Kill the filibuster or say the rulebook won

Eric Schmeltzer, a Daily Kos contributor, has suggestions for Democrats on how to keep their majority once they get it this fall. My view is they need to sever relationships with billionaires and cut the billionaires’ hold over the rest of us. But let’s listen to Schmeltzer:

Pop quiz: It’s 2028, and Democrats have held both chambers for almost two years. Which of these realities would you prefer? A) We tried to pass an anti-corruption bill, but it got filibustered. B) We passed an anti-corruption bill, but President Donald Trump stood in the way of it becoming law. Here’s one more: A) We passed a bill that put healthcare back where it was before Trump’s disastrous “One Big, Beautiful Bill.” B) We passed a package that redefines healthcare in America, but Trump vetoed it. You probably didn’t need long, and neither will other voters. B is bold, which is exactly what turns one win into a series of wins. But for Democratic leadership, the time to figure out how you get to B is now. The good news is that the planning is happening.

Part of that good news is it seems possible next Speaker Hakeem Jeffries is on board with these ideas. Even so, this will require bold work. That healthcare package can be described as “Medicare for Anyone Who Wants It,” something you get through your taxes, not a monthly bill, is priced without a profit margin, and stays with you no matter where you live or work. So pass it, get it to the Oval Office. The nasty guy vetoes it. And in 2028 the message is easily: Remember how close we got with that bill. We must keep Democrats in the majority and keep Republicans out of the White House. A Brennan Center poll found 92% of voters say corruption is a big problem. An effort to end Citizens United shows 46% of voters don’t trust either party to fix it. That’s an opening for Democrats. Other needs to end corruption: Ban members of Congress from trading stocks. Ban the president from profiting off the office (we didn’t use to need a law for that). Ban anonymous money in elections (I’d like to go much further, but this Supreme Court...). Create an ethics office that doesn’t answer to the president (yeah, there is that effort by the nasty guy to allow him to meddle in everything not under Congress or the Federal Reserve). I would add: Ban all gifts to Supreme Court justices and create a Supreme Court ethics office they don’t control. Commenters added: Ban gerrymandering and pass voting rights. These ideas will cost Democrats something – and that is important. Yeah, he’ll veto all that. And Democrats run on that in 2028. These bills can be readied now so that within 100 hours of the new Congress being sworn in they hit the Oval Office desk. Democrats may control the Senate, but not a filibuster proof Senate. The common wisdom about the filibuster is if it is killed Republicans can pass horrible stuff and Democrats can’t stop them. But (1) people need to see the true impact of their vote – now they can vote for vile candidates knowing the worst won’t get through. And (2):

Let’s go back to the quiz and say the filibuster line to that guy in Saginaw, Michigan. Democrats have 51 votes and a rulebook they control, and they’re telling him that the rulebook won. Now say the veto line. He already knows whose fault it is, because only one guy in this country can veto a bill and everybody knows his name. People forgive a wall you can’t move. But a rule you could have changed and didn’t, well, that’s on you.

Restoring what the nasty guy broke is good. But passing something that gets vetoed and people are still talking about in 2028 requires boldness. And if they’re still talking about the bills in 2028 they can be signed in 2029. And a majority might hold for decades. So get moving. Emily Singer of Kos reported that Republicans are into the stages of grief over losing Congress. So far they’re into bargaining. I mention that because of an exchange that Singer relates, between former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Robbie Smither, a Florida Republican voter who plans to vote Democratic for the first time in his life because of the nasty guy: Gaetz: “Bro we need your vote. ... I hate the war too. But the Democrats want to trans your kids.” Singer had Smither’s response:

“With all due respect, stop pissing on people and telling them it’s raining,” he shot back. There is absolutely no logical evidence that [Democrats] want to ‘trans’ my two sons. None.” Smither went on to say, “What we worry about is feeding him and his brother. Paying the mortgage and homeowners insurance on the house we’re raising them in.”

Which is why culture war issues are not working this year. Singer also reported that Republicans and their billionaire funders are (finally) dumping piles of cash into the campaign. But it won’t matter. Singer lists reasons: Campaign finance law says candidates get better ad rates that PACs. Democratic candidates in swing states are far out-raising their opponents. So the differences are smaller than they appear. Most importantly, no amount of money will change an election if the ads aren’t addressing the issues most important to voters. People want candidates to address high cost of living and high gas prices. What they are getting fearmongering on transgender issues. Republicans think transgender issues got them in power in 2024. Actually, voters were reacting to the economic mess recovering too slowly from the pandemic and thought Republicans would handle the economy better. Instead, Republicans screwed it up. Also, in states where those vile anti-trans ads ran and are running, the states already passed laws restricting transgender rights. Fearmongering now is less effective. An email from March For Our Lives reported that libraries across the country, including in Baltimore, six branches of the Los Angeles County Libraries, and all 20 branches at St. Louis County Libraries are giving out gun safe storage devices and gun locks, often for free. No paperwork, no ID, no questions. The Central Library of Baltimore gave out 100 locks in 24 hours.

One administrator put it plainly: "One homicide costs taxpayers a million dollars. One non-fatal shooting costs taxpayers $1.5 million. A safe costs $20. Gun locks are $15." That math is undeniable. And the fact that communities are finding ways to make it happen — through libraries, hospitals, health departments, and local officials working together — is proof that the movement for gun safety doesn't wait for Congress.

In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Justin Wolfers of Platypus Economics looking at the importance of a free press. This is at a time when the nasty guy banned three networks from the White House. The ban was blocked this morning.

Starting in 2003, Brazil’s federal government randomly picked municipalities for audits of federal money. Some audit results came out before an election, and some came out after. That’s the foundation for a great natural experiment. Claudio Ferraz and Frederico Finan compared the two groups. Corrupt mayors who were exposed before the election were far less likely to be reelected, and the effect was much bigger where there was local radio, because radio was how the story reached voters. Mexico shows something similar. When local radio and TV reported that politicians had misused public money, voters punished those politicians’ parties much more heavily.

In the comments Rambler797 reported diesel truck buyers (and I’m sure he is referring to pickups) are 90% men and 84% white. And 87% of their party affiliation is Republican. That’s why they are raging at the nasty guy on social media. Rambler797 then included a tweet by Curtis Namba:

Hey Truckers! Remember when diesel was so cheap under Biden you would caravan to DC waving your stupid Trump banners?

Nerd heaven? Mandalit del Barco of NPR reported on the opening of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles. Yeah, that’s George Lucas, creator of Star Wars. Of course, there is a great deal about Star Wars inside, but there is also a great deal that isn’t. There are reproductions of the Sistine Chapel ceiling and other world heritage sites. One gallery has a large collection of Normal Rockwell paintings.

But most of the collection is original work that Lucas says is often overlooked in the art world, including comics, Japanese manga, children's book illustrations, and pulp magazine covers.

The gargantuan lie: We have more time

Dartagnan of the Daily Kos community discussed comments by film director Adam McKay. He created The Big Short about the 2007-9 financial crisis, Vice about Dick Cheney, and Don’t Look Up about our tendency to ignore global warming. McKay wrote an essay for Current Affairs titled “The Gargantuan Lie that is Collapsing the World’s Climate.” Dartagnan wrote:

In an essay for Current Affairs, titled “The Gargantuan Lie that is Collapsing the World’s Climate,” McKay highlights a phenomenon that he argues is the most insidious and dangerous impediment to any effective action on global climate change: “It is a lie told worldwide by hundreds of thousands of institutions, elected officials, many universities, legacy news, some large non-profits and eventually—as the deception entered mainstream culture—even by ourselves, to ourselves, every single moment of every day.” What is this “lie” about which McKay writes? It is the lie that “we have more time.” ... He’s talking about the more insidious interpretation: the unobtrusive hum in the background of our mind that knows something is terribly wrong here, but counsels us not to think about it too much, because it’s too exhausting and debilitating. It may not even be a conscious denial of reality, more of a reflex actually. The lie that soothingly says tomorrow is another day, so don’t worry and its really OK to “keep doing what we’re doing” because tomorrow is — without a shred of doubt — most assuredly “another day.”

