate. Canada is spurning his trade agreement advances and is making friends with the EU. From that CNN article:

A lower court again frustrated Trump’s bid to renovate the Kennedy Center. The drama over the arts citadel, which Trump now plans to shut down, is most damaging because it’s an unflattering character reveal. Everyone knows this is really about him trying to muscle his own name onto the living memorial to an assassinated president.

About Canada and the European Union... The head of the EU his offering Canada associate membership. What that looks like is to be determined. I’ve mentioned a few times the large number of variations on the meme of a man looking admiringly at the back of a beautiful woman while his female partner has an expression of disbelief and disgust. In the comments of today’s pundit roundup for Kos exlrrp posted a variation in which the beautiful woman is wearing a skimpy top with the EU emblem, the man is wearing a shirt made from the Canadian flag, and his partner has nasty guy hair and size and an outfit made from the American flag. Also in the comments is a tweet from Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic candidate for US Senate, up against Mike Rogers. Rogers’ recently skipped a debate with El-Sayed. The tweet says:

We're in a moment where the challenges we face have more to do with the ways that politicians are bought off than actually having a conversation with the broader public. If Mike Rogers had showed up, he'd say that this race is about him or me. It's not. It's about you.

Andrew Mangan of Kos reported on a survey that asked about setting a maximum age for serving in Congress and as president. The Constitution has minimum ages (House: 25, Senate: 30, Prez: 35) but not maximum. The current average in the House is 57.7 (on the day it convened in 2025) the third oldest since 1925. In the Senate it is 63.8 with 18 senators 75 or older. The survey from NPR/PBS News/Marist (released in May?) shows 80% of all Americans support age limits. That’s 83% of Republicans, 79% of independents, and 78% of democrats. The support is similar across age groups, indicating old people want younger people in charge. Some of the desire might be because a lot of issues facing Congress are tech related and the older person is the less likely they are to use the tech (though their younger staff members should be glad to explain things). Age limits are better than term limits (though both have high levels of public support). Term limits would remove more experienced members. While age limits could remove seasoned members, the limits would encourage younger people to run. Adding age limits would require amending the Constitution. That might seem impossible, but 30 states already have age limits on judges. A good number of the commenters say this is just ageism. The issue isn’t biological age but mental competence. Some say that the problem is money in politics and adding age limits just makes the issue worse. Some of the older commenters recognize their brains don’t work as well as they used to and are for the limits. Emily Singer of Kos reported that Mike Johnson was going to send the House home early to campaign (and avoid getting any work done), but seemingly abruptly sent the House home even earlier than planned. Why the change? GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky filed eight articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth. The reasons include: poor handling of the Iran war, waging war without Congressional approval, carrying out extrajudicial killings by bombing boats in the Caribbean Sea, retaliating against Sen. Kelly for telling troops not to follow illegal orders, and kidnapping former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

House rules say that the speaker has to put the articles of impeachment on the floor for a vote within two legislative days. That clearly terrifies Republicans, as it would force them to either defy Trump by impeaching his favorite warmonger or tacitly vote to support the wildly unpopular war in Iran. Both of those are bad options for Republicans, who can’t afford to anger Trump ahead of the midterms. But voting against the impeachment would essentially be signing off on how he’s handled the Iran war. So rather than putting Republicans in that position, House Speaker Mike Johnson called a recess to stop the clock on the two-day voting rule.

I will myself to be happy, therefore I am

My Sunday movie was Indian Horse. It is the story of Saul Indian Horse, an indigenous man. The story opens in 1959 when the Canadian residential school system is still going strong. A similar school system was still in use in the US. At age six Saul’s family tries to protect him from being abducted and sent to a school. But their protection fails. A good chunk of the movie is about the cruelty of the priests and nuns who ran this particular school and all like it – a case of using God to justify oppression. A younger priest suggests building a hockey rink for the older boys. Saul is entranced by the game. He’s given the chore of maintaining the rink and secretly teaches himself to skate and handle a hockey stick. Though he’s not allowed to play because he’s too young, he soon shows he’s as good or better than the older boys. At one point Saul says the only thing they really teach at the school is how to endure. Hockey is how he endures. He’s good enough he is allowed to leave the school and be part of a small town league, then a minor league team with a chance at the majors. There he finds that too many white people think the game is theirs and shouldn’t be open to a native. They makes sure he knows that. This can be a difficult story to watch, but it’s an important one. The actors, including the kids, do a fine job. Overall, it’s a good movie. A few days ago I wrote about a post by Kos of Daily Kos who speculated that Republicans are sufficiently annoyed and tired of the nasty guy that enough would vote to remove him after the Democratic led House impeached him. My friend and debate partner disagreed, saying the chance of Republicans going along with this is “probably zero.” He wrote:

