The dealmaker makes another empty deal

I’ve mentioned the nasty guy made a deal with Russia to sell diesel fuel to the US. He made that deal because diesel prices are so high due to the war he started in Iran. Kos of Daily Kos explains how bad the deal is. Russia would supply 300,000 metric tons with another 500,000 tons in November and eventually up to 4 million tons sometime in the future. That sounds like a lot. But it isn’t. That first shipment is about 14 hours of American diesel consumption. The three shipments of 1.8 million tons will last about three and a half days. The grand total will cover less than ten days. The total amount is not enough to affect global prices. The deal is based on whether Russia has diesel to spare – and it doesn’t. Ukraine has so damaged Russia’s refineries it doesn’t have enough for domestic needs. Russia had banned exports and is importing from Iran and South Korea.

Trump doesn’t care about any of that. What matters to him is that 1) he could finally align U.S. policy alongside fascist Russia, and—this is particularly important—2) he could now blame Ukraine for high diesel prices. And his surrogates spent the weekend doing just that.

The nasty guy is also able to announce he made a wonderful deal to help out truckers and farmers. He won’t be saying anything about how empty the deal is.

Trump and Putin are fuming about Ukraine because their refinery strikes have emerged as one of its most effective weapons against Russia’s war machine. They damage Russia’s ability to fuel its military, disrupt its domestic economy, and deprive the Kremlin of revenue it needs to continue its invasion. So for Trump’s diesel deal to work, he needs Ukraine to stop doing one of the things that is actually working against Russia.

Thankfully, not many people are buying the BS the nasty guy is selling. That means he has no more leverage over Ukraine. And Europe has noticed and is working to replace American military and intelligence assistance. That leaves Ukraine to chart its own course through the war. The nasty guy announced an energy ceasefire. Zelenskyy said he would agree to it if Russia did. Russia hit some energy infrastructure – so Ukraine is back to attacking refineries. FischFry of the Kos community worked from a thread by progressive economist Gabriel Zucman to explain one of the ways the rich don’t pay taxes. The particular rich person in this story is Peter Thiel. He founded PayPal and got rich when he sold it. He’s gay yet a far right political player and anti-tax crusader. Back in 1997 the Roth IRA was created. It allows a person earning less than $110K to put up to $2K a year into a Roth account. When the person turns 60 he can withdraw from it tax free. At the time Thiel set up his Roth he was earning about $73K at PayPal. Thiel had his Roth invest in PayPal stock – 1.7 million shares at a price of $0.001 a share. A month later PayPal sold shares to investors for $500,000 each. Now there is speculation Thiel’s Roth is worth about $20 to $30 billion. And he can start withdrawing it – all tax free – in six months. FischFry wrote:

One can only begin to imagine the impact Thiel might have with that vast fortune, but we should fear so much of it will be used to further pollute political discussion, advancing the worst elements of our body politic.

Time for a wealth tax. Eleanor Beardsley of NPR reported that 500 to 700 grocery stores in France had their freezers and cold rooms hacked, turning them from coolers to heaters. Of course, all the food in them was spoiled. Strangely, the hackers didn’t ask for money. The freezers were hit because their security software hadn’t been updated (a reason not to connect freezers to the internet? – didn’t used to need to). One of the shopkeepers said incidents like this will only increase with AI able to sniff out hacking opportunities. My thermostat is programmable, but does not connect to the internet. I’m going to keep it that way. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Paul Krugman writing for his own Substack. By mid March of 1945 Hitler knew the war was lost. He didn’t believe he had failed, he had been failed by the German people. Yeah, the tyrant believed the people hadn’t sufficiently supported his tyranny.

So on March 19 he issued the “Decree concerning demolitions in the Reich territory,” which has come to be known as the Nerobefehl or Nero decree. It ordered the destruction of Germany’s own infrastructure — supposedly to deny that infrastructure to the Allies, but the obvious purpose was to punish his own country. […] Think of the Kennedy Center, a national icon that Trump is destroying because he can’t put his own name on it, as the model for what is all too likely to happen to America over the next two years. Can Democrats stop the coming reign of destruction?

Democrats won’t get any help from the Supreme Court or supine Republicans and the nasty guy has backing of billionaires,

with vast resources who will continue to enable his attack on democracy even if their billions in political spending aren’t enough to buy this election.