UK Chief Scientist David King warned that what we do over the next three-four years will determine the fate of humanity. The problem is that warning came five, almost six, years ago. And in that time nothing significant has been done – even worse, the country elected the nasty guy who is doing all he can to make the situation worse. And that implies it’s too late to save humanity. Climate scientists said we should act to avoid warming the planet by 1.5C. We’ve passed that. The benchmark is now not to exceed warming by 2.0C and we’re way too close to it. But that much warming means we leave behind a stable climate, one that has “seasons.” The human population is now above 8 billion. Warming by that much means potentially lethal heat-related survival stress, crop failures and mass, involuntary migration. Some predictions predict the death of a billion people, others say two billion. If warming reaches 3.0C, and we’re not doing anything to prevent it, predictions say deaths could reach four billion – yes, half of humanity – by 2050. Those deaths have started to happen. Back to that gargantuan lie. That played out three weeks ago in a news report of tornadoes in New York City that said nothing about the historical significance of those tornadoes and said nothing about climate change. This week the New York Times discussed the depleted water levels in Lake Powell and Lake Mead. The article did mention climate change, which is good, but didn’t mention the drivers of climate change. McKay showed that as the temperatures go up, US news mentions of “climate” go down. As the problem worsens the media is informing us less. Fossil fuel companies and their enablers are working to distract us. Part of how they do it is keep saying, “we have more time.” Oliver Willis of Kos reported that ABC and parent company Disney sued the Federal Communications Commission in response to FCC Chair Brendan Carr bringing their station licenses up for renewal early with a threat of cancellation. ABC says it’s a First Amendment issue and the FCC threat is because some of its shows are critical of the nasty guy. Willis wrote that ABC has grown a spine. After the nasty guy won in 2024 ABC paid $15 million over a suit experts argued was frivolous and could have easily been won. But they caved, hoping for some good will from the nasty guy. That good will didn’t last long. To stay in the nasty guy’s good graces, one must forever agree to his demands. Thankfully, ABC saw it couldn’t do that. Emily Singer of Kos reported Sen. Jon Ossoff, in his bid to keep his seat is blasting the nasty guy and his opponent Mike Collins. Over the weekend at a campaign event he said:

He golfs and trades stocks. See, he doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.

Who is Natalie? That’s Natalie Harp. She’s been seen traveling with the nasty guy. She has been leaving him notes that sound like love letters or a great deal of sucking up. Her role hasn’t been defined by the White House. I’ve read a lot of speculation. Aide? Eye candy? She does look a lot like Ivanka and Melania. Nurse or nanny to a decrepit old man who butters him up to make him feel better about himself? Note that Ossoff mentioned her name, but made no comment about what role she fills. Even so, the White House freaked out, saying nasty things about Ossoff. Singer concluded:

If Trump and the White House really wanted this story to go away, they would simply let it go rather than draw attention to it with childish social media posts. But leave it to Trump and his administration to create more problems for themselves based on their sick desire for revenge and humiliation.

In Wednesday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a lot of commentary about Ossoff’s comments. My favorite is by Niles Francis:

Idk if it was the point but man Ossoff sure has flabbered the gasts of an entire administration and right-wing media ecosystem.

The nasty guy has spurned the leaders of South Korea for another attempt to be best buds with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. That prompted exlrrp to post a meme in the comments showing the nasty guy saluting someone in uniform that is not American (I don’t recognize the person). In the background is Kim. The caption says, “Every time a maga tries to claim Dems are Communist, show them this pic.” In the comments of Tuesday’s roundup exlrrp posted a tweet from middleageriot showing Kim and the nasty guy shaking hands for the camera. The caption (which may be fictional): “Kim Jong-un: ‘I moved on Trump like a bitch. When you’re tyrannical dictator, he’ll let you do it. He’ll let you do anything.’”

Make resistance the safer bet

I finished the book Whistle-Stop Politics; Campaign Trains and the Reporters Who Covered Them by Edward Segal. The book is small scenes of when a politician climbs onto a train to take his message to the small towns across the country. Segal was the press secretary for an Oklahoman Congressman in 1984 and thought to use a campaign train to introduce his candidate to more of the state. He wanted to find a book or other resource about campaign trains and came up empty. So he started collecting stories, then did serious research, and 40 years later produced this book. Overall, it’s a lightweight book. He covers the campaigns from the late 1800s to Biden’s train in 2020, though the first train campaign was in 1836. Th coverage isn’t of the type of saying in 1896 this candidate was on the rails for this number of days, covered so many miles, gave this number of speeches, had these incidents along the way, and the trip had this consequence for the candidate or the future of campaign trains. Instead, the book is organized by topic. These campaigns had this type of incident. These had that type of incident. Each incident is described in a few paragraphs, up to a page or two. Campaigns can appear under several topics, but there isn’t a complete campaign narrative. Some of the topics: A description of the campaign train (the candidate’s car was always the last one and out its back door was the campaign platform). Who was on it (candidate, staff, reporters, regular train staff). Whether the candidate gave the same speech at every stop or how he pulled in local details. What local politicians were introduced. How the logistics of the trip were set up. What the Secret Service did to make the route safe. What happened when a doctor was needed. How the candidate dealt with hecklers or protesters. How the press managed enroute (no showers, no laundry, no direct communication while on the train). As to the last topic, occasionally the train stopped and everyone stayed at a hotel. Sometimes they stopped only during the day, so the hotel would get a request for six rooms and 150 towels. Segal also described some campaign imitators. In 1940 Gracie Allen of the comedy team Burns and Allen did a train tour as the candidate for the Surprise Party. Winnie the Pooh did one in 1972 with advisors Tigger and Eeyore. Mickey Mouse did one in 1978 to celebrate his 50th birthday. The top candidates that logged the most miles on a train were Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, far more than any of the others. There is a description of the rail car built for Roosevelt to keep him comfortable and safe. The reason for campaigning by train was simple: There was a train depots downtown in practically every small city. Everyone knew where it was. The airport, if there was one, was a ways outside of town and few people knew about it. A train allowed the candidate get close to the people. I enjoyed the book, but glad it was just over 200 pages (plus 778 endnotes to list the sources that I could skip) and I could finish it in just a few days. As I said, these were short amusing stories without a comprehensive narrative. Oliver Willis of Daily Kos reported on Monday the nasty guy’s invasion of Chicago has begun. It’s over the objection of Gov. JB Pritzker and the city’s mayor. The justification for sending in the troops is, of course, lies. Also on Monday Lisa Needham of Kos reported on the state of the invasion of Portland. U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut ruled on Saturday that the nasty guy could not federalize the Oregon National Guard to protect federal agents in Portland. On Sunday the judge ruled that the nasty guy could not use California’s national guard protect federal agents in Portland. That ruling was at the request of both California and Oregon because neither wanted one state to invade the other. While she was at it the judge ruled the nasty guy couldn’t use the national guard from any other state either, even if Texas was offering. The case was appealed and I’m still behind in my reading. A week ago Needham reported that the nasty guy has a new effort to get colleges and universities to bend to his will. He came up with a ten point plan titled “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” Schools that agree to it will get preferential access to federal funds. Needham wrote about the points in the plan. Here’s some of them.

So a vibrant marketplace of ideas, but one where schools put their thumb on the scale for conservatives, who basically can’t compete in the marketplace of ideas in higher education. ...And, of course, there are demands that there be no race-or sex-based preferences in hiring and that transgender women be barred from women’s locker rooms and sports.

And they need to hire an independent auditor to ensure compliance.

So all that schools need to do to get “multiple positive benefits,” including “substantial and meaningful federal grants,” is to totally alter their curriculum, departments, admissions, hiring, and sports teams to conform to whatever racist, transphobic, or xenophobic thought that skitters across Trump’s gray matter at any given time. Just some minor tweaks, really.

Nine schools have received the “invitation.” One, the University of Texas at Austin, appears all in. On Monday Dalbert of the Kos community reported that Gov. Gavin Newsom of California has a response. Refuse the nasty guy’s offer a school could lose federal funding. But if a state school accepts the nasty guy’s offer they lose state funding, including grants to California students.

People cave to bullies when there’s no cost to giving in. Newsom’s changing that dynamic. The article urges other blue-state governors to follow suit: cut off state resources to institutions and officials who comply with Trump’s demands. Make resistance the safer bet.