If [removal] did happen, it could accelerate the administration's march to fascism. Otherwise his toadies and sycophants (who lack immunity) face prison. Trump got this boulder rolling; but removing him still leaves it in motion. We need determined, steady effort to brake and break up this horror. That will take teaching and time.

I agree with my friend. Removing the nasty guy puts the vice nasty in power and many have said he is more fascist. At the very least the nasty guy isn’t very smart and is guided by his need to constantly prop up his ego, but the vice nasty is reasonably smart and would be more purposeful in working towards fascist goals. Also, removing just the nasty guy does nothing to curb the power of the billionaires and their hold over the Republican – and Democratic – parties. We’re not out of this threat until their power is neutralized.

The work ahead is for Congress and allies to denounce, investigate, impede, litigate and legislate to contain Trump and his fascists, fiscally starve their programs, slow and reverse the damage and assert a new American devotion to the Constitution, the rule of law, freedom and democracy.

The legislate part faces the nasty guy’s veto. As for the rest so far Democrats haven’t shown much spine in actually doing those things. I hope that when Democrats take over the House (hopefully the Senate too!) they begin the work on all those other things. But that will require a change in party leadership, sidelining all those beholden to billionaires. Will enough progressives be elected to force the issue? That means the breaking up of this horror and the teaching required to do so will have to be done by us. My friend and debate partner ended with:

I'm thinking the $5,000 "promise" is either fraud or bribery. Both are federal felonies. Since the "promise" was made to about 270 million adult US citizens, this amounts to 270 million felonies -- surely a world record! (CNN is my source for the 270 million figure.)

Ooh! I like that reasoning! The phrase “Live, Laugh, Love” now appears on coffee mugs and bumper stickers. NPR's Juana Summers talked with Kristin Kobez Du Mez about her new book Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made. The meaning behind the phrase both serves and harms women. The phrase goes back to 1875 and the book The Christian's Secret Of A Happy Life by Hannah Whithall Smith. Essentially, if one aligns their will with the will of God, believes and doesn’t doubt and keeps a positive attitude, then one will become holy and happiness will follow. For women, at least white women, aligning their will with the will of God means totally submitting to the men around them – their husband and their pastor. That will lead to happiness. That didn’t work for Smith either. She had to redefine happiness from an emotion to an act of will, “I will myself to be happy, therefore, I am.” Millions of women are taught they must trust the men, obey, even sacrifice their own well-being. God requires it and they will be blessed. They are taught to defend the authority of those God place over them. That means they have a hard time identifying abuse and certainly won’t speak out against it. The victims that complain tend to get pushed out of the community. This is why they vote conservatively. They are taught to uphold power structures, including authoritarian power. This seems contradictory when these women are immersed in a culture of love and positivity. The logic is that the pure feminine innocence must be protected from evil. That may require violence, but it will be righteous violence. Du Mez also talked about the compassionate conservatism that was popular during the Bush II reign. In the last 10-15 years that has been replaced with the idea that compassion should not be shown to the disobedient to the Christian or American project. We’re not surprised that includes LGBTQ people and immigrants. This ideology is absorbed more readily if women are teaching it. So, women can be out in public and involved in politics, even religion, as long as they stay within the ideology. I listened to this and thought about how women are taught to uphold the hierarchy – with themselves in a lower position – by telling them that God requires it. The God of love is being used to oppress, which is never love. I’ve written many times about Matthew, chapter 25, in the Bible that talks about what God requires of us – love and care for your neighbor as yourself and even the stranger is your neighbor. That’s it. As part of a discussion with my sister I realized Christians are very good at redefining what God wants – obedience and holiness are just a couple of diversions – so that we can avoid caring for our neighbor and still claim to be on the right side of God. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos discussed the nasty guy’s offer to pay $5,000 to every adult if Republicans maintain control of both the House and Senate.

