Policy: drive liberals to anger, then mock them

My Sunday movie was Episode 1 of American Revolution by Ken Burns. I haven’t watched episodes 2-4 and probably won’t get to 5 and 6 unless I can find a way to stream them over the next several weeks. I’ll have to check whether PBS allows non-members to stream their shows. This episode covers 1754 to 1775. The story starts with the Seven Year War (French and Indian War) in 1754. It was actually a global war. These were George Washington’s first battles. He was part of the British military and those battles convinced him the British could be defeated. This was at a time the people still thought of themselves as British. The mainland (rather than the Caribbean) colonies were quite diverse. People came from various European countries in addition to England. There were also African slaves and indigenous people. How could such diversity be united into one country? The greater the percent of slaves in a colony, the more prosperous it was. Caribbean colonies were quite prosperous. New England colonies were not. England paid more attention to the Caribbean. Those who came to the American colonies were people who wanted their own plot of land. They did not want to work for the local aristocracy. There was a continuing demand for more land but the only available land was controlled by the natives. That meant violence. To reduce that violence Britain said no spreading beyond the Appalachian Mountains. Colonists said nope. Britain sent troops to enforce their edict. But the British government, having fought four wars (or maybe that was wars on four continents?), was deeply in debt. They decided the colonies should pay for the troops – the troops that prevented them from spreading west. Thus the Stamp Act. And that created the idea of no taxation without representation. Most of the episode is about the government in London enacting more ways to bring its colonies under control and the colonists rejecting them and becoming more united in their rejection. Then came Lexington and Concord, the first deaths, and the British retreat. Before then each colony had its own relationship with London, some rejecting the meddling and calling for defiance and others enjoying profitable relations they wanted to continue. But Lexington and Concord prompted a more unified view that the political links to England needed to be severed. I am impressed with the large range of artwork the series used to illustrate the scenes. Of course most of it I hadn’t seen before. I was amused at the painting of the young George Washington. I appreciate the show talked about the contradiction between colonists described themselves as slaves to England while having African slaves in their homes. I’ll have more to say about that when I finish the book I’m reading and about a third of the way through. When the nasty guy reclaimed the Oval Office Niece told me she wanted to get out of the country, though she doesn’t feel she is ready to support herself through such a drastic changes. Alix Breeden of Daily Kos reported:

A recent Gallup poll found that 40% of U.S. women aged 15 to 44 said that they would move to another country permanently if given the opportunity—a jump of 10% since 2014. This increase seems to be exclusive to the United States, with other countries reporting fairly consistent numbers between 20% and 30%.

The nasty guy in the Oval Office is not the only reason, though a big one. There is a general sense the US is becoming increasingly unfriendly to women, and has been since about 2016. In the last year both in Britain and Canada there has been an increase in the Americans applying for citizenship. Americans living outside considering renouncing citizenship has jumped from 30% to 49%. Reasons for the desire to leave are restrictions on abortion and reproductive rights, the cost of giving birth is going up (as health insurance is getting much more expensive), and masculinity is getting more toxic. Dan Gearino, in an article for Inside Climate News posted on Kos, reported there are some things people on the left and right agree on. One is a “skepticism of entrenched power and a desire to dismantle systems that they think have ceased to serve everyday people.” And that includes increasing distrust for data centers.

Much of the discussion is about data centers, which are often large developments used to support cloud computing or artificial intelligence. But the underlying issues are broader, touching on the power of tech companies. For people who live near proposed data centers, there is an additional sense of powerlessness, which Inside Climate News has documented across the country, including the backlash to a plan for a huge data center in Bessemer, Alabama. “It’s about big tech,” Olson said. “To steal Bernie’s words, [it’s about] these big tech oligarchs that are calling all the shots at every single level of government right now.”

Gearino included poll results showing that for most things more people (and in some areas many more people) believe AI makes things worse and not better. The problem could be lessened if those wanting to build data centers talk about local benefits. The locals already hear about the high use of water and the likelihood of electrical bills going up. Companies are not working to alleviate those concerns. As for the benefits, some experts ask are there any? As part of the series on Explaining the Right Oliver Willis of Kos discusses how Republicans became shameless hypocrites. An example of them being hypocrites goes back to the 1990s when Speaker Newt Gingrich was portraying Republicans as the party of “family values” during the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal while Gingrich was cheating on his wife as she fought cancer and eventually married his mistress. Of course, there are a lot of more recent examples.

For years, conservatives have made the concept of “owning the libs” central to their political ideology. The idea is to engage in behavior and use rhetoric that supposedly makes liberals angry, driving them to exhibit this anger, which conservatives then mock. Even if their behavior doesn’t provoke a tantrum, conservatives have elevated this brand of mockery above nearly everything else, including policy and ideology. This has resulted in the right, including right-wing media like Fox News, becoming fixated on “culture war” issues.

Since Gingrich was “owning the libs” his own infidelity got a pass.

This creates a permission structure on the right where Republicans are allowed to be contradictory, as long as a liberal somewhere is purportedly mad about it. But this kind of posture has a limit.