Alix Breeden of Kos wrote that a few top level comedians have gotten themselves into a mess. The royal family of Saudi Arabia funded the Riyadh Comedy Festival. The royal money means they paid big bucks to the comedians, like $375K and upwards. They are working hard to burnish their image. With this royal family we know there is a catch – the entertainers signed contracts specifying they would say nothing bad about the country, the royals, the legal system, or the religion. But giving up free speech for a paycheck, especially a big one, means they are losing credibility in America, especially after Jimmy Kimmel was pulled off the air because of free speech. Fellow comedians are saying their hypocrisy is showing. In the comments of Monday’s pundit roundup for Kos paulpro posted a cartoon by Angel Boligan showing the nasty guy beating furiously at a huge drum set while the two speakers are aimed at earth. John Sipher posted a cartoon by Kal showing a big beefy American army man ready to fight foreign foes while a small Pete Hegseth tugs at his ankle and points to a cat named “Wokeness” and saying “You’re under attack!” In Tuesday’s roundup Chitown Kev quoted Paul Krugman writing for his Substack on why the nasty guy’s second term seems to have gotten so extreme so fast.

One reason things have gotten so extreme, so fast may be that Trump, Miller and company are in a race against time. Foreign autocrats like Orban or Vladimir Putin could afford to chip away gradually at the foundations of democracy because they were, at least initially, quite popular. Trump — although he won’t admit it — has very low approval, and the public opposes him on every major issue. Yet he and his minions control much of the machinery of government, and are trying to use it to intimidate — you might say terrorize — their opponents before public anger catches up with them.

In the comments exlrrp posted a meme showing, I think, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Whoever it is the text is fun. It says, “She’s going through the normal 5 stages of grief: pyrotechnics, merch, podcasting, grifting, and acceptance.” In the comments of Wednesday’s roundup is a cartoon posted by LJ Slater and created by Smit. It shows ICE agents standing around and one says, “I gotta leave early today, guys. We deported my kid’s babysitter.” A comment posted by paulpro shows a calm Chicago scene and two ICE agents are talking:

First: You see any Chicago Antifa rioters yet? Second: No, but there was a dress sale at the Water Tower my wife would kill for.

LJ Slater posted a cartoon by David Cohen. It shows a peace prize on the floor and the nasty guy reaching for it. To the side one guy tells another. “It’s an old bar trick. I glued it to the floor. Let’s see how long it takes him to get it.” In the comments of today’s roundup Fiona Webster posted a cartoon by Jesse Duquette showing a policeman cuffing a young black child (I’ve seen mentions that this is a thing). The policeman says, “Stop crying. America’s great now.” Webster also posted a cartoon by Lalo Alcaraz that has a caption, “Meanwhile, at the border... The president ordered that the border wall be painted black because it makes the wall hotter when migrants climb it. Also, it’s lunchtime.” The image shows the bottom of three beams of the wall bent up and being used as a grill attended by a Mexican man. Beside him is a sign, “Hot border tacos.” While checking one set of stats for this blog – the excitement of setting big viewing records in September – I forgot to keep track of other stats. I’ve passed mentioning the nasty guy in 700 posts, this one is 701. There are only two topics with more posts. One is “GOP” which is now at 1114 posts. The other is “Gay Marriage” and “Marriage Equality” (I switched tags) at 711.

Damaging to real American people, but an opportunity for cuts

Sheesh, where to begin? Start talking about the new mess or finish talking about the previous mess? I guess I had better finish off the old mess first. Way back on September 18 (so it can be seen as old news) when the Jimmy Kimmel mess was still hot Alex Samuels of Daily Kos reported that Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr hinted that Kimmel won’t be his last target. He said, “We’re not done yet.” Sinclair and Nexstar are the two large TV station owners that objected to Kimmel’s comments, prompting his show to be suspended. On September 23 Oliver Willis of Kos reported that they said when Kimmel’s show is brought back (which was that evening) their stations would not air the show. On Friday, September 26 Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos had some late night commentary, including on Kimmel’s return to air. Bill started with the start of Kimmel’s opening monologue:

I’m happy to be here tonight with you. I’m not sure who had a weirder 48 hours, me or the CEO of Tylenol.

And later in the monologue:

[Trump] did his best to cancel me. Instead, he forced millions of people to watch the show. That backfired bigly. He might have to release the Epstein files to distract us from this now.

Willis posted that opening monologue. I watched it. The whole segment is 30 minutes. The first 15 minutes was rather serious and a full support of strong American ideals, especially free speech. I think it’s worth watching. The rest of it was jokes and a skit on the “new rules” Kimmel would have to follow. In all a great return. On September 26, three days after Kimmel’s return Samuels reported that Sinclair and Nexstar had changed their position and would air Kimmel’s show. On to the other big news, the federal government shutdown. Leila Fadel of NPR spoke with Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut. She wanted to offer a bill to keep the government funded and open for another month so that Congress, and not the Office of Management and Budget head Russel Vought. But the House was gaveled into adjournment before she could. DeLauro reminded us the reason for the shutdown, for the budget impasse, is Democrats want to reverse the cuts to Medicaid that would throw fifteen million people off. They also want to reverse the cuts to Affordable Care Act subsidies, which would cause premiums to be too expensive for millions of people. At the moment Democrats do not trust Republicans. DeLauro said:

In the midst of these negotiations, Russ Vought, who is the mastermind of this, of this effort, and who wants a shutdown - and he said - his words are very clear - there should be less bipartisanship. The president of the United States said it's a waste of time to negotiate with Jeffries and Schumer. And Republicans rally around, jam this Republican continuing revolution down the Democrats' throat. Now, you tell me if that acts in good faith. And Mr. Vought introduced a bill that would continue to steal the money appropriated by Democrats and Republicans, House and Senate, as we're into these negotiations.

As for the nasty guy’s threat of turning mass furloughs into mass layoffs, DeLauro said there have already been mass layoffs. Scott Simon of NPR talked to Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin about his proposal to end shutdowns. He calls it the Eliminate Shutdowns Act. If a budget isn’t enacted this bill would establish 14-day rolling funding at last year’s levels for the parts of the government not yet funded.

And by the way, that's the well-honed process by the uniparty to put pressure on the process to just pass anything, which has then resulted in [the national debt] going from $14 trillion to $37 trillion. It's designed to increase spending. Everybody has to get together and compromise to spend more on everybody's programs. Again, we can't afford this. So again, let's end the dysfunction.

I like his idea, but puzzled. Why have a bill that funds the government in two week chunks that automatically renew every two weeks? Why not just say the government is funded at the previous level until the new budget is passed? News Corpse of the Kos community wrote Speaker Mike Johnson gave the game away. While talking to Maria Bartiromo of Fox News about turning the furloughs into job cuts, Johnson said:

Yes, the president and I talked about this at great length. While, a shutdown is very damaging for real American people who depend upon government services, it can provide an opportunity to downsize the scope and the scale of government, which is something that we’ve all always wanted to do.

This would allow the nasty guy do some things that would otherwise not be possible because Democrats would never vote for them. Johnson also said of Vought:

He gets to decide now what services are essential, what programs and policies should be continued, and which would not be a priority for taxpayers.

So Vought gets to decide – and not Congress? And that “priority for taxpayers” nonsense... This is all about the priorities of the nasty gay and Republicans, which are far different than the priorities of taxpayers. News Corpse wrote that the nasty guy says the shutdown will allow him to do things that are bad for Democrats. News Corpse corrects that thought. The cuts will be bad for the American people. The nasty guy and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called about 800 of America’s generals and admirals to one place in Quantico, Virginia. They ignored the cost of transporting them from around the world and the big security breach of having all the top brass in one place. Then Hegseth laid out his definition of a warrior ethos (from a guy who had never been a warrior) and the nasty guy insulted them. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Robert Hubbell of his Today’s Edition Newsletter on Substack:

They sat in silence as Trump claimed that the military would use U.S. cities as “training grounds” for waging war against American civilians. They sat in silence as Trump said he would ask the military to fight “the enemy from within.” They sat in silence as Hegseth said the generals were free to ignore the law of war and international treaties that separate the US military from barbarians and war criminals. [...] In his final insult, Trump told the generals they looked like they came out of “central casting.” In doing so, he trivialized and demeaned their accomplishments and professionalism, telling them they were nothing more than props for infantile speeches by men who hold the military in contempt. And so, the generals sat in silence, depriving Trump of the thing he values most--obsequious adulation. The silence of the generals spoke volumes.