In the comments exlrrp posted a meme from Tom Weinner.

Trump decided what to do in Iran by listening to Netanyahu. Now he’s deciding what to do in Ukraine by listening to Putin. The worst people in the world just lead him around by the nose from one catastrophe to another.

South Grand Prairie High School in Texas was told by their school board to shut down a production of Little Shop of Horrors. The reason: The lead character is Seymour, but not enough boys auditioned for the part. So it was given to a girl. That would mean when Seymour fell in love it would be with another girl. And that would violate Senate Bill 12. At least that’s the excuse the school board is giving. The version of SB12 prohibiting sexually-oriented performances on public property in the presence of anyone under 18 has been blocked by the courts. That provision isn’t in the current version of the bill. But Gov. Greg Abbott and AG Ken Paxton are pressing the ambiguity, prompting the school district to obey in advance. Thankfully, Abbott and Paxton are both in tight races.

And while the bill originally targeted drag queens, Texas Republicans have now made a new and vocal enemy: theater kids.

David Horsey posted a cartoon on Kos showing a large pizza with four people around it. The guy with a huge grin labeled “Top 1%” will get most of it. “Merely wealthy” with get a small slice. “Upper middle class” will get a thin slice. And “Lower 50%” will get crumbs. Horsey’s caption says, “This is not a joke.” Pedro Molina posted a cartoon on Kos appropriate for the Cornell 7 scandal. It shows a ball rolling downhill gaining size as it goes. Beside the small ball at the top is, “They’re just boys.” At the next larger ball is, “Their parents should teach them how to behave... I’m talking about the girl’s parents, of course!” After three more quotes, the one at the bottom is, “You know, I have this private island.”

Some debt is good other debt is not. The reason matters.

An Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos reports that Meta, Mark Zuckerberg’s company, has settled a case over teen social media addiction, agreeing to pay $17 billion. The suit had been filed by 29 states. I think another 18 states had files separate suits. This trial had been in the news for about a week. The accusation is that Meta, parent to Facebook and Instagram, designed its products to be addictive, especially to youth. In addition to monetary damages the suit wants to force Meta to change how its products work. That Meta let a week go by before settling implies to me that the evidence presented so far is quite damaging to the company or that worse was about to be revealed. Another aspect of settling is they don’t have to admit to causing harm (though if that were the only reason they could have settled before the trial began). They can claim they are making these changes because of how benevolent they are. I think that Meta’s payout of $17 billion is too small compared to its 2025 revenue of $201 billion. In addition to paying the cash, Meta agreed to a few things for teen accounts. There would be a hard limit to daily use – I think I heard two hours. They would limit push notifications during school hours and overnight. They would add “age-appropriate” content controls and strengthen parental controls. Lisa Needham of Kos reported the nasty guy’s ballroom has lost a primary reason for being built. He has said the ballroom is part of a military bunker for the White House. But, according to a Washington Post report, the White House has a military bunker. This one was actually rather secret – Obama built it after 9/11 and didn’t blab about it. It also looks to be a great deal more secure and survivable even during a nuclear blast, than what the nasty guy has been proclaiming for his bunker and ballroom. How can the ballroom be all that secure when it has so many and such large glass windows?

All of this makes it clear that the ballroom was always just a ballroom and that the military complex beneath it was invented out of whole cloth to justify the ballroom. And once Trump came up with that genius idea, everyone surrounding him just ran with it. ... Can’t wait for the next Democratic administration to tear the whole thing down, especially now that we know that the big, secret, totally necessary bunker was there all along. Nobody needs this gilded palace of sin.