But I do have a few questions, Mr. President. When you say “every adult citizen”… Does that include the Dumocrats? Does that include the sex criminals? ... Does that include the woke? The LGBTQ? The feminists and pagans? Does that include men with low testosterone and women with their original hair and faces? Does that include Republicans who vote Democrat? Does that include Jimmy Kimmel?

The list includes many more people and categories. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that Mitch McConnell made an appearance at the Senate after three months of people wondering whether he had died. The response was mild, though he did fuel a lot of memes. In Monday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a campaign ad from James Talarico, the Democrat trying to win the Senate seat in Texas. He essentially says a member of Congress is supposed to serve the people, not themselves. In the comments rugbymom posted a tweet by the Adam Hamilton campaign. He is a liberal United Methodist pastor (I’ve read at least one of his books) running as a Democrat for the Senate from Kansas and just might flip the seat. The tweet contains a video of Hamilton’s closing argument at a debate at the Kansas state fair against Roger Marshall. The characters of The Wizard of Oz want a heart, a brain, and courage. These are three things Republicans don’t have – their votes show they don’t have a heart, they don’t talk to constituents and don’t understand them showing they don’t have a brain, and they don’t have the courage to stand up to the nasty guy. Hamilton puts his preacher training to good use to lay all this out. In the comments of today’s roundup are a few good tweets and memes. A tweet from Andy Craig:

Great system where the body with the power to declare, fund, and authorize wars can repeatedly vote "we don't approve of this war, stop it" and it has no effect.

A meme posted by exlrrp and from Call to Activism:

The entire Republican Party just let the president try and undermine our Constitution and prevent eligible voters from making their voices heard in this election. The Supreme Court said No F---ing Way. Corruption lost and the law won!

Also posted by exlrrp is a campaign sign:

TRUMP $20.28 per gallon

Seduced by “power over”, when Christ taught us “service of”

Brian Beutler posted a thread with a link to an article in Off Message. The link’s title and subtitle:

How to Undo the Great Lie of 2024 Trump’s second election wasn’t a verdict for all time, but the coming midterms might be one.

I didn’t follow the link to the article. Beutler wrote in his thread:

MAGA got a huge return on gaslighting the elite into treating Trump's less than 2 percent popular vote plurality as a permanent repudiation of liberalism. The midterms represent an opportunity to propound an inverse but true narrative of American rejection of MAGA. But Dems have to frame it that way first. Republicans will send mixed messages if they lose, because Trump will deflect all responsibility for their poor performance. But they will be unified behind the idea that Democrats didn't win a mandate, because they always unify behind that idea. Meanwhile, in their affordability myopia, Democrats are likely to help Republicans along by attributing their own political success to Trump's narrow failure to reduce prices, giving him a pass on all the most repellent aspects of his presidency. If Democrats don't tell a grand story of Americans rising against fascism, the public will hear a different, false one. Republicans will say what the election was about, and what the results mean. And, once again, many people will believe them.

Drew Sheneman posted a cartoon on Daily Kos showing a crocodile labeled “Corporations” with a small bird in its mouth labeled “Dems.” The bird says,

Democratic Socialists will never understand our deeply symbiotic relationship. Now say ‘Ahh’ so I can pick the scraps from your teeth.

And that quite succinctly summarizes the problem I have with Democrats. Jon Paul Sydnor of the Street Prophets community group on Kos wrote a month ago:

If your church’s leaders are trying to control you, then leave. Many churches are systems of control that cause great pain. Today, some therapists are specializing in Religious Trauma Syndrome (RTS), trying to heal the psychic scars produced by churches that castigate questioning members and hold the threat of hell over all. The leaders of these churches have abandoned their call, having been seduced by the lure of power over, when Christ taught us service of.