In the comments are several cartoons and memes about that military gathering. A cartoon by Sophie Labelle has a lot of text. Here’s part of it. It start with saying Vought is a key architect of Project 2025. Then:

What Vought aimed to do was create the conditions in which he could strip bare what he calls the “unelected fourth branch of government.” Back in February, he instructed agencies to prepare for mass layoffs in Sept. 30. This shutdown will give Trump the power to bypass Congressional oversight: Trump can just declare which areas are considered essential services, and ignore the 1974 law that prevents presidents from withholding federal dollars. The shutdown was the goal all along.

Laugh About It cartoons posted one by David Crampton. It shows two women in conical hats with a crystal ball between them. In the ball is an image of a guillotine. One woman says to the other:

Once upon a time, there was a similar concentration of gold and power in a palace. It didn’t work out too well for the leaders.

Last night my friend and debate partner asked what is really lost when the government is shut down. I could only list a few things from memory. So now I turn to a list I made back in 2017 when the nasty guy threatened or caused a shutdown. Here are the departments of the federal government listed in the order of their creation, though some were created under a different name. State

coordinates foreign affairs, foreign policy advisor

Treasury

regulates & stabilizes money, pays government bills IRS – collects taxes and investigates tax cheats

Defense

armed forces, national security

Interior

federal lands & national parks programs for natives

Justice

enforcement of law & administer justice ATF, DEA, anti trust, civil rights, criminal, environment, tax

Agriculture

support the farmer support the forests food safety, promote nutrition, SNAP, WIC

Commerce

promote economic growth & tech competitiveness Census NOAA – Weather Service Patents & trademarks

Labor

improve working conditions, assure worker rights

Health and Human Services

CDC, Food & Drug, Institute for Health, Medicare & Medicaid agency for toxic substances Indian Health Service Head Start & senior home delivered meals services to prevent child abuse and domestic violence

Housing and Urban Development

strong, sustainable, inclusive communities affordable and safe housing Office of Fair Housing Community block grants, Section 8 housing, Federal Housing Admin

Transportation

Aviation safety, highway safety, pipeline safety Fed highway, fed railroad

Energy

Safe handling of nuclear material system of national labs Promote energy production, research, conservation.

Education

Watches over the ed system money for grants and loans money for special ed programs

Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health,

Veterans Benefits: home loans, vocation rehab, education

Homeland Security

antiterrorism, cybersecurity Customs FEMA

Small Business Administration Social Security NASA Environment Protection Agency Ambassador to United Nations National Endowment for the Humanities Corporation for Public Broadcasting

No broken laws? Prosecute anyway.

Back in April I complained about emergency alerts being sent to my phone. I was alerted to: Thunderstorms that died out before reaching me. An explosion that happened ten miles away and the alert sent two hours later, which reached me at 6 am. I was not alerted to thunderstorms that hit and were quite strong, one setting off the city’s emergency sirens. I rated the service 0-4. I haven’t gotten any alerts since then. Jennifer Berry Hawes, in an article for ProPublica posted on Daily Kos discussed the federal Integrated Public Alert and Warning System that isn’t getting much use by local officials.

ProPublica identified at least 15 federally declared major disasters since 2016 in which officials in the most-harmed communities failed to send alerts over IPAWS — or sent them only after people were already in the throes of deadly flooding, wildfires or mudslides.

Hawes describes several of those incidents. Reasons why IPAWS isn’t used include insufficient training, insufficient money to connect to the IPAWS system, a variety of other alert systems – none of which get used effectively, fear that the alert would be broadcast too widely and cause traffic jams, fear of sending out alerts to something that might be of no consequence prompting residents to ignore future alerts, or the authorized user for a community is home in bed. So I guess my phone is a part of the IPAWS system (perhaps all phones are) and the Detroit authorities are struggling to figure out how to use it effectively. Back when I worked in IT for the auto industry several colleagues in the department were from India and on work visas. At the time I heard a lot about the H-1B visas used by many tech employers. These were visas held by the employer, which meant the worker was tied to that employer. That meant if the employer was displeased the worker would be sent to their country of origin. That also meant the employer could pay well below what they would have to pay an American worker. H-1B visas are still around and are back in the news. The nasty guy wants to limit the use of these visas as part of his efforts to limit immigration. So he added a $100K fee (followed by confusion on when the fee would apply). Tech companies are bitching and moaning, but most can afford to pay, or hire Americans. Or use code written by AI (a quarter of code already is). Kos of Kos reports the places that can’t afford the fees are rural hospitals. Many doctors there are immigrants on H-1B visas. Its also an area the federal government designates as short on primary care doctors and an area likely to be hit when the Big Brutal Bill’s Medicaid cuts happen. Many rural areas may lose their only doctor. Kos also discussed the nasty guy’s shift away from Russia and towards Ukraine. He tweeted that Ukraine could, with help from NATO, push Russia completely out. Kos works through all the details of this change in position. The question is: Why? Kos answered:

The irony is that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin once had Trump in the palm of his hand. Flattery and promises of a Nobel Peace Prize could have helped him starve Ukraine into submission. But Putin, too arrogant to debase himself and suck up to Trump the way other world leaders did, may have overplayed his hand. And that arrogance might ultimately help doom him. What a crazy twist.

In Thursday’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Paul Krugman comparing the nasty guy to Putin and Hungary’s Victor Orban and their grabs for autocratic rule.

Trump has a significant problem that neither Putin nor Orban faced. When Putin and Orban were consolidating their autocratics (sic), they were genuinely popular. They were perceived by the public as effective and competent leaders. Just nine months into his presidency, Trump, by contrast, is deeply unpopular. He is increasingly seen as chaotic and inept. As David Frum says, this means that he is in a race against time. Can he consolidate power before he loses his aura of inevitability? Will those who run major institutions – particularly corporate CEOs – understand that we are at a crucial juncture, and that by accommodating Trump they have more to lose than by standing up to him? To put it bluntly, is the Jimmy Kimmel affair the harbinger of a failed Trumpian putsch?

Oh, I wish! Yes, Kimmel is back on the air with a lot more people watching his returning monologue than watched the show before it was suspended. Thank you, nasty guy. In the news this week is the nasty guy demanding James Comey and Letitia James be prosecuted by the Department of Justice though there is no evidence of actual crimes. In the comments of the roundup are a pair of tweets. The first by Spencer Hakimian quoting an exchange with the White House Press Secretary:

Reporter: Why won't Trump accept the conclusions of his Justice Department to not bring charges against Letitia James? Leavitt: These people literally tried to ruin his life. He wants to see accountability.

Sarah Longwell responded:

This isn’t just weaponizing the DOJ. It’s inventing crimes. His already weaponized DOJ is saying there’s nothing they can do to prosecute because Letitia James didn’t break any laws. And Trump is saying prosecute anyway, I have a score to settle.

A meme posted by DefendOurConstitution shows a boy with a skeptical expression.

So me, wearing a bulletproof backpack to school with metal detectors, armed guards and routine mass-shooter drills is “the price of freedom”... But you, wearing a mask on Walmart for 10 minutes is “tyranny”?

In Friday’s roundup Greg Dworkin included a tweet by Abbie Richards talking about measles misinformation. She includes a link to more on Media Matters.

If you sow enough doubt and fear and confusion, you can sell more supplements to "bulletproof" your followers immune systems against measles.

Will Bunch tweeted an intro to an article he wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer about TV stations that are not locally owned.

Folks had no idea who owns their local TV stations - until large, faceless corporations, Sinclair and Nexstar, said they can't watch Jimmy Kimmel because of politics. This is why they've been warning us: media consolidation is a threat to democracy.

Greg Sargent at The New Republic:

Now that Disney and ABC have bucked President Trump’s authoritarian censorship regime and reinstated comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s show, MAGA personalities are in a seething fury. They’re claiming the move insults Charlie Kirk’s memory—Kimmel’s original sin concerned a poorly timed quote about Kirk’s murder—and that this shows Disney hates MAGA’s rank and file. As one influential MAGA figure put it to her followers: “DISNEY LOATHES YOU.”

From Bloomberg:

Epstein was drawn to what he saw as the finest things in life. The substantial wealth he acquired after leaving Bear Stearns in 1981 to advise the ultrarich afforded him a Boeing 727, one of Manhattan’s largest townhouses and his own Caribbean island. And when his own hour of terror dawned in 2005, following a tip to police in Palm Beach County from the family of a teenage girl, he didn’t rely on just one champion or defender, his inbox shows, but a collection of elite professionals. Though lawyers, academics and media advisers helped him in different ways and to different extents, his network included past and future White House officials, a top Hollywood publicist, a former child-exploitation prosecutor and renowned researchers, including one on his way to winning a Nobel Prize. That support for Epstein—who harmed more than 1,000 people, according to the US Justice Department—came when he needed it most. The professionals who surrounded Epstein defended and deflected, coached and countermessaged, burnished and polished. Together, they helped extend Epstein’s influence and freedom, even lending an air of invincibility. His reckoning was postponed until 2019, when federal prosecutors charged him with trafficking minors. Weeks later, he was found dead in jail in New York City awaiting trial.

