Nasty, rude, divisive, and as always, full of lies

Brother comes for a visit tomorrow. I probably won’t post again until the middle of next week. The nasty guy gave his State of the Union speech Tuesday night. Of course, I didn’t watch or listen. He set the record for the longest of such speeches, another reason not to listen. Daily Kos has several articles about the speech. Go find them there or at your favorite news source if you really need more information. I’ll stick to just three articles. The first is by Kos of Kos. His major point is Republicans really need to have something to run on for the November midterm election. And the nasty guy very much did not give them that. Kos took a few paragraphs to highlight why the nasty guy’s approval rating is so low – voters definitely do not agree that now is “the golden age of America,” the phrase the nasty guy used to open his marathon speech.

But Trump didn’t just fail to connect with voters’ economic anxiety. He was nasty, rude, divisive, and as always, full of lies. At a time when the nation is still basking in the warm sportsmanship of American athletes at the Olympic Games in Italy, Trump lashed out at his perceived enemies, taking repeated and nasty shots at the Democrats, blue states and cities, and various ethnic groups. ... If anything, Trump’s overall message was, “The country has never been better, but WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!”

In the second article Lisa Needham of Kos noted the nasty guy did not mention Minneapolis and his “success” in removing the “worst of the worst.” Could it be because the effort was so massively unpopular? He did mention Minnesota, as in accusing massive fraud by Somali-Americans in child care subsidies for low income families. Of course, he used numbers ridiculously high. I heard about this in the morning news with NPR host A Martínez talking to reporter Matt Sepic. It again left me puzzled. When Republicans accuse federal programs of fraud they move to stop the funding, not to offer help in combating the fraud. In this case Gov. Tim Walz says they are already working to minimize the fraud. But they are having difficulty because most of the experts in combating fraud in the FBI have left in protest over the nasty guy’s actions after the killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. In the last article I’ll bother with, Oliver Willis of Kos discussed the sanewashing perpetrated by mainstream media. They excused his behavior by saying he “put on a show” and had a “showman’s theatricality.” His blatant lies were described as a “reframe.” The low approval rating showed voters were merely “dissatisfied.” Republicans were said to be “breathing a sigh of relief” – well, they did praise the speech. Willis described the speech, saying, “When he wasn’t lying he was being racist.”

Since 2015, the mainstream press has worked overtime to present an image of Trump that doesn’t match up with reality. They simply omit his worst offenses or summarize his statements and actions without providing context to their audiences. When he makes disastrous mistakes, they are morphed into mere “blunders” and at moments like the State of the Union this drive to clean up after Trump goes into overdrive. Fortunately, this strategy isn’t really working among the public at large.

Needham looked at the Supreme Court decision that overturned some of the nasty guy’s tariffs. The whole thing was 170 pages, though the actual ruling was rather short, no more than 44 pages. It was the side commentary and dissents that added to the page count. Needham described those extra pages. Kavanaugh took 62 pages to show how smart he is, to flatter the nasty guy, and to offer a guide on how to keep tariffs going after the rest of the justices called them unconstitutional. Gorsuch, though in the majority, wrote a concurrence that “is pure whine and snarl, lashing out at everyone for not being as amazing and smart as he is. For 46 pages.” Part of it was complaining that Congress needs to “get off their butts” as Needham paraphrased it. Odd, coming from a guy who has been giving the nasty guy all he wants so that Congress isn’t necessary. Thomas, in a brief 18 pages, explained how the nasty guy could institute tariffs without Congress. That was some mangling of definitions so Congress could give away its power. “That’s horrifying, ahistorical, and too weird even for Alito.” Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that we know the FBI and Justice Department haven’t released all the Epstein files. We know that through reporting by NPR and confirmed by MS Now. We know it because one witness, who accused the nasty guy of sexual assault when she was 15 or younger, was reportedly interviewed by the FBI four times in 2019. However, only one of those interviews appears in the files that have been released. No surprise that the one that was released doesn’t mention the nasty guy. Einenkel provided a link to the NPR story, which is here. The audio is 3 minutes (I didn’t listen), though the associated article appears to be much longer. From the article:

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have already been investigating this allegation against the president and will now open a parallel investigation into the DOJ's decision not to release these particular documents. ... In a Feb. 14 letter to members of Congress first reported by Politico, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche insist that no records were withheld or redacted "on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary."

Kos of Kos discussed the latest from the Make America Healthy Again movement headed by Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy, Jr. They want support from the full Republican Party and to do that MAHA Action president Tony Lyons is trying to find the right message to turn “a toxic brew of wellness culture and institutional distrust” into an actual winnable coalition. So far they seem to relying on polls built on...

That’s “message testing.” You write a paragraph that makes your side sound like common sense and the opponent sound reckless, strip away party labels and governing records, and then treat the results like a revelation. ... If MAHA was truly a transformative political force, Republicans wouldn’t need to tiptoe around its core message—they’d be running on it. Instead, the memo urges nuance and careful phrasing, because they know the raw version doesn’t sell. Ultimately, the things MAHA claims to champion—safer drugs, healthier food, fewer environmental toxins—aren’t partisan tenets. This is generic stuff everyone cares about. The real divide shows up when it comes to science, regulation, and who actually confronts industry power in the real world.

In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Jennifer Weiss-Wolff of The Contrarian. The quote is long so here’s my summary: When pregnant children are apprehended by immigration enforcement they are being sent to a facility in San Benito, Texas. Pregnant children were likely raped and likely have sexually transmitted diseases that make pregnancy dangerous. At San Benito they are less likely to get the care they need. Why San Benito? According to the Project 2025 playbook it is because Texas has banned abortion. Here’s another summary of a quote by Timothy Snyder writing in his “Thinking About…” Substack. “Fascism demands a chosen enemy, and victims.” But, the current attack on immigrants has produced stasis, not the jump from “competitive authoritarianism” to outright fascism. It has also produced sustained protest. So the nasty guy needs more:

To complete the fascist transition, Trump has to give the country a war it does not want, and win it, and transform the society. He has brought us to the doorstep of a major war with Iran: but in the State of the Union, speaking about war preparations, he was looking around hopelessly and waving his hands. He is happy to talk about war with Iran, and hope somehow that others will deliver it. But he cannot do it himself. Americans do not want such a war. But that is not exactly Trump’s problem. Germans did not want a war with Poland in 1939, either. But Hitler fought one anyway, and won it quickly. Trump’s problem is that he does not know how to fight a war. And he flounders.

Snyder says the nasty guy must win that war. Snyder also says he doesn’t know how to fight one. That suggests if he does start one he’s likely to lose. I guess that’s a blessing? In the comments kurious linked to two news articles about the corruption in the nasty guy administration. One is from Bloomberg, the other from Daily News. Then he has a quote box, though doesn’t say which article he is quoting. Perhaps both. The box does list the corruption and crimes and some of them have links to sources. Murdered Renee Good and Alex Pretti, slandered them, and allowed their killers to go free. Violated the rights of citizens and non-citizens. Killed dozens on the high seas. Released the hundreds of Jan. 6 felons. Threatened to seize Greenland, a NATO ally. Called for the execution of members of Congress for telling military personnel of their duty to disobey illegal orders. Repeatedly violated court orders. Shaken down large universities.

Viewing the Trump administration as a massive crime syndicate allows us to be clear-eyed about what is coming down the road, and to plan accordingly. To take the most urgent example, there ought to be no question as to whether Trump will try to steal the midterm elections. Of course he will try to steal them. Criminals gonna crime. It is every patriotic American’s duty to oppose the coming effort to nullify the will of the voters.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, listed the winners of the Minnesota Department of Transportation contest to name its snowplows. Some of this year’s winning names:

Oh, for Sleet’s Sake Flurrious George K Pop Blizzard Hunter. O Brother, Where Art Plow? Minne-Snow-ta

The very banality of evil is its greatest weapon

In an article posted last Tuesday Oliver Willis of Daily Kos gathered together several mainstream news headlines that say the nasty guy has softened his tone in Minneapolis. Willis says to not trust that. The supposed shift in tone came after the murder of Alex Pretti when the nasty guy had a congenial talk with Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota, then pulled out Greg Bovino, the guy running ICE there, replacing him with Tom Homan, the “border czar.” I wrote about all this last Wednesday (before I read Willis’ article), saying the ongoing and huge protests in Minnesota worked. Perhaps I bought into the softened tone as well. Willis wrote:

But the administration’s pullback doesn’t change the main thrust of Trump’s policies and actions: pursuing a mass deportation campaign targeting people because of their race and ethnicity. The mainstream coverage is ignoring or minimizing this reality, even though it is the driving force behind everything that has occurred. ... Characterizing the administration’s spin as a legitimate softening of tone ignores the current situation and Trump’s track record.

Tom Hartmann of the Kos community and an independent pundit also says this is not the dawn of a new era.

Fascist governments don’t rise in one giant arc, nor do they collapse that way. It’s more of what electrical engineers and ham radio operators would call a “sawtooth pattern.” Climb an inch up toward fascism, get pushback from the public so you back down a half-inch until things quiet down, then move up another inch in another step toward the ultimate goal of total tyranny. Learn from your own mistakes, while getting the public used to each step, so Trump and his lickspittles can move onto the next falling domino in the process of ending democracy and replacing it with strongman oligarchic autocracy.