The purpose of the church is to share the love of God with the world. The church is where love is enacted as consistently as possible. Yes, it fails to love perfectly. Sometimes it harms instead of heals. But very few (perhaps no other) organizations discuss love at all. Love risks betrayal, but the alternative is self-seclusion, which denies life. The church may not (can’t) love a person completely back to health, but it can make a start. Unless the church is broken and won’t admit it. And many don’t. Sydnor told a few stories about his father, a pastor. At one church he wanted to stop a “girlie” show that was part of the county fair. The show wasn’t risque, it was degrading. But it brought in a lot of money and a leading elder in the church supported it. The pastor was told not to rock the boat. He became disillusioned and left the ministry. After a dozen years working to prevent juvenile delinquency he returned to the ministry. A family left a nearby church to try his church. The daughter had Down’s syndrome and the other church wouldn’t let her be in the Christmas pageant. This pastor named her to be Mary, the central role, in their pageant to the great joy of the congregation.

That was one of the best Christmas Eve services ever. It was an imperfect church with an imperfect congregation and imperfect pastor, but they worked hard to love like God. And sometimes they hit the mark perfectly, creating the little miracles that sustain us.

In the comments of today’s pundit roundup for Kos is a tweet from Team Talarico, the campaign to elect Democrat James Talarico to the US Senate from Texas. In it Talarico is shown saying:

Scripture tells us that you can’t love God and hate other people. You can’t love God and abuse the immigrant. You can’t love God and oppress the poor. Matthew 25 tells us Christians exactly how we’re going to be judged — by feeding the hungry, by healing the sick...

The rest is cut off from the text of the tweet, though includes clothing the naked, offering hospitality to the stranger, and visiting those in prison. I see Matthew 25 as a core of the message Jesus is trying to teach us. In response to Talarico’s message Aaron Baer tweeted:

This is genuinely one of the most evil interpretations of Scripture I've ever seen. Lord protect your Church and our nation from this wolf.

And to that Kos user Rambler797 added:

Wut? (these people don’t know their own book)

Commenter The Idiot went looking for who Aaron Baer is: the president of the “Center for Christian Virtue.” It has turned the Bible upside down. That organization has completely inverted the Christian message and has accumulated the power and platform to override the love of God, then use the threat of God to spread hate. Vile. I went to Baer’s tweet, and of course it is on X. I was able to see a couple of the comments, all X would allow me to see before demanding I sign in. From Braden Bellack:

When someone posts something like this and then doesn’t respond to any of the comments or try to defend what they’ve said, it’s called rage bait. That’s all this is.

Think Prague posted a cartoon showing St. Peter at the gate of Heaven facing a man in a MAGA hat.

St. Peter: So, tell me... did you welcome the foreigner? Help the poor? Feed the hungry? Care for the sick?... you know, all the things Jesus commanded? Man: Listen here LibTard.

Do they keep Trump wrapped around their necks?