The limit is that it works great with other Republicans or MAGAs. It doesn’t work for anyone else and voters who aren’t Republicans are quite willing to throw them out of office. Emily Singer of Kos lists reasons why Democrats won the shutdown. I’ll let you read her explanations. Democrats brought health care to the forefront. Polls showed voters blamed Republicans more than Democrats. The nasty guy’s approval fell dramatically, going from -12 to -16. The shutdown gave Democrats a ton of campaign material for next year’s midterms, such as the nasty guy’s Great Gatsby party, which widely polled as inappropriate spending. On Sunday’s All Things Considered on NPR host Sacha Pfeiffer and St. Louis Public Radio reporter Hiba Ahmad discussed the tornado that hit St. Louis last May and toured some of the damage that is still quite evident six months later. Then they turned it into a discussion of the nasty guy’s desire to turn FEMA over to the states. They talked to Mayor Cara Spencer, who summarized the reason to keep FEMA national:

My argument would be that, as a nation, we would be better off, more efficient and certainly more effective if we centralize and share the resources and expertise across the nation for very unusual events, rather than saddling every single municipal government to being able to respond to what may or may not happen in the lifetime of each of those cities.

The article mentions Enright Ave of St. Louis as one that was hit hard by the tornado. There were other places hit harder, but the article doesn’t explain their location. I went looking at Enright Ave. through Google Street View and found something fascinating. Start on the avenue just east of Union Blvd. Google Maps say they rolled down the street in May 2025. The houses look to be in great shape. Then take a step east and the images are of July 2025. A lot of homes are damaged – windows gone or boarded up, walls and roofs missing and some covered in blue tarps, stacks of salvaged bricks, and piles of trash. This allows a person to compare a few houses before and after and to see the destruction on down the street. I then wondered, did the Google Street View people do this intentionally? If so, thank you. Yeah, this is the view of the street in July, six to eight weeks after the tornado. The NPR article says the street isn’t much different six months later. And that’s because the nasty guy and his desire to oppress those not in his billionaire class.

The myth of the self-reliant, salt-of-the-earth American

Last Thursday Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had instituted a policy that any departmental expense greater than $100,000 required her approval. That meant FEMA could not do its usual pre-positioning of its Search and Rescue crews ahead of the central Texas floods. The floods happened on a Friday and Noem didn’t give her approval until the following Monday. A DHS tweet bragged that by Tuesday FEMA had deployed 311 staffers to help with state-led rescue efforts. On Thursday Noem was on “Fox & Friends” and declared CNN’s reporting of the delay was fake news. Abrahm Lustgarten, in an article for ProPublica posted on Kos, discussed the flooding and said things will get worse. The effects of global warming are just getting started. Each small increase in average temperature means a large increase in the amount of water the atmosphere can hold, leading to a large increase in the destructiveness of the storms when that water is released. Lustgarten wrote that President Lyndon Johnson was briefed about the coming climate crisis way back in 1965. Here we are ten presidents later still discussing the problem and doing very little about it. And the current guy in the Oval Office has revoked funding for data collection and research into what the climate is doing. Kos of Kos wrote another article on a topic I’ve written about a few times.

One of the most enduring conservative myths is that of the self-reliant, salt-of-the-earth, rural-dwelling American who pulls himself up by his bootstraps, wrestles a steer before breakfast, and builds his own house out of patriotism and chewing tobacco because, by god, they sure do love America! If that were ever true, it hasn’t been for a while. These days, rural America is largely dependent on the federal government it claims to hate. In fact, far from self-reliant, rural America is subsidized by blue states. And it’s not even close.

Kos discussed several of the government programs rural areas depend on because so many young people have fled to the cities over the decades. The big ones are, of course, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Government benefits are a good thing, so none of this is inherently bad, per se. But it does mean those rural areas are dependent on the very social safety net that Republicans are gleefully hacking apart with their cuts on Medicaid, food assistance, and the like. They’re also poorer than expensive urban regions, so they rely more on federal food assistance to eat. But hey, that’s what these voters asked for. Rural areas lean heavily Republican, and farming-dependent counties voted for Trump at an eye-popping average of 78%.

George B. Sánchez-Tello, in an article for Capital & Main posted on Kos, reported on ICE and Border Patrol agents at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. The park is in an area where a lot of people from Central and South America live and it has a lively scene. The agents thought the could sweep through the park and easily make their quota for the day. But the park was nearly silent.

The previous day, warnings appeared — single sheets of paper taped to light poles, trees and fences around the park — warning locals to stay away. They cited rumors of possible ICE raids at MacArthur Park. Word also spread on Instagram, as well as other social media apps such as Signal, Telegram and WhatsApp.

The park wasn’t completely empty. Local Spanish-language television crews were ready to film. Photographers from various newspapers were there. Dozens of organizers from anti-ICE rapid response teams and legal observers there there too, some using megaphones to warn people to stay away and to tell people their rights. By the time the agents had completed their sweep across the park they were surrounded by hundreds of people. Some yelled, “ICE out of L.A!” Many recorded the confrontation on their phone, livestreaming straight to social media. The agents retreated without making any arrests. Normal life in the park resumed. Signs had been taped to poles in the park:

Military Members Is this what you signed up for? Will you feel proud about what you’re being ordered to do when you look back on it? If you have concerns about mobilizing against civilians, you’re not alone. You have options. You have rights.

Lisa Needhan of Kos discussed the legal challenge to the nasty guy’s executive order banning birthright citizenship when parents are undocumented. The Supreme Court had ruled that lower courts (I think there were three of them) could not place a nationwide injunction against the EO without a class action suit. The previous injunctions were not based on class action cases. So the ACLU filed a class action case, covering the nation. And Federal District Judge Joseph Laplante quickly certified the case as one for a class of plaintiffs and issued a nationwide injunction. Isn’t that what the Supremes told him to do? Well, certifying a case as covering a nationwide class has rules that must be scrupulously followed. These rules take time. And Laplante couldn’t possibly have followed all the rules so scrupulously in so little time. Of course, it was Justice Alito that wagged that finger.

