They love the language of blood and gore

My Sunday movie was Glitter and Gold, Ice Dancing. This was released by Netflix a few days before the Winter Olympics to serve as a companion to the Ice Dancing competition. I didn’t have a chance to watch it then. It is a three episode documentary, 2:45 total length, as three top ice dancing couples prepare for their time in the Olympics. Two of the couples are: Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who had won gold medals at lesser competitions, but had not won an Olympic medal. Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, who had also won a lot of medals and known for a more eccentric style. Poirier said he is gay and that it affects the choices he makes when designing a program. Laurence Fournier-Beaudry and Guillame Cizaron were the third couple. He had won Olympic gold in 2022 with a different partner. I don’t remember why his partner left. His new partner had lost her previous partner because he had been suspended for a sex assault accusation. That ruling was overturned and appealed, but not resolved in time to prepare for this year’s games. A year before the Games the ice dancing world was pretty confident that Chock and Bates would take gold and “Piper and Paul” would take silver. That calculus was upset when the Fournier-Beaudry and Cizaron paring was announced. In ice dancing, especially when the competitors are still in their teens, there is a lot of splitting and forming partners. There is even a website where one can fill in their stats in hopes of finding a partner. That can mean partners are from different countries, creating strange situations. An English woman was paired with a Spanish man and got a Spanish passport to qualify. That man left the sport and she paired with a German man. The German man could more easily get a Spanish passport than the English/Spanish woman could get a German passport, so they represented Spain though neither was Spanish. This was brought up because Fournier-Beaudry had to get a French passport and hope the paperwork went through before the Games. By the time a pair is Olympic quality they’ve usually been together for a decades, sometimes more than two. The French pair had to overcome a lot for being so recently paired. Ten months out the pairs create their short and long programs based on the types of things they do best and their own personal style. They choose music and work with choreographers. They talk to costume designers. They have to consider whether the programs are “Olympic enough.” Six months out they start to show their programs to judges to get feedback on what works (what pleases the judges) and what doesn’t. But each pair must decide if what the judges say conflicts with what they understand their personality to be. There are a few scenes of the woman putting on makeup before performing. Their male partners are beside them also putting on makeup. And Poirier showed how much stuff he puts in his hair so that it is as unmoving as a helmet. Then come the qualifying events in which they go to arenas around the world and perform before audiences. How well they place affects whether they get to the Olympics. Their performances may suggest whether parts of their program need to be reworked. Of course, their Olympic performances are not included in this documentary. Though I watched the competition I had forgotten how they finished and had to look it up. I finished the book The Bump, a novel by Sidney Karger. This is the story of Wyatt and Biz, a gay couple. Yes, Biz is a nickname – real name Massimo – gotten perhaps because he was a busy boy, he seemed to be bouncing off the walls (ADD?), or because as a teen he was in show business. Maybe both. They have been together about a dozen years. A baby is about to be born for them through surrogacy. But as the story opens their relationship is showing strain. So instead of flying from from their home in Brooklyn to California, where the surrogate is, they decide on a road trip. Wyatt plans for them to visit gay enclaves – Provincetown, Saugatuck, Palm Springs – before being responsible parents puts a stop to that. They get to Provincetown, but Wyatt’s mother soon calls him to come to Boston, where he begins to learn why his father left when he was a boy and his mother won’t talk about it. Saugatuck gets replaced with a visit with Biz’s huge and boisterous family near Chicago, where Biz begins to confront his fears that he won’t be a good enough father. He compares himself to his own father, who is a gem. This is an enjoyable and satisfying story. It’s a love story with a bit of maturity to it. Even so, it’s a bit of a lightweight. Thom Hartmann of the Daily Kos community and an independent pundit wrote that (though their cruelty was visible long before the first bombs dropped) the war with Iran demonstrates the nasty guy, the vice nasty, Pete Hegseth, Stephen Miller, Russel Vought, Karoline Leavitt, Elon Musk, and many more have a severe case of bloodlust.