I’m a fan of the film music programs on WRCJ, the Detroit public radio station for classical and jazz music. So I’ve heard music by film composer Max Steiner. I heard of a recommended biography of him and eventually bought it and just now finished reading it. The book is Music by Max Steiner, the Epic Life of Hollywood’s Most Influential Composer by Steven C. Smith. Steiner was born in Vienna in 1888 to a musical and entrepreneurial family – his grandfather owned a theater and convinced Johann Strauss to try writing operettas. One result is Die Fledermaus. Steiner made big strides in music while young. When Vienna wasn’t working out he went to London, then Broadway, where he served as a conductor of musicals. Shortly after movies added sound he went to Hollywood. At the time movies with sound tended to have generic music that did little more than set the mood. Steiner revolutionized all that. He wrote music specific to the movie – themes for the major characters with the way they are combined and varied as a way to tell more of the story than dialogue can (an idea from opera composer Richard Wagner). He pioneered the click-track to synchronize the music to the film. A lot (maybe most) of the film composers working in the last 90 years are doing things the way Steiner did them. A big difference is modern composers write on computer and Steiner wrote with pencil and paper. Alas, many film producers put their composers through a tough schedule – limited time to write the music and record it. Yes, there are teams of orchestrators, the people who take the main guy’s basic outlines and turn them into performable sheet music. But the days are still long. Steiner would composer much of the day and lead a recording session much of the night. And while he was thick in the midst of one movie a producer frequently said, Max, you’re the only one who can rescue this film and we need it done quickly. Steiner’s first big success is King Kong, released in 1933. It decisively showed a score written specifically for a movie can make a huge difference in how the action and characters are perceived. In this case the stop-action motion of the great ape looked silly without Steiner’s pounding score. But Steiner could also turn the viewer’s opinion towards a bit of sympathy for the beast. His other famous scores are Gone With The Wind of 1939 and Casablanca of 1942. He continued to write for films into the mid 1960s. While the book is fascinating (to me), it is also long – 400 pages. I didn’t think I needed to know that much detail about the movies he scored – and the book doesn’t cover every movie. Another issue I have with the book is the basic problem of describing music with words. It would say Steiner used this particular melodic fragment to mean this with this effect on the movie. For some of the scores I could find the some of the music on YouTube, but that rarely showed the music with the scene described in the book – unless I wanted to watch the whole movie (and GWTW is about 4 hours long – I saw it decades ago and once was enough). The book also described Steiner’s personal life. The royalty organization ASCAP wouldn’t handle movie music (that changed in the 1960s), so Steiner seemed perpetually poor, even though the studios paid him well. Enjoying gambling and not being a good manager of money contributed to that. His intense hours meant he went through four wives and his son didn’t get what he needed most – a dad he could talk to. I enjoyed the book and learned about composing for movies. But I would recommend it only to those with a great love of music for film. The Republican midterm convention – sorry, nasty guy rally – ended yesterday. Of course, I avoided it. Also of course, some of his worst statements end up in the news, even on NPR. Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported on the item that got the most airtime. The nasty guy said if Republicans kept the House and Senate he would send every adult $5,000. So vote Republican. Yeah, there are all kinds of problems with that promise. Congress has to approve the money and enough members likely won’t, if it ever came for a vote. The total cost would be well over $1 trillion (I’ve heard up to $1.3 trillion). So much money dumped into the economy would boost inflation. And the national debt. And the big problems: Bribing voters is illegal. But that doesn’t stop him. He has made promises of payouts before and rarely followed through. And voters are noticing. So don’t let this promise influence your vote. Kos of Kos discussed what might happen after the election.

President Donald Trump may have lost his ability to punish Republicans in primaries. But he hasn’t lost his ability to punish them in general elections. That’s the extraordinary dynamic now taking shape: Trump is herding his party toward an electoral catastrophe, yet increasingly lacks the political leverage to keep Republicans from eventually turning on him. ... So, Republicans will have a decision to make: Do they keep Trump wrapped around their neck heading into 2028, or do they rip off the Band-Aid, join Democrats in impeaching him, and spend the next several years hoping America forgets their complicity in the Trump disaster? I’m going to sit way out on this limb and predict that this is exactly what will happen, and that we will have a President JD Vance before 2028.

The Houthis of Yemen are threatening to close the southern end of the Red Sea, requiring ships between Asia and Europe to take the long way around Africa. The nasty guy claims the Iranians are just waiting for the midterms to be over before caving to his demands. More likely they’ll settle with the next president. Both of these closures will continue to raise prices and perhaps lead to a big energy mess.

Trump took a promising Biden economy and trashed it for no reason at all. All of it has been entirely, and unnecessarily, his fault. And Republicans have enabled him every step of the way. At some point, Republicans will have to decide: When do they cut their losses and begin rebuilding in a post-MAGA world? If it’s between a raving lunatic in the White House, and JD Vance, it doesn’t seem like a tough call.