ICE agents still assume complete immunity. They still kick in doors without a legal warrant. They still can kill us without answering for it. And they know it. “We are still on the path to dictatorship.” The steps from democracy to fascism start with steps that people see as reasonable to handle a real problem. It may seem a bit weird, but makes sense. Then the mask drops and we see the true intent. By then the recognition is usually too late. A tyrant learns how far he can go before hitting resistance that can’t be bludgeoned through. Then they work out what messages to get the people to accept the changes.

Fascism doesn’t arrive with jackboots; it arrives with media and voter fatigue. As the political theorist Hannah Arendt warned, the very “banality” and “ordinariness” of such evil is its greatest weapon.

They push. We get used to it. They push some more. We begin to see resistance is pointless. They tell us the situation is so complicated we couldn’t understand, or it is bound by national security (heard that one lately?) and we should defer to their expertise. We assume the good guys will eventually win. If we didn’t resist at Step A, Step C isn’t all that much worse, so why resist Step C? Soon our principles are compromised. We still get a paycheck, socialize with friends. The world around us, the houses, stores, restaurants, cinema, and holidays still look the same. But the look is deceiving because the world is now full of hate and fear, which is so universal it is not recognized or is seen as normal. Stephen Miller mused that habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion. That is to lock up immigrants and protesters without a trial. There was little reaction in the news media. If, a decade ago, Obama said that there would be swift hearings and maybe impeachment. Miller’s comments have become normalized. Democrats have shut down part of the government by demanding guardrails be put up around ICE. They may get their demands. But ICE is now so corrupt and has such a toxic culture those guardrails will have little effect. This ICE needs to be shut down and replaced, along with ICE leadership, and Homeland Security leadership. Why aren’t Democrats talking about the leadership?

The antidote to normalization is outrage and resistance. Not just in voting booths, but in the streets, in courtrooms, in classrooms, in boardrooms, in pulpits, and at dinner tables. ... History won’t forgive us for sleepwalking into tyranny. And our children won’t either. ... If we still believe in this republic, in its ideals, and in the sacred value of a free and fair society, then our answer to Trump’s authoritarianism must be more than words. It must be peaceful action.

I had mentioned this idea before, though Kos of Kos says it well. The change in Minneapolis (what little there is) was because of an increase in protests. The protests didn’t surge because of the kidnapping of five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, the boy in the hat with bunny ears. He’s brown. It didn’t happen when Renee Good was murdered. She’s a lesbian. It happened when Alex Pretti was murdered.

He was white. He was male. He owned a gun. He worked as an ICU nurse helping veterans. He fit comfortably inside the cultural boundaries conservatives instinctively protect. That made him difficult to erase.

He died doing something humane – protesting injustice. Pretti broke the script. He made denial harder. He exposed the lie that propaganda said “this violence was targeted, controlled, and righteous.”

His death made clear that the machinery of state brutality was not staying neatly confined to its intended victims, and that compliance offered no protection from a system built on brutality and subjugation rather than law. ... His loss is immeasurable. It is also the moment that cracked the narrative armor protecting Trump’s immigration campaign, forcing a public reckoning that a year of evidence alone had failed to trigger.

In Friday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted David French of the New York Times, discussing voter reaction to ICE tactics in Minneapolis:

Voters don’t like the sight of masked officers dragging people out of homes and stores and cars. They don’t like the hype videos on social media in which ICE and the Border Patrol cosplay as low-rent versions of SEAL Team 6. They don’t like it when the administration lies and slanders the very people that it hurts and kills, and they get especially angry when cellphone video immediately debunks the administration’s spin. And to the extent that they pay attention to court proceedings, they definitely don’t like it when the administration is caught lying and defies court orders. … At each and every step along the way, the administration is squandering whatever good will it had and increasing the chances of a blue wave in the midterms. The problem, however, is that the administration is playing a different game. It’s not trying to win hearts and minds, but rather impose its will.

Dan Pfeiffer tweeted:

Here's what people don't like about ICE: - The agents are heavily armed, masked, and poorly trained. - They think the agents are unaccountable and see themselves as above the law. - That their actions are unconstitutional. - That ICE is targeting the wrong people.

George F Will of the Washington Post:

Governments around the world are using myriad technologies, some of them sinister, to surveil their populations. U.S. governments — national, state local — are not impervious to the temptation to overdo this. But today, a salutary effect of the ubiquity of smartphones is the surveillance of the government by citizens. Including those exercising their constitutional right to petition government for redress of grievances, and people watching other people do this.

In today’s roundup Dworkin quoted Politico:

“The big muscular show of force — you invite too much confrontation,” said a second person close to the White House, also granted anonymity to speak candidly. “Let’s try to be quieter about it but deport just as many people. Be a little sneakier. Don’t have the flexing and the machismo part of it. There’s a certain element of that that’s cool but as much as we can, why can’t we be stealthy and pop up all over Minnesota?” “We were almost provoking the reaction,” the person added. “I’m all for the smartest tactics as long as the end result is as many deportations as possible.” But the person warned that any perception of backtracking could depress a base already uneasy about the economy. “Our base is generally not wealthy and they’re not doing well,” the person said. “They’re struggling. If you take away immigration — if they don’t believe he means it — holy cow, that’s not good.”

Adam Klasfeld tweeted about how badly the nasty guy’s attempt of accusing his enemies of crime are going.

Let's speak plainly. In legitimate criminal cases, political appointees don't have to first hollow out U.S. Attorney offices of objecting career prosecutors with integrity; federal judges don't kill the cases at the cradle, and the government doesn't fight tooth and nail to revive them. This happened THREE times with Trump's DOJ to date. NONE of the criminal cases against Trump featured those antics.

The neurotic need for endless conflict, incompatible with joy

I’ve been thinking about the power of the social hierarchy for several years now and frequently apply my thoughts to current events. One of the questions that came to mind was whether those towards the top of the hierarchy were happy. They seemed to obsess over their position in the hierarchy. So what did it bring them? The American Declaration of Independence famously says we people have the right to the “pursuit of happiness.” It doesn’t list any other emotion. So are they happy? What online research I could find (and could understand) didn’t say much about this question. The Gaslit Nation bonus episode for last week posed the question, “Do fascists feel joy?” Yes, I was intrigued. It’s close enough to my original question and now I have the time to explore it. Because it is a bonus episode it is available only to members (which I am). So my link may not work for you. Also, bonus episodes do not get a transcript. I listened to the audio, pausing frequently to write down ideas. A lot of what follows is a summary of what was said. Only once did I check to make sure the quote was accurate. Beyond a prelude the speaker was Andrea Chalupa, host of Gaslit Nation. From that prelude: How did Communists maintain their power? It wasn’t because people believed their lies, but because too many people were willing to let the lies persist. They wanted to go along to get along, to not threaten the system so it would not threaten them. The example was shopkeepers posting signs that agreed with the lies of the regime. But one one person can break the fantasy. A shopkeeper could stop putting up the sign. On to the main discussion. Do fascists feel joy? That they don’t seems obvious. They don’t have empathy. They are cruel and they push out those not extreme enough, not cruel enough. Trump’s rallies shows people who are laughing and appearing to have a good time. But is it joy? George Orwell wrote a review of Hitler’s Mein Kampf in 1940. He noted that socialism and capitalism offer people a good time. Fascism offers struggle, danger, and death. “The fascist psychological profile is driven by a neurotic need for endless conflict, which is incompatible with the contentment or life affirming nature that we all know as joy.” Note the “endless conflict” – the nasty guy invaded Venezuela, then seemed to drop that to push an invasion of Greenland. That is like ICE using tear gas in Minneapolis after Renee Good was murdered, to maintain the level of conflict. This episode was recorded before Alex Pretti was murdered. So fascism offers a “better” time than what capitalism offers. That better time is being hyper vigilant of enemies within and without, which is endless conflict. Yeah, that doesn’t seem like a better offer. Stick with me a moment. Why do people want endless conflict? That’s how they were raised. They had a domineering father. Hitler then praised those types of fathers. A proto-Nazi movement declared that dominance is the only way to deal with a chaotic world. In this case “chaos” included feminism and LGBTQ rights. In the 1920s and 1930s Germany was the leading center of research into psychology and philosophy. So when Hitler came along these researchers began to study him and his movement. Fascism is a way for the masses to express themselves without giving them any power. The elements of their rallies are designed to create a state of mass intoxication. A researcher saw that the self-alienation was so complete people could feel their own destruction as a form of pleasure. The cruelty is a dopamine hit derived from inflicting pain on someone else. It is glee that comes from the violence of domination. What they were feeling wasn’t and isn’t joy. It was the thrill of dominance, the high of the mob. Fascism is a death cult, and requires an enemy. In contrast, joy is life affirming. That cruelty is funded by corporations that want the destruction of the labor movement, of liberals, and of feminists all wanting to challenge the patriarchy corporations want to maintain. Why discuss their lack of joy? Because it exposes their weakness. The fascist high is not sustainable. It is fast and hot. It needs continuing escalation. It needs new enemies to destroy to maintain the level of stimulation. It is exhausting. But it is also never enough. So the Democrat’s plan to wait it out won’t work. Such a movement is already dead inside. Their laughter is empty. They are brittle. Their movement will eventually collapse. True joy, the kind that sustains resistance, is a renewable energy. That comes from love and community. We must keep going and do so in joy until the fascists collapse. So find and keep joy in your life. It is the best revenge. All that was the first 19 minutes of the recording. The remaining 15 minutes was a discussion of self care with Vatican reporter Colleen Dulle. She wrote the book, “Struck Down, Not Destroyed: Keeping the Faith as a Vatican Reporter.” One thing Dulle reported on was MAGA attempting a siege of the Vatican. It seems the Vatican can’t reform fast enough to withstand the effort. And one needed reform is to let women be priests to fill the desperate need for priests. The self care discussion was about how Dulle cares for herself. I’ve seen Chalupa’s standard list of questions for these things and quickly saw one person’s self care may not apply to another. So I didn’t finish the recording. A thought from me. People who followed Hitler wanted more of what they knew from growing up. The same seems true for many of the people who adore the nasty guy. That means how we raise our children needs an overhaul with a greater emphasis on love and community while limiting dominance. And in the meantime a lot of people need a great deal of therapy and our country isn’t set up to give it. Our culture considers children raised to be highly patriarchal to be raised properly.