Trump, Hegseth, Vance, Miller, Leavitt, et al think this sort of thing makes them seem “macho” and “tough.” Nearly 90% of Republican voters agree with them. What it really does is reveal them as psychopaths, the very human embodiment of evil. ... This isn’t the language of leaders reluctantly using force as a last resort; it’s the rhetoric of psychopaths who see the rest of humanity as disposable, as dots in a video game, as objects whose death is entertainment, so long as their own luxury and power are secure. ... They delight in death and destruction. They love the language of blood and gore. They’re monsters.

I haven’t looked at the work of Sarah Kendzior in a while. She had been co-host of Gaslit Nation and now runs her own newsletter on Substack. A post from the end of February is a Q&A with her subscribers. A top topic is the Epstein scandal. Here are a couple excerpts from close to the top of the post.

Will the Epstein files bring accountability? SK: Yes, some — but not necessarily in the US. We’ve seen predators face arrest in other countries. In the US, we’ve seen them resign from jobs. This gives me little hope since MeToo produced more backlash than justice, and many who lost power later regained it. I do think the release has forced politicians and pundits to finally address the massive criminal conspiracy that was in the public domain for two decades. What’s revealing is that they view redacted emails by predators as more credible than consistent statements by victims. There is something very wrong with the way Americans trust criminal elites to be more reliable sources than the people they hurt. ... Will the rest of the files be released? SK: As I’ve said before, I think they were waiting to release an Epstein trove once: 1) they felt they had consolidated power 2) AI was so ubiquitous that the veracity of the evidence would be questioned. That moment is now. We have seen a lot of emails, though one period of interest — the time around 9/11 — is largely absent. We have not seen much video. I believe the most damaging information is on video. We know Epstein had rooms wired with cameras to film pedophiles assaulting victims. I will not watch that if it comes out. But it may come out, and should that happen, the assaulter will claim it’s fake. This wouldn’t have been a convincing excuse a decade ago, but it will be now due to AI. I’ve wondered if Grok posting child pornography on demand shortly before the Epstein files were released was a trial run for this tactic.

Perhaps this is why many of the richest tech companies are investing so deeply in AI? I’ve accumulated a bunch of pundit roundups for Kos. Let’s see how many I get through in the time I have. In the roundup for Saturday at the end of February Greg Dworkin included a tweet by Sarah Fitzpatrick that included a link to an article in The Atlantic. Fitzpatrick’s comment:

At least 6 Trump Cabinet members or senior admin officials were in contact with Epstein. It’s unclear if these relationships w/ Epstein were raised in background checks or security clearances. Every agency involved declined to answer my questions.

The title and subtitle of the article:

The ‘Crazy’ Plot to Release the Epstein Files How an unlikely duo of lawmakers partnered with victims to try to hold the powerful accountable.

In the comments, a tweet (though it doesn’t show as a tweet) by Matthew Yglesias:

Trump warned me that if I voted for Kamala Harris we’d have higher prices and a government-run economy at home and new wars abroad, and I voted for Harris and that’s exactly what we got.

A cartoon posted by The Wolfpack and by John Darkow shows Musk (labeled “DOGE”) pushing an old lady in a wheelchair labeled “Social Security” towards the edge of a cliff. Musk says, “So, which one are you, Granny? Waste, Fraud, or Abuse?!” Another cartoon posted by The Wolfpack and by Daniel Boris, shows Hillary Clinton saying, “Donald Trump’s name is mentioned 38,000 times in the Epstein files, and I am the person Republicans ask to testify under oath. Makes perfect sense!” In the roundup for last Wednesday Dworkin quoted Shanaka Anslem Perera on X:

Satellite imagery shows an Iranian ballistic missile struck the AN/FPS-132 phased array radar at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. If the damage is as severe as the imagery suggests, Iran just destroyed a $1.1 billion piece of equipment that took years to build and cannot be replaced on any timeline relevant to this war. The AN/FPS-132 is not an ordinary radar. It is one of a handful of early warning sensors in the entire US global missile defence architecture. It detects ballistic missile launches at ranges exceeding 5,000 kilometres. It provides the initial tracking data that allows Patriot, THAAD, and Aegis systems to calculate intercept solutions. Without it, every other layer of missile defence in the Gulf theatre is operating with compressed reaction times and degraded situational awareness.