Getting nationwide relief this way is complicated, but it’s necessary. The plaintiffs are fighting the Trump administration, but lower court judges have also found themselves locked in a battle with a lawless Supreme Court, which essentially decided that lower courts are enemies who must be stopped from thwarting Trump. But the lower courts are the ones that are following the rule of law. Someone’s got to.

Oliver Willis of Kos wrote the nasty guy ranted on Truth Social that his base should not be criticizing AG Pam Bondi about the Jeffrey Epstein case. One reason is, contrary to claims the files don’t exist, the nasty guy claimed they were “written” by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. So his base should not waste their time on Epstein, “somebody that nobody cares about.” That Truth Social post brought out something quite rare – many more negative responses than positive. The base was not pleased. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Heather Digby Parton of Salon:

The appointment of Patel and Bongino — as well as Bondi, who jumped into pursuing the scandal with both feet, promising far-right influencers that she was personally overseeing the investigation — made MAGA true believers believe they were about to get their hands on what Glenn Beck called “the Rosetta Stone of public trust.” These new appointees were the very ones who had been chasing this scandal for years, and they were now in a position to blow the lid off the whole thing. All those who had mocked the MAGA movement as kooks would soon be proven fools. The Justice Department’s memo was a slap in the face to the MAGA faithful. They were stunned. And when Trump rudely dismissed their concerns in a cabinet meeting and then admonished them on Truth Social in a long rant blaming former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, demanding that his followers focus on the scandals he wants them to focus on, the crushing betrayal was personal. Never before has a Trump post received such a massive negative response on his own platform. Even his most loyal influencers, including popular MAGA commentator Benny Johnson and Fox News, were hostile. Trump’s loyal base has taken all that heat for so long, defending Trump through everything, and now it appears their Dear Leader is just another deep state operative covering up the crimes of his accomplices — and possibly his own. They are confused and angry and inconsolable. Have they had a mass epiphany and collectively awakened to the fundamental dishonesty and corruption of the man they worshipped for the past ten years? It’s hard to believe.

bear83 of the Kos community reported the Grand Canyon Lodge on the North Rim was destroyed by wildfire on Sunday. It was built in 1937. Dozens of other structures, including individual cabins, were also destroyed. The fire was started by lightning on July 4. It was initially managed as a controlled burn to clear away what could fuel a larger fire. But nine days later low humidity and strong winds and the fire was no longer under control. bear83 wrote that DOGE and the Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service, terminated a lot of jobs, including people who would have helped prevent and fight wildfires. The nasty guy had said the Los Angeles fires wouldn’t have been so bad if communities would clear the combustible undergrowth. Which the crew at the North Rim were trying to do with perhaps not enough staff to do it safely. The North Rim website has a photo gallery of before. I was at the North Rim as part of a family vacation decades ago. We stayed at the campground near the lodge, though I’m sure we went past it to peer down into the canyon. On the long drive from the main road a large deer jumped onto the road and paused. We had to brake quickly and did not hit it. I’ve been to the South Rim a couple times, much more recently, though still decades ago. The Grand Canyon is a beautiful and impressive place. In Wednesday’s pundit roundup Greg Dworkin of Kos quoted a tweet by Matthew Cappucci, commenting on a tweet by Marjorie Taylor Greene. First Greene:

I am introducing a bill that prohibits the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather, temperature, climate, or sunlight intensity. It will be a felony offense. I have been researching weather.

She’s the one claiming that Democrats can control the weather and she’s referring to jet contrails that Robert Kennedy Jr. is calling chemtrails, the release of chemicals into the atmosphere to do dastardly things. Cappucci’s response:

It’s not a political statement for me as a Harvard-degreed atmospheric scientist to say that elected representative Marjorie Taylor Green doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about. She’d be equally qualified to fly a Boeing-737, practice nuclear medicine or train zebras.

Dworkin quoted Jack Jenkins and Smietana of Religion News Service discussing the recent IRS announcement that churches can endorse political candidates from the pulpit. This is in response to a lawsuit brought by two Texas churches and religious broadcasters.

Americans — including religious Americans — generally take a dim view of political endorsements in the pulpit. According to an analysis of 2023 polling provided to RNS by the Public Religion Research Institute, majorities of all major religious groups oppose or strongly oppose allowing churches and places of worship to endorse political candidates while retaining their tax-exempt status. That includes white evangelicals (62%) as well as Black Protestants (59%), white mainline or nonevangelical Protestants (77%), white Catholics (79%), Hispanic Catholics (78%), Hispanic Protestants (72%) and Jewish Americans (77%). Researchers noted opposition to the idea among white evangelicals remains virtually unchanged since 2017, when they last polled on the topic. There was one outlier, however: People labeled by PRRI as “adherents” to Christian nationalism — people who agree with statements such as “the U.S. government should declare America a Christian nation” — were statistically more likely (45%) to support endorsements from the pulpit, with only a narrow majority (51%) opposed.

Dworkin added that pastors are wary of splitting their congregations so tend to avoid blatant politics. In the comments is a cartoon by Bill Bramhall. It shows a job interview and behind the boss is a sign saying, “Disclosure: The content of this interview will be used to build a chatbot we will hire instead of you.” In Thursday’s roundup Kev quoted John Timmer of Ars Technica:

From a distance, the gathering looked like a standard poster session at an academic conference, with researchers standing next to large displays of the work they were doing. Except in this case, it was taking place in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill, and the researchers were describing work that they weren’t doing. Called "The things we’ll never know," the event was meant to highlight the work of researchers whose grants had been canceled by the Trump administration. ... Many of the grants were focused on STEM education, and it's extremely difficult to imagine that people will be better off without the work happening.