All that Minnesota protesting worked

I had a wonderful afternoon watching the opera The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay shown in a movie theater. The opera is based on a book of the same name by Michael Chabon, published in 2000. I read the book shortly after it came out (so at least 20 years ago) and enjoyed it. So when I heard there was an opera based on the book I very much wanted to see it. I had originally heard it would be on the radio in early January, a broadcast of a performance at the Metropolitan Opera last October. But in late December I heard I would be able to see it on screen in movie theaters, today being one of the days. Alas, the closer theater showing it sold out, so I had to go almost to Ann Arbor (in a theater definitely not sold out). The story is about Joe Kavalier, who is Jewish and at the start of the opera is escaping from Prague of 1939. He leaves behind parents and a sister. He gets to Brooklyn, where is cousin Sam Clay lives. Sam is enamored with comic books at a time when Superman is becoming a thing. He convinces Joe to join his effort – Sam would do the writing and Joe would do the artwork. Their character, The Escapist, is a hit, soon on the radio, voiced by Tracy, and there is talk of a movie. Along the way Joe falls in love with Rosa and Sam falls in love with Tracy – I had forgotten about this gay part of the story. But real Nazis are still out there and comic book battles aren’t removing the threat. Joe wants to bring his parents and sister to America and it’s not going well. The story is a lot deeper than the super hero angle might suggest. It is relevant to today both in The Escapist battling fascism and in a strong support of America being a place where the oppressed of other countries can come to be free. This was an overall excellent production, as one expects from Met Opera. The singers were in fine voice and did a great job in their acting. The music is by Mason Bates and the program included a clip of him describing his combination of orchestra with electronic sounds. The result was tuneful, dramatic, and beautiful, definitely not the avant garde of other operas written in the last half century. Each of the lead characters had moments to shine (what the opera world calls “arias”). The sets were innovative and appropriate to the story. There was also a lot of images projected on to the scenery or backdrop, a great way to show what Joe is drawing and to show the comics Tracy is portraying for the radio. The success of the fall run prompted Met Opera to show the opera in theaters, originally not on their in-theater schedule. The success also prompted the opera be brought back to the Met stage for a few more performances in February. At the bottom of the Met’s page for the opera are videos of some of those arias. I’m pretty sure this opera will become part of the standard repertoire rather quickly. The murder of Alex Pretti by ICE agents in Minneapolis last Saturday has been in the news quite a bit. But if you still need a news article here is one by the Associated Press posted on Daily Kos. Also on Saturday Kos of Kos wrote about some of the details of the killing to demonstrate that what comes out of the mouths of the nasty guy administration is lies. On Sunday Kos reported that a spending bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, the parent of ICE, is now before the Senate. Funding for several other departments is in the same bill. Several Democratic senators, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have declared they will vote no unless the bill is revised to restore the guardrails for ICE. That story is still playing out with a partial government shutdown possibly happening Saturday morning. Since the House is on recess (again) until Monday the chance of a shutdown is quite high. An AP article from Sunday afternoon includes more details of Pretti’s murder. It also includes comments by gun rights groups, that Pretti having a legal gun with permit with him at a protest is legal.

“Every peaceable Minnesotan has the right to keep and bear arms — including while attending protests, acting as observers, or exercising their First Amendment rights,” the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus said in a statement. “These rights do not disappear when someone is lawfully armed.”

A day that I side with a gun rights group is rare. Another AP article posted on Sunday reports that several Republicans are calling for a deeper investigation into the shooting and the tactics of the ICE agents. This is needed because, as before, DHS and ICE say they will investigate and are blocking Minnesota police from doing a separate (and more honest) investigation. I’m pleased to see that this murder is rousing some Republicans say something. That’s while, as Emily Singer of Kos reports, other Republicans are defending the killing. On Monday Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that protesters should not have guns. So Pretti brought this on himself. Also on Monday Kos wrote about the comments various administration officials, especially Noem, have been making. He wrote:

This isn’t spin. It isn’t confusion. It’s the secretary of Homeland Security knowingly lying to justify lethal force by her department, as part of an agencywide collapse so complete that it’s doubtful anyone at DHS is even capable of telling the truth anymore. And the absurdity doesn’t stop there. While Noem repeatedly refers to Pretti as an “attacker,” U.S. Homeland Security adviser Stephen Miller escalated the lie even further, calling Pretti an “assassin.” This press conference alone should be grounds for impeachment. A Cabinet secretary does not get to hide behind “it’s under investigation” to block accountability while simultaneously fabricating a false narrative to excuse a killing carried out by her own agency.

A third Monday article is by Lisa Needham of Kos who reported on conservatives saying the real issue was that Pretti attended a protest with a gun. Let’s ignore that Pretti had been disarmed by the agents before being shot. The NRA talked about those conservative comments – a bit – but then blamed Democrats. Rob Doar of the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus had to explain things to Kash Patel of the FBI.

There is no prohibition on a permit holder carrying a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines at a protest or rally in Minnesota

Needham then contrasted Pretti with Kyle Rittenhouse who several years ago took a gun to a protest, killed two people, and was praised by conservatives. Conservatives are praised while liberal gun owners get a death sentence. In a Monday evening post Kos discussed the reasons why the nasty guy is “waving a white flag.” He talked to Gov. Tim Walz and described the call as “very good” and Walz as “respectful.” That’s quite a change from the words he’s been using over the last few weeks. The nasty guy doesn’t use “respectful” when describing Democrats without a reason. And the reason is the politics around the Pretti murder have “gone south fast.” There’s the murder itself. There’s also Republicans’ defense of the murder – of a white gun owner. Public support then dropped by quite a bit. And other Republicans support controls on ICE. No policy has changed yet. But sending border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota looks like the beginning of cooperation rather than occupation. On Tuesday morning Kos reported that Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino, one of the administration attack dogs and a prominent face of ICE, had been pulled from Minnesota, been demoted, and his social media operation dismantled. Some of Bovino’s backers in DHS may also be on their way out. Kos also reported that some of the new ICE hires, especially the retirees that were rehired, are looking at what’s going on and leaving. And it isn’t just the Minnesota weather. On Tuesday evening Kos listed several reasons why the nasty guy should be impeached: His mental state and growing dementia. The refusal to release the Epstein files. His terrorizing of American cities. The blowing up of the federal deficit. The botched way he’s dealing with Venezuela. His obsession with the Kennedy Center. His obsession with Greenland for not getting the Peace Prize. His damage to NATO and other foreign alliances, burning the credibility of the US. And Republicans are either silent or muttering quietly. “At this point, silence isn’t loyalty. It’s complicity.” Oliver Willis of Kos, in his series on Explaining the Right, he discussed why conservatives think anti-ICE – well, any – protesters are being paid. Of course, there are a lot of examples when they have said that or something similar. The opposite of a paid protester is one that is out there because they actually oppose what they’re protesting against.

What conservatives don’t want to contend with is the reality that Trump’s policies and the ideas put into place by congressional Republicans are unpopular. Anti-immigration violence and cost-increasing tariffs generate genuine opposition. Republicans would love a world where they can disregard protesters as a paid distraction. But they are very real, no matter how furiously the right tries to spin the reality being witnessed by millions.

In the pundit roundup for Kos for Sunday, the day after Pretti was murdered, Chitown Kev quoted Mike McIntyre of The New York Times discussing “fringe” researchers. I wondered are we doing this still? Or is it again?