David Schuster of Blue Amp:

We now know that a woman came forward in 2019 alleging that, as a minor, she was sexually assaulted by Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. Investigators did not laugh her out of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They interviewed her four times. Four. In the careful, plodding world of the FBI, that is not a courtesy; it is an acknowledgment of credibility. Agents summarized each session in the bureaucratic catechism known as an FBI 302 report. Three of those summary reports are now missing. Not delayed. Not misfiled. Missing.

In the comments is a tweet by Veterans Against Trump:

Reporter: What’s the worst case scenario that you have planned for in Iran? Trump: I don’t know of there’s a worst case... I guess the worst case would be we do this and then somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person., right? That could happen.

The Maine Wonk added:

Gee, I wonder why every administration for 50 years has avoided outright war with Iran and regime change. But sure, the Host of the Apprentice is the only person in history with a plan that will change everything in a matter of weeks. We live in the dumbest timeline ever.

In last Thursday’s roundup Chitown Kev quoted Michael Deck of Niemann Lab discussing the 3 million pages of Epstein documents with 180,000 images and 2,000 videos. Search of all that is a big problem. A solution: AI.

These types of AI-powered transparency projects have only become more important as trust in government institutions and the Trump administration’s handling of the files erodes. Last week, NPR reported that the DOJ intentionally withheld and removed documents in the Epstein Files that named Donald Trump, including an accusation by a woman that he had sexually abused her when she was a minor. [...] Since the first Epstein Files were released last year, newsrooms have been using machine learning and LLMs to parse documents and find story leads. Earlier this month, New York Times AI projects editor Dylan Freedman explained how he and his colleagues built “bespoke software applications” to help reporters search photos visually, identify document duplicates, and generate video and audio transcripts. The Times has also been using a proprietary search tool developed by its Interactive News desk to break news about the files and comb through the documents for investigative leads.

In the comments paulpro posted a cartoon by Sheneman showing the nasty guy saying:

People say my big, beautiful war has no clear objective, fake news! Since when is war profiteering not a clear objective?

Way down in the comments is a cartoon by Jesse Duquette in response to generals expecting the Iran war to usher in the End Times. It shows Jesus in a red cap talking to followers: “One day I will return but only once you bomb a bunch of kids because a pedophile told you to.” In the comments of Friday’s roundup paulpro posted a cartoon, author not mentioned. It shows two men talking, the second one in a red cap:

First: So, you’re now supporting a warmonger and pedophile protector. Second: Yeah, its’ tough to keep up with what I believe in... First: But still with Trump? Second: Sure, gas is still under $3. First: Ah... I’ve got some bad news...