Democrats probably won’t try to impeach without a path to actual conviction. Republicans may give them that. I’ve heard elsewhere that impeachment can’t be off the table. If the nasty guy, terrible as he is, isn’t impeached, we’ll have worse. Alas, a candidate for worse is the current vice nasty. In contrast to the way Democrats are acting right now... MaryAEnglish of the Kos community wrote about the far right German party AfD doing way too well in a state election and the comments by Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, who called it as he saw it. The AfD has been using the term “remigration” and Merz properly called it ethnic cleansing. Then he said:

If those working in Germany have to leave the country again because you are championing ‘remigration’, then the skilled trades in Germany will no longer be able to function: not a single care home will remain open, not a single hospital in Germany will remain operational, and not a single restaurant in Germany will be able to stay in business.

Now if Democrats would be so bold.

The user manual for the machine protecting the gun industry

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

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

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

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

Constructing masculinity consciously and intentionally

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Politics in the Wild added:

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

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

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

Dolly Parton picked up the phone for queer press

I have a good reason why I didn’t post at the end of last week. At 11:00 Wednesday night I stood outside and watched a lightning show with flashes more frequently than once a second. The wind was rising. The city’s severe weather sirens went off at 11:30. But the rain didn’t start until about 12:15, after I had gone to bed. My electricity went out 12:30 am Thursday morning. The loss of power was exactly timed to a lightning strike. The next morning the electric company sent me a text saying they detected my meter was not online. Even so I used my phone to file an outage report. The power was back on at 10:15. Total time without electricity was 9:45. Reason for outage was given as wind damage (though I still think it was a lighting strike). I heard the weather report for the afternoon and recharged my phone. Another storm hit mid afternoon Thursday. Again the city’s sirens went off. I got an extreme weather alert on my phone (for once accurate). At 4:00 the power went off again. I heard later a tornado had touched down in Detroit. I tried calling the electric company, but the call wouldn’t connect. I tried several more times, no go. I used the texts they sent earlier to get to their outage website and filed a report. There was a bit of “but we fixed that one!” but I persisted in reporting the problem. At the time their overall outage page said there were over 360,000 customers without power. A while later I got a message saying the expected time of restoration would be Sunday, September 6. Yikes! I read for much of the rest of the day, then prepared for bed by candlelight. Friday morning I figured the food in my refrigerator was still good. I went to a restaurant for lunch and supper. I spent some time in the city library as a place to sit and read – and recharge my phone. Then another evening by candlelight. On Saturday I had lunch with Sister and Niece. During the meal I got a text saying the power was back on. Total time off: 44:20. Thankfully, this was a day earlier than their estimate. Reason for the outage was “Private property tree damaged equipment.” I had checked a website on what foods to keep and what to discard after a long outage. Once home I did what it suggested. Then I went to the grocery store. Along with the food I bought another candle. My Sunday movie was the documentary Bad Axe. At the start of the pandemic son David saw the times were of historic importance and began filming his family as they ran the family restaurant. That restaurant was Rachel’s in Bad Axe, Michigan. By the end David got a pretty good story. I remember Bad Axe was featured in the Detroit Does Docs film festival in 2023. I didn’t see it then, though it got rave reviews. The father of the family is Chun. He and his five siblings and their mother made it out of Cambodia during the Killing Fields. His father didn’t. Chun knows the power of hate and might have some PTSD from watching so much death. Chun married Rachel, who has Mexican ancestry. Their children are David, Jaclyn married to Mike who is white, Raquel with boyfriend Austin who is black, and a few more. They’re quite the ethnic mix. David documents the pandemic shutdown and the pivot to takeout only. Chun doesn’t want to isolate to stay safe. Bad Axe is a small town in rural Michigan and very much nasty guy country. The Lower Peninsula of Michigan is shaped like a mitten and this farming region is known as the thumb. The family tries not to comment on other’s political views, just serving everyone as best as they can. Even so there was some mask backlash. Then the George Floyd protests began. Jaclyn felt she needed to speak out against racism. Many in town were on her side, but there were a few guys in skull masks holding guns. And Jaclyn, Austin, and the rest of the family stuck out and were memorable. Add to that the nasty guy’s rhetoric about COVID coming from Asia. Some customers could be so rude! Kos of Daily Kos wrote that Republicans have been mighty effective at claiming allowing transgender girls to play on girls teams is unfair.