A group of fringe researchers thwarted safeguards at the National Institutes of Health and gained access to data from thousands of children. The researchers have used it to produce at least 16 papers purporting to find biological evidence for differences in intelligence between races, ranking ethnicities by I.Q. scores and suggesting Black people earn less because they are not very smart. ... Their papers have provided fodder for racist posts on social media and white nationalist message boards that have been viewed millions of times. Some of the papers are cited by A.I. bots like ChatGPT and Grok in response to queries about race and intelligence. On the social media platform X, Grok has referred users to the research more than two dozen times this month alone.

Symone D Sanders Townsend of MSNOW discussed special counsel Jack Smith’s testimony before Congress. He’s the one who was prosecuting the nasty guy until his regaining the Oval Office put a stop to the efforts.

But while Democrats on the committee focused on the past, Republicans looked to change the subject. Instead of sincerely grappling with the violence or the attempt to overturn the election, Republicans focused on process. They questioned procedures, attacked the special counsel and debated legal technicalities. They did not try to argue, as some have, that Jan. 6 was a hoax or a false flag operation or just a friendly group of tourists. Instead, they did everything they could to make it feel less consequential. That distinction matters. When a violent attack on democracy is treated as just another political disagreement, something dangerous is happening. At times, the hearing felt less like an effort to hold people accountable and more like an attempt to wear the public down until it grew tired of attempting to hold people accountable. [...] Smith made a simple but critical point in his testimony. When serious crimes are not punished, it sends a message. It tells future actors that they can try again. Accountability is not about payback. It is about preventing the next attempt. Right now, the message of accountability has been lost.

In the comments is a tweet by Tim Miller:

The 2nd Amendment protects us from government tyranny crowd changes their tune right quick when their preferred jack booted thugs kill a dude with a gun. The government's stated rationale for this killing is that the victim was carrying a legal firearm. The very people that told us we need to accept mass child slaughter for the right to protect ourselves from scary Obama, now say the govt can kill you if you possess a weapon.

A tweet by Matt McDermott, which includes an image of the letter.

As insane as this sounds, it’s true: Pam Bondi sent Minnesota officials a letter today saying ICE would leave the state if Minnesota turns over its voter files to the Trump Administration. They’re openly using state violence as a bargaining chip to seize election infrastructure.

Sen. Chris Murphy added:

Guess what? This has never been about safety or immigration. It’s a pretext for Trump to take over elections in swing states.

A tweet from Brian Allen:

A German soccer federation executive committee member says it’s time to consider a WORLD CUP BOYCOTT because of Donald Trump. Let that sink in. Trump is turning the United States into such a global embarrassment that our allies are now discussing boycotting the biggest sporting event on Earth.

Bill Kristol tweeted with a link to an article in The Bulwark:

“The federal government is no longer bound by law. If agents of the state may kill people in public without being investigated; if they have—again, per VP Vance—“absolute immunity” from prosecution then we are living in an authoritarian regime.”

The Wolfpack takes a riff on the Brokeback Mountain movie. The GOP says to the nasty guy, “I don’t know how to quit you.” Jack Smith says, “Maybe this will help!” as he hands over handcuffs. Lalo Alcaraz riffs on a line conservatives have been saying to immigrants. A Pilgrim man says, “We are fleeing persecution in our homeland, so we are seeking a new place to live.” A native man says, “Why don’t you people just stay home and fix your own failing country?” In the comments of Tuesday’s roundup paulpro posted a cartoon by Pat Harrington:

Donkey: Wow! You guys are losing the narrative... Elephant: They’re domestic terrorists and paid assassins! Doneky: No, they’re VA nurses and helpless moms. Elephant: But, I still want to own the libtards. Donkey: It’s so bad I can use the NRA against you... Elephant: Oh, No!! What if we lose Jesus next?!!

In today’s roundup Greg Dworkin included a tweet from Sonny Bunch:

The amount of coping and seething I am seeing from conservatives who simply *cannot believe* they couldn’t win the discourse/public opinion fight by mindlessly championing a disarmed dude getting shot in the back ten times is kind of fascinating.

A cartoon by Naked Pastor showing a pastor thinking, “I warned my church that if they weren’t careful, they could start looking like Nazi collaborators, only to discover... that’s what they’ve always wanted.”

Radical gay theater lost its danger

I finished the book I Was Better Last Night by Harvey Fierstein. It’s his autobiography published in 2022. He calls it a memoir because it deals mostly with his life in the theater. I think it is more of a biography because it deals with a lot more than his theater life. His life in theater has been significant. From the start he was an out gay man. He frequently played female roles in drag. He won Tony Awards for writing Torch Song Trilogy and La Cage Aux Folles. He won Tonys for acting in Torch Song Trilogy and as Edna in Hairspray. He also wrote Kinky Boots, turned Newsies from a Disney flop movie into a successful Broadway musical, wrote Casa Valentina, and an updated TV version of The Wiz. His acting also includes a long stint as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. Of course, there were many other scripts and acting jobs. Fierstein didn’t study theater. He studied art, both in an arts high school and college. The art got him into theater when he was asked to make posters for a play and a friend convinced him to audition. Much of his 20s was as a starving actor, living rent free in a basement apartment and acting in Off-Off-Broadway. He started writing theater because one of the directors said write something for me. And he discovered he was good at it. Torch Song began as an actual trilogy of full length plays, together running over five hours. Fierstein shortened it to four hours when performed as a set, and to two hours when the movie was made. I haven’t seen the movie and it’s now on my watch list. He wrote the first of the plays in 1977 and the combined version was on Broadway in the early 1980s. I saw Newsies when a tour came to Detroit and I enjoyed it. Same for Kinky Boots. I saw La Cage a year ago at the Stratford Festival in Canada and thought it delightful. I saw Casa Valentina in a local Detroit production in 2018, and again very much enjoyed it. It’s the story of men who go to a resort in the Catskills in the 1960s so they can spend the weekend dressed as women. I wrote about it here. Fierstein’s description of each show includes the process of creating it. Sometimes it goes smoothly, many times it doesn’t. He explains how to get from idea to actors on stage with an audience. When a show doesn’t go well he explains how it gets fixed. Fierstein introduces us to Richie Jackson, the man who became his assistant, agent, and manager. He describes Jackson as seeing Torch Song as a teen whose mother said if he ever came out she would not treat him like the mother in the show did. I recognized Jackson from his book, Gay Like Me, A Father Writes to His Son where he told that story and knew that Jackson was the husband in the book Following Foo: The Electronic Adventures of the Chestnut Man, by BD Wong. Only now do I see I misspelled Jackson’s first name in both of those earlier posts, adding a “t”. Jackson was the power behind a revival of Torch Song in 2017 because it had meant so much to him as a teen. This time Fierstein was too old to be in the cast. But while watching it he felt a big difference. It wasn’t dangerous. When first on Broadway the concept of a drag queen wasn’t well known and felt scary. The audience was mostly straight people and the gay people who attended were afraid of being outed. The cast was afraid of the vice squad waiting in the wings to handcuff them at the end of the show. The gay character at the center of the show wanting the same kind of life as his parents – spouse and kids – was seen as reactionary. All that gave the show an undercurrent of danger. In 2017, 35 years later everyone knew what a drag queen was. The audience was mostly LGBTQ people and rightly assumed the theater was a safe space where they could be totally out. The cast knew they would not damage their career by playing gay (and most were gay). That a gay character would want the same life as his parents was seen as normal. The show had lost its danger. The radical ideas had come true. I very much enjoyed the book. Fierstein is a fine writer and his story is a fascinating and compelling one. Yesterday I wrote about a cartoon that compared the funeral of Nazi Horst Wessel to the funeral of Charlie Kirk. I listen to About Time, the afternoon classical music show on the Canadian Broadcast Corporation hosted by Tom Allen. The show has a Thursday series on stories and music between 1872 (after Germany invaded Paris) and 1939 (just before Germany invaded Paris again). And today’s episode was about Horst Wessel. The time was the late 1920s. Because France demanded Germany pay ruinous reparations for the damage of the Great War, Germany’s economy was in a shambles and inflation was quite high, so high that no one could make economic plans. The future of young men like Wessel was bleak. He joined the Nazi party. Under the guidance of Goebbels, the chief Nazi propagandist, Wessel became a street fighter in Berlin, fighting Communist youth, also looking for a way out of the economic collapse. In 1930 Wessel’s landlady was Communist. She told the Communist street fighters Wessel was behind in his rent. The fighters pulled him from the apartment and beat him. He lived another six weeks, dying from sepsis. Even before he died Goebbels was already capitalizing on his death, turning him into a Nazi martyr. The funeral, as I mentioned yesterday, was a major propaganda event with, I think, 30,000 attending. There was praise for Wessel and what a fine Nazi he was along with a lot denunciation of leftists. By the time the Nazis came to power in 1933 nearly all Nazis knew of Wessel – or at least of the myth created around Wessel. Wessel did write the words (set to a borrowed tune) that became a Nazi anthem. Allen did not play that anthem, but did play a parody Spike Jones created in 1943. Spike Jones was famous for his parodies of classical music. Allen also played Berlin cabaret songs of the 1920s and ‘30s and several pieces by Richard Wagner, who was a favorite of the Nazis. My friend and debate partner sent me an article about Climate Trace, an organization that displays pollution and greenhouse gas data for the world. They base their maps on satellite and remote sensing equipment. They are able to display what the source of the pollutants are – oil refining, manufacturing, transportation, and many other sectors. So I tried it and looked at sites around Detroit. First, the site can really bog down my browser. Second, it showed a site rather close to my house. Once I managed to click on it (the dot was small) I was given data for a place that doesn’t exist. And third, though the article on CNN that my friend sent me says this is a new way to look at things, back in 2021 I wrote about a similar map put out by ProPublica. That one was much easier to use and I didn’t find any false data.