Zero interest in refugees starving and dying

Detroit Film Theater is doing an end-of-year silent film festival with live music. Last evening I saw a couple Charlie Chaplin films. Today I skipped Mary Pickford’s Sparrows and I plan to see the end of the festival tomorrow afternoon. Last evening started with three short films with a Christmas theme. There wasn’t much to the first and second. The third was interesting because it was made in Russia. St. Nicholas, as a Christmas tree ornament, comes to life, goes out into the snow, and conjures to wake bugs and a frog to come to his Christmas party. The first of the Chaplin films was The Rink from 1916 where Chaplin as the Tramp is both a waiter at a restaurant and a skater at the adjacent roller skating ring. He’s not good at all at being a waiter, but on wheels he is quite good and can do a great comedic tumble (one wonders about the skill of the others he tumbled). The simple plot is to keep Mr. Stout away from the young Edna. I saw in the credits and confirmed in Wikipedia that Mrs. Stout was played by a man, Henry Bergman. Put a guy in the right costume and have no way to record the voice and only the credits will give him away. This film’s Wikipedia page includes the entire 25 minutes. The second Chaplin film was A Night in the Show from 1915. This time Chaplin didn’t play the Tramp. The movie is about all the things that go wrong in the audience during a vaudeville show – Chaplin is on the main floor as the gentleman Mr. Pest and also in the balcony with the common people as Mr. Rowdy. Again, Wikipedia includes the whole 24 minute film. I actually got tired of these two because the humor seems rather juvenile. That prompted me to look up Chaplin and his filmography. For 1914 it lists three dozen movies, about three a month. Chaplin’s famous movies are from the 1920s, when he successfully mixed comedy and pathos. Maybe for a Sunday movie sometime soon I should peruse this filmography page and watch some of the more famous movies. These will have the score that Chaplin composed for them. Nick Licata of the Daily Kos community discussed the nasty guy’s most serious illness. There has been lots of speculation about his health, mostly because he is obviously deteriorating and his released medical reports are not credible. However, the most serious is not physical, it’s mental. There are nine symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder. The only previous president accused of being a narcissist was Nixon and he exhibited only two: a willingness to exploit others and fantasies about deserving success. The nasty guy exhibits those two plus belief in superiority (“the most dangerous trait that the leader of a democratic republic could exhibit”), grandiose sense of self-importance as in exaggerating achievements, frequent envy as in belittling the achievements of others, entitlement as in anger when people don’t appease him, lack of empathy, arrogance, and a need for admiration as in cabinet meetings where each member gushes with adulation. Yup, that’s all nine. Licata is not the first to see the nasty guy suffers from NPS, though he post is the first time I’ve seen a list of symptoms. When a person has NPS they refuse treatment because they don’t believe they are ill. Friends must intervene (and I’ve heard elsewhere even that won’t lead to healing because the patient won’t cooperate with treatment). The only ones who can intervene are Republicans. And they aren’t. About all they are doing now is trying to distance themselves from him. What they should be doing is removing him from office. Republicans may like the nasty guy undermining the country’s democratic institutions. But he is also undermining the integrity and popularity of their party. That will affect future elections. Brett Murphy and Anna Maria Barry-Jester with photography by Brian Otieno, in an article for ProPublica posted on Kos, wrote about the effect of killing off USAID in the Kakuma Refugee Camp in northwest Kenya. The refugees are mostly people who fled the wars in Sudan. At the start of 2025 there were about 720,000 refugees in the camp and it is the third largest camp in the world. In 2024 USAID provided $112 million to feed the people there and had done so for many years. The 2025 assistance was canceled in January. The rest of the article is mostly about two things. The first is the cut in the food for the camp’s residents. An adult should get 2,100 calories a day according to humanitarians. But with the cut in aid about a fifth of the residents will receive 840 calories (about 40% of what is needed), another third will get 400 calories (less than 20% of what is need), and the rest, almost half, will get nothing.

[Dragica] Pajevic ended her presentation by relaying a truism that she said a government official in Liberia had once told her: The only difference between life and death during a famine is WFP [World Food Program] and the U.S. government, its largest donor. “The one who’s not hungry cannot understand the beastly pain of hunger,” Pajevic said, “and what a person is willing to do just to tame that beastly pain.”

That presentation involves the second thing. The presentation was made at a luxury hotel in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital in July. In attendance were American officials on a world tour “to conduct exit interviews with USAID’s top experts, who were being forced out of the agency amid the administration’s stated commitment to austerity.” They had a hefty expense account to travel first class. When the US embassy in Nairobi heard the tour would stop there they set up the face-to-face meeting with Pajevic. And here’s the second thing: WFP officials had been getting a runaround but at the meeting the US officials showed complete indifference to refugees starving and dying. “There was just zero interest in the subject matter,” said a USAID official.

This was something different: an American-made hunger crisis. So far this year, community health workers have referred almost 12,000 malnourished children for immediate medical attention. “What has come with Trump, I’ve never experienced anything like it,” said one aid worker who has been in Kakuma for decades. “It’s huge and brutal and traumatizing.”