From NBC News:

Whether she intended it or not, the 39-year-old [MI state senator Mallory] McMorrow started a trend of Democratic outsiders end-running party leaders to launch their campaigns, sometimes in explicit opposition to them. The movement is fueled by a crisis of confidence among Democratic voters in their own party, which is giving encouragement to the types of nontraditional candidates who have been walloped by leadership-aligned rivals in the past. Altogether, ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, the moves have created a number of crowded and competitive-looking Democratic Senate primaries — contests that have often seen party leaders leap in to anoint favorites in recent years. Democratic angst following the loss to President Donald Trump last year has contributed to the trend in at least five races that could determine the majority, from core battlegrounds like Michigan and Maine to long-shot targets like Iowa and Texas.

A pair of tweets, first from Ken Klippenstein:

Chuck Schumer says "even though Democrats' numbers are low," that's fine because they're still higher than that of Republicans. "In a couple of the races where we have the two candidates, we win!"

Lis Smith responded:

With all due respect, this is simply not it. GOP numbers declining doesn't mean Dems will necessarily benefit- polls show that loud & clear. Democrats MUST improve their standing w/the American people & can only do that by putting forth a compelling vision of their own.

I’ve been hearing about the nasty guy threatening to fire, not furlough, federal employees if there is no budget deal and the government has to shut down. I’ve also been hearing about the response from Democrats. This is what Politico wrote about that:

Among the Democrats still standing firm against a Republican-led seven-week funding punt include those representing many of thousands public employees who would be most at risk if President Donald Trump and OMB director Russ Vought follow through on their threats. “Whether there’s a shutdown or not, they just keep firing government employees,” said Rep. Glenn Ivey, who represents part of Washington’s Maryland suburbs. “I don’t know that capitulating on this front slows that down. In fact, it might actually encourage them to think that they can stay on the track that they’re currently on.” Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland called the threats “mafia-style blackmail” in a statement, adding that the potential layoffs are “likely illegal.” Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia said, “For Trump, people’s lives and livelihoods are just bargaining chips.”

In the comments is a tweet from David Frum with a link to his article in The Atlantic. Alas, the full article is restricted to subscribers.

Trump hates Comey because Comey's FBI investigated Trump's Russia connections. But Trump *indicted* Comey not just for payback. Trump is testing whether he can misuse prosecutions to pervert the 2026 elections.

Oliver Willis of Kos discussed why conservatives hate free speech as part of his series on explaining the right. And I think he got it right. After citing several instances of attempts at limiting speech Willis wrote:

Conservatism has a serious problem when it comes to competing in an open war of ideas. Many conservative priorities, like racism and economic policies bent around the desires of the ultra-wealthy, are not popular with the public at large. To allow an open exchange of ideas is to allow for the chance that liberalism and the Democratic Party might succeed. Instead, conservatives have sought to rig the system. In an electoral sense, that has led to policies like gerrymandering congressional districts, redrawing borders to ensure Republicans win seats even in areas where Democrats would have a plurality or majority in a fair system. The same practice is being borne out by the right’s crusade against the First Amendment. If ideas they don’t like are banned from public discourse, the right “wins” arguments by default. Not only does attacking speech change the rules to favor the right, but it undermines the foundation of the United States. The Revolutionary War and the subsequent drafting of the Constitution and the ratification of the Bill of Rights were meant to protect America. Battles like World War II were fought to defend the continued existence of those rights against the threat of fascism. Hundreds of thousands of people died defending those rights.

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.”

Running at warp speed into government censorship

I finished the book Gaslighting; Recognize Manipulative and Emotionally Abusive People – and Break Free, by Stephanie Moulton Sarkis, PhD. She’s a therapist working in Tampa and a specialist in gaslighting. I bought the book thinking it would describe gaslighting in great detail while standing a ways away and discussing well known gaslighters. But it is much more up close and personal – how to deal with a gaslighter in your life. The term comes from a 1938 play and 1944 movie in which a man convinces a woman she is going crazy because she is told and begins to believe things that are clearly not true. Some of the traits: A gaslighter can be charming, but is overly controlling and abusive. They pit people against each other, they don’t accept responsibility, they mistreat people with less power and use their weakness against them, they obsess over their accomplishments and image, they want you to fawn over them, they con people, they lie, they isolate others as a way to control, the few compliments they give out are more like insults, they require loyalty but don’t give it, and more. Many gaslighters have suffered a narcissistic injury a profound and deep threat to their self-worth or self-esteem. Yeah, that very much sounds like the guy sitting in the Oval Office. And I’m not the first to make that connection. It is one reason why I bought the book. People who have lived with a gaslighter for a long time may not recognize what a healthy relationship looks like. That’s one reason they stay in it. The other is they keep hoping the gaslighter will change, as he says he will do and never does. So most of the book is about what to do when in a relationship with a gaslighter. Short answer: leave. He’s not going to change. The relationship will only get worse. Sarkis describes how to leave and how complete the break needs to be. But sometimes complete separation isn’t possible. Such as when the gaslighter is a coworker, neighbor, your sibling and your parent will try to keep the connection, your ex and you still have to co-parent, or your ex’s new partner. Sarkis then provides a lot of help in how to treat the gaslighter to maintain your own sanity, the sanity of your children, and your reputation. There is also a chapter on what to do when the gaslighter is a politician. The last chapter is if you realize you might be a gaslighter. Sarkis makes a distinction between a gaslighter and one who has learned gaslighting behavior because that’s all they’ve known. A gaslighter will not see they have a problem and will not seek counseling. So if you do recognize such behaviors in yourself you’re not a gaslighter and there is hope to learn how to build healthy relationships. In that chapter Sarkis describes various methods of counseling so that a person can choose what is right for them. Sarkis also lists resources for therapists, attorneys, employee rights, and help for minors, coparenting, domestic violence, and suicide. Thankfully, no one I’m directly involved with is a gaslighter, so this book isn’t directly useful to me. However, it is a necessary and important resource to those who have to deal with one. I will donate this book to a young man I know. Last Saturday on NPR host Alisa Chang spoke to Jude Joffe-Block and Huo Jingnan, also of NPR, about those who criticized Charlie Kirk after his assassinated last week and are losing their jobs. This is three days after Kirk died. Joffe-Block said:

Kirk's supporters and high-profile, right-wing influencers, along with some elected officials, have been mobilizing to get people fired for posting in a celebratory way about Kirk's murder.

Those celebratory comments seem, to me, rather mild, such as saying: hate begets hate, zero sympathy. A reminder, Kirk had made incendiary remarks about races, immigrants, transgender people, and others. The types of people being fired include “teachers, civil servants, nurses, doctors” and I’m sure many others. Whether their firings violate Free Speech depends on the job and what was said, but in many cases no laws were violated. This effort is troubling in an important way. Conservative influencers on social media highlight cases and, the troubling part, Republican officials then call for their firing. One of those was Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn and another was Republican Rep. Clay Higgins from Louisiana. Rebekah Tromble, a First Amendment expert said:

We are running at essentially warp speed directly into maybe an even worse moment of government repression and censorship than we witnessed during the McCarthy era.

Joffe-Block again:

You know, the internet is definitely built for these kinds of crowdsourcing projects. You know, Charlie Kirk himself rose to fame for creating a watch list, encouraging students to report professors they consider to be radical left.

On Sunday NPR host Scott Detrow spoke to reporter Luke Garrett. They started with a comment by Utah Governor Spencer Cox:

We can confirm that his roommate was indeed a boyfriend who is transitioning from male to female.

That seems to fuel the Republican claim that Tyler Robinson, the shooter, was under the influence of the radical Left. Did Robinson shoot Kirk because of Kirk’s criticism of transgender rights? While the roommate and the rest of the Robinson family are cooperating with authorities, Tyler is not. His motives remain unknown. Cox, even before the shooting, has been a leading voice for peace and calm. He made the rounds of Sunday talk shows asking whether we want to be a nation of civility or violence. He also called people to get off their devices and have real relationships. Republicans have taken up booing him. Garrett said:

So members of Congress have less security than the president and are often in very public spaces, similar to the one where Kirk was in right before he died. And Oklahoma Senator James Lankford said, something has really changed on Capitol Hill. He told CNN that lawmakers have received 14,000 threats in 2025 alone. That's around 50 threats every day.