A spine is a terrible thing to waste

Lisa Needham of Daily Kos wrote about the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s show on ABC.

Man, you gotta hand it to ABC. The speed with which it will knuckle under to President Donald Trump is really impressive. It took only a few hours for the powers that be to indefinitely sideline award-winning late-night host Jimmy Kimmel after the Trump administration expressed displeasure with Kimmel’s recent monologue. ... Of course, ABC has always been good about capitulating to Trump quickly. After he won the 2024 election, ABC executives didn’t even bother to wait until he took office before handing him $16 million in the hopes his administration would leave them alone. Suckers. That $16 million, ostensibly paid to settle a meritless defamation lawsuit Trump filed, didn’t buy them anything. You can’t negotiate with terrorists. All ABC did was show how willing it was to accede to Trump’s demands.

In a monologue Kimmel said that MAGA was using Kirk’s death to score political points. Which is true. Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr went all mob boss and threatened ABC. Nexstar Media, which owns a lot of TV stations, said it would not air Kimmel’s show. ABC pulled Kimmel’s show. Needham noted that Nexstar just signed a $6.2 billion deal with a rival that needs approval from the nasty guy administration. This was the same situation for CBS and its parent Paramount wanting to merge with Skydance that prompted the firing of Stephen Colbert. Sinclair, the owner of the most ABC affiliate stations, also expressed disapproval of Kimmel. On hearing the news that ABC succumbed, the nasty guy tweeted that “Jimmy and Seth” are next in his crosshairs. That’s Fallon and Meyers.

Trump will just keep coming after any media company that ever speaks ill of him or his fellow travelers, and no amount of money is going to fix that. Unless ABC wants to turn into Fox or Newsmax, this is their future.

On Friday NPR host Leila Fadel spoke to NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith about the situation. They started with a recording of Carr.

I don't think this is the last shoe to drop. This is a massive shift that's taking place in the media ecosystem, and I think the consequences are going to continue to flow.

The FCC threatening to pull broadcast licenses over what a performer said does not appear to be legal, but when has that stopped the nasty guy? The FCC does have the power to investigate and fine stations and pull licenses when necessary. It also approves mergers, giving Carr significant leverage. Yes, Carr is doing this on behalf of the nasty guy, who has been campaigning against Kimmel and network TV in general for months. And yes, First Amendment advocates are raising alarms. Ilya Somin is a constitutional law expert at the libertarian Cato Institute said, as reported by Keith, “Government power is obviously being weaponized against speech.” And this case is not complicated. That NPR story was followed by host Steve Inskeep talking to Robert Corn-Revere, formerly a lawyer at the FCC and is now at FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech organization. Corn-Revere said for the entire existence of the FCC it has been governed by the First Amendment and the Communications Act, both prohibit a federal agency from exercising censorship. The FCC doesn’t license networks, only stations. But both Carr and the nasty guy believe they can pressure networks into making network decisions, and they are doing just that. The FCC was designed to be independent of the presidency to be bipartisan and independent of politics. The nasty guy claims there is no independence, which is a fundamental shift. Corn-Revere is very much bothered by the corporations backing down in the face of pressure – “A spine is a terrible thing to waste.” Bill in Portland, Maine usually starts his Friday Cheers and Jeers posts for Kos with late night commentary. Yesterday, he devoted it to quotes of Kimmel with one a year going back to 2018, except for 2023 when the writers union was on strike. Here are a couple of them:

"Many people are still resisting the covid vaccine in favor of the paste they use to de-worm horses, so much so that horse owners are having trouble finding it. One feed store in Las Vegas had to post this sign: 'Ivermectin will only be sold to horse owners—must show pic of you and your horse.' Can you imagine? You won't go to Walgreen's to get a free vaccine, but you'll spend four hours photoshopping your body onto a Clydesdale.” —2021 "The Brooklyn Public library has a great program called Books Unbanned that provides online access to banned books to anyone between the ages of 13 and 21, including young people in other states where they're banning kids from reading these great books because their parents are stupid—they're banning anything that isn’t a Cheesecake Factory menu in some of these states. But this is why I love Brooklyn: even the librarians here are giving the middle finger to these people." —2022 (while airing his show from his hometown)

Yesterday Gaslit Nation posted an episode titled KPop Demon Hunters Antifa. I didn’t listen to the 27 minutes of audio, but I read through the show description. It begins:

A Gaslit Nation listener once asked me: What’s the canary in the coal mine for American democracy? My answer: when they come for the comedians. Because when authoritarians kill the jokes, they kill the dissent. Look at Russia. In Putin’s early years, Kukly, a wildly popular political satire by smack-talking puppets, mocked him mercilessly. One of his first moves? Force media consolidation. Suddenly, the show vanished. Fast forward 25 years to today, you can’t hold an anti-war sign in Moscow without being arrested.

When Kukly was on more than half the nation’s TV sets were tuned in to it. Nexstar and Sinclair are “Republican-aligned networks with monopoly-level reach.” They may have pressured Disney, owner of ABC, but Disney did it to itself. They gave the “convicted felon a $15 million ‘charitable contribution’ to his ‘presidential library’ to settle a defamation suit.” It surrendered and that paved the way for mainstream media to capitulate. America’s greatest export is culture, humor, and art. An example is KPop Demon Hunters, the most watched show on Netflix. Since fascist hate truth and humor the best way to fight back is for every one of us to point out the truth and have fun doing it. NPR noted Kimmel’s monologue mentioned that he talked about Kirk’s death. NPR didn’t mention what Gaslit Nation did, that Kimmel also talked about the Epstein cover-up. The response to Kirk’s murder is part of that cover-up. In Friday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin started with a quote from Dan Pfeiffer of The Message Box. The key sentence from the quote:

Well, the MAGA Right is on the verge of controlling the vast majority of the American media ecosystem.

Brian Stelter tweeted:

KEY to the story about ABC suspending Kimmel's show: Nexstar and Sinclair, two big owners of ABC-affiliated stations, both need FCC approval for pending deals. With a lot of $$ on the line, both have reason to curry favor with the Trump admin. Both decided to yank Kimmel's show.

In the comments costal resistance posted words from cartoonist Ann Telnaes, who left a comfy newspaper job over a disagreement of the suitability of a cartoon. The words are beside a jester in a noose.

With ridicule, irony, and exaggeration editorial cartoonists provoke, challenge, irritate, and frankly, make powerful people angry. That’s why autocrats especially, do not like editorial cartoons which target them. They don’t like their corrupt actions being exposed and they don’t like being laughed at.

A meme posted by exlrrp and written by Qasim Rashid:

ABC fires Kimmel for mocking Trump CBS fires Colbert for mocking Trump ABC fires Moran for slamming Miller MSNBC fires Dowd for calling out hate speech. Fox protects Brian Kilmeade as he calls for Nazi state murder of homeless. Corporate Media has Failed Us. And as the receipts show, this Trump regime knows exactly what its doing as it enacts fascism.

Jon Cooper posted a cartoon by Dave Whamond showing a Museum of History. Near the rubble of the Pillars of Democracy is a display case showing a “Talk Show Host, Circa 2025.” A father and son discuss the display:

Father: Unfortunately, they all died off around 2025, son! They used to tell jokes every night. Son: What’s a joke? Father: A joke is something said to provoke laughter – they died out around then too.

Home of the Brave tweeted a moment of Colbert’s monologue discussing Kimmel:

Nexstar has a major merger coming up before the Trump administration. A company apparently capitulating to the whims of the president in order to ensure their merger goes through? Has that ever happened before? I'm being told not to answer that question.

Steve Brodner tweeted:

The Real Reason Kimmel Had to Go. This suspension of Jimmy Kimmel came after local station oligarchs Nexstar and Sinclair pressured FCC cchair, Trumpoodle Brendan Carr. Trumpist Nexstar is seeking FCC approval of a $6.2 billion acquisition of rival broadcaster Tegna. It would then control 80% of TV households across 44 states.

I note that other reporting says the pressure was the other way around, Carr pressuring Nexstar and Sinclair. As for that 80% number, how does the network control TV households? Can they get only one station? Does the network control all the stations of all the networks in these areas? Perhaps the attached link, which I didn’t follow, might clear that up. Andy Paterson posted a cartoon showing a man opening the front door to be faced with a large number of guardsmen. He says, “Honey, did you post something negative about the regime?” And a cartoon for fun. This one by Ellis Rosen. It shows passengers in an airplane. They hear, “This is your captain speaking. We may hit some turbulence as I write ‘Marry Me Samantha’ in the sky for a few extra bucks.” In Saturday’s roundup Dworkin quoted the Dallas Morning News discussing Sen. Ted Cruz.

