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.

If you try to stop us we will use our violence against you

Some of these posts are old, some are recent. Together they tell a developing story. Back on November 19 Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reported that ICE was about to hire bounty hunters to track down immigrants for them. The hunters would get $300 for each person and address they verify and pass to ICE. Yeah, there are professional bounty hunters, though the field doesn’t have oversight and is full of abuse. But a big problem is this offer could be expanded to anyone who wanted to surveil and betray neighbors. There don’t seem to be safeguards on whether the address is for an actual undocumented person. This seems modeled on the Texas law that allowed citizens to sue someone for getting an abortion and collect the fee. But this is a paltry sum for selling your soul. Needham has more details in a report from November 13. Bounty hunters are not government employees and do not have restrictions that ICE agents have. Nevada Department of Insurance has 459 pages of complains about bounty hunters for harassment, stalking, and excessive force – yeah, what ICE agents are already doing – today ICE doesn’t seem to have restrictions. Kos of Kos wrote on November 22 that ICE went into Charlotte, North Carolina and over a week managed only 250 arrests, or 35 a day. The cost of this is large. Charlotte is deliberate in impeding ICE’s operations.

Which gets to the heart of the whole project: Trump isn’t crafting a coherent immigration policy. He’s staging a political stunt—punishing the immigrants his base hates while quietly protecting the ones corporate America finds useful.

On November 25 Needham reported that so many Department of Homeland Security personnel have been reassigned to the immigrant crackdown that investigations of actual crimes aren’t getting much attention. These are such crimes as “drug and weapons smuggling, cyber and financial crime, illegal technology exports and intellectual property crime” as listed on the Homeland Security Investigation website. Feel safer? Also, most of those detained by ICE do not have a criminal background (as has been mentioned before). I didn’t save articles about ICE for a while after that. I think there was one about using facial recognition software to identify people. Yeah, that will only lead to problems. On January 13 Kos wrote that Americans are turning towards the idea of defunding ICE. A few years ago there were calls to “defund the police.” But that caused more problems and didn’t provide much help. What is causing the big change in opinion is Americans used to assume that ICE was going after serious criminals, not ordinary immigrants and not citizens. But we now see ICE as a real, visible, and brutal presence. An important reason for that change is the murder of Renee Good in Minneapolis. Now 40% of Americans have a favorable view of ICE and 51% view it unfavorably, according to a YouGov survey. Also, nearly 70% say agents must wear uniforms and 55% oppose agents hiding their identities behind masks. Support for protests against ICE is at 49% with opposition to protests at 41%. 45% don’t want to abolish ICE while 42% do. But trend lines show support for abolishing ICE may soon reach a majority. This morning A Martínez of NPR spoke to Liza Goitein of the Brennan Center for Justice about what’s involved if the nasty guy invokes the Insurrection Act against Minnesota as he’s been saying he has a right to do. The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits federal armed forces from being used against citizens. The Insurrection Act is the exception. It also means the president can take over the state National Guard without permission of the governor. There are restrictions to when the Act can be used. But this was a law passed in the early 1800s so now the language seems vague and archaic. Other restrictions have been there by tradition, which the nasty guy is very good at ignoring. There is also precedent that invoking the Insurrection Act cannot be reviewed by a court. So, of course, if it is invoked there will be court cases. Also this morning Michel Martin of NPR spoke to reporter Ximena Bustillo about the training ICE agents are getting. I’ll just say there are plenty of reasons to believe agents are not getting all the necessary training. This afternoon Sergio Martinez-Beltrán of NPR reported on how Minneapolis residents are working together to thwart what ICE is trying to do. Alas, at the time of this writing they have not posted a transcript. Thom Hartmann of the Kos community and an independent pundit analyzed the situation in Minneapolis. He first contrasted what ICE is doing compared to how deportations were done under Obama, where the rules were followed:

Nobody showed up to kick in the front door of their home. Nobody from the government was wearing a mask. No swearing, no threats, no guns, no tear gas, no pepper spray, no hitting his car with theirs or beating either of them to the ground. They merely told him he had to leave and served him with the appropriate paperwork, just like they do in most other democratic countries.

Immigration enforcement has been happening since the 1920s and we didn’t need a budget larger than for the Marine Corps to do it. Obama managed 3.1 deportations in 8 years, or an average of 387,500 a year, with 407,000 in 2012. The nasty guy did about 290,000 last year with a previous peak of 269,000 in 2019. Which means the nasty guy’s methods of deporting people are a lot less effective than Obama’s. But the nasty guy’s methods aren’t just about deportations. They aren’t about investigating fraud (Somali immigrants in Minnesota are accused of that). They’re about terrorizing a community. The nasty guy, vice nasty, and Stephen Miller have been clear their goal is not to run the country with “the consent of the governed” but with raw power, “authority without restrictions.” When autocrats want to seize power they begin by telling the people who they need to fear. And for the nasty guy that is brown and black people, particularly those born elsewhere.

Once the populace is sufficiently terrified of the “other,” they’ll accept increasing levels of repression in the name of stemming the danger to themselves and their families. Armed agents of the state begin to show up in public places to “enforce law and order,” but their real goal is to terrify people into submission. This is why Noem and Bondi are refusing to investigate Renee Good’s murder and instead demanding their federal prosecutors go after her grieving wife. They want not only ICE thugs but everybody in America who may think of challenging them to know that smashing windows, dragging people out of their cars, kicking in their doors, beating them to the ground, and even killing them — all without any legal basis, without a single warrant — are what we can all expect to happen to us if we defy their power.

Hartmann quoted the National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 the nasty guy signed two months ago. It defines domestic terrorism.

“[A]nti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity, … extremism on migration, extremism on race, extremism on gender, hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on religion, and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on morality.”

We can guess his definition of “extremism” and “hostility” which means just about everyone but MAGA fits the description of domestic terrorist. And ICE is reminding us of the awesome power the nasty guy has in enforcing it. Do something against us and we’ll turn the full force of our violence on you. Hartmann quoted Stephen Miller’s instructions to ICE agents, that they have full immunity. Anyone who obstructs their work will face our justice. Yeah, that’s full of lies. But Hartmann says the message is clear: We have the power. We will use the power. There is nothing you can do about it. If you try to stop us we will use our power against you. The threat of the Insurrection Act is a threat to override state and local government, suppress dissent, and put federal violence above the rule of law. This is not a democracy. It is state sponsored terror. That got me thinking. Considering how involved Minneapolis residents are in protecting the vulnerable among them and how much the nasty guy wants to use violence to thwart that protection. I think the next few weeks in the city will be critical to democracy in the US. There will be significant bloodshed. I knew that would be coming sometime somewhere. Then we’ll see how willing the US military is to shooting fellow citizens or whether Congress or state level Republicans will grow a spine. I have no idea so won’t guess on whether democracy or the nasty guy wins. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted late night commentary:

"Right now there are over two-thousand federal immigration agents in Minnesota, and Trump is planning to send around a thousand more. So he's clearly invading Minnesota. Has anyone told him they don’t have oil? Because the best he's gonna get is 50-million barrels of cream of mushroom soup." —Stephen Colbert

In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted the New York Times. Here’s a bit of it:

Rather than encourage agents to de-escalate combustible encounters, as the agency guidelines emphasize, Mr. Trump and his lieutenants have provided tacit approval for more aggressive tactics.

Acyn tweeted a message from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

My position has always been clear that ICE funding should be cut. We’re seeing what they’re doing with this reckless explosion in funding, and I want everybody to understand that the cuts to your health care are what’s paying for this

David Shor added:

We recently tested ~ a dozen public statements from a diverse set of Democratic elected officials on the murder of Renee Good and this was the top testing one.

A tweet from Jonathan Cohn quoted @EggerDC:

"Minneapolis is overheating right now, not because protesters are running amok, but because federal immigration enforcement and its political leadership ... are comporting themselves with astonishing, outrageous deception and malice."

That came with a link to an article on The Bulwark, presumably written by @EggerDC, with this title and subtitle:

ICE started the fire Rather than trying to calm things down, the government is fanning the flames.

David Schuster of Blue Amp

But the real jewel in this crown of Trump administration insanity belongs to Vice President J. D. Vance. He announced with great solemnity that federal law-enforcement officers enjoy “absolute immunity.” Vance’s declaration is not merely wrong; it is ludicrous. There is no such doctrine in American law. None. It exists only in the fever dreams of fascist wannabes who mistake their own wishes for jurisprudence.

A tweet from the Omaha World-Herald:

Rep. Don Bacon tells The World-Herald that there would be GOP support for an impeachment of Donald Trump if the U.S. invaded Greenland.