Lankford called for the temperature to be turned down on Capitol Hill and the White House. On Monday Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos reported that Stephen Miller, the guy behind making sure White House policy is as racist as possible, gave his response to Kirk’s assassination. I won’t quote his nasty words, only that, as Einenkel wrote, the nasty guy administration “would harness the anger over Kirk’s death to dismantle what he described as a coordinated ‘terrorist’ left.” And he’ll do it in Charlie’s name. From what little I know of Kirk and his willingness to debate opponents he would not want the destruction of the Left be done in his name. Then again, he did say some vile things about the left. On Tuesday Emily Singer of Kos reported that AG Pam Bondi declared she will bring the full force of the Department of Justice down on those who spouted “hate speech” against Kirk or any conservative activist. She has no understanding of Free Speech and that any words, except those that defame or that threaten or incite violence, cannot be made illegal. But Bondi contradicts Kirk:

"Hate speech does not exist legally in America. There's ugly speech. There's gross speech. There's evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment," Kirk wrote in May 2024 in a post on X. "Keep America free."

Even when conservative commentators quickly schooled Bondi on Free Speech, she still didn’t get it. I don’t want to find out how loosely Bondi defines “hate speech.” On Monday Einenkel quoted Secretary of State Marco Rubio:

Once a society loses the ability of people with strong disagreements to engage in discourse, then the only option you're left with is either silence or violence. Neither one of which is acceptable. Both are very destructive.

Good to hear it! Alas, one doubts Rubio was talking about his own Republican party and trying to get it to tone down. He was almost surely trying to describe the Left and Democrats. Quite rich from the guy who threatened deportation as a way to silence dissent. Lisa Needham of Kos wrote that Republicans aren’t even pretending to care about Free Speech anymore.

The Republican Party’s commitment to free speech has never been full-throated. Rather, their approach has been more of a “free speech for me but not for thee” sort of thing at the best of times. But in the wake of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s shooting death, even the nominal lip service conservatives give to the First Amendment is wholly out the window. In its place, we now have pretty much every textbook violation of the First Amendment you can imagine. Lucky us.

Needham then gives many examples. That includes the nasty guy calling for an investigation into is funding all that “alleged nefarious liberal slander of Kirk,” I’m sure the answer is “nobody.” We’re all willing to call out Kirk’s harmful comments for free – does that imply Republicans won’t say anything without being bribed? But even if there was a money trail, the conservative Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United should keep the benefactor protected. Singer sums up the situation well with the opening paragraph of a post:

Conservatives have come up with a host of measures they want taken to avenge right-wing activist Charlie Kirk's murder—none of which include gun reforms.

Feeding young men a steady diet of grievance

My Sunday movie was Just Friends, a Netherlands movie released in 2018. It’s less than 90 minutes. It’s a gay love story. One of the lads in Joris. His father died ten years ago when Joris was 11. The movie opened with the family reclaiming the urn holding the father’s ashes. I pieced together that urns are held in a mausoleum for ten years and Mom didn’t want to pay the rent for another ten years. She has her own issues around being widowed so young. Joris tries to leave the urn somewhere around the house, but it is always returned to him. He wants a connection with his father, but not through the urn. Yad is the other lad. He had been a medical student in Amsterdam, but after passing out at a party he returns home to the community where he grew up. His mother is annoyed he has no occupational ambition. He gets a job as a domestic for a woman living in senior housing – who happens to be Joris’ grandmother. When the two lads meet they immediately start flirting. Did they sense the other is gay? Since both are out to their families had Grandma told her help about her son? A problem in the budding relationship is that Joris’ mom isn’t so keen on Yad being Muslim. He was born in Syria and the family moved to Netherlands as refugees, where he grew up. The story goes where expected. I may say that a lot, but it isn’t always a bad thing. I enjoyed it. Kos of Daily Kos discussed the gender gap as political chasm. He begins with stats to show the stark difference between young women voting for Harris and young men voting for the nasty guy. Then Kos included a tweet by Steve Kornacki about the results of a poll he helped conduct through NBC News Decision Desk. It asked Gen Z adults, men who voted for the nasty guy and women who voted for Harris, whether various things were important to their personal definition of success. I’m pretty sure the numbers represent the percent of respondents who said an item is important. Some of the items are similar in both groups. 21% of both men and women said having no debt was part of their personal definition of success. Making family and community proud was similar, 23% of men, 19% of women. 33% of men and 32% of women said financial independence was important. Then the items with widely differing importance. 34% of men but 6% of women said having children was important to success. 29% of men but 6% of women thought being married was important. Having money to do things you want, 28% men, 46% women. Having a fulfilling job, 30% men and 51% women. Having emotional stability, 9% men, 39% women. Kos wrote:

Both men and women highly value financial independence and a fulfilling career, but women—with higher educational attainment—are increasingly competing for and winning those opportunities. That leaves a generation of men who want families and children—while their female peers don’t—struggling to secure careers in increasingly competitive fields. Enter the manosphere and its influencers—a sprawling network of podcasts, YouTube channels, and social media accounts feeding young men a steady diet of grievance. The core message is always the same: Men are owed women—women to bear their children, keep their homes, and provide sex.

If men don’t get what they’re owed, they blame feminism, liberalism, and “woke culture” as corrupting women away from their biological destinies. This worldview, pushed by the manosphere, tells men they’re victims. The message is the same:

True masculinity means reasserting rigid gender hierarchies—by any force necessary. It’s toxic and dangerous. These ideas don’t just encourage resentment; they legitimize violence. When men are told that society has “stolen” their futures, it doesn’t take much for frustration to turn into radicalization.

Alienated and disaffected young men are a threat to both left and right – to the right if they feel betrayed or ignored. Radicalized young men are combustible. We channel their energy constructively or we face violence. Oliver Willis of Kos, as part of his series on Explaining the Right, he takes on why conservatives love guns so much. I think he gets quite close to the answer I’ve come up with. He of course begins by listing some of the statements over the years of conservatives declaring their love for guns, or at least their refusal to regulate guns. And that love is much more than the NRA handing out lots of money.

Conservatism embraces gun culture as an attempt to control things. Much like right-wing fear of diverse cities, conservatism asserts gun rights—despite the threat to public safety—because guns are seen as a way to control things. The right has a deep-seated issue with growing gender and racial diversity, so guns are seen as a way to keep that in check. Guns are also used by the right to reinforce a culture of faux machismo. Many on the right believe that owning and using guns is a display of strength, while they deride purported feminine weakness from groups like Moms Demand Action for opposing gun violence.

Using guns to keep things in check doesn’t say what “in check” means and why they want to control things. So to my understanding: Guns are the best way to enforce the social hierarchy. They prove the person with the gun is socially superior to the one they’re aiming at. If the target dies the death shows the shooter is superior because the shooter was able to take the life. If the gun doesn’t go off it’s usually because the target managed some act of submission, of acknowledging the superiority of the other. The nasty guy is in England to visit royalty. There was also a far right rally with a turnout that was maybe up to 150,000, way too high for comfort. NPR host Mary Louise Kelly spoke to Clive Lewis, a member of Parliament with British-Caribbean ancestry. Lewis could look down at the crowd from his window. Many held far right banners and many others were people he knew – old school chums and neighbors. He recognized these people liked what they’re hearing but aren’t yet far right. Some of that feeling of being powerless comes from many British institutions – railways, health system, water system – that have been hollowed out. The people have lost trust and feel they’re not being heard. Lewis talked about fellow MP Nigel Farange. He champions wealth, but is now moving towards a position of public-private partnerships. It is those on the right who are the first to say we hear you and will change things. Lewis said he saw American conservatives use Charlie Kirk’s assassination as an opportunity to increase political repression, to say their freedom of speech has greater weight than other’s. From what Lewis said I saw another instance of the pattern that is playing out in America. The rich cause public services to disintegrate and oppress the poor by limiting their opportunities. Then the rich are much faster at capitalizing on the angst. They blame immigrants and offer solutions that protect their own position. All of it can stir up the voters. None of it will actually make their lives better. The rich still control everything to protect their position at the top of the hierarchy. In Monday’s pundit roundup Greg Dworkin of Kos quoted a pair of tweets. First Meghan McCain, daughter of the late Sen. John McCain:

I think the fundamental difference between the right and the left in this country is that the left glorifies death - particularly of adversaries and the right does not. And it’s not something I think I really have fully faced until Charlie’s assassination. And it’s petrifying.