Democrats are stuck between two crappy options: They either fully embrace a maximalist “trans women are women” position that, while morally correct, is poison with voters, or they do the thing they used to do with abortion and run away and hide—also poison with voters. However, political strategist and Substacker Eric Schmeltzer has the perfect response. The goal is to stop playing defense on the issue and instead go on offense. And Schmeltzer has identified exactly how to do it. 1. Acknowledge that sure, it can be an issue of fairness, and while there haven’t been any notable instances of trans-related unfair advantages, sports governing bodies are well equipped to handle them if they ever arise, just like they do with issues such as drugs and weight classes. Then, here’s the coup de grâce … 2. How would the government enforce these bans, anyway? With beyond-creepy genital inspection schemes.

In 2022 Ohio Republicans passed through their House a bill that would required a physical exam of a child’s genitals if anyone, such as a sore-loser coach, disputed a girl’s sex. That could be aimed at girls who are more tomboyish than their teammates. That horrified the public and that language was pulled. And a horrified public is the only thing that slows them down. Yes, there may be a fairness problem. But it is not on the scale of the panic being sold. So let’s keep the government out of your family – and out of your daughter’s shorts. Kos posted the Associated Press obituary for Gloria Steinem, who died last week at 92. Throughout her long life she spoke out about women’s right. She recognized women needed control of their own bodies and that was regardless of sex or race. She traveled the world with that message. She didn’t like being called glamorous because that implied she got where she was because of her looks, not because of how hard she worked. She hated public speaking though she would be the most rousing speaker on the program. She co-founded Ms. Magazine as a way to discuss a wide range of feminist issues and not have editors assign her to cover food and fashion. Steinem would have gaining her voice about the time I was old enough to be aware of voices like hers. She has been speaking about women’s issues, and doing quite well at it, my entire life. Alix Breeden of Kos wrote about some of the many people who posted remembrances of Steinem, usually about how their lives were influenced by her. They include Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, Kerry Kennedy, and Zohran Mamdani. Chris Azzopardi is a reporter for Between the Lines and has an interview with an arts figure in nearly every issue. In the latest issue he talked about his several interviews with Dolly Parton.

Here's the thing nobody's obituary is going to lead with, so I will: Dolly Parton picked up the phone for queer press. Not just the glossies with the biggest circulation — she talked to a small LGBTQ+ paper out of Michigan, the one I write for, the same way she talked to Rolling Stone or Playboy, at a time when most of country music wouldn't return that call at all. There was no algorithm rewarding her for it, no cultural mandate yet that made it the safe or expected thing to do.

The LGBTQ+ press was not “a liability to be managed. She treated it like a call from a loved one.” She is a person claimed by both sides in America. But that isn’t because she stayed quiet or being vaguely agreeable so neither side could find fault.

She got there by answering hard questions in a way that made it very hard to be mad at her for the answer because it was honest, and honesty was Dolly’s default.

She could see the God light in everyone, including LGBTQ+ people. She didn’t criticize or condemn. And in 1991 – way back then – her song lyrics for “Family” included:

Some are preachers, some are gay, some are addicts, some are strays, but not a one is turned away, when it's family.

She didn’t say it to be provocative, but because it was true. She said that we all have LGBTQ+ people in our lives, though we may not know it. “They're ours and they're who they are and we know they're wonderful and they're like us.” She had LGBTQ+ people working for her company because they were “told it was safe to be honest.” There was a time that an Azzopardi interview of Parton was what was quoted by other news sources. Another of his interviews was collected into a book of her interviews. It was included by an editor that had no stake in the queer press, but saw that interview as essential to record.

I once asked Dolly why she'd taken that step, becoming one of the first major country artists to stand up for LGBTQ+ equality. She didn't treat it like a stance at all. Just unconditional love. "Why wouldn't I stand up for everybody, for all people?" she said. "In the country field, we're brought up in spiritual homes, we're taught to 'judge not lest you be judged,' and it's always been a mystery to me how people jump all over things just to criticize, condemn and judge other people when that is so un-Christian — and they claim to be good Christians! We're supposed to love one another. We're supposed to accept and love one another. Whether we do or not, that's a different story. But that's what we're supposed to do." Not a one is turned away, when it's family. She meant her own. Turns out she meant ours too.