In Friday’s roundup Dworkin included a tweet from Echelon Insights:

Where do most American voters fall on the political compass? Using nine questions on cultural issues and nine questions on economic issues, we mapped voters onto a political compass.

This is the start of a thread on X I don’t have access to. However, here’s the summary of the results:

Liberals, both economic and social: 43% Populist, economically liberal and socially conservative: 22% Conservative, both economic and socially conservative: 31% Libertarian, economically conservative and socially liberal: 5%

Dworkin added:

This is why Democrats on occasion (and warily) try to recruit populists. Conservatives won’t play and libertarians are too few. But the name of the game is a majority.

Aaron Astor tweeted:

Ever wonder why the CDC is based in Atlanta? The reason: its forerunner was the WWII-era Office of Malaria Control, based in Atlanta to fight malaria around rapidly growing US military communities in the South.

In the comments Zoli Osaze posted a cartoon by Lalo Alcaraz showing an ICE agent confronting a farm worker holding a box of produce on his head.

Agent: Keep your hands up! Worker: Don’t worry, they’re busy holding up your economy.

Something tells me you hated seeing the villains lose

Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported Netanyahu, the guy some believe is waging genocide in Gaza, has nominated the nasty guy for the Nobel Peace Prize. The reason for the nomination is the work on the Abraham Accords, to get Arab countries to recognize Israel. Singer included a cartoon by Clay Bennett showing the Prize Selection Committee seeing this nomination and breaking into laughter. Singer noted the nasty guy rants in his speeches about not getting this prize. Then she listed many reasons why he should not get it. The mass deportations and Alligator Alcatraz are only one reason.

Safe to say, Netanyahu’s nomination was pure theater—an effort by the Israeli leader to make Trump happy so that he allows Netanyahu to continue his war against Hamas.

I have a few posts about the big cuts in Medicaid and the requirement that able-bodied people need to work to qualify. Alix Breeden of Kos reported that Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Secretary of Labor was on Fox News to say that American citizens are willing to do all available jobs, including the ones that illegal immigrants currently do. Breeden noted that many of those immigrant jobs “have a long history of low pay and abusive work conditions.”

Forty-two percent of crop farmworkers are foreign born and not authorized to work in the U.S., according to the Department of Agriculture. Undocumented immigrants have been known to live in bug-infested shacks as they work long hours on farms for little pay. This push to put Americans in the fields comes amid the Trump administration’s brutal push to expel undocumented—and even some documented—immigrants from the U.S. And with the administration telling Americans to turn to the fields if they want to keep their Medicaid coverage, it seems as if Trump and his crew are aware of their dire need to fill the labor shortage they’re fomenting.

Ayesha Rascoe of NPR played a clip of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins saying mass deportations will continue as the agricultural workforce moves towards more automation and, an important point, “a 100% American workforce.” Rollins added, “There are 34 million able-bodied adults in our Medicaid program. There are plenty of workers in America.” Rascoe doesn’t say but I suspect that a good number of those able-bodied adults already have jobs that don’t pay a living wage yet are considerably easier than farm work. Manual Cunha Jr., president of the Nisei Farmers League, knows Rollins proposal will not work. It has been tried before. Americans don’t want those jobs. As for ICE raids, they create a labor crisis. The raided farm is not the only one affected. All the area farms are harmed. The entire San Joaquin Valley will be hit hard. Rascoe spoke to Robin Rudowitz, vice president at KFF, a health policy research and news organization. She reported that 60% of Medicaid recipients are already working and many of them who aren’t have an illness, a disability, have caretaking responsibilities, or have a job. In general Rudowitz says keeping track of who is working and who isn’t will not be easy. States are not set up for it. Gig workers have a hard time reporting their work. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the new requirements will save the government money because people will lose coverage. When the work requirements were in effect in Arkansas they did not contribute to an increase in employment. In last Friday’s Cheers and Jeers column for Kos Bill in Portland, Maine quoted late night commentary. Here’s one:

“The problem in our country isn’t the sliver of able-bodied people who are somehow coasting on the medical coverage they may or may not use, but the millions and millions of people in this country who work f*cking hard at full-time jobs and still need food and medical assistance. That’s the system that’s broken." —Jon Stewart, on the Republican "Screw the poor" law

Last Friday Singer reported on the fallout of the Epstein files scandal. FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino strongly disagreed with AG Pam Bondi’s actions and may have quit. FBI Director Kash Patel had harsh things to say about Bondi. All this ire is because last February Bondi said the Epstein client list was “sitting on my desk right now to review,” then saying a week ago no such list exists. She was either lying then or lying now.

But the latest Epstein files debacle is sending MAGA into a tailspin as they try to come to terms with the fact that the Trump administration is telling them that the conspiracy theories they’ve pushed for years are false.

Google searches for Epstein are up 1,200% last week, more than those who searched for tariffs. CNN’s Harry Enten said this is “a massive unforced error” by the administration. I don’t keep track of the MAGA conspiracy theories, so I have an obvious question: Why did the news send MAGA into a tailspin? In Monday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted several people who might answer that question. Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer

Despite the thousands of trees that were chopped down in 2024 to inform voters that the presidential election hinged on egg prices, the reality is that millions of voters were motivated by their belief that a Trump restoration would confirm all their wildest, bitter beliefs about cosmopolitan elite Democrats and their immorality and disdain for “the real America.”

A tweet from Mike Nellis:

Multiple MAGA influencers are openly arguing they can't release the Epstein list because it'll help Democrats win the midterms, which is... quite the admission of what's happening here.