Bacon added:

Bottom line: the WH talk of invading Greenland is WRONG & will backfire in worst way. America stands by our Allies. This is not the 1890s… today we lead free nations against totalitarian & imperialistic governments. We are better & won’t cave to outdated old thinking.

In the comments are a more cartoons about Greenland including a couple showing it defended by a Lego fortress. Medusa posted a cartoon by Rob Rogers showing two Iranian clerics wearing ICE vests. One says, “Wait... Why are we wearing these?” The other: “So we can engage in violent, bloody crackdowns with Trump’s full support!” PX Molina posted a meme showing a hand stopping a fist. The words say:

They want your silence. Don't give it to them. They want your fear. Don't give it to them. They want your violence. Don't give it to them. They want your misinformation. Don't give it to them. Deny them everything that feeds them.

More money flows upward, faster, and with fewer speed bumps

My Sunday movie was an online handbell event. I originally thought it would only be of interest to handbell geeks. Then one of the people interviewed was Damian Kulash of the band OK Go. Why him? The band has played handbells to accompany at least a couple of their songs at live events. The two songs I know about are Return and Shoot the Moon and I found low-quality videos of them on YouTube. Kulash, in that 37 minute interview, said right off he and the band played with bad technique, which I saw was true. On saying that the interviewers invited him (and the band) to come to a handbell event where people would be happy to teach them better ways and show other things bells can do. Even though their technique was bad I saw in the videos the band could handle multiple bells and play syncopated rhythms while singing. Quite good! Here are the various interviews in that handbell event with Kulash’s interview a ways down the list. In my previous post I wrote about the life cycle of capitalism and that it ends in oligarchy. This was based on posts by Trenz Pruca on Daily Kos. My friend and debate partner responded with a private email. His friend side declared the post to be one of my best. Thank you, friend! Then his debate side asked, “But what is Pruca's relationship to reality?” Fair and important question. I was attracted to Pruca’s post because it added in details to what I already understand. So one way to determine Pruca’s reality is to test my own. How well have my 5,500 posts over the last 18 years (and I forgot to mark this blog’s birthday, which happened a week ago) described reality? That’s for the reader to answer. While I trust I have described reality well, saying I trust Pruca because his ideas align with my own describes a lot of conservatives, who are my opponents. In short, this is not good enough to affirm Pruca’s ideas. Pruca said he has his own blog, in addition to what he posed on Kos. I went to it and read the About page.

Trenz Pruca is the pseudonym for a retired attorney and businessman. During his career as an attorney he participated in the management of a large international law firm. He also consulted for a state legislature and drafted significant laws regarding land use and the environment. He has served as legal counsel and director of state agencies dealing with land use, planning and environmental protection. In addition, he has acted as Chairman of a state governmental authority responsible for the construction of one of the nation’s largest transportation projects. He has lectured and written widely about issues of law, economics, religion, land use, environmental protection and politics.

Which is rather evasive. If his posts are of good things why be anonymous? But I give few details about myself on my own blog. Pruca does give us a way to trust him and show he is anchored in reality. He provided sources for all four parts of his discussion. For example, the bottom of the first post lists historical books by 18th century economist Adam Smith. Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, 20th century economist John Maynard Keynes. For his life cycle of capitalism he references books by Giovanni Arrighi, Fernand Braudel, Immanuel Wallerstein, Hyman Minsky, Greta Kripper, and Thomas Piketty. Even more books are about corporate structure. With each book Pruca includes a link to where the book can be found online or to the publisher’s website. The other three parts have similar source lists. I hope that’s enough to see Pruca knows what he’s talking about and we can trust what he writes. With that I turn to another essay Pruca posted on Kos, this one about whether tax cuts for the rich created the Great Divergence. This is the “long, relentless widening of income and wealth inequality” that began with Reagan and Reaganomics. In 1980 the top income tax rate was 70%. Reagan cut it to 28%. It has moved up and down and is currently at 37%. Because most of the income of the wealthy comes from assets and not wage or salary income the important number is the effective tax rate. For the top 1% the 1979 rate of 37% dropped to 30% in 2019. For the bottom 20% refundable credits brought their 1979 rate of 8% to about 1% for 2019. Alas, Pruca doesn’t show the changes in effective tax rate for the middle class, saying only that they got squeezed. Yes, cutting tax rates increases inequality, though cutting taxes on capital gains has more of an effect that cutting income taxes. But so does capital mobility, decline of unions, emphasizing shareholders over workers, monopolization, and corporate capture of politicians. Another aspect is that while taxes were cut federal spending increased. The reasons for that were continued high defense spending, exploding health care costs, and the baby-boom generation claiming its Social Security and Medicare. Also there were fiscal interventions for pandemics, climate events, and geopolitical shocks, such as the Great Recession. And all that was financed through borrowing, which is now well over 100% GDP. The rich benefit from the extra borrowing (they receive the interest the government pays). And the middle class pays through higher taxes and reduced public services. Add to that the actions of the nasty guy part 2, where a major goal is to shift public wealth into private hands, especially loyal hands. His particular actions mean “More money flows upward, faster, and with fewer speed bumps.” Add to that the gutting of IRS oversight, which is a tax cut for the rich without legislation. We have shifted from the passive Great Divergence to the much more active Great Extraction. That leads to weakening worker power, undermining democratic checks and balances, deepening polarization, and tying wealth to state favor instead of market competition. Fiscal policy is both a reward and weapon. Taxes become optional for the rich and powerful and compulsory for everyone else. “Empires Don’t Fall Because the Tax Rate Is Wrong—They Fall Because the Social Contract Breaks.” And the Great Extraction becomes the Great Unraveling. Again, Pruca provides sources. Some items in the news: An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the MAGA flamethrower who spoke out for releasing the Epstein file for which the nasty guy called her a traitor, has announced she will resign from the House on January 5. Her departure is causing quite a bit of consternation in the House. Another AP article reports the criminal cases against James Comey and Letitia James have been dismissed. The US District judge said the prosecutor who brought the case, Lindsey Halligan, was illegally hired, so any actions she took must be thrown out. Oliver Willis of Kos reported that the Department of Government Efficiency – DOGE – has been shut down, eight months ahead of its scheduled end. It’s quiet demise was quite different than its start that had figurative trumpets blazing. DOGE did not save the government trillions, more likely cost it millions to billions. But no one kept accurate tally. And DOGE was good at lying. There are no mourners. Lisa Needham of Kos reported a week ago that the Texas redistricting effort was ruled illegal. The new maps were to increase the gerrymandering so that Republicans would get five more House seats in next year’s election. The US District Court in El Paso said the new maps are a racial gerrymander, which is illegal (at least until the Supreme Court hears the appeal or runs it through the shadow docket). The evidence for the redistricting being racially motivated is that the majority nonwhite Democratic districts were changed and the majority white Democratic districts were not. The California redistricting effort recently approved by voters does not say it is dependent on the Texas case. There is no surprise that Republicans have taken that result to court. So how will the Supremes approve the Texas gerrymander and not the California gerrymander? That’s another indication the ruling will come through the shadow docket, where explanations are not provided. wellbillyboy posted a cartoon by Drew Sheneman. An elephant at complains to the bartender.

Moral bankruptcy is a wild ride. One day you’re voting for Reagan and smaller government, the next you’re condoning pedophilia and pretending vaccines don’t work.

In Monday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Indrees Kahloon of The Atlantic discussing Republicans showing why the consternation of Greene’s resignation is possible:

The reality that Donald Trump’s presidency will end in January 2029 is already making Republicans restless. Normally, Trump angers, exhausts, and eventually prevails over elected Republicans—not vice versa. Just this week, though, rebellious Republicans forced the release of the so-called Epstein files in defiance of Trump, who had spent months trying to suppress them before abruptly reversing course. Plenty of other cracks are showing too: Staunch allies of the president are mouthing critiques that would have been unfathomable a year ago. These disputes are the prelude to an ugly battle over the post-Trump Republican Party.

Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post discussing the House vote to release the Epstein files

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) had joined Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California) to introduce the bill in July and then lead the signature-gathering exercise to force a vote. Massie said in an interview that his own party’s leadership in the House has ceded too much to Trump. “Basically, Mike Johnson has handed the keys to the House of Representatives to the president, and we took the keys back this week,” Massie said. “They weren’t driving very well, and we were able. We didn’t crash the car. We got it right to the destination.”

Benjamin Strick on Bluesky tweeted:

X rolled out a new feature overnight showing where accounts are based. This network of “Trump-supporting independent women” that claimed to be “real Americans” are based in Thailand. The photos [of examples] were stolen from European models & posts pushed pro-Trump lines while targeting Islam and LGBTQ people.