The Texas Republican also emphasized how much he hates what Kimmel said about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk — and how much he likes and works closely with Carr. Having high-ranking federal officials threaten a network in such a way, however, is “dangerous as hell” because it presents a slippery slope that could end with conservatives facing government censorship down the road, Cruz said. “If the government gets in the business of saying, ‘We don’t like what you the media have said, we’re going to ban you from the airwaves if you don’t say what we like,’ that will end up bad for conservatives,” Cruz said on his Friday podcast.

For once Cruz is right. Tweets from Ken Dilanian:

Two people familiar with the matter tell @MSNBC that the Trump administration is preparing to fire the US attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia today over his refusal to bring charges against the New York Attorney General. Career prosecutors do not believe the charges are warranted. The Trump-appointed prosecutor who refused to charge one of Trump’s enemies has now been forced out of office, and the United States is confronting something we have never seen before: A president essentially ordering his DoJ to charge someone with a crime, regardless of whether the people whose job it is to evaluate the case think there is insufficient evidence.

That is or is very close to saying charge them with a crime, make one up if you have to. In the comments is a tweet from Carr showing a man with a wolfish grin. The face is vaguely familiar and looks like someone from a horror or thriller movie (which I don’t watch). Kevin McHale responded: “This was all in Project 2025 btw.” JPHill added: “Had to double check this was real. It is. This is Trump’s FCC chair.” Will Stancil concluded: “Dictatorship has arrived. They think they’re far enough along they can start bragging about it.” Bill Bramhall posted a cartoon of a couple in bed watching TV. The man says, “Who cares if the government cancels TV shows? We still can read an approved book.”

Drowning out their voices with an Air Force flyover

Kos of Daily Kos reported that the MAGA faithful do have limits. When the nasty guy posts to his Truth Social account there are a lot of responses that praise him for whatever he said. But this time not. The nasty guy posted that prices are way down. The faithful, who can see that prices at the grocery store, gas pump, rent bill, and insurance bill are still quite high, actually disagreed with him. That means Democrats have an opening in proclaiming the nasty guy lied and his policies are doing the opposite of what he said. But Democrats actually have to walk through that opening – and then actually have to enact policies to lower prices (or boost pay). So far they haven’t been good at either. Oliver Willis of Kos reported that survivors of Epstein’s sexual abuse are speaking out, demanding the nasty guy end the coverup. They appeared on NBC’s Today show and ABC’s Good Morning America. They called on Congress to release the files. Democrats are on their side, Republicans say a release isn’t necessary. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos added that the survivors also held a press conference on the steps of the Capitol, calling for the release of the files. The nasty guy ordered an Air Force flyover to drown out their voices. Alix Breeden of Kos reported more than a thousand current and former Health and Human Services employees signed a letter demanding Robert F Kennedy Jr. resign as secretary. The letter says his actions compromise the health of the nation. The public version of the letter (and I imagine the copy given to RFK) did not list the names. The copies given to Congress did. RFK went before a senate committee yesterday. The reports I’ve read and heard have only given snippets of the three hour grilling. One such report is by Walter Einenkel of Kos. Congressional Republicans did not give Kennedy an easy time, though I heard that Republicans refused the Democratic demand that Kennedy give an oath that he’s telling the truth, and subject to perjury if he doesn’t. Breeden reported that about the only people still on his side are the two that count – the nasty guy and vice nasty. Yes, impeachment of cabinet secretaries is a thing, but not likely in this Congress. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin has a lot of quotes about Kennedy’s grilling, including this tweet from Larry Sabato:

I’ve watched 100s of congressional hearings over 55 years. Rarely if ever have I seen a witness so thoroughly destroyed as RFK Jr has been today.

There’s also an example that Kennedy lied, showing why Republicans didn’t want him under oath. In the comments are a few good memes and cartoons. One posted by paulpro, author unknown, shows three soldiers picking up litter in DC. One says, “Who would have guessed that some much of the trash we picked up in D.C. would be shredded paper with the name Epstein on them.” A tweet by Mickey Lenin commented on the jobs report released today: “Job growth missed expectations with only 22K created and nearly every sector losing jobs except healthcare. As an added bonus, June and July job numbers were revised lower yet again. Ketchup Alert Level 3.” A tweet by Tim Stevens discussed news I heard on NPR, though Stevens linked to one on BBC:

American Government to global automakers: We’ll make your cars impossibly expensive with tariffs unless you build them in the U.S. Also the American Government: Build a factory here and we’ll arrest the workers you bring in to get it operational.

From a tweet by Will Sommer: “Interesting: James O’Keefe put out a video today showing a DOJ official saying any Republicans would be edited out of the Epstein files.” The Naked Pastor posted a cartoon of Jesus holding a sign that says, “Free watermelon,” as he thinks, “I can’t believe I have to speak in code about an active genocide just so I don’t offend the very people who claim to follow me!”

Get the right headline and intimidate the right people

Recently I wrote of the observation that a month had gone by and there had been no release from the Justice Department interviews with Ghislaine Maxwell, accomplice to Jeffrey Epstein. And now they have. An Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos reports that a release has now happened. And... It’s about what you would expect from someone being interviewed by the people who work for the guy who could pardon her. Beyond that nothing made the news. Two weeks ago Alex Samuels of Kos reported that three White House officials sent a letter to the Smithsonian saying the museums must embody enduring American values to comply with the March executive order on “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” Everything is to be scrutinized. This is part of a broader effort to redefine American history. Alas, the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents has agreed to a full review of their museums. Also alas, the list of targeted museums include the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Museum of the American Indian. A great deal of African American history is about slavery. A great deal of American Indian history is about how white people took over their land. I hope Smithsonian leaders are documenting their current exhibits so they can be restored after the nasty guy and his ideological successors are no longer in control. A week ago Emily Singer of Kos reported the nasty guy said he will force the Smithsonian museums in Washington DC to remove exhibits that are too “woke” – a term conservatives can’t define (and maybe they want a term that can contain anything they want it to contain). Included in that is a demand to remove exhibits that talk about how bad slavery was. He decried the museums don’t feature American success stories. Yes, slavery was bad and cruel. It is a stain on US history no matter what the nasty guy says. Its effects are still felt today in black economic and educational inequalities. And yes, the Smithsonian does feature success stories. Another of his executive orders declared the story of slavery was “corrosive ideology” and books about slavery should be removed from Smithsonian museums and the national park system.

Trump during his first run for office declared that he “loves the poorly educated.” Now, he’s trying to ensure everyone in the U.S. is poorly educated, taught only his false and whitewashed view of history.

In the pundit roundup for last week Thursday for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Joseph Gedeon of The Guardian:

The document, based on public submissions shared with the administration, points to what it says are problematic exhibits at seven different museums, including a Benjamin Franklin exhibit that links his scientific achievements to his ownership of enslaved people and a film about George Floyd’s murder that it says mischaracterizes the police. “President Trump will explore all options and avenues to get the Woke out of the Smithsonian and hold them accountable,” a White House official said. “Until we get info from the Smithsonian in response to our letter, we can’t verify the numbers of artifacts that have been removed because the Smithsonian has removed them on their own.” The seven museums that have so far been flagged for review include the National Museum of American History, National Museum of the American Latino, National Museum of Natural History, National Museum of African Art, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Museum of Asian Art. The administration argues exhibits at these museums focus excessively on oppression rather than American achievements. At the National Museum of American History, the document flagged the ¡Presente! Latino history exhibition for allegedly promoting an “anti-American agenda” by examining colonization effects and depicting the US as stealing territory from Mexico in 1848.

Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times discussed the nasty guy ordering the National Guard to patrol DC, that the military sent to Los Angeles only gave the White House video for its social media accounts, that the attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities was sound and fury with no result, and that Putin’s visit to Alaska was an embarrassment with nothing to show.

Even his most dangerous actions — his plans to investigate his political rivals and turn the force of the national government against them — seem to fizzle out. It’s as if the point is to get the right headline and hope that it intimidates the right targets.

In the comments are several cartoons on the claim that slavery wasn’t so bad. Almost two weeks ago Lisa Needham of Kos reported the military personnel in DC has started to hold traffic safety checkpoints. This looks like an expansion of the immigration crackdown.

Must just be some crazy coincidence that what was supposed to be a checkpoint for things like busted taillights was staffed by overzealous masked federal agents with the power to detain immigrants.

Yeah, the traffic safety checkpoints are likely illegal. Needham then considers various scenarios in which checkpoints are legal and how this situation doesn’t fit any of them. Whatever the legal justification these checkpoints aren’t making DC residents safer. Last Friday Needham reported the siege of DC was taken up a step – the occupying troops will be carrying guns. Because this is a siege of course eventually they would be carrying guns. This time the administration didn’t bother to say why the guns were now necessary. Needham wrote, “The only reason to arm the troops in D.C. is to continue to treat the residents of the nation’s capital like federal subjects to be, well, subjugated.” Also last week Oliver Willis of Kos asked an important question. With all these troops in DC where are the Democrats? They’ve been way too silent.