When Epstein was found dead in his prison cell back in 2019 the conspiracy was that the names on his client list were not released because it was full of Democrats. Refusing to release the list and denying it doesn’t exist after all these years implies the list is full of Republicans with the nasty guy as one of the frequent customers. Jeffrey Epstein was in prison because he was accused of sex trafficking, providing sex workers (some underage) to a wide clientele, including Prince Andrew of Britain. Dan Pfeiffer of The Message Box

My initial reaction was pure schadenfreude — an enjoyable distraction from democracy circling the drain. I assumed the Epstein furor would be just another passing summer storm for Trump. Before long, his flunkies would fall back in line because that’s what flunkies do. Trump has survived criminal convictions, impeachments, and countless scandals that would have ended other political careers. Surely, he’d survive this one without much damage. Now, I’m not so sure. The Epstein scandal is unlike any Trump scandal before. It looks like the kind of scandal that has undone second-term presidents. I’m not saying MAGA is dead, but if he can’t quell the furor over the Epstein files, Trump could end up very damaged in ways that affect the midterms, the 2028 presidential election, and the long-term future of the movement.

A tweet from Sarah Longwell:

The “why didn’t the Biden administration release the Epstein files” dodge ignores the fact that Biden and his cabinet didn’t run on releasing the Epstein files. But Trump’s family members and cabinet members (Kash, JD, Bondi, Noem, et al) made it a central campaign promise.

In the comments exlrrp posted a meme showing, I think, Tobey Maguire playing Peter Parker talking to one of Peter’s friends (sheesh, those movies were 20 years ago!) explaining the reach Epstein had.

Peter: The Epstein list needs to be released. Friend: But Peter, it would literally destabilize the world. 2/3rds of Congress & a large portion of the world’s most powerful people would be imprisoned. ...society would at least partially collapse. Peter: I already said I’m for it, you don’t have to sell it to me.

In Saturday’s roundup Dworkin quoted Brian Beutler of *Off Message* discussing the Epstein scandal:

Do many of them take genuine interest in getting an answer to that question: Are Trump’s minions covering it up, or did they just exploit the sexual abuse of children to help get their guy elected? Or do they mostly think the whole issue is sordid and beneath them… To square their objectives, Democrats will have to stop wishing away distractions from their best issues, and start asking whether and how those issues slot into existing online fixations.

To change the subject, from the Washington Post:

For months, President Donald Trump and his homeland security secretary have said the Federal Emergency Management Agency could be eliminated. But as the president visited Texas to view the impact of last week’s deadly floods, administration officials say abolishing the agency outright is not on the agenda. A senior White House official told The Washington Post that no official action is being taken to wind down FEMA, and that changes in the agency will probably amount to a “rebranding” that will emphasize state leaders’ roles in disaster response.

In the comments are most Epstein cartoons (and more flood cartoons, the nasty guy wanting the Nobel Peace Prize cartoons, and nasty guy as Superman cartoons). There is also a cartoon posted by Toonerman that plays on goodbye phrases I used in my childhood that begin, “See you later, alligator.” I’ll let you find the updated response. NotKennyRogers tweeted, “People who have come out in support of Elon Musk’s new American Party:” He then lists several names, including Mike Pence. “That’s pretty much all I need to know about Elon Musk’s new American Party.” I’ve heard reports that Musk wants this party to be centrist, to capture the “80%” annoyed with both parties. But if Pence and these other guys support it, this new party won’t be centrist. Remember Musk didn’t like the Big Brutal Bill because it didn’t cut social programs enough. Alex Samuels of Kos reported the nasty guy was the one who declared the latest Superman movie to be too “woke” and that he should play the part. He even posted a meme with his head on Superman’s body as shown in advertising posters. It went over about as well as the AI images of himself as pope. In the comments of Sunday’s roundup there are more Epstein cartoons and memes, including one posted by exlrrp with words I think said to a reporter:

Nasty guy: Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? Us: Why not, you’re still talking about the 2020 election.

Victoria Fielding posted a cartoon created, I think, by Nick Henderson. It shows a car with a big “Get big government off my back” bumper sticker. The car is being swamped by the flood and a man is holding on while waving to a FEMA rescuer. Max Espinoza of BabylonBros imagines a conversation between MAGA and Superman, who ends it saying, “Something tells me you hated seeing the villains lose!” This was to be posted yesterday evening. But as I working on it Blogger stopped working, so it had to wait.