Jay in Kyiv added:

How much of MAGA twitter is being run out of Russian troll farms in Russia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Thailand? Today's revelations Likely put it around half. They're now quickly changing their stated locations to US.

In the comments Nikki Reale responded to a tweet by Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas complaining about Biden’s inaction on immigration. The tweet and response are a couple year’s old, but Reale’s conclusion still holds.

Here’s why we don’t have immigration reform: 1. In 2023 Democrats passed a bi-partisan immigration reform bill in the Senate. 2. House Republicans REFUSED to allow the bill to even be debated. 3. Obama asked Republicans to propose THEIR OWN immigration bill. 4. Republicans REFUSED. 5. Then Republicans demanded Obama do something about illegal immigration! 6. So Obama used his executive authority to enact some immigration reforms. 7. Republicans were outraged and called Obama a tyrant for doing exactly what they asked him to do. Republicans don’t really want reform. They want a problem to scare you with!

In the comments of Tuesday’s roundup are a few memes commenting on the revelation that many bot farms influencing the right aren’t in the US. A meme posted by thisjoshsmith:

Genuinely shocked at how many are just now discovering that MAGA is a psyop designed by Russia and grown in foreign bot farms before finally being perpetrated by some of the biggest loser cucks the world has ever known. Like, y’all really thought that this s--- was legitimate? It took 10 years and Elon displaying the location on Twitter accounts for you to figure it out? Welcome to the resistance, I guess?

And a meme by the_pesky_liberals

All the final pieces are falling into place this week: MAGA was never a grassroots American movement. It was a foreign-influence, billionaire-funded psychological operation that hollowed out a major political party and compromised U.S. foreign policy – and we’re only now seeing the full extent because the walls are starting to crack.

Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow! I hope your day is pleasant. I’ll spend the day with Sister and Niece. And I won’t eat one of the Recession Recipes mentioned in a cartoon by Brian McFadden. One idea is mash potatoes sculpted to look like a turkey and covered in brown gravy. Another is:

Means Test Meal Cook an inadequate amount of food. Have guests complete forms to see who qualifies to eat it. Serves 1, maybe.

Save your soul and quit your job

Alix Breeden of Daily Kos discussed the New York State Young Republican group chat that had a lot of “extremely homophobic, racist, sexist, and antisemitic remarks.” One member even said if the chat was leaked “we would be cooked.” It was leaked. They were cooked. Some had job offers that were rescinded.

However shocking this might be, this kind of language—once thought to be culturally on its way out—is swinging back into the mainstream. But why?

The answer is simple. The nasty guy, and other far right people before him, use those kinds of words and other demeaning language, making their use by others more acceptable, and desensitizing the rest of us to their use.

Ultimately, this is a massive jump backward in a decades-long effort to denormalize hate speech, with the right feeling emboldened to make jokes and comments at the expense of people’s races, genders, and religions. And instead of pushing back, young people are also feeling pressured to let it slide—or even to laugh along. So where is this train going? And, more pressingly, will it slow down before impending impact?

A few months ago I wrote about Elon Musk’s Boring Company and his effort to put tunnels under Las Vegas to ease traffic topside. In that earlier story Musk said he would rather pay penalties than wait for environmental approvals. I noted that if his company causes environmental damage paying a penalty does nothing for the damage that probably can’t be repaired. Anjeanette Damon for ProPublica and Dayvid Figler for City Cast Las Vegas in an article posted on Kos reported on another reason why Musk would favor paying penalties.

Nevada state regulators have accused Elon Musk’s Boring Co. of violating environmental regulations nearly 800 times in the last two years as it digs a sprawling tunnel network beneath Las Vegas for its Tesla-powered “people mover.” The company’s alleged violations include starting to dig without approval, releasing untreated water onto city streets and spilling muck from its trucks, according to a new document obtained by City Cast Las Vegas and ProPublica. ... The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection could have fined the company more than $3 million under the 2022 agreement, which allowed for daily penalties to be assessed. But regulators knocked down the total penalty to $242,800. ... “Given the extraordinary number of violations, NDEP has decided to exercise its discretion to reduce the penalty to two $5,000 violations per permit, which it believes offers a reasonable penalty that will still serve to deter future non-compliance conduct,” regulators wrote in the letter.

A fine that small, compared to Musk’s wealth and the money he doesn’t have to spend on protecting the environment, will not “deter future non-compliance conduct.” I doubt the top level $3 million would act as a deterrence. Musk prefers paying penalties instead of doing proper environmental reviews because agencies and courts could look at a penalty and say it’s too big when it isn’t big enough. Emily Singer of Kos reported the nasty guy went to the Middle East on Monday to bask in the praise of Israel’s far right leaders and various Arab leaders. They lamented the nasty guy didn’t get the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded the previous Friday. The prize went to María Corina Machado, a Venezuelan woman who stood against Maduro’s vote rigging. The Nobel Committee wrote, in explaining their choice:

When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognise courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist. Democracy depends on people who refuse to stay silent, who dare to step forward despite grave risk, and who remind us that freedom must never be taken for granted, but must always be defended—with words, with courage, and with determination.

Which sounds like they are explaining why the nasty guy will never win it. Alex Samuels of Kos reported that Middle East leaders were not the only ones lamenting that the Nobel Committee passed on the nasty guy. Congressional Republicans, lead by Mike Johnson also joined the praise for the Israel-Hamas peace deal. He announced that he and the Speaker of the Israeli Knesset would urge other world leaders to jointly nominate the nasty guy to receive the Peace Prize next year. Samuels wrote:

According to a September Ipsos poll for The Washington Post, 76% of Americans believe Trump does not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, while just 22% think he does. Even Republicans are split down the middle, while independents and Democrats are overwhelmingly opposed.

Samuels concluded that this campaign for the award is a convenient distraction from the government that has been shut down for more than two weeks. A tweet by paulpro shows a frame of the old Peanuts cartoon in which Lucy is holding a football to be kicked. The text has been changed to: “Come on Democrats. Pass our Budget. We promise this time we’ll definitely work on funding the ACA afterwards.” I think that is the clearest explanation of what the shutdown is all about. Singer reported on the next step in Republican efforts to gerrymander their way to protecting their House Majority in next year’s election. In North Carolina the state Senate leader, a Republican, will call the Republican controlled legislature back into session to pass a new map that could steal another seat from Democrats. North Carolina’s maps are already highly skewed. The nasty guy carried the state by just 3%, yet they hold 10 of the 14 seats the state holds in the House. The new maps need only a majority to pass and the governor can’t veto. Texas, Missouri, and Utah have already passed new maps. Ohio Republicans are expected to pass a new map by the end of November. Starting their effort are Republicans in Kansas, Indiana, Florida, and Nebraska. Dennis Goris tweeted a cartoon he created showing two young kids playing baseball looking at another with a big trophy. One says, “That’s Gerry Mander. He’s a loser who’s figured out how to get a trophy.” In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Patricia Lopez of Bloomberg on what ICE in Chicago is really about:

President Donald Trump's actions in Chicago, including militarizing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and attempting to federalize National Guard troops, are seen as an exercise of raw power rather than an effort to improve public safety.

John Seidel tweeted, “From the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on deployment of National Guard: ‘Political opposition is not rebellion.’” Seidel highlighted a section of the ruling:

The spirited, sustained, and occasionally violent actions of demonstrators in protest of the federal government’s immigration policies and actions, without more, does not give rise to a danger of rebellion against the government’s authority.

In the comments LJ Slater posted 10 reminders for tomorrow’s No King’s rallies. I plan to take part and will have more in a future post. Some of the reminders:

Lead with love, not anger. Focus your energy on what you stand for, not what you stand against. Anger fades; compassion lasts. Smile and greet others. Say hello, wave, or share a word of encouragement. Small acts of friendliness build community trust and lower tension. Look out for one another. Offer water, a smile, or friendly chat to someone nearby. Check on families, elders, and people with mobility needs. Make your sign speak peace. Choose messages that uplift – creative, clever, values-based signs draw attention without aggression or profanity. Carry joy beyond the rally. After the event, share stories, photos, and reflections that highlight unity and courage – show the world what peaceful power looks like.

Pat Begley posted a meme titled The Paradox of Tolerance by Philosopher Karl Popper from The Open Society and Its Enemies.

Should a tolerant society tolerate intolerance? The answer is no. When we extend tolerance to those who are openly intolerant the tolerant ones end up being destroyed and tolerance with them. Any movement that preaches intolerance and persecution must be outside of the law. As paradoxical as it may seem, defending tolerance requires to not tolerate the intolerant.