That reminds me: From the right an accusation is actually a confession. But on to a rebuttal from Sarah Longwell:

One reason you get deranged takes like this from people who used to oppose Trump, is that the mental and moral gymnastics it took to become a Trump supporter/apologist requires a simple mantra, “The Left is worse.” So you work to constantly convince yourself that’s true.

Max Burns tweeted a thread now on Threadreader:

A Gen Z colleague described the "blackpill mindset" to me in a way I'd never heard before: For younger kids today, especially men, there's a pressure to either "get rich at any cost" or "get famous at any cost." They use irony and crude memes to mask the deep anxiety they feel. What stood out to this person was the "lol nothing matters" attitude Kirk's assassin tried so hard to project in his ironic bullet inscriptions, political-but-mostly-stupid meme Halloween costumes, and the gamer culture he was steeped in. His politics almost feel secondary. We're seeing an uptick in "ironic" phrases written on bullet casings and manifestos that are peppered with Very Online references meant to be read and understood not by the media, but by these shooters' online peers. They want to be remembered as the people who "went for it." It speaks to an alienation that younger Americans (disproportionately men) try to heal not through therapy but through online game communities, Discord, and validating themselves online. Their goal isn't news coverage - it's to be cheered on their niche forums of choice.

In the comments the cartoon Twonks comments on fitness devices.

Woman: Right, I’m heading out for a walk. Couch potato man: Can you take my watch with you?

Your thoughts and prayers stink with the blood of innocents

I went down to the Detroit Film Theater this afternoon for the first of two movies. They are finishing up an Akira Kurosawa series, showing eight of the director’s 30 feature length films, newly restored. I intend to see another tomorrow. Today’s film was Sanjuro, filmed in 1962 and starring Toshiro Mifune, one of Kurosawa’s favorite actors. Nine young samurai of a clan have gathered in a room because the clan’s superintendent has done something to the chamberlain (I didn’t figure all that out). This is some sort of corruption, which is not good for the samurai image. One of the nine is the chamberlain’s nephew, so there is a family tie involved too. In comes Mifune’s character to join the group. He quickly shows he’s quite a fighter (of opponents, not the group), earning their respect. He then shows he is much better at anticipating the opponents and prevents these young men from doing stupid things. When not actually in battle he has a lazy, carefree way about him, not at all concerned about how a samurai is supposed to act. Of course, there are lots of complications along the way. At one point they rescue a mother and daughter. The mother admonishes Mifune to be less violent, to kill fewer people, preferably none. They also rescue a servant of the opposing side. They stuff him in a closet. Every so often he emerges to say something, then decides he had better get back in the closet. So a bit of humor, some violence, and a lot of intrigue. An enjoyable afternoon. I’m way behind in my reading. On Monday Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reported the nasty guy and his Attorney General Pam Bondi have issued an executive order that bans burning the American flag without violating the 1989 Supreme Court decision that said flag burning is protected as free speech. At least that’s what they claim. They say if flag burning discriminates against or violates the rights of a citizen they will be prosecuted. But free speech never violates another’s rights (though slander and libel do). So how this will get around free speech rights is a mystery. Except that none of the Supreme Court members who decided that 1989 case are around anymore. Even if the Supremes strike it down, it does serve as red meat to the base. And accusing immigrants as the ones doing the flag burnings just adds a bit of juice to the meat. A week ago Needham reported that a district judge ordered that Alligator Alcatraz (more accurately called Alligator Auschwitz) must no longer receive new detainees and be closed and dismantled within 60 days. The reason was it was constructed so quickly the required environmental study was not done. We’ll take any reason we can get. Oliver Willis of Kos writes a column titled Explaining the Right. Two weeks ago the topic was Why conservatives think American cities are hellscapes. Quotes from his answer:

The conservative movement loves to connect fear of crime to rhetoric about racial minorities. It preys on deep-seated bigotry and motivates conservative voters to get out and vote, all as a way to stop the “other” from gaining control and allowing the spread of crime. ... By invoking crime, particularly at a moment of political vulnerability, he understands that he is activating long-simmering conservative resentments. By raising the idea of a crime wave occurring in cities with large Black populations, the tensions raised within the MAGA movement about Epstein can be eased, at least temporarily. ... Right-wing lawmakers and media have sold conservative voters on a false narrative for so long that those voters truly believe Trump and his cohorts are fighting crime—even as they continue to cover up for an accused sex trafficker and pedophile.

Alix Breeden of Kos gives and update on the continuing saga of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. He was the guy mistakenly sent to the notorious El Salvador prison and the nasty guy claimed he was unable to undo the deportation. Abrego Garcia is back in America. He was detained (I don’t remember the details), released, had three days with his family before being detained again. The administration is annoyed he won’t plead guilty to their fake charges of human trafficking and is threatening to send him to Uganda (which would send him to El Salvador). Abrego Garcia’s legal team is trying to stop deportation and get his case before a court. I am behind in reading the top level articles on Kos, but I’m up to date in reading the pundit roundups. The roundup for today, assembled by Greg Dworkin, included a couple responses to a tweet by The Bulwark:

Vance on undermining the Federal Reserve: "I don't think we allow  bureaucrats to make decisions about monetary policy and interest rates without any input from the people that were elected to serve the American people...POTUS is much better able to make these determinations."

Justin Wolfers responded:

They're now saying it out loud: The Administration's goal is to undo the political independence that Congress granted the Fed, so that the President can directly set rates.

Jessica Riedl also responded:

Political Economy 101: Putting politicians directly in charge of monetary policy would be a pandering, inflationary disaster - as nearly every developed nation long ago learned, often painfully.

In the comments Jesse Duquette posted a cartoon showing 98% of mass shooters are straight men and MAGA snores. 57% are straight white men and MAGA snores. 0.13% of mass shooters are trans and MAGA screams “They’re evil! Put ‘em in camps!” Muriel Vieux posted a poem she first posted January 22, 2023 and, alas, has plenty of reason to post again. The poem is titled “Thoughts and Prayers.” I’ll repeat just a couple of the six verses.

Keep your thoughts away from us They stink with the blood of innocents Keep your prayers in your coffers No God wants to honor them What thoughts are you sending anyways? The ones twisted by your greed and indecency? Is there a return address attached? So we can send them back to you?

David Roberts tweeted a link to an article in Psypost. The article’s title and part of its description:

Trump supporters report higher levels of psychopathy, manipulativeness, callousness, and narcissism. Support for Donald Trump is linked to darker personality traits, including psychopathy and decreased empathy, new research finds.

A comment by wmpmacm (no source for his statistics are given):

Homeschooling is on the rise precisely because of the fear people have of the gun violence in this country. So if you want to know who is really afraid of being shot, look no further than the Conservative Christian Gun Owners who know very well who gets killed — their kids in school. This is why they hide their kids behind closed doors. Religion has absolutely nothing to do with it!

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos included a video as his sanity break. It is less than three minutes and shows some of the things Darth Vader has to put up with on a daily basis such as: Being asked about his weekend plans. Recognizing that the Force can’t help with a slow elevator. I saw sheet music for a song from the musical Godspell that I didn’t recognize, the song Beautiful City. That prompted me to look it up online and listen. I see it wasn’t in the original stage production, but new for the movie. That prompted me to listen to all of the songs. I chose a recording from the 2000 Off-Broadway revival, which I didn’t know had happened. There are, of course, many differences with the CD I have of the original production and, of course, a different cast. Godspell came out when in was in high school. It was a big deal at the time. I saw a live production when it came to town. It has had a special place in my life.