Media isn't reporting Helene hit Tennessee too

My Sunday movie was Heartstopper season 3, episodes 4-6. I’ll write about the plot, which could be a spoiler. Then I’ll write about my thoughts on what I saw. At the end of episode 3 Charlie admitted he needed help with an eating disorder. So episode 4 is about the start of treatment. But there are delays and his mood gets worse. Charlie does get into a residential program for two months. We see that time first through Nick’s eyes. He’s lonely without his boyfriend, especially at Halloween. Then we see the two months through Charlie’s eyes, working with a therapist, getting a care package from friends, and a visit from family and Nick. In episode 5 Charlie is home in time for Christmas. And it is his first big test. His extended family is there – including the people that are invited out of obligation. And some of them pull out the mental illness stereotypes. After a while Charlie escapes to Nick’s house because Nick doesn’t treat him as mentally ill. Nick is doing a good job incorporating all that his aunt taught him about how to be supportive. In episode 6 it is now spring. Charlie’s therapy is progressing well and his relationship with Nick deepens. Part of that is Charlie has more mental space to devote to his love. Ellie is doing well in art school and her art is getting noticed. She is offered a radio interview. The host wants to draw her into the controversies of being trans. Then the story shifts to Charlie’s 16th birthday party. Now my thoughts: This circle of friends is quite supportive in all the right ways. When I was a teen I didn’t know how to be supportive like that. Perhaps the author used the stories as a guide to teens in how to be supportive. Through the first two seasons most of the emotions were pretty happy. The actors had it rather easy. In season three we see much more difficult situations. And I can see the actors are quite good. The characters are supposed to be 15 and 16 but act more like they’re older than 18, and I’m sure the actors are well into their 20s. There is way too much alcohol for kids who are 16 (probably too much for kids who are 18). And it wasn’t just Charlie’s birthday party – there was too much alcohol at the Halloween party, which Nick attended alone, and at the New Year’s Eve party when Charlie was 15. For characters and intended audience this young I wish the book author and show writers had come up with a different way for them to party. Observers have noticed that over the last few months people have been leaving the nasty guy’s rallies before they were over. Kos of Daily Kos reported his campaign has found a way to make them stay. And, of course, it didn’t turn out well. The nasty guy held a rally in the desert in Coachella, California. This is the town of the famous music festival that draws a quarter million fans. But the nasty guy didn’t use that venue. He held it at a private ranch. A question I won’t bother answering: With California absolutely going for Harris why is the nasty guy wasting campaign time there? But onward. For this rally attendees parked in three designated locations and shuttled to the venue by bus. Some started showing up at 6am. The rally ended at 7pm, meaning the crowd, limited to 15K, had spent the day in the hot sun. Well after 10pm thousands of people were still waiting for buses to take them back to their cars. At the venue there is no longer food or water or restroom facilities. A walk to the parking lot would take two hours and many elderly can’t walk that far. Some said the busses ran out of fuel. Even if they did Kos showed several gas stations just a couple miles from the site. Kos said the crowd response got weird. Some posting about the situation blamed the mayor, who had nothing to do with the event. Others posted and felt they had to delete the posts because they were “causing drama” – they were making the nasty guy look bad and devotees objected. Kos wrote:

Having stranded thousands in the hot desert, Trump and his campaign can’t even be bothered to issue an apology to their own people. They were used, abused, and tossed aside.

But they didn’t leave the rally early. Oliver Willis of Kos reported:

On Saturday, federal agencies were forced to move employees assisting with hurricane recovery efforts in North Carolina following reports of a militia threat against the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The incident follows days of Donald Trump and his allies in conservative media promoting lies about Hurricane Helene and the federal response. ... “FEMA has advised all federal responders Rutherford County, NC, to stand down and evacuate the county immediately,” the Post quoted from the email, adding that recipients were advised that the National Guard “had come across x2 trucks of armed militia saying there were out hunting FEMA” and that the agency was “coordinating the evacuation of all assigned personnel in that county.”

Willis also reported Jake Tapper, host of The Lead on CNN, did a segment on the definition of fascism and that the nasty guy fit that description. Tapper quoted Merriam-Webster:

a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition

Tapper’s evidence included: + Declaring there is “the enemy from within” and that he said he would consider using the US military or National Guard to go after opponents. + Gen. Mark Milley, who had been chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the nasty guy, was quoted in Bob Woodward’s interview of saying the nasty guy was “fascist to the core.” + The Capitol attack. + His verbal attacks on FEMA leading to threats of physical attacks. In the comments of a pundit roundup is a meme posted by Ridin’ With Kamala: “All I want for Christmas is to never hear his voice again.” In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted David Faris of Slate, who would like to get rid of the Electoral College. The EC is bad in more than distorting democracy, but also the distribution of federal aid and even distorting news.

While it appears the Biden administration is treating the impact of this season’s hurricanes as it should, the media’s focus on the almost unfathomable catastrophe in the western mountains of swing state North Carolina is a stark contrast to the near-total absence of attention to what’s going on just over the state line in deep-red Tennessee—complete with the obligatory analyses of how the hurricane’s aftermath might impact the outcome in the Tar Heel State. As for the electoral impact of Helene in Tennessee, no one is asking and no one cares. That kind of coverage disparity is an almost inevitable consequence of swing-state mania, and we shouldn’t be surprised when it seeps into policy decisions.

Down in the comments are several cartoons noting Columbus Day. In the comments of another pundit roundup are several cartoons making the repurposing of Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples Day. Mark Fiore posted one of his cartoons from two years ago. It shows a girl writing a poem for class:

In 1492 Columbus Sailed the ocean blue. He tortured & killed the people he found, Brought slavery & genocide all the world around. An inept explorer who left thousands dead, it’s why we celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day instead.

A meme posted by Hugh Jim Bissell shows a native chief saying, “Let me get this straight. You’re afraid of refugees coming to America, killing you, and taking your property?” Bissel also posted a meme showing the Capitol attack and saying, “Catching people sneaking across the border won’t make us safer when these people are already here.” Sharon Lerner and Andy Kroll, in an article for ProPublica posted on Kos, reported:

Three investigators for the Heritage Foundation have deluged federal agencies with thousands of Freedom of Information Act requests over the past year, requesting a wide range of information on government employees, including communications that could be seen as a political liability by conservatives. Among the documents they’ve sought are lists of agency personnel and messages sent by individual government workers that mention, among other things, “climate equity,” “voting” or “SOGIE,” an acronym for sexual orientation, gender identity and expression. The Heritage team filed these requests even as the think tank’s Project 2025 was promoting a controversial plan to remove job protections for tens of thousands of career civil servants so they could be identified and fired if Donald Trump wins the presidential election.