LEastsound posted a cartoon of two men discussing a poster of a man with a bulging chest and tight pants.

First man: We asked 100 extremely online straight men what makes a man attractive. Second man: How many w– First man: Zero. We asked zero women.

And Bill Amend posted a cartoon of his Foxtrot characters celebrating Pumpkin Pi season. In last Friday’s roundup Dworkin quoted John Harwood of Zeteo:

Over four decades as a journalist, I’ve covered seven presidents, 20 Congresses, and thousands of staffers. I’ve never encountered one as sinister as Stephen Miller. I see it in the darkness of his eyes, the venom of his words, the malevolence of his affect. And also by the deliberate brutality of his campaign from the White House to deport immigrants and crush dissenters. That Miller serves as the president’s top domestic policy adviser demonstrates the unique depravity of Donald Trump’s second presidency. So does the fact that Kash Patel commands the FBI, Kristi Noem directs the Department of Homeland Security, Pete Hegseth peacocks around the Pentagon, Pam Bondi stains the office of attorney general, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. runs the Department of Health and Human Services.

Jack Jenkins of Religion News Service reported that religious leaders have been part of the protests at the ICE detention center in Broadview, Illinois, about 12 miles from downtown Chicago.

Despite the danger, religious leaders and faith activists have been a visible presence at the protests, some waving signs with slogans such as “Love thy neighbor” and “Who would Jesus deport?” Many argue they are compelled by their religious beliefs to advocate for immigrants, but as officers continue to respond with violence, some claim their religious freedom is increasingly at risk — even, they say, as the pray for the souls of ICE agents. “One of the chants that has become ubiquitous at these protests at Broadview is, ‘Love your neighbor, love your God, save your soul and quit your job,’” said Black, who pastors at the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago. “Everybody chants that.”

A tweet by Scott Horton says:

Kash Patel spends most of his time on Fox News today smearing and attacking the city and people of Chicago, a large number of which are thugs and criminals. But the available evidence shows that a much higher percentage of people inside the White House are felons than in Chicago.

Wayno posted a cartoon showing two ancient Romans, one with a bowl of greens and croutons. The other announces, “Hail Caesar’s salad.” The caption says, “Holy Romaine Empire.” In Saturday’s roundup Dworkin quoted a pair of tweets. First by Eleanor Mueller:

On this press call with the House Freedom Caucus, Johnson tells reporters: "We worked on rescissions, and there'll be more of that, we expect, in the days ahead."

And a response by Eric Michael Garcia:

This is why the Democrats are voting "No" on the CR. It's not just health care. What's the point of doing a bipartisan appropriations process if the Republicans do a partisan rescissions package?

See Lucy and the football above. Brian Beutler of Off Message talked about the standard ways to stand up to the nasty guy. Then he added:

But my sense is that what costs people like us sleep at night isn’t that we aren’t doing enough. It’s that we’ve lost confidence in the people who are in positions to do more. It’s become fashionable to repeat cliches like “nobody is coming to save us,” and “we’re going to have to save each other.” We surely do need stamina and self-sufficiency, but mantras like these let people in power—people who sought power, and people who have power by dint of wealth—off the hook too easily. They should know what we expect of them.

Mike Nellis tweeted:

A reporter asked the chair of the Nobel Peace Prize committee why Trump didn’t win, and the guy basically said it’s because he has no courage or integrity. Absolutely brutal.

There’s also that the deadline for nominations for the 2025 prize was about the time the nasty guy was inaugurated. So all the things he did this year to get the prize would only apply to next year’s award. In the comments are a lot of cartoons about the nasty guy and the Peace Prize. Walter Einenkel of Kos posted part of a transcript of Obama’s interview on “WTF with Marc Maron.”

The question has always been, can we pull off this experiment in which people are showing up from all over the place? They're not tied together by blood. They don't necessarily worship God in the same way—or worship God at all. They speak different languages. They have all these weird foods. They show up with these odd customs. And some of them were dragged here in chains and some of them had their land taken from them and their culture destroyed. And out of all that, can we create a shared creed that allows us to live peacefully together and get stuff done? There's always been this fight over what is the true story of America. And I believe deeply in this story—that if we can pull this off, if we can actually treat everybody with decency and respect, and compromise, and make democracy work—it shines a light for the entire world.

Not Trump or Musk tariffs. REPUBLICAN tariffs.

I’ve never been inside a Hooters restaurant, though a story I found suggests I might have missed out. Peter Rothpletz wrote about his first time at Hooters when he was perhaps 15. I found his article in Pressreader, though I think it was originally in the Hamilton Spectator. Rothpletz was taken to Hooters by his grandfather. By that age he and likely is family could tell he was different, though he didn’t have words for the difference. When Grandfather went to the restroom his waitress slid into the booth and told him, “You’re perfect just the way you are, kid.” Following the news that Hooters is considering bankruptcy Rothpletz told this story. He was amazed at the number of gay men who told him about being taken to Hooters in what seemed to be, as he calls it, “Conversion therapy with a side of ranch.” But, much to the relief of the teens, the waitresses could see their discomfort and didn’t play along. Instead, they offered words of assurance. Hooters, known for how little their waitresses wore, became their gay safe space. Waitresses recognized when the men brought in boys that didn’t match the man’s version of macho. They would welcome the boys and tried to help them feel they were in on the joke. Perhaps these women – frequently stigmatized – see a kindred spirit in these gay boys. My dad would never have taken or gone with me to Hooters. Then again Hooters didn’t exist during my childhood. Alex Samuels of Daily Kos wrote about the effect of the stock market dive on billionaires, especially those that are cozying up to the nasty guy. Jeff Bezos worth down $15.9 billion, Mark Zuckerberg lost $17.9 billion, about 9% of his wealth. Musk lost $11 billion just on Thursday and $110 for the year. And the 500 richest, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, together lost $208 billion. Samuels wrote:

Of course, everyday Americans are feeling the pain too, or they will be soon. On Thursday, analysts at JPMorgan raised their forecast for a recession within the next year from 40% to a jaw-dropping 60%, The Wall Street Journal reported. A recession usually leads to a high unemployment rate, and if one happens, it almost surely won’t lead to these CEOs losing their jobs. Or their homes. Still, Trump doesn’t care how the little guy fares—but maybe, just maybe, he’ll snap out of it once he sees how hard his policies are hitting his friends.

In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Reed Galen of The Home Front:

These are REPUBLICAN tariffs. Not Trump tariffs. Not Musk tariffs. REPUBLICAN tariffs. A lot has been made of the Democratic Party’s declining popularity with Americans. We should remember that the GOP clocks in at about 36% approval. Two-thirds of the country doesn’t like them, either. Further, in the targeted messaging we need, utilizing Trump’s name and likeness only gives Republican politicians and voters a huge wall behind which to hide. There are many who will support what’s happening simply because Trump is the leader. Many Members of Congress are happy to let Trump take the heat so long as it passes them by. Don’t give them that option.

Greg Sargent of The New Republic wrote about Obama demonstrating how Democrats can move forward:

“People tend to think, eh, democracy, rule of law, an independent judiciary, freedom of the press—that’s all abstract stuff because it’s not affecting the price of eggs,” Obama said. “Well, you know what? It’s about to affect the price of eggs.”

In the comments are a lot of cartoons featuring penguins, in recognition of tariffs being put on Heard and McDonald Island. Like this one from Toonerman:

First penguin: The BBC says we’re getting tariffs! Second penguin: Never had em; are they like cod?

A tweet by David Frum, in response to a Reuters tweet that says, “IRS starts laying off 20,000 workers, eliminates civil rights office.”

The Trump tariffs incentivize smuggling. The Trump IRS layoffs invite cheating. Federal revenues will decline even before the Trump recession craters them.

Walter Einenkel of Kos wrote that Jack Schlossberg, grandson of President John F. Kennedy, has important questions for Musk that he posted on X.

If DOGE has found all this FRAUD and MONEY — then WHY: 1) no one charged with fraud? 2) govt spending has increased? 3) no distribution of savings? MAYBE — it’s a propaganda / data initiative that has nothing to do [with] the stated mission.

Einenkel then listed sources: Judd Legum found only $7.7 billion of DOGE’s claimed $115 billion has been verified. The Congressional Budget Office’s February Monthly Budget Review showed an increase in government spending. Einenkel concluded:

Considering the lack of evidence that DOGE has made any significant savings, combined with the abundance of evidence that Musk has compromised Americans’ private data and lucrative contract data—which he has been feeding into AI learning models—Schlossberg has a point. Now if only lawmakers would start listening to it.