Some of the refugees are trying to leave the camp. But they don’t have a good way to do that and don’t have a place to go. An American-made hunger crisis. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a pair of tweets. The first was by Stephen Miller, the guy pushing the deportation of anyone not white.

Watched the Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra Family Christmas with my kids. Imagine watching that and thinking America needed infinity migrants from the third world.

Catherine Rampell responded:

Some people will commit human rights violations rather than go to therapy.

Others pointed out Martin and Sinatra were the sons of immigrants from Italy, a despised country at the time. Paul Waldman of The Cross Section discussed comments by the vice nasty at the annual Turning Point USA conference.

“I refuse to apologize for being white” has long been a mantra of segregationists and Klansmen, an outgrowth of the fear that any sort of equality for racial minorities — legal, economic, educational — by definition meant putting whites in a subservient position, forced to hang their heads and apologize. Equality is perceived to be a reversal of the racial hierarchy: If we’re not in a state of privilege, free to abuse our lessers, then it can only mean we are being abused. So who exactly has been demanding that JD Vance apologize for being white? Has that ever happened to him, a single time? Of course not. But this is a key element of Trumpism, of which Vance would like to be the heir: You have been humiliated, it says, but I will let you stand tall again. You, white people — and especially white men — have been hounded and oppressed, but those days are finally over.

Note the bit about equality and the reversal of the racial hierarchy. Those high in the hierarchy can’t conceive of a world without a hierarchy. So talk of improving the lives of one race implies the loss of status, being made subservient, of another race and they are convinced those they abused will then abuse them. Also this strange idea: Not being allowed to abuse is itself abuse. In the comments is a cartoon by Randy Bish. It says, “It’s a sad day when your government can afford to zip tie children... but can’t afford to feed them.” In response to renewed talk of acquiring Greenland, this time appointing some government official to go there Anne Applebaum tweeted:

They have never explained what they need Greenland FOR. There is no possible use of the territory that has not already been negotiated with the Danes. This can only be an attempt to align the US with Russia, China and other predator states

In response to a tweet by the nasty guy discussing the possibility of marble armrests for the Kennedy Center, which he sullied with his name, Turnbull tweeted:

Listen up, peasants, there is no affordability crisis and if you can’t afford healthcare, blame it on the Democrats. Now, congratulate me on the marble armrests I’m installing, at great expense to the taxpayers, in the cultural arts center that I’ve named after myself.

Brian Allen tweeted:

Trump is literally selling pardons. According to the WSJ, there’s an “official track” and a faster one where you corner him at Mar-a-Lago, say the magic words “unjust persecution,” and walk away clean. Lobbyists quote prices up to $6M. No process. No ethics. Just cash and proximity. This is raw corruption in plain sight.

Save your soul and quit your job

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A tweet by Scott Horton says:

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

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

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

And a response by Eric Michael Garcia:

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

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

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

Mike Nellis tweeted:

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

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

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

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.

Isn’t this the time to hide Anne Frank?