The disparity between the two parties’ responses has reinforced a problem that has been apparent since Trump won the election in 2024. The Democrats have been caught flat-footed again and again, unable to respond to many of Trump’s provocations—even while the public has made clear they aren’t aligned with his priorities. ... Showing up when the nation’s capital is under siege would probably go a long way toward letting the nation know that the Democratic Party gives a damn.

In Tuesday’s pundit roundup Kev quoted Paul Krugman discussing the nasty guy’s efforts to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, who is black. She allegedly got two home mortgages and declared both were for a primary residence. No actual accusation has been made, and certainly no evidence has been released, but the possibility is enough for the nasty guy to try to fire her.

I am not going to lead with a discussion of what Cook may or may not have done. That would be playing Trump’s game. Clearly, he’s just looking for a pretext to fire someone who isn’t a loyalist — and who happens, surprise, to be a black woman. If you write about politics and imagine that Trump cares about mortgage fraud — or for that matter believe anything Trump officials say about the affair without independent confirmation — you should find a different profession. Maybe you should go into agricultural field work, to help offset the labor shortages created by Trump’s deportations. The real story here isn’t about Cook, or mortgages. It’s about the way the Trump administration is weaponizing government against political opponents, critics, or anyone it finds inconvenient. You should think about the attack on Cook in the same context as mortgage fraud accusations made against California Senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Or you should look at the attacks on Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, over the cost of renovations at the Fed’s headquarters. Or the still mysterious raid on the house of John Bolton, who at one time was Trump’s national security adviser. The message here clearly isn’t “Don’t commit fraud,” which would be laughable coming from Donald Trump, of all people. Nor, despite what some commentators have said, is it all about revenge — although Trump is, indeed, a remarkably vindictive person. But mainly it’s about intimidation: “If you get in our way we will ruin your life.”

In the comments are a big bunch of memes and cartoons to share. A cartoon posted by paulpro and written by Mike Stanfill shows a man responding to a voice:

Voice: If I offered you $100 to press a button that would ruin the life of a random stranger, would you do it? Man: Uhhh... No? Voice: What if I gave you a hundred thousand dollars to press that button? Would you press it then? Man: Hmmm. Yes. Yes, I would. Voice: In that case, congratulations! You’re hired!

In that last frame we seen the voice is an official at an ICE recruitment center. Another cartoon posted by paulpro is by J S Cuneo and shows seven ICE agents pulling a man from his truck. Each is commenting how the action is making him hard. A meme posted by exlrrp is with a few talking about the nasty guy’s efforts to ban wind turbines:

As you’re stung by rising electricity bill, remember the Trump admin is shadow banning virtually all new wind and solar and forcing us to pay to keep old, inefficient coal plants online. We’re paying for stupid.

In among memes posted by exlrrp about Gavin Newsom’s big moment mocking the nasty guy is one from Newsom himself of a flag giving a new definition of MAGA: “Make America Gavin Again.” Dawn Xiana Moon posted “62% of younger deaths wouldn’t have happened in any other wealthy country.” Then she quoted from Vice:

Zoom out, and the picture gets clearer. As Futurism’s Joe Wilkins points out, America’s excess death problem stretches back to 1980, the year Ronald Reagan took office and rolled out a red carpet for neoliberalism. His policies slashed social programs, deregulated industries, gutted worker protections, and handed power to corporations on a platter. Nearly every administration after has been maintaining or hastening Reagan’s destruction ever since. The result is a shredded safety net, skyrocketing inequality, and a healthcare system that bankrupts people for getting sick. Millennials and Gen Z are the first generations raised entirely under this tattered economic system that cares more about profits than people. They came of age with fewer stable jobs, unaffordable homes, and decaying public services.

Another cartoon posted by paulpro and created by DaveWhamond shows Kristi Noem of Homeland Security at the southern border wall with aides discussing a recent effort at the wall.

Noem: We painted the wall black because the sun will make it too hot to touch. Aide 1: Genius! Let’s hope they don’t find out about gloves! Aide 2: Or nighttime... Or that we only painted our side.

Ellis Rosen posted a cartoon showing a boxing announcer indicating a stern older man. “And in this corner, still undefeated, Frank’s long held beliefs!” The final cartoon is posted by paulpro and is by Guy Parsons. It refers to the recent Press killings in Gaza. The cartoon shows four people wearing “Press” vests honoring a shrouded body with a “Press” vest on it. Beside it is a quote from Edward Snowdon, “When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime you are being ruled by criminals.”

What is largely a show of farce

Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported that California has released its new House district map that will give it five more Democratic seats. Which Republicans would lose their seats is also identified. Singer noted the sales job by Gov. Gavin Newsom has already started. He’s stressing why it needs to be done – that Texas started a power grab. Singer also noted that Border Patrol agents were outside the museum where Newsom announced the start of the effort. Does that show the nasty is worried? Of course, California Republicans are crying foul, accusing Democrats for doing what their colleagues in Texas are doing, something California Democrats wouldn’t consider if Texas hadn’t pushed first. JulglelandDan of the Kos community wonders why California is stopping at a five seat gain. They could surely go for a seven seat, maybe even an eight seat, gain. And, get busy New York. You too Illinois, New Jersey, Washington, Oregon, and any other state where Democrats hold majorities in both legislative chambers plus the governor. Yeah, there are administrative hurdles and Democratic belief in independent redistricting commissions. “But this is war. And we damn well better start acting like it.” Oliver Willis of Kos notes the number of Republicans who are saying they are scared of cities (at least those with Democratic mayors) and want “Daddy” Trump to come in with federal forces to make all those scary things go away. Yeah, they’re providing cover for the nasty guy’s takeover of DC, but they certainly don’t sound like the alpha males they claim to be. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev started with a quote of Joan Walsh of The Nation discussing federal troops in DC.

Although Trump justified his moves by citing the District’s allegedly escalating crime rate—crime of every sort is actually down dramatically in Washington—for better or worse, they’re not policing any of the District’s high-crime areas, residents complain. I say it might be better, because if they descended on Anacostia or other overly policed areas, they likely would criminalize and brutalize indiscriminately. Remember, these troops haven’t been trained in urban policing (not that such training always prevents brutal behavior). But it’s also quite bizarre, if Trump’s genuine focus were crime reduction. But it’s not. It’s intimidation. Trump’s troops have mostly shown up in touristy places and lively neighborhoods, in what is largely a show of farce. They’re writing people up for public drinking, smoking weed, and broken taillights. They’ve succeeded in reducing business at bars and restaurants by almost a third compared to the same period in August 2024. So much for the pro-business GOP. […] It’s clear: The addition of 1,000 red-state National Guard troops to the 800 already in DC, all untrained in urban policing, raises the odds of a “mass casualty event,” at minimum. We used to say people who described Trumpism as “fascism” were exaggerating, though now even mainstream media regularly uses the F-word. Right now, we should be wary of talking blithely about “civil war.” But these moves on the capital by Trump and his red-state cronies seem like an acceleration of danger to democracy, meant to familiarize Americans with the sight of federal forces patrolling blue American cities, as Trump has already said is coming.

This morning NPR had a segment on the nasty guy getting ready to issue an executive order to ban voting by mail. I’m not linking to that because here are a couple quotes that say as much as NPR did, and a bit more. Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo lays out what all of us should have learned in high school civics or government classes.

President Trump has a new post up on Truth Social today in which he claims that states only run elections and count ballots as agents acting at his direction as president of the United States. The key lines are “the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tell them …” He claims he’s going to issue an executive order to ban voting by mail and any voting machines he doesn’t like. Put simply, this is total bulls---. The president has basically nothing to do with election administration. States run American elections. Period. Congress, within certain parameters, can make laws with standards that states must apply. But states still administer them. This is a foundational, constitutionally-mandated and structural feature of the American republic. Trump’s claims are so far from anything even remotely legal or constitutional that I doubt even the corrupted federal judiciary will have much truck with it.

Joseph Gedeon of The Guardian explains the nasty guy’s sudden pronouncement.

Donald Trump on Monday announced that lawyers are drafting an executive order to eliminate mail-in voting, days after Vladimir Putin told him US elections were rigged because of postal ballots. In a White House meeting alongside Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump said: “We’re going to start with an executive order that’s being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail in ballots because they’re corrupt.” The push follows Trump’s meeting with Putin in Alaska on Friday, when the Russian president allegedly told him that the 2020 election “was rigged because you have mail-in voting”, according to Trump’s subsequent interview with Sean Hannity. […] Mail voting has exploded in popularity – from fewer than one in 10 voters in 1996 to nearly half during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. As of 2022, it was used by about one in three voters, according to a report by the MIT Election Data and Science Lab. Supporters have long said mail ballots make voting easier for people who can’t get to polling stations – those with disabilities, parents with young kids, or workers with long shifts, while also giving voters more time to research candidates at home.…

I’ve been voting from home for several years now. It’s “by mail” though I usually have to drive to city hall to use the ballot drop box. I appreciate being able to see the actual ballot ahead of time (yeah, there are ways to see it online) and research the candidates and issues – and not have to stand in line. One thing that NPR story discussed is all the safeguards to make sure vote by mail is not corrupt. Of course, the nasty guy did not say in what ways mail voting was corrupt and did not offer evidence of that corruption. He never does. Lisa Needham of Kos says that the national debt has set a new record of $37 trillion. Yeah, not all of it accumulated under the nasty guy – previous Republican presidents back to Reagan helped. Even Joe Biden helped a little – all that pandemic and infrastructure spending, very much needed. But the nasty guy keeps promising his economic policies will, any second now, unleash massive growth leading to massive reductions in debt while economists say those policies will do just the opposite.