A week ago (yeah, a lot to write about in the last week) Alix Breeden of Kos reported:

Businesses can now get permission to poison both the environment and the American people simply by sending an email to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin. Thanks to Zeldin, a company can shoot an email requesting a presidential exemption under the Clean Air Act to a slew of Joe Biden-era rules.

Groups in defense of the environment are outraged, calling the move an extreme and improper use of the Clean Air Act. Zeldin says his main goal is to drive a “dagger through the heart of climate change religion.” That’s after declaring climate change as real during his Senate confirmation hearings. The Sunday before, already seeing in what direction Zeldin is heading, Nancy Kaffer of the Detroit Free Press wrote an editorial, saying we in Michigan have seen this story before in the Flint water crisis. By that time Zeldin had said he won’t be protecting health or the environment, but making running a business cheaper. The Flint water crisis began when the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality under former Gov. Rick Snyder changed its guiding principles to “Be full partners in Michigan's economic development.” Kaffer pointed out that business has its own advocates, and it has deep pockets. The environment and residents are the ones who need advocates. MDEQ has been renamed Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE), whose deputy director had been James Clift. He said:

Almost all governments have agencies that specialize in economic development, and then they have environmental regulators. You think, if we have another agency doing economic development, why are environmental regulators also doing it? If you look at it as trying to help companies stay in compliance with environmental laws, then that's a natural fit for environmental regulators. When you couple it with deregulation, saying you are basically not going to regulate and protect the environment and public health and instead just going to look at economic development, it's very problematic. You're just going to roll back 50-plus years of environmental regulation, under the idea of helping business.

There may not be a direct line between this business-friendly posture and the Flint water crisis, but when a government department loses its way things don’t turn out well. And MDEQ lost its way in putting economic development ahead of public health in many incidents beyond Flint. The Flint water crisis happened ten years ago. In an attempt to save money state personnel switched Flint’s water source from the Detroit Metro water system to the Flint river. Those making the switch decided that certain steps in treatment didn’t need to happen. That resulted in corrosion the lead service lines, putting lead in the drinking water, in addition to allowing lots of other harmful stuff into residents’ homes. Lead is a neurotoxin. No amount is safe. Remedying the problem took way too long. Just a few people faced a penalty for the bad decisions. I believe the compensation package to victims is still tied up in court.

Just dismiss any evidence that clashes with your prejudices

No movie tonight because my entertainment was this afternoon. I saw a performance of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo that was a part of their 50th anniversary tour. The “Trocks” are an all male ballet troupe, even the dancers wearing tutus. First, they are quite good in all the things one expects in ballet dancers. These men are able to dance en pointe and do it well. They do all the leaps and spins, as well as the solo, partnered, and ensemble dancing one expects. Second, a part of their performance is parody. There are frequent little things that don’t fit classical ballet – the “dying swan” that enters losing feathers, the glide around the stage the looks more like power walking, the dancer who appears onstage a bit too soon, steps that fit more with modern dance than ballet, and many more. In watching the swan ensemble dance in their white tutus I could tell these men do not shave their chests. The program lists the names of sixteen ballerinas and eleven male dancers. Their bios are similar to this:

Varvara Laptopova is one of those rare dancer who, with one look at a ballet, not only know all the steps but can also dance all the roles. As a former member of the Kiev Toe and Heel club, she was awarded first-prize at the Pan-Siberian Czardash and Kazotski Festival for artistic mis-interpretation.

But the page after the bios lists only fifteen men in the company. The Detroit Opera Orchestra supplied live music and did a fine job supporting the dancers. I had seen the Trocks once before, at least 35 years ago. They have been a part of several TV programs, including with Kermit and Miss Piggy in Muppet Babies. I’m sure they can be found online somewhere. Of course, with a ballet troupe in which men dance the women’s roles and where nearly all of the dancers are gay Between the Lines would have a nice article about them. Lindsay Beyerstein of The Editorial Board discussed that the nasty guy campaigned against reality and won. Every plank in his platform was based on easily provable lies. He created a “conspiracist permission structure” to ignore facts and focus on hate. An Ipsos poll towards the end of the campaign found the more a person believes the conspiracy theories the more likely they were to vote for the nasty guy. The more they understood the truth the more strongly they voted for Harris. Part of that is media that is shy about calling out the nasty guy and is in the game for the bucks, not the truth. Part of it is the conspiracist mindset that says the media is controlled by the deep state.

Once you adopt a conspiracist mindset where you can dismiss any evidence that clashes with your prejudices as part of the conspiracy, you are free to create your own reality. Since it’s a worldview that scapegoats your fellow citizens as diabolical deceivers, that reality is bound to be ugly. Worse still, your willingness to discount mainstream sources of evidence in favor of the outlandish claims of demagogues becomes a badge of ideological purity. You welcome the lies. This is why social scientists have been warning about the link between conspiracism and totalitarianism for a century. There was never any evidence that the Jews secretly controlled the world – but it didn’t matter because lack of evidence was proof that the Jews controlled the press, and the universities, and science and the arts. Jews in pre-war Germany didn’t control any of those things – but no evidence to the contrary could penetrate the conspiracy theory. And the complete absence of evidence for their hegemony was just proof of their total domination.

This mindset also removes the possibility of good-faith debates.

If everything you don’t like becomes evidence of your opponent’s plot to destroy you, you can’t discuss anything rationally.

An example is evidence that vaccines save lives and prevent suffering. A conspiracist would respond, “Well, that’s what conspirators to kill our children would say.” We have to address the conspiracist mindset. There is an adage that’s been around for a while: fool around and find out (though the original has a different first word). It essentially means do something wrong (even through omission) and you will discover the consequences. That adage is now being applied to nasty guy voters, especially the ones who voted for him out of some vague economic malaise that the few policies he’s stated will make worse. Once they suffer the consequences they will turn to Democrats. John Stoehr, also of The Editorial Board doesn’t believe these people will make the link to consequences. Yes, they’ll suffer. But they won’t connect their suffering to their vote.

So let me get this straight. People who can’t or won’t understand tariffs are going to deduce all by themselves that tariffs are the reason they’re now paying three and four times more for their sneakers, T-shirts and video-game consoles? People who voted against their own economic interests are going to figure out on their own what exactly those interests are, but only after they’ve been screwed over by the president they voted for? To paraphrase Mark Twain, it would be easier to continue scamming these people than convince them that they’ve been scammed. And the scamming will continue.

Stoehr lists several reasons why they won’t recognize what they did. + The the far right media apparatus, global in scale, blocked these people from knowing all the good things the Biden-Harris administration did to set the economy on a great path. That same apparatus will make sure the same people don’t know the cause of any economic downturn. + The nasty guy administration will certainly corrupt government data that would normally show what is happening in the economy. + No voter dissatisfaction will prompt the nasty to change from his stated goals. Either he won’t run because he’s term limited (or dead) or there won’t be elections. + See above about not believing in reality. + Even if they recognize the source of their suffering the far right media apparatus won’t let them know the Democrats are offering something better. + The don’t take democracy or their own lives seriously.

I’ll put my faith in good people who seek out good trouble in the name of liberty, equality and justice for all. They’re a minority these days, but that’s OK. The world never changed for the better because a majority wanted it to. It changed because a righteous minority demanded it.

A month ago – before the election – Kos of Daily Kos wrote about how Democrats can unintentionally hurt their cause. Kos criticized something Obama said at a campaign stop for Harris. He talked about the pandemic stimulus checks. Obama criticized the nasty guy for putting his name on the check that went out while he was still in the Oval Office. Those checks weren’t supposed to be about “feeding his ego.” But people remembered the first check came from the nasty guy. They did not connect that the second and third checks came through Biden’s efforts. They credited the nasty guy for caring about them. Biden didn’t get the same credit and people wonder why Biden didn’t care for them. A savvy marketing moment missed.

People have no clue what the government does, how it works, or how it serves them ... even when they’re getting checks from the government.