I finished the book Blackouts by Justin Torres. The first is a mental blackout experienced by the narrator (never named), which prompts him to visit Juan. The two originally met when the narrator was about to turn 18 and Juan was much older and they are briefly together in the “nuthouse,” an asylum. The reasons they were there are never stated. I wondered if they were there because they were homosexual, but this was the 1990s. After that blackout and a decade after their first meeting, the narrator goes to visit Juan, now in a group residence of some sort, well past its prime. Juan is near death. He wants he narrator to receive his books and papers and do something useful with them. The second blackout concerns a two volume set of books where on most pages the text is blacked out, leaving scattered words that create a description or small story quite different than the original text, which is never shown. The books are Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns from 1941. Who did the blacking out and why is a mystery. Once together the narrator describes his time as a hooker. Juan tells the story of his life and of the books. The core of the research in the books was done by Jan Gay, longtime partner to Zhenya Gay (these are not the birth names of either women). Jan wants to get the research published but no publisher will touch it without the backing of a (male) doctor. And very few doctors will touch it. All that was interesting and enjoyable to read. It was also curious. At the back of the book are endnotes that give copyright info on the books whose blacked out pages appear through this book. It looks like the two volumes are real. Jan and Zhenya are real historical figures. Zhenya also illustrated children’s books and they’re given copyright info and some of those illustrations are in this book, showing they are real. There is a fun scene where Juan gives a very gay reading of one of the stories Zhenya illustrated. In other endnotes the narrator discusses Juan as a real person. Yet, this book is described as a novel. Was Juan real? That question is so obvious the author talks about it in what he calls “A sort of Postface.” He refuses to answer the question and says again the book is fiction. My Sunday movie was Ideal Home. I see it is on a variety of streaming services. I saw it on Kanopy. Erasmus is the star of a food show, his longtime male companion Paul is a producer. They live in a big house in Santa Fe (lots of great panorama shots). They’re very good at partying and bickering. Then Bill shows up claiming to be the grandson or Erasmus. Bill has come to stay while is father serves a jail sentence. Neither Paul nor Erasmus wants to interrupt their partying lifestyle to take care of a kid. And Bill annoys his grandfather because he only wants to eat Taco Bell. Of course, all that changes. Eventually. IMDb notes the gay couple at the center of the story are played by straight actors (Steve Coogan and Paul Rudd) and many of the straight characters were played by queer actors. It was very well done and I enjoyed it. In today’s pundit roundup for Daily Kos Greg Dworkin quoted part of a thread by Juliette Kayyam posted on X in response to the nasty guy ordering the dropping of a “bunker buster” bomb on underground nuclear facilities in Iran.

I don't know if this was successful or just attacks on surface level access. But there are consequences and so here are issues to discuss beyond tactics @CNN + Strait of Hormuz: reporting suggests about 50 oil tankers are scrambling to get out, so there may be fears that it can not be navigated soon and that will impact global economy; + American and American interests as a target abroad, including troops, European targets, or US targets/people abroad; + homeland security threat with our entire DHS apparatus now focused on ICE and the evisceration of counterterrorism and countercyber capacities there; + would be nice to have confidence in our intelligence but the last few days suggest our own – let alone our allies – is being ignored.

Aaron Rupar and Thor Benson of Public Notice:

“Performative public lying is a hallmark of far right authoritarian parties.” “Neither our media nor our political system is designed to deal with a far right authoritarian party.” If you’re familiar with these phrases, you’re probably aware of Mark Copelovitch, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has popularized them on social media. Both expressions capture something profound about American politics in the age of MAGA. Not a single day goes by without performative lying from Republicans — consider the truth-resistant sales pitch they’re currently making for Trump’s big bill — or without fresh demonstrations from the press and/or the political opposition that they’re unequipped to deal with a major party that has abandoned democracy for the sake of smash-and-grab mobsterism.

A bit of a thread on X by Jeff Timmer in response to the nasty guy saying the Iran nuclear sites were obliterated.

Trump’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites needs to be evaluated based on what we know about Trump: he never has a strategy, he is impervious to reading, learning, or understanding, and he lies. Lies all the time. About everything. Big or small. Trump has forfeited the benefit of the doubt. We should be deeply skeptical of yesterday's mission and any information or further action to come. Trump is a liar and an idiot. Incompetent and inexperienced people surround him.

In the comments Art Garfunky posted a full-page ad The Onion put in the New York Times. The ad looks like the front page of an edition of The Onion. The main headline:

Congress, Now More Than Ever, Our Nation Needs Your Cowardice

And the top headline for a side article:

Entitled Child Expects to Eat Lunch Every Day, Girl Literally Wants Food to be Handed to Her on a Plate

The Onion also sent that latest edition to every member of Congress. Dworkin remided us that just below its banner The Onion has a motto in Latin, “Tu Stultus Es” and of course I went to Google Translate, which gave me, “You are stupid.” Further down samanthab posted a tweet by Catherine Rampell with links to an article in the Wall Street Journal:

As I have argued for months: The person calling the shots in this admin was never Musk or Bannon or Susie Wiles. It's always been Shadow President Stephen Miller. Anything Trump says on e.g. immigration is cheap talk; Miller is the decider.