He's a cheater of wives, at golf, and Americans out of votes

Alex Samuels of Daily Kos discussed a poll that asked whether gerrymandering should be legal. Of all US adult citizens 9% said yes, 69% said no. Even Republicans don’t like it – 14% yes, 57% no. Some of this is definitely in response to the Texas Republican attempt to create a more severe gerrymander to squeeze out five more seats. And driving the perception that gerrymandering is bad is one of the jobs of the Democrats who broke quorum in Texas. The longer they stay away the more attention they bring to the Republican power grab and the better chance of boosting national outrage against gerrymandering. Samuels also discussed the more seats Republicans try to squeeze out the smaller their margin will be in each one. That means there is the possibility of holding an election that is a referendum on the guy in the Oval Office and a blue wave could swamp what they think are safe seats. But another problem is an erosion of trust in democracy. A YouGov poll found a third of Americans are unsure whether their state districts are fair and a bit more than a third know they are unfair. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported on the comments of Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. He is hosting many of the Democrats who broke quorum in Texas. Pritzker said:

It's a big ugly bill. It's hyper unpopular in Texas, among people in Texas and across the country. And he knows he's going to lose the Congress in 2026. That's why he's going to his allies and hoping that they can save him,” Pritzker said. “And we've all got to stand up against this. This is, it's cheating. Donald Trump is a cheater. He cheats on his wives. He cheats on golf, and now he's trying to cheat the American people out of their votes.

Back in 2016 the question was: Is the nasty guy a white supremacist? The answer was: I can’t tell you – but white supremacists sure think he is. Oliver Willis of Kos discussed an update of that question. Is the nasty guy a Nazi? Actual Nazis sure think he is. Alas, that support from the top has come with a rise in white supremacist violence. In 2020, 13% of extreme demonstrations and violent acts involved white nationalists. Just four years later, in 2024 almost 80% of such events involved white nationalists. Emily Singer of Kos wrote that the gaudy ballroom the nasty guy plans to start building next month is illegal. Major changes to the White House (beyond hanging gaudy gold plated stuff all over the place) need to have the approval of the National Capital Planning Commission. Approval can take years because the commission verifies the changes don’t compromise the historic building. Doubling the footprint would definitely do that. Because the nasty guy says construction begins next month we know he didn’t submit the plans for review. Though the nasty guy has committed many vile crimes he has never been held accountable for any of them. He has also stacked many courts, especially the Supreme Court, to make sure he never will be. So why would the illegality of his ballroom plans stop him? In Monday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted tweets by Justin Wolfers. I’m looking at the second and third of those tweets:

I was just in Japan for two weeks, and learned a lot from talking Japanese policy wonks about the "strategic ambiguity" at the heart of the US-Japan trade deal, and what this reveals is – and isn't – in a number of the President's "deals." I should have been clearer: Both sides (implicitly) agree not to write down any deal. They understand Trump will fill the silence with outlandish claims, delivering him a political win. And our trading partners are obliged to deliver nothing, giving them the economic win.

In the comments is a cartoon that needs a bit of explanation. Recently, the DOGE whiz kid known as “Big Balls” (there’s a real name somewhere) was allegedly the victim of a carjacking. The details don’t matter. It was that incident, or at least the report of that incident, that prompted the nasty guy to claim DC is a crime infested hellhole only he can clean up. He federalized the DC Police and pulled in the National Guard to make DC safe again, even though the DC crime rate has been falling and is the lowest in 30 years (as various news organizations have been reminding us). The cartoon is by Jesse Duquette. The title is “‘Big Balls’ is a false flag.” The caption says:

Step One: Have a dutiful stooge take part in a staged event Step Two: Used staged event as pretext for militarized takeover of a city Step Three: Cory Booker probably gives a long speech while Chuck Schumer writes a strongly worded letter Step Four: Onto the next city Step Five: Repeat

Willis reported on Monday that because of the nasty guy’s infatuation with the safety of DC the FBI has assigned 120 agents for night patrols in DC. They are pulled from other duties that would have more consequence over safety. On Sunday night at lest two dozen agents were on the scene of a minor traffic accident between a car and moped. Actual police handled it just fine. Washington Post writer Drew Harwell posted a video of armed agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration patrolling the National Mall. He called it “tremendously goofy.” DC Mayor Muriel Bowser has been keeping her cool. It is “the president’s call about how to deploy the Guard.” And: “I just think that’s not the most efficient use of our Guard.” And all of this looks like a big diversion from the Epstein files. In Tuesday’s roundup Chtown Kev quoted Mark Jacob of his Stop the Presses Substack and his interview of retired journalism professor Jay Rosen.

JACOB: Can’t the media become much more aggressive than anything you’ve suggested here? Can’t headlines start with the words “Trump lies”? Wouldn’t a confrontational approach be better for the media — and the public — than the current practice of amplifying the lies and correcting them quietly while the independent press dies of 1,000 cuts? ROSEN: Calling things by their right names is a hugely important use of the First Amendment, a case of “use it or lose it.” The press has to be aggressive, yes, and in multiple ways: digging for information, asking blunt questions (when they are good questions) even if that might endanger a reporter’s future access. Aggressive, too, in warning the Republic that its democracy is under attack, and bringing attention to that warning by use of every media platform available. There’s also a kind of aggression in dispensing with refuge-seeking behavior in journalism — in contrast with truth-seeking. [...] I want false claims to be declared false. Clearly and provably. By journalists who are themselves evidence-based. If the best description of what they know is there’s no evidence of that, then say it: “There is no evidence.” If a provably false claim is knowingly used to whip up resentment against a marginal group, there is every reason to call it a lie in tomorrow’s newspaper. What I care most about is that false claims get presented as false. Is that true? Did that really happen?

In the comments are several good memes and cartoons. Rep. Adriano Espaillat quoted some of the nasty guy’s announcement that he was taking over DC.

And we are getting rid of the slums, too. We’re getting rid of them. It’s not politically correct. We’re getting rid of the slums where they live.

I note he doesn’t say how he will be getting rid of the slums and what he will do with the residents. Though the urban renewal projects of the 1950s and 60s come to mind, where black neighborhoods in many large cities (including Detroit) were replaced with freeways that allowed white residents to flee to the suburbs and still work in Detroit. Espaillat responded to the nasty guy:

Using military force against an impoverished civilian population is the act of a dictator, not a president. Donald Trump’s actions to declare a public safety emergency against individuals experiencing homelessness and personally attacking them is vile and inhumane.

A meme posted by exlrrp shows the words of Chef José Andres:

Donald Trump, you didn’t have the power to call the National Guard on January 6... But now you do?

Dobber included a tweet by Will Chamberlain.

I bought my family to DC for the Cherry Blossom festival. The first thing I saw when I exited the L’Enfant Plaza Metro was a gang of youths driving ATVs down the street, one of whom was doing a wheelie. So forgive me if I doubt that crime is down.

keptsimple responded:

Bragging about being a giant pussy is integral to the conservative mindset.

I add: Youths driving ATVs and doing wheelies is not a crime. Only a giant pussy would infer that those actions mean they are also criminal. A tweet by Acyn:

Baltimore Mayor Scott response on Trump: I think it’s very notable that each and every one of the cities called out by the President has a black mayor, and most of those cities are seeing historic lows in violent crime.

A cartoon posted by paulpro and created by Sandeep Adhwaryu shows two extremely thin people sitting in front of the rubble of Gaza. One says: “Do we get a Nobel Peace Prize for starving quietly without troubling their conscience?” In today’s roundup Dworkin included a tweet by Mark Hertling:

For the record, our division commander BANNED things called “presence patrols” in Iraq. “If you don’t have a specific task & purpose, your ‘presence’ doesn’t do anything.” National Guard stating they are now doing presence patrols in DC. A complete waste of soldier’s time & effort.

At the top of the comments LJ Slater posted a cartoon by Slyngstad. At the top it says, “Trump calls in National Guard and takes control of DC Police to deal with crime.” In the center is a drawing of the Capitol attack. Below that are the words, “Oh wait, sorry wrong cartoon...” A tweet by ramseyfay33 shows a woman in a selfie. She’s along the Reflecting Pool with the Lincoln Memorial in the background. There are very few people about. She wrote. “Checking in from the front lines of the downtown DC war zone. There are baby ducks and a lady tap dancing. Send in the Guard!” Fiona Webster posted a cartoon by Carolyn Crampton. It shows two young witches on either side of a crystal ball. In the ball is an image of a man with a glum expression. One witch says, “I see Chief Justice John Roberts weighing his oath of to the Constitution against blackmail threats from the face-eating-leopard party.” Way down in the comments paulpro posted a meme by Lainey Molnar. It shows a woman with an infant and behind her is an outline of a man. The caption says, “I wish we said ‘children of absentee fathers’ instead of ‘single mothers’, because how is the parent who stayed the problem?”