That same savvy marketing has been playing out with Republican members of Congress who voted against the big infrastructure act yet are taking credit when the dollars flow to their state or district. I’ve written a lot over the last two weeks about what the nasty guy has been doing. Here’s a bit of what the opposition is doing. Two weeks ago Morgan Stephens of Kos wrote that Biden and his team have been preparing for the last few months of his administration, no matter who won. Some of the things they’ve been doing: + Getting all of the already approved funds and weapons to Ukraine. + Getting infrastructure project money out the door. + Getting the money for clean energy projects spent and shifting as much policy as they can from executive orders to government regulations, which are harder to undo. + Help the Senate appoint as many judges as possible. A week ago Stephens reported that “Governors Safeguarding Democracy” is being formed. It already has Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois, Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado, and Gov. Gavin Newsom of California. The number of additional governors is unclear and may include a few Republicans The group will have think tanks, legal experts, and democracy advocates. They will share tools and resources. They are working out how to protect their residents from deportation and are preparing legal challenges to efforts to undermine democracy. Also last week, Stephens discussed what Democratic governors might be able to do when the nasty guy sets his deportation plans in operation. But what can they reasonably do? Immigration advocates are pushing Democratic governors for executive orders and laws to tell state personnel to not voluntarily help with federal immigration enforcement. But some sheriffs will be glad to work with the feds. Beyond such laws there isn’t much Democratic governors can do. Last week Jon Stewart of The Daily Show noted a big difference between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats respect norms and traditions. Republicans look for loopholes. And with a bureaucracy as complex as our federal government there are always loopholes to the rules. Democrats need to also look for the loopholes. Alas, too many still are still respecting the norms and traditions Republicans rejected long ago.

Looking to Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, and Mao to understand Jesus

I had another problem with Comcast and encountered more customer disservice. In the last chapter I mentioned when I called the bot had me listen to a half-minute spiel about how the company needs certain information from me. I got that spiel every time I had to call, which for that issue was several calls. Today when I went to pay my bill online it inserted a page in the process saying they don’t have that information, my phone number and alternate email address. It was set up in such a way that I could not pay the bill without providing it. I could no longer bypass their request that has turned into a demand. So I entered my phone number – which they already have. I entered my email address. The system responded saying that is already associated with an account, we need a different one. I don’t have a different one. And I’m certainly not going to create one just to make Comcast happy, because I’ll never look at it. I think what Comcast is trying to do is have ways to contact me if their email system crashes. Well, OK, you have my phone number. So I called. The answer bot did its spiel again. Then after every answer I gave it would say I could sent you a link to our chat system; you’ll get faster service. I replied “no” each time. I didn’t want to do chat on my phone and needed to talk to a real person. It tried to direct me to chat about a half dozen times (I didn’t actually count). I didn’t get connected to a human. So on my computer I tried their virtual chat, the only kind they offer. It gave me choices for its questions. I quickly got to “none of these.” When I clicked on that it started its question tree over. No humans on the other end. I tried to call the local store, the place that actually worked to solve the previous problem. But the store’s number, while a different 800 number, connected me to the bot again. I signed up to the user forum and asked the question. It showed my predicament was posed two years ago. Notably, the person responding took the discussion to direct messaging, meaning the answer was not posted on the forum. So I posed it again. The available answers to some of the info it wanted made it sure the question was misclassified. People have seen the question but no one has given an answer. Five hours later I did get a response – they had reclassified my question. About a half hour after that Xfinity support found it. And they told me to use direct messaging with Xfinity support. So I did. That looks to be like chat, but with real people. They needed 20 minutes to respond. They asked for basic information and as of this writing have taken 15 minutes to respond to that. At this hour I can’t wait for many cycles of this chat. One of my tasks tomorrow may be to go to the Xfinity store to pay my bill. I saw a news article about people filing customer service complaints against companies with the Federal Trade Commission. Perhaps I should do that with Comcast. But I’d have to be more specific about the number of times it tried to direct me to chat. And I really don’t want to call again. Oliver Willis of Daily Kos reported that Obama, campaigning for Harris, had a few good lines.

Obama remarked that he often speaks to people about Trump, and they have remarked that the Republican presidential nominee is “kind of goofy” but that they remember better economic conditions during his presidency. “And I say, yeah it was good because it was my economy,” Obama said. “I spent eight years cleaning up the mess that the Republicans left me.” ... Obama added, “All [Trump] did was give a tax cut to people who didn’t need one, drove up the deficit in the process, now he wants to do it again. Do not fall for that okey doke, don’t be bamboozled.”

Morgan Stephens of Kos has a response for Ezra Klein’s opinion piece in the New York Times. Klein had asked, “If Donald Trump is so dangerous, then how come the consequences of his presidency weren’t worse? ... If Donald Trump is so bad, why were things so good? Why were they at least OK?” Stephens says Klein’s privilege is showing. Many people weren’t OK. And still aren’t. 352K people died of COVID in 2020, many through the nasty guy’s misinformation and neglect. People of color, people in poverty, and women are still feeling it. Then there’s the abortion ban he made possible in the way he stacked the Supreme Court. Klein ignored the rise of white supremacy the nasty guy normalized. There’s also the police officers killed in the Capitol attack. I’m sure Stephens could have added several other ways America is worse because of his time in the Oval Office. Stephens added she is one of those still suffering from long COVID and encountered people who scorned her use of a mask. Kos of Kos wrote about what should be the October surprise to end the nasty guy’s presidential bid, but won’t. The story comes from the book The Divider: Trump in the White House by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser. The nasty guy, in talking to John Kelly, his Chief of Staff, wanted American military generals to have the same loyalty as Hitler’s generals. Kelly’s response, recorded in the book:

Kelly admonished Trump: “I said, ‘Sir, you can never say anything good about the guy. Nothing.’”

That exchange was trumpeted in a big headline in The Atlantic: “TRUMP: ‘I NEED THE KIND OF GENERALS THAT HITLER HAD’” In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev had a couple good quotes. The first is from Heather Digby Parton of Salon who commented on high-ranking military leaders who are saying how unfit and how fascist the nasty guy is.

It's good that these former high-ranking military leaders are saying all this. But they really need to go on CBS News' "60 Minutes" or cut an ad so that people who aren't reading the Atlantic and the New York Times (or Salon, for that matter) will know about it. There's no reason for them not to do it at this point. If they fear retribution from Trump, I'm afraid that ship sailed. You can bet they are already on his list. If they simply don't want to be in the line of fire, it's a sad comment on the military ethos for which they claim to be speaking.

A while back I wrote about the term “sanewashing,” created by Parker Malloy. Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan of LitHub in an interview with The Family author Jeff Sharlet says that term doesn’t go far enough. Sharlet talked about the nasty guy and far right preachers talking about Christian Nationalism. And the press is ignoring this as an issue. They were stuck on the idea of how could such a profane man win the votes of the religious right?

I think Parker would agree with this; It’s fascist-washing. In the book, I call it “the F-word” because in an earlier book I wrote in 2008 called The Family, I wrote about a Christian Nationalist movement that explicitly looks to Hitler as a model for understanding Jesus. And they added in Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, and Mao for their common denominator: strength and power.

Looking to Hitler and Stalin to understand Jesus? That makes the head spin. Down in the comments is a meme posted by exlrrp with a quote by Pete Buttigieg:

It’s one thing for some leftist group to call you a fascist. Quite another when it’s a fellow Republican. And absolutely astonishing when it’s your own chief of staff.

Posted right below it is a meme with the words, “Strange, but my idea of ‘making America great again’ always seemed to involve seeing FEWER swastikas.” Further down in the comments is a discussion by Captain Frogbert. He starts with a video of monkeys where one is rewarded with cucumber and another is rewarded with much tastier grapes and the first shows its displeasure. The test has been done with other animals and had similar results. Frogbert wrote:

Trump voters have been deceived by Wall Street oligarchs and the media into thinking the problem is that “THOSE PEOPLE” are being unfairly rewarded by LIBERAL ELITES who give MY grapes to people who haven’t EARNED THEM the way I have. Of course this is absurd. What is happening is that the right-wing elites are KEEPING THE GRAPES for themselves and telling the right-wing masses that the grapes they should be getting are being unjustly given to people they don’t like who don’t deserve them, by people they don’t like who hate the GOOD PEOPLE LIKE YOU. Even though there is no evidence of this being true. It’s just that the Trump voters, knowing only that they don’t have what they think they are entitled to, think it ought to be true. The enemy is the oligarchy. Their racism drives the foolish right to act against their own interests because the oligarchs are also racists and the right-wingers think they will be exempt from oppression once all the people they hate have been summarily removed and punished. But that’s not how fascism works. Fascism runs on hate and enemies of the state. They can never “deal” with the enemies of the state without generating new enemies of the state to drive their campaigns of hate and social dominance (and stealing). As soon as the liberals, and the trans people, and the gays, and the people of color, and all the other targets of right-wing hate are dealt with, the fascist state will designate remaining members of the non-oligarch classes to replace them. No matter who you are, and how worshipfully you embrace Big Brother Donny Dum-Dum, you will EVENTUALLY be declared an enemy of the state. It is inevitable. The jaguars WILL always eat YOUR face. Fascism does NOT solve problems, it is a parasite on the body of the nation, stealing its wealth for itself until there is nothing left.