There may be as many as 50,000 requests submitted over the past two years. They are asking for calendar dumps, team messages that include the designated phrases, and communications with civil rights and voting rights groups. The requests, which sometimes “come in at a rate of one a second,” do indeed interfere with the ability to do the regular job. Gumming up government functions may be a secondary goal. The primary goal is to identify the government employees that should be purged if the nasty guy gets back in the Oval Office and begins to implement Project 2025, giving him space to install loyalists throughout the government. Michael Harriot, in a thread now in Threadreader, wrote about the importance of black barbershops. They’re a combination of church, political headquarters, secret hideout, and gathering spot. They are one of “the most important, most revolutionary institutions in Black history.” Their history is as old as America. When a slave was about to be sold they needed cleaning up. A white barber wouldn’t do it, so they hired a black “barber boy.” They could earn enough to buy their freedom and open their own business. The barbershop was one of the few places where black people could talk freely without white people around. Black barbers were held in high esteem, which meant they could fund and be a part of the Underground Railroad. Having a barber in the effort meant a slave’s appearance could be altered before they were passed along the route. Black barbers also taught black people how to read. They could also become quite rich and important to a community. In the early 1880s Philadelphia was at the center of the Abolition movement. Black people built schools and the first HBCUs. The AME church was founded there. There was also an abolitionist newspaper. When a delegate was chosen fot the first National Negro Convention they didn’t send a leader of any of those institutions, they sent a black barber, Joseph Cassey, who was also the second richest man in the city. He had funded some of those institutions. Also during that time a black man was the barber to the president (which one is not named). He is reported to have influence over his customer. A network of barbers organized a National Slave Revolt. By 1860 they had 42,000 people trained and ready. The revolt didn’t happen because the Civil War happened instead. Barbers were instrumental during the Civil Rights era. If you are trying to influence the black community or want to get elected you need to visit a black barbershop.

He had Vladimir Putin on speed dial

My Sunday movie was Heartstopper, season 3, episodes 1-3. I’ll be viewing the rest of the eight episodes over the next couple weeks. I’ve seen seasons 1 and 2. So if you haven’t there will be spoilers here. The story is about a circle of high school friends in England. Before this season Charlie and Nick have become boyfriends, Tara and Darcy are girlfriends, and Tao and transgender Ellie are dating. Their friend circle includes a few other people, including Isaac, who has come to realize he is asexual and aromantic. As others in the group form pairs he feels left out. Also in the previous season two of the male teachers began to feel an attraction and start dating. One of them is the art teacher that provided a refuge for Charlie back at the start of season 1. They must be careful to not show affection while at school. And here are spoilers about this season. Tao is feeling insecure because Ellie is switching to an art school and he’s afraid she’ll leave him. Darcy has moved out of her mother’s home because Mom refuses to allow her to be a lesbian. Darcy discovers Grandma is quite accepting. The major theme of this season was introduced at the end of season 2. Charlie has an eating disorder and in general his mental health is poor. So a good part of these three episodes are getting Charlie to see he has a problem and to ask for help. This season starts with summer break. As part of it Nick spends three weeks with his aunt and uncle in Mallorca. It is during this time away from Charlie that Charlie’s sister begins to suspect the problem and texts Nick, a problem Nick has already noticed. Nick has an important discussion with his aunt, a psychiatrist. She tells Nick he can’t fix Charlie, as much as he might want to and think he is supposed to. Several people will be needed to help Charlie. The aunt has specific guidance for Nick on how to support his lover in a way that helps Charlie get the help he needs. I’ve been watching the weather map showing what Hurricane Milton is doing. For much of the day, well before Milton came ashore (meaning Milton’s eye came ashore) rain, some of it severe, has covered most of the state. Tallahassee and Miami have stayed dry and that’s about it. As I’m getting ready to post this Milton’s eye has come ashore between Tampa and Cape Coral and the most intense rain is between St. Pete and Orlando. Since Milton is just two weeks after Helene (and the names suggest that between them there were three storms strong enough to get names) there is still a lot of discussion of Helene and the great deal of disinformation from the nasty guy and other Republicans. Brynn Tannehill wrote in ThreadReader:

I suspect many of the blue-check comments dumping on the National Guard are either Russian disinformation, or getting their information from their outlets.

She then wrote about all the difficult and heroic things the North Carolina National Guard has been doing for Helene recovery while working with old equipment because they don’t have enough money. An Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos discusses what Federal Emergency Management Agency does, and doesn’t. FEMA has a disaster relief fund, replenished by Congress every year. This year the fund is getting low and Congress, due to budgetary theatrics, has not yet acted to fill it again. Most of the money goes to immediate relief. The rest goes for rebuilding from past disasters and helping communities protect from future calamities. When the fund gets low rebuilding and the protection work gets put on hold. But the nasty guy’s claim the fund is being used elsewhere is false. FEMA coordinates disaster response, though it is not the boss. It sends money to state and local governments to pay for their work to help people and to start cleanup. It also gives money to individuals for emergency needs, such as paying for a trailer when a home is lost. While FEMA will help an individual get through the crisis they will not make the person whole. For that, rely on insurance. If there is no insurance FEMA can give up to $42.5K, which is not enough to rebuild a house. I mentioned that the nasty guy is complaining about how bad Biden is handling the crises. Walter Einenkel of Kos reminds us how bad the nasty guy was at handling disasters, which means his criticism of Biden is projection. Here is Einenkel’s list: + He was slow in staffing FEMA and NOAA, the parent agency of the National Weather Service. + He initially refused to send wildfire aid to California because it is a blue state. + He obstructed aid to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. + He tried to use flooding in Michigan to stop absentee voting. + And COVID. On Monday Morgan Stephens of Kos posted:

It’s textbook hypocrisy: House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Sunday that he won’t commit to reconvening his chamber to pass additional disaster-relief funding, yet he criticizes the federal government’s response as lacking.