They didn't know because the press didn't tell them

My Sunday movie was The Boy Next Door, a Korean comedy. It was recommended by Krotor of the Boys Love column at Daily Kos. The video (at least the version with English subtitles) is embedded at the bottom of the Boys Love post that describes it. The film is a series of 15 episodes now as one 1:35 film. Kyutae and Gijae live in adjacent efficiency apartments. They meet on the outdoor hallway between the two. They frequently get into situations that, when an outsider sees them, they appear to be a gay couple. There’s a fire in Kyutae’s apartment and the landlord asks him to move in with Gijae and will cut the rent in half. They are Asia’s version of The Odd Couple. In spite of the perception the lads say they are straight. Gijae has been dating Mina, who is also a friend of Kyutae. She frequently sees them in the compromising positions. Krotor, in his review, said he laughed so hard his dogs howled along with him. He wrote a big source of the humor is the way this film keeps using and twisting the tropes that frequently appear in these sorts of stories (Krotor provides a link to an article where he discusses these tropes). I didn’t laugh as much (actually, barely at all), but I did grin through the whole thing. I guess the Korean sense of humor doesn’t translate so well. I did enjoy it. The news this evening included the report that Democrats in the Texas House are returning home, which means Republicans will be able to vote on their Congressional redistricting plan to give themselves five more seats. An Associated Press article posted to Kos reported last Thursday that California Gov. Gavin Newsom is proceeding with revising its maps to give Democrats several more seats. The California legislature is drawing new maps and will vote on them next week. They have a supermajority in both chambers. They will also vote to declare a special election (or is it a special proposal in the regular November election?) for the voters to approve the new maps. These maps will be good through the 2030 election when redistricting returns to the state’s independent commission. California has some of the most competitive House seats so gerrymandering them could be easy. Mike Luckovich posted a cartoon on Kos showing an elephant with one gun squaring off with a donkey with two guns for a redistricting fight. The elephant says, “Wait, you’re only supposed to bring a knife!” Thom Hartmann of the Kos community and an independent pundit did a specific comparison of the US now and Germany in the Nazi era. We’ve heard about the deportation flight of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Did you know there have been over 1,000 deportation flights? Did you know ICE is planning to open or expand 125 detention facilities, including ones to hold families? This expansion will give the US the largest prison system in the world? Well, did you know? Don’t feel bad if you didn’t. I didn’t either. Hartmann then discussed a good German friend, who was a part of Hitler Youth when WWII ended. Hartmann asked him how Germans were okay with Nazis shipping millions of Jews to death camps. The answer was simple: “We didn’t know.” They were told the camps were for the worst criminals. They were told the innocent Jews were being resettled to make room for urban renewal projects. They were shocked at the images when Americans liberated the concentration camps. They didn’t know the truth because the press didn’t tell them. That’s because...

By the end of 1933, Hitler had largely neutered Germany’s free press; not by market competition, but by bankrupting writers and outlets with libel lawsuits, unleashing police raids for “slander” claims, vigilante “Brownshirt” militia violence against reporters, arrests of publishers for “publishing anti-German propaganda,” the outright seizure of progressive newspapers, and a sweeping Schriftleitergesetz “Editor’s Law” which criminalized journalism that exposed government excesses. Nazi loyalists and party-friendly oligarchs took over the press outlets that remained in a massive media consolidation project, ensuring that every headline and every radio news report served the regime much like Fox “News” and rightwing hate-radio/podcasts do today for Trump. ... There were literally no public reports in Germany about mass killings or illegal detentions between 1934 and the end of the war in 1945.

Both then and now the public is shielded from the magnitude of state-led oppression of targeted groups. That allows the “policies to continue without mass pushback.” Those 1,000 deportation flights – Hartmann, a voracious consumer of news, didn’t know. In 1944 the Nazis created a slick PR film about the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Things looked great. The foreign press assumed all the camps looked that nice and bought the propaganda. How long before we see Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi star in films telling us how “humane” those tent cities in 100F heat are? In Sunday’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Anne Applebaum of The Atlantic. I’ll repeat part of the quote.

There is not much else to say about yesterday’s Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska, other than to observe the intertwining elements of tragedy and farce. ... The better way to understand Anchorage is not as the start of something new, but as the culmination of a longer process. As the U.S. dismantles its foreign-policy tools, as this administration fires the people who know how to use them, our ability to act with any agility will diminish. From the Treasury Department to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, from the State Department to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, agency after agency is being undermined, deliberately or accidentally, by political appointees who are unqualified, craven, or hostile to their own mission.

Eugene Daniels of MSNBC discussed Democrats leaving Texas:

It's too soon to tell whether any of this will stop the brazen Republican plan to keep power in the House amid polls showing GOP lawmakers are massively unpopular. But it has already succeeded at the real goal, which was to help voters realize what Republicans are attempting, understand the stakes and know that Democrats are trying to do something to stop it. The spectacle wasn't a tactic; it was the whole point. It's a lesson that Democrats have been slow to learn since President Donald Trump's first term, but one that may finally be breaking through. [...] That Texas grit has proved to be catching. As Democrats have rallied around the stand those dozens of state lawmakers have taken, they have decided to fight fire with fire, or at least talk about it that way. Instead of shaking their fingers at Trump and Texas Republicans for calling a special session to gerrymander, they've threatened their own. And that's really how spectacles change things. They grab voters' attention, which gives politicians a mandate to go further. That can happen even with politicians who aren't known for taking bold stances, as when New York Gov. Kathy Hochul threatened to have the state do its own gerrymandering. And it helps make an idea mainstream. California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, two politicians who are fairly obviously thinking about presidential runs one day, both jumped on the issue.

In the comments paulpro posted a cartoon by Weyant showing a worker at Subway asking, “Is this to stay, to go, or to protest authoritarian military occupation?” Further down in the comments are two cartoons by Toonerman showing the nasty guy saying “Democrat controlled state’s crime is out of control! I need to send in my Army!” Toonerman points out that “8 of the top 10 highest murder rates are these red states,” pointing to Mississippi, Louisiana (where Speaker Mike Johnson is from), Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee. The two Democratic states in the top ten are New Mexico and Maryland. In today’s roundup Greg Dworkin included a tweet by Patrick Wintour, diplomatic editor of the Guardian:

US administration goes from severe consequences on Russia if no ceasefire was agreed to Rubio on Meet the Press shutting down the option indefinitely. “I don't think new sanctions on Russia are going to force him to accept the ceasefire. They're already under very severe sanction.”

Shashank Joshi, defense editor of The Economist, added:

Extraordinary to see negotiators systematically destroy their own leverage at every turn.

Here are some numbers to go with Hartmann’s article above, which shows some of what Hartmann says is being hidden is getting to the public. Even so, Hartmann’s overall message is accurate. From the Washington Post:

When President Donald Trump took office this year, the United States already commanded the largest immigrant detention system in the world, with the capacity to hold close to 50,000 migrants. Right away, his administration set a goal of doubling it. An internal planning road map obtained by The Washington Post shows for the first time exactly how immigration authorities plan to reach that goal, including by opening or expanding 125 facilities this year. By January, ICE will have the capacity to hold more than 107,000 people, internal agency documents show.

Jamie Dupree tweeted photos of National Guard troops around Washington’s Union Station and Lincoln Memorial, neither is a high crime area. A tweet by Jordan Fischer showed that within three days of the Washington police takeover local restaurant reservations dropped 31%. “It couldn't come at a worse time. D.C. Summer Restaurant Week starts... tomorrow.” Toonerman posted a cartoon of a pastor “At the Victory New Life Calvary Apocalyptic Evanpedocal Church” where the preacher is saying “Let us now whip out or King Trump edition Holy Buybull and open it to page 47, Pedophilians 34:4-7.” A meme posted by exlrrp shows what might be a pair of news anchors. One says:

In America you call it the alt right. In Germany we call it “why Grandpapa lives in Argentina now.”

Also posted by exlrrp is a Doonsbury cartoon (alas, the Detroit paper hasn’t carried him in a long time, one can forget it is still running). In this one (and I forget the character names) a woman is making dinner as she tells her husband that her aunt’s caretaker stopped coming in, the farm stand is closed in the middle of summer, the cafe had only one cook, and the hedges haven’t been trimmed. She says, “I wonder what’s going on.” He replies, “It’ll come to you.”