Frogbert included some of Martin Niemöller’s famous poem, then continued:

Everyone knows this quote, but few people actually understand it. Everyone empathizes with Niemöller because they want to believe they are the victim of uncontrollable and unaccountable forces arrayed against THEM PERSONALLY, and the want REVENGE for their oppression. So they cling to populist politicians who lie to them and promise that desired revenge, not understanding that it is the oligarchs who control the populist politicians who are their oppressors, not the liberals or the black/gay/trans/whatevers they have been taught to hate.

Frogbert ended with a quote from Winston Churchill: “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last.” Frogbert added, “First or last, the crocodile WILL eat you.” HealthCarewatcher of the Kos community discussed the way Tim Walz is redefining masculinity. The author quoted an article in The American Prospect:

Trump offers young men a fantasy of manhood as an unapologetic assertion of dominance. It’s a vision that celebrates fame and power, aggression, and sex without obligations—the fantasy behind Trump’s taped Access Hollywood line, “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”

The author encountered that version of masculinity in high school and college as a runner. The scene was extremely homophobic, driven by coaches who wanted to be seen as manly. That culture was so hurtful the author stopped running.

A key facet of Tim Walz' biography is that he was the football coach who walked into that culture and helped students form the straight-gay alliance. He preached tolerance and inclusion and actively tore down a homophobic and bigoted culture. There are LGBTQ running clubs, soccer teams and football teams in rec leagues around the country because guys like Tim Walz tore down a bigoted culture in the mid-2000s and 2010s. When I was watching Tim Walz' interview with Kate Mackz, I realized that he's selling a version of masculinity that is extremely dangerous to Trump. Instead of blaming transgender women for the problems of young men, the way Trump does, Walz is articulating an inclusive vision of masculinity. One where everyone has their place, and using his story to sell it. Struggling to pay for college? I did too, Walz says, I joined the National Guard. Having a hard time finding a job? Become a teacher, the way I did. Having a hard time staying in shape and feeling isolated? Yeah, I did too, I picked up running and met great people Walz says. Essentially he's showing men how they can lead normal lives without being a raving lunatic like Trump, and how that leads to happiness. ...Walz' quiet redefining of masculinity to be more inclusive exposed how Trump's hate and anger leads to the isolation and loneliness that many men are feeling and frustrated with, and how Trump wants to use this hate and anger to get elected but doesn't actually want to solve the underlying problems of income inequality and social isolation.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos included a remarkable video. The music was “Rey’s Theme” by John Williams (from one of the last three Star Wars movies?) arranged by Williams to feature astronaut Sarah Gillis playing her violin in a Dragon Crew Capsule in space while the orchestral accompaniment was played by orchestras, string ensembles, and brass ensembles in Boston, Brazil, Sweden, Uganda, and Haiti. I think the way it worked was that Gillis’ performance was beamed from (or recorded in) space and the rest of the groups played along with her image and then the recordings of the various groups were mixed together (the sound I heard with a string orchestra in view didn’t sound any different than when the brass ensemble was on screen). However they did it the images and the sound are pretty cool! Fall color is close to its peak in southeast Michigan right now. Since today was sunny, which adds extra brilliance to the leaves, I spent a chunk of my midday walking in a park and soaking in the color.

From impossible, to possible, to real, to ordinary in 25 years

While I didn’t watch the Democratic National Convention live I did watch some of the speeches posted online. Many are worth sharing. This sounds like fun (though I don’t have a video): During the roll call to ceremonially nominate Harris and Walz DJ Cassidy spun a tune appropriate for each state – Bruce Springsteen for New Jersey, Dolly Parton for Tennessee, and so on. Daily Kos staff gathered photos of the various buttons available for delegates to wear. I like: “Make Stupid Embarrassing Again.” Pete Buttigieg: I only have excerpts of the text and this is an excerpt of that:

I'm thinking of dinner time at our house in Michigan when the dog is barking and the air fryer is beeping and the mac and cheese is boiling over and it feels like all the political negotiating experience in the world is not enough for me to get our three year old son and our three year old daughter to just wash their hands and sit at the table. It's the part of our day when politics seems the most distant. And yet the makeup of our kitchen table, the existence of my family is just one example of something that was literally impossible as recently as 25 years ago, when an anxious teenager growing up in Indiana wondered if he would ever find belonging in this world. This kind of life went from impossible to possible, from possible to real, from real to almost ordinary in less than half a lifetime.

Hillary Clinton’s speech, 17 minutes. The ovation when she came to the podium lasted close to two minutes. Dana Nessel, Attorney General of Michigan, spoke for four minutes. Her big line:

For the Republicans and the justices of the United States Supreme Court, you can pry this wedding band from my cold dead gay hands.

Senator Tammy Duckworth, who lost parts of both legs in the Iraq War, does a great defense of IVF in five minutes. Cole Emhoff, stepson of Harris, narrates a two minute video to introduce his father Doug to the convention. It’s a sweet story. Even better, the video was produced by Kerstin Emhoff—Cole’s mother and Doug’s ex-wife. As Ben Wexler tweeted:

Kamala’s husband’s ex-wife is supporting her more enthusiastically than Trump’s current wife is supporting him.

To which Kerstin replied: “Damn right.” Doug Emhoff spoke for 8 minutes telling about how he and Harris met and what she has done for his family, what she has done for the country so far, and what she will do. He didn’t shake the rafters as other speakers did and will. It’s just a sweet story. Michelle Obama, 20 minutes, a tribute to her mother, who died just a few months ago. She talked about how most people she knows don’t get second (or third or fourth) chances.

See, his his limited, narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hardworking, highly educated, successful people—who happened to be black. I want to know. I want to know who's going to tell him. Who's going to tell him that the job he's currently seeking might just be one of those ‘Black jobs’?

Barack Obama, 37 minutes. This post includes the transcript. He also talks about Michelle’s mother and his grandmother.

But they knew what was true. They knew what mattered: things like honesty and integrity, kindness, and hard work. They weren’t impressed with braggarts or bullies. They didn’t think putting other people down lifted you up or made you strong. They didn’t spend a lot of time obsessing about what they didn’t have. Instead, they appreciated what they did. They found pleasure in simple things: a card game with friends, a good meal and laughter around the kitchen table, helping others, and, most of all, seeing their children do things and go places that they would’ve never imagined for themselves.

I heard that part about braggarts and bullies and thought that means they ignored the social hierarchy as much as they could and were not impressed with people who thought the hierarchy was of critical importance. One more step: Every speaker I’m highlighting tonight only used language of the hierarchy and supremacy to describe Republicans. When talking about Democrats they talked about the opposite – building community. NHBred of the Kos community posted a story about Tim Walz’ son Gus being neurodivergent and how the family made sure he got the help he needed. They now call his condition his secret power. And the 17 minute acceptance speech by Coach Walz, the VP nominee. He may not have given big speeches before, but he did an excellent job with this one. Some of what he said: In a small town we learned how to take care for each other. Everybody belongs. Everybody contributes. There is a commitment to the common good. A single person can make a difference. While others were banning books, we were banning hunger. I loved his contrast between the way Republicans define freedom and the way Democrats do. Project 2025 is an agenda that nobody wants, an agenda only for the richest and most extreme. And nobody writes a playbook and not use it. In the comments of a pundit roundup for Kos exlrrp posted a cartoon of people on a plane with this caption, “Attention, passengers: there will be some moderate turbulence while we pass through the energy field pulsing up from the Democratic National Convention.” I bought a new computer. The current one, which I’m using now, is ten years old and running Windows 7. I’m now getting websites, such as the bank that issued me a credit card, that refuse to talk to it. Others say, please update! So it is time. I don’t know how long setting it up will take. It may go smoothly, it may not. This will also be a time to update all the software, so that will take a chunk of the time. I probably won’t post again until it is done.