In Saturday’s roundup Dworkin quoted a tweet by Ruth Ben-Ghiat discussing the recent arrest of Democratic politicians. She included a headline (source not identified) that says:

For Democrats, handcuffs are the latest symbol of resistance to Trump.

Ben-Ghiat responds:

Only in America would the press treat the opposition party getting arrested as a "symbol," rather than as a concrete sign of descending authoritarianism.

Dworkin quoted a column by Jonathan Last in The Bulwark that asked an intriguing question that Dworkin’s quote wasn’t large enough to answer. So I looked up the full article. Last quoted an email from a friend:

Are you absolutely sure that as Christians this isn’t the time to hide Anne Frank? Shouldn’t I be willing to help migrants avoid deportation/detention at whatever legal perils await me? If not now then when ... when it gets twice as bad or three times as bad or ten times as bad?

Last at first says we’re not close to that, but then he thought through the logistics: If an immigrant, perhaps with spouse, is snatched, what happens to the children, the assets, the home? Alas, that’s all I can see without subscribing. I’m sure it all led to Last concluding hiding immigrants in the attic really is an important thing to do. Dworkin also included a tweet by Micah Erfan, but I couldn’t see the whole chart within the roundup. So I looked at it directly. Erfan wrote, “Y’all I’m beginning to think that Trump tearing up Obama’s nuclear deal actually had consequences.” Below that is a chart from the Financial Times and shows the number of installed uranium enrichment centrifuges across all sites in Iran. Just before 2001 the number starts to rise to about 1,000 and stays there for a while. When Obama signed the nuclear deal in January 2016 the number dropped to zero. It stayed there until about 2019, a year after the nasty guy withdrew the US from the deal. Then the number of centrifuges rose rapidly until May this year when it was just under 15,000. johnbeske of the Kos community posted an image of a sign he created that he would like to see posted on every building where immigrants might be. The first half of the sign is:

Notice Anyone purporting to be an agent of ICE or federal agency who enters these premises with the intent of arresting or detaining any person or persons within: Must wear clothing that accurately displays the agency they represent. Must not wear a mask or anything else concealing their identity. Must possess an official warrant that has been signed by a federal judge and agree to show it to anyone who asks to see it.

Mitch Perry, in an article for the Florida Phoenix posted on Kos reported that Central Florida Democratic U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost introduced a bill that would require ICE facilities to publicly list all who were detained along with where, when, why, plus age, nationality, legal status, use of force on arrest, when they were transferred to another facility or deported. This is good to see. Alas, in this Congress it isn’t going anywhere. Kos of Kos discussed men and their votes for the nasty guy and what we can do about it. He first reviews voting stats – including the nasty guy won married men by 60-38 prercent. On to examining the global problem. For example:

In Poland, rural men used to count on marrying women who’d handle domestic duties. But those women are moving to cities like Warsaw to become lawyers and professionals. That “loss of status” has fueled support for right-wing nationalist parties, making feminism the enemy and “traditional values” the solution.

From an article in The Economist:

In democracies, many politicians on the right are deftly stoking young male grievances, while many on the left barely acknowledge that young men have real problems.

Those real problems include being taught they are to be a provider. That becomes a core of their identity. Yet unstable economies threaten their ability to do that role – half of men believe home ownership is out of reach. There is also a “Man Box” in which masculinity is defined around “dominance, and self-reliance.” Men have a mental health crisis. We need an intervention to redefine masculinity beyond economic provision and the Man Box. Social media and its influencers promoting masculinity makes younger men feel inadequte, unvalued, and unwanted. They look for control – as in authoritarianism – or declare nothing matters. What can we do? These men are looking for purpose and connection. They want to be caregivers (they support policies that care for children). So lets promote a version of manhood based on caring and men’s mental health. These men are not fringe. Their numbers are growing. And their despair is being weaponized. Let’s understand how to fight back.