Now that I’m on the topic of the nasty guy and Republicans... Stephens reported the Oklahoma State Board of Education has put out a request for bid to supply the Board and schools across the state with Bibles. The bid asks for 55,000 of them. But they can’t be just any Bible. It must be the King James Version, have both the Old and New Testaments, and must include copies of the Pledge of Allegiance, Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Since those US documents normally don’t appear in a religious book one might be getting a bit suspicious. And with good reason. The only edition of the Bible that fits all those requirements is the one endorsed by the nasty guy and of which he gets a cut. The whole purchase is $3.3 million. I don’t know how much that cut is. The Attorney General says the bid might violate state law. Not because putting Bibles in public school classrooms is a violation of the separation of Church and State. But because the specs of the bid unnecessarily exclude most bidders. Besides, paperback versions of the KJV can be had for $2.99, not $60. Lisa Needham of Kos adds that this is part of a larger push by conservatives to cause the collapse of public education.

First, conservatives very much want that public education money to go to their favorite private interests, such as lining the pockets of Trump. Next, they also very much want to force a very narrow version of Christianity on everyone, a move that just so happens to require public school money to go to private religious schools.

Needham concluded with what’s going on in Arizona, an effort praised by the guy who was the author of the education section of Project 2025. Arizona gave tax credits to donors of School Tuition Organizations that give scholarships to private schools. That cost the state $700 million. That starved public schools of funding and blew a hole in the state budget. In a post at the end of September Needham discussed some of the nasty guy grifts. Truth Social going public and losing money and value. Trump Hotel in Washington DC to which Republicans flocked – until it was sold. And membership at Mar-a-Lago at $1 million. And now he’s getting into the crypto market. That’s perfect for him because it is unregulated. In contrast to some of his other scams – Trump steaks, for example – this one is geared to a particular group of people, the crypto bros who are looking for as little regulation as possible. It would also line his pockets with unregulated crypto cash while in the White House.

Ordinary people can see the obvious problems here. Trump shouldn’t have private business interests while in the White House, period, but all of that went out the window in his first administration. Trump certainly shouldn’t have a private business in a regulated industry like securities when he would have the power to weaken regulations over his own business. But Trump fans love giving Trump’s businesses money and increasing his personal bottom line. They understand very well that Trump looks favorably at their efforts to funnel him cash. If he wins in November and his nonsense crypto project stays afloat until he takes office in 2025, conservatives—and hucksters and grifters—will have a very easy way to buy off the president with no fear of oversight.

At the start of October Stephens wrote about the various trinkets the nasty guy family is selling to the faithful. There are several of them. Even Melania is getting in on it through selling necklaces and a new memoir. The details come from financial disclosures mandated by the Office of Government Ethics and filed in August. Most of his money (not as much as he says he has) comes from this golf clubs and resorts, including foreign business ventures.

As a businessman who has filed for bankruptcy six times, Trump found a way to use his political brand to make money off the backs of his MAGA faithful. And what good is a brand for if you don’t use it to make a sale?

In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet from Jonathan Martin that quoted a tweet from Acyn with a video of the nasty guy at a rally claiming Biden and Harris stole FEMA money to give to illegal immigrants so they could vote.

One of two political parties fine w a nominee telling flat lies, demagoguing immigrants in the worst tradition of American politics and hustling every possible buck he can. Total acquiescence from most every elected Republican.

In the comments is a cartoon by Ann Telnaes with the nasty guy saying these things and a few more:

So what if I use the office of the presidency to enrich myself and my family? So what if I break my oath of office? So what if I incite my followers to attack the U.S. Capitol? So what if I undermine democracy?

A tweet by An Ignorant Troll asks “How did a nation of idiots get to be the world leader?” It shows a guy up to his thighs in water during a rainstorm with a tornado coming. He says, “I’ll believe in climate change when I see it.” That is followed by a tweet by the New York Times Pitchbot which goes for the sarcasm. This one is based on a recent claim by Marjorie Taylor Greene that Helene happened because Democrats can control the weather. The Pitchbot has:

There is no way that something like climate change can be caused by humans. But it's clear that the government can control the weather.

In a second pundit roundup Dworkin quoted David Rothkopf of the Daily Beast.

So, let me get this straight, according to Bob Woodward’s new book War, Donald Trump was sitting in Mar-a-Lago on a trove of stolen U.S. national secrets and while there, had Vladimir Putin on speed dial for regular private chats? After he tried to overthrow our government? And Putin is helping his campaign now by flooding our electorate with toxic disinformation? And there are people who would actually vote for this guy?

And Dworkin quoted JV Last of The Bulwark talking about the unchanging poll numbers.

But what I want you to focus on is the extent to which this race has been locked in place for a month and a half. Because as good a campaign as Harris has run—and I think she’s run an excellent campaign—she’s only gained 3 total points since she entered the race in late July. She went from 46 percent to 49 percent. Which leads us to the second story: During the same period, all of the other numbers for Harris specifically and Democrats generally have been fantastic. ... But what I want to hammer home is that something is going on in the numbers and it is hard to understand how both trends—Dems and Harris showing across the board gains with Harris-Trump stuck at near parity—can be right.

Down in the comments, and after a few cartoons about hurricanes and their cause, are a couple memes posted by exlrrp. The first says, “You know, removing the words ‘climate change’ from Florida textbooks doesn’t seem to be working.” The second one is by M. Padellan and says, “100% proof that Democrats do not control the weather: Mar-a-Lago is still standing!”