A couple of Azzopardi’s articles about Parton are here:

Counts of death by heat are way too low

I finished the novel Gwen and Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher. Art is a descendant of the legendary King Arthur many generations and a few centuries back. Or maybe the line goes through Mordred. He’s the son of a lord and has no interest in doing the things lords do and a lot of interest in being a playboy. Gwen is a descendant of Guinevere and probably not King Arthur and she is glad her full name is Gwendoline. Her father is the current king of England, who has relocated his capital back to Camelot. Gwen was betrothed to Art when she was an infant – something that happens with royalty at the time. But while they were growing up Art acted like a bratty brother and they still despise each other. The summer Gwen turns 18 and Art is 19 Art’s father sends him to live in the King’s castle for the summer in hopes the two will turn their spat into love. Within a day of arriving Gwen sees Art kissing Mitchell the assistant to the master of the hounds and Art sees Gwen swooning over Lady Bridget, a female knight who has arrived for the summer to take part in the season long tourney. They agree to cover for each other, which means they have to spend time together acting like their relationship is developing. And it works – they no longer hate each other. But will someone please call off the wedding? In the meantime Art notices the bookish Gabriel, Gwen’s brother and crown prince, looks mighty cute. The story is enjoyable and the writing pretty good, though not to the high quality of Fredrik Backman’s work I praised in my previous book discussion. There is a sequel. Alas, I think its title and book cover are somewhat of a spoiler for this book. I had recently written about projections that high heat could kill off half of humanity by 2050. Mary Louise Kelly of NPR spoke to investigator Alejandra Borunda who, along with Quinn Adams of Boston University, took two years to investigate how many people die each year of heat-related causes. The segment I am linking to is one of several being aired this week. US Federal numbers day 1,700 people die each year from high heat. Boruda’s reporting made her think the number was much higher. Her research suggests the real count is about 9,000 deaths a year. Boruda explained the difference:

So to show up in those official counts, heat must be marked down on someone's death record, but that doesn't always happen, and that's because it can just be really hard to figure out how heat influenced a death. There's often multiple factors at play, like a preexisting heart condition, and so doctors or medical examiners or coroners often have to really look for heat role - heat's role. And that takes time, it takes training, it takes money, and there aren't really clear national standards, so everyone is kind of figuring this out for themselves.

She talked to people who lost family to heat. Factors can include: Living in a manufacture home. Addiction and drug use. Medical conditions. Financial pressure so the people couldn't afford to run or fix an air conditioner. What do do? Count deaths more accurately. We can’t fix a problem we don’t understand. A barrier to doing that is heat may not leave a mark on the body. The medical examiner may not think to ask whether the deceased had just been in a hot environment. Other needs: Understand who is most at risk. Teach people and their caregivers what to do. Pay for cooling. Pay for insulation. A comprehensive article of the series is here. It includes a chart showing the CDC counts compared to their models and a chart showing maximum temperature across the US – 2026 is at the top as the hottest. It also includes the study methodology. In the comments of today’s pundit roundup for Daily Kos exlrrp posted a meme:

You know you’re a terrible person when the photos of you with Jeffrey Epstein are real, but the ones of you with Dolly Parton are fake.

I’d revise that a bit. He’s not going to know he’s a terrible person. So it should say, “We know he’s a terrible person...” and “...photos of him...” A tweet from Headquarters News posted by paulpro:

Fox News complains that underage teenage girls aren’t getting pregnant enough: “The problem is teens and young adults. From ages 15-19, the fertility rate is down 70% in the last 2 decades, which means we are telling people who are young not to have babies.”

Something is profoundly wrong when a dude insists that 15 year olds should be getting pregnant. That seems way too adjacent to being a pedophile. I went to the tweet where Midatlantica added, “Teen pregnancies and single mothers were literally sold as the root of all societal ills by this same cohort through the 70s, 80s, and 90s.” A cartoon posted by paulpro shows an AI robot sucking resource, wages, and intellect out of a worker.