A secret library of 600 books

I’ve known of Andrea Chalupa for several years now. She’s a co-host of Gaslit Nation, which I’ve discussed frequently here, though I haven’t listened to or read it in several months. Through the episodes I have read or listened to Chalupa talked about having written and helped produce the movie Mr. Jones. Her ancestors are from Ukraine. She wrote the movie, well before the war there, as a way to feel she was doing something to counter the nasty guy’s regime. I finally watched it as my Sunday movie. A note at the end of the movie says that while the basic outline of the story is true individual scenes were created to dramatize the story and should not be considered as having actually happened. The time is 1933. Mr. Gareth Jones is an analyst for Lloyd George in London. Jones gives a report of Hitler and Lloyd George and his cronies don’t believe it. Though Jones is one of the better analysts he is fired. I later found out this is David Lloyd George, who was Prime Minister of Britain during and just after WWI. Jones has a question he wants to research. Where is Stalin getting his money? Stalin is bragging about industries the Soviets didn’t have and now do. So he’s off to Moscow to try to talk to Stalin. There he meets Walter Duranty of the Hearst newspaper empire. Duranty has a Pulitzer for his reporting and we later realize Duranty is a Stalin propagandist. After hearing the phrase “grain is gold” a couple times Jones is off to Ukraine to understand more. There he encounters and experiences the Holodomor. This is the central truth to the story – Stalin stole so much of Ukraine’s wheat the locals experienced a famine and millions died. Once back in London Jones faces disbelief and pressure by the Soviets on London to not print the story. A frame of the story is George Orwell writing his novel Animal Farm. The story Jones tells influences the novel Orwell writes. Perhaps a few years ago Chalupa wrote about how Orwell fits into the wider story, so this is more than a simple plot device. I found Chalupa’s explanation fascinating but don’t remember any of it. In a pundit roundup for Daily Kos Greg Dworkin quoted a tweet from Mark Elliott:

Almost every journalist covering Trump has gotten this wrong. He owes a total of $542 million and counting: - $355 million in fines for fraud - $99 million in interest on that fraud (increasing by the day) - $83 million to E. Jean Carroll - $5 million to E. Jean Carroll

Aldous Pennyfarthing of Kos poses an important question: How will the nasty guy pay more than a half billion? Yes, it will be appealed, but before it can be the money has to be put in escrow, or he has to provide some sort of proof that if the appeal fails he will pay up (and knowing how much this guy likes to stiff those he owes money to...). There’s cash reserves, but that’s reported to not be enough. Refinance? What bank would give him anything? He could sell assets, but he’s reluctant to sell anything except when he can get a price way above the value. To sell now means at well below value. Pennyfarthing quoted Dan Alexander, senior editor of Forbes:

He can’t even apply for a loan with many of these banks. But there are, for example, plenty of rich guys who might be interested in lending him $100 million, $200 million and may have good interest in wanting to do that for somebody who might become the president of the United States here in about a year.

Pennyfarthing added:

It’s actually rather astounding how matter-of-factly Alexander mentioned the “rich guys” loan option, considering that those rich guys could very well want something in return for their help—like, say, all of Ukraine. But you just know Trump would sell out his country before he’d ever consider selling one of his golf courses, so that’s almost certainly the option he’ll go with.

Then he quoted a tweet by Simon Rosenberg:

Trump is now broke. His party is broke. He has stolen America’s secrets and shared them with others - already. He’s sided w/Russia. The country is now looking at a grave national security risk as Trump will look abroad for financial and political help.

He could raid the Republican National Committee, now that he’s installing his daughter-in-law as co-director. But it doesn’t look like they have a half-billion. He’d be lucky to get a few million. Or he could declare bankruptcy. He’s done that many times for a long list of companies. But never personal bankruptcy, which rather spoils the billionaire vibe. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported the nasty guy has come up with a line of sneakers. If you think that’s weird you’re forgetting nasty guy vodka and nasty guy steaks. Yeah, former president reduced to selling shoes. While the initial run of sneakers sold out he’ll have to sell about 3 million pairs to cover what he owes. Or he could offer to autograph them for $9K each. Then he’d need to sell only 60K pairs. Einenkel lists ten of the nasty guy company bankruptcies. Mark Sumner of Kos linked to the latest ranking of US presidents. After noting the score and ranking for the nasty guy Sumner spent much of his post describing how wife Melania would be similarly ranked, though a First Lady survey hasn’t been done in a few years. Back to the presidents. I downloaded a PDF of the survey. Brandon Rottinghaus of University of Houston and Justin Vaughn of Coastal Carolina University sent a survey to 154 experts in presidential politics. They asked each expert to rate each president on a 0-100 scale for overall greatness. Then the ratings were averaged for a score and the scores ranked. The first few would not be a surprise. 1. Lincoln, 93.9 2. FD Roosevelt, 90.8 3. Washington, 90.3 4. T. Roosevelt, 78.6 5. Jefferson, 77.5 6. Truman, 75.3 7. Obama 73.8, up 9 positions from the 2015 ranking. Biden is at 14 with a score of 62.7, tied with J Adams at 13. Biden, along with Obama, Carter, and a dozen others are included in the “Most Under-Rated Presidents.” And at the bottom: 44. Buchanan, 16.7 45. Trump, 10.9 Yeah, in last place. By a lot. Einenkel reported Fox News is upset with the survey. Neda Ulaby of NPR talked to a teacher and students in a high school in Houston. Their names were not included in the report because this is Texas and the teacher has a secret library of about 600 books. She loans the books to the students she thinks need them – the ones who are both minority and queer. The students are delighted to read books that feature characters like themselves. The teacher got a list of 850 books to be banned. She gave a student the list and said tell me the books you think we should have, and go buy them (and it sounds like the teacher paid for them all). This is in a part of Houston where residents don’t have a lot of money. Many of their parents are immigrants and didn’t have much schooling. The teacher hopes her private library doesn’t have to stay secret.

I do believe that book banning is going to go away. I think it's kind of the last grasp of people trying to maintain control because they know it's slipping. That's what I tell myself anyway.

Orion Rummler, in an article for The 19th posted on Kos, wrote about the internal conflict of black gay Christians. So many black churches stigmatize their gay members, yet the black church is the center of their community and culture.

The Black church is a cultural and social hub that, throughout the country’s past, has been a singular source of protection and dignity for Black Americans. The community within the church isn’t just centered on religion; family life, school life and everyday support are intrinsically tied together.

Yet that center of their community rejects them. A new study by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law and Utah State University looked into this. Tyler Lefevor of USU and a lead researcher said religions do a bad job of affirming queer folk. At the Reconciling Ministries Convocation last October I heard a black gay preacher talk about this issue. The black church is so central to black culture that a black gay man won’t go to an LGBTQ affirming white church. Rummler wrote that a black gay man may tough it out, attend even with the ostracization. Or he might leave the church. Or, if he learns about it, he might find a church through the Fellowship of Affirming Ministries. Elisabeth Rosenthal, in an article for KFF Health News posted on Kos, wrote that GoFundMe started for a way for friends to donate for honeymoon trips, church mission trips, or perhaps a fledgling musician wanting to record that first demo. It has become the go-to platform for patients with billing nightmares. The number of GoFundMe campaigns for medical bills is 25 times what it was in 2011.

Perhaps the most damning aspect of this is that paying for expensive care with crowdfunding is no longer seen as unusual; instead, it is being normalized as part of the health system, like getting bloodwork done or waiting on hold for an appointment. Need a heart transplant? Start a GoFundMe to get on the waiting list. Resorting to GoFundMe when faced with bills has become so accepted that, in some cases, patient advocates and hospital financial aid officers recommend crowdfunding as an alternative to being sent to collections. My inbox and the “Bill of the Month” project (a collaboration by KFF Health News and NPR) have become a kind of complaint desk for people who can’t afford their medical bills, and I’m gobsmacked every time a patient tells me they’ve been advised that GoFundMe is their best option. ... In many respects, research shows, GoFundMe tends to perpetuate socioeconomic disparities that already affect medical bills and debt. If you are famous or part of a circle of friends who have money, your crowdfunding campaign is much more likely to succeed than if you are middle-class or poor.

And if you are middle-class or poor you’re much more likely to have medical debt you can’t pay.

Despite the site’s hopeful vibe, most campaigns generate only a small fraction of the money owed. Most medical-expense campaigns in the U.S. fell short of their goal, and some raised little or no money, a 2017 study from the University of Washington found. Campaigns made an average of about 40% of the target amount, and there is evidence that yields — measured as a percentage of their targets — have worsened over time.

Sumner reported:

On Sunday’s edition of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight,” host John Oliver made a direct offer to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. After showcasing a new, luxury RV valued at $2.4 million, Oliver offered to give the RV to Thomas, along with $1 million a year in cash, if the justice would sign a contract promising “to get the f--- off the Supreme Court.”

Sumner said it isn’t the first such offer. Sam Bankman-Fried, before he was arrested for crimes committed while the head of a crypto corporation, offered the nasty guy $5 billion to keep him from running in 2024.

Both of these offers seem like they should be illegal. Because they should be illegal. But they’re just the flip side of what’s already happening—wealthy patrons buying figureheads who will do exactly what they want in office. ... In the meantime … Dear Clarence, that motorhome looks really sweet. Take it. Please take it.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in a Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, included a short video of three seesaws installed through the border wall.