Needham also reported on the comments of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner. He has a solution for the ballroom – blow it up and sell the chunks as souvenirs as a way to recoup the costs to the American taxpayers. That’s in the same way chunks of the old Berlin Wall were sold (and I have a piece). Krasner would like a chunk of the ballroom to use as a paperweight. Kos community member xaxnar commented on an article by Celeste Davis, written for her Substack. Back in the 1950s college students were 2:1 men. By the 1990s the ratio of men to women was about even. Now 60% of students are women. A big dropoff in college enrollment is men not going. What happened to the men? Why aren’t as many going to college? There are a lot of reasons that have been proposed, including: Men having other employment opportunities that don’t need college and pay just as well. Their behavior is rewarded for things that don’t encourage scholarship. Men lean more conservative and college seems too lefty. Davis thinks there is a simpler reason: Male flight. This is similar to white flight, which turned many cities black while their suburbs are mostly white. Male flight means men tend to leave professions where women reach about 60%. When women’s participation reaches that high, it is seen as a women’s profession and men don’t want it anymore. That has happened to Veterinary medicine. And it is now happening to attending college. The exception is gay men, becoming the most highly educated demographic. But when education is seen as the thing for women we have a species at war with itself, which doesn’t have a viable future. Douglas Schonenberg of the Kos community commented on America getting to $40 trillion in debt. Now that the debt is so large Republicans like to say Democrats added to the debt too! But that is a flawed argument. We as individual humans would reasonably go into debt to pay for critical medical care, renovations to the house, or even buy a house. Some debt is good other debt is not. The reason matters. Obama added to the national debt to pull the nation out of the Great Recession. The nasty guy and Biden added to the debt to rescue the economy from the pandemic. The nasty guy and Republicans added to the debt, not to rescue us from economic calamity, but to give more money to the already extremely wealthy. They did it both in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 and the Big Brutal Bill of 2025. So when Republicans say we have to do something about the debt and the place to do that is Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, Schonenberg asks why there? “The government needs to spend less” is not the answer. The government needs to spend better. Schonenberg wants the government to spend money on scientific research, clean energy, updating infrastructure, making healthcare more affordable, education for all, and support for workers. Government should not have the purpose of giving money to the already rich and gutting programs for others. And it shouldn’t hand the bill to future generations. Borrowing money so the rich become richer doesn’t make sense. To lower the debt let’s have an honest conversation. Does defense need those new weapons systems? Are those military contracts necessary? Let’s look at tax loopholes, corporate subsidies, low capital gains taxes, and tax rates for the rich. Borrowing money to improve the lives of all Americans makes a great deal of sense. Taxing responsibly should mean not needing to borrow money to improve the lives of all Americans. Dolly Parton died at the age of 80. I trust you heard the news by now. If you haven’t Jewly Hight of NPR has an obituary, as does Lisa Needham of Kos. I saw a meme saying the wrong 80 year old died. Michel Martin of NPR talked to country music journalist Tom Roland, who co-authored Parton's photographic memoir, “Star of the Show: My Life on Stage” about Parton’s importance to country music. I’m not a fan of Parton’s style of music. It’s just not my thing. If you like it, go for it! I am a fan of Parton’s character. She was always charming, and uplifting. I could add another dozen warm descriptors, including support for the LGBTQ community. She amassed wealth and used it for uplifting others. Just one example of that is her Imagination Library. Maureen Pao of NPR reported that has provided more than 300 million books to children around the world. The gift of reading was a way to honor her father, who never learned to read. An interview with Parton that’s gotten a few airings over the last few days talks about how she grew up as one of a dozen children. They didn’t have much money, but they did have what counted: love and kindness. I’m sure her remaining wealth and royalties from her catalog of 3,000 songs will continue to uplift others.

Both arsonist and firefighter

In an article posted before my trip Daily Kos community member xaxnar discussed an article by Paul Krugman, published in his own Substack on the topic of wealth taxes. I’m working from xaxnar’s discussion, which includes quotes from the Krugman’s article, because most of Krugman’s words are behind a paywall. Krugman noted that in 1982 the Forbes 400 wealthiest Americans had a combined wealth of $92 billion. In 2025 it was $6.6 trillion, or 3.7% of national wealth and 26% of national income. The New York Times estimated that 300 billionaires made 19% of all political contributions in the 2024 election. That is a strong case for taxing the rich. One way to do that is restoring the highly progressive tax rates that Reagan dismantled. There are other forms of tax. The best one is whatever can get passed. Reagan passed his tax cuts 40 years ago. Why is is becoming an issue now? First, some people always saw it as an issue. But inequality doesn’t just happen after a tax cut. It takes a while to grow and a while for the cuts in education funding to increase the divide between the rich and the working class. So the concentration of wealth wasn’t recognized for a while. Second, tracking the wealth of the rich is hard. They aren’t paid a salary and most of the time they don’t have to report capital gains, because capital gains aren’t taxed (at least not to the level of a salary). Third, raising income taxes won’t fix the problem because so much of what they get every year isn’t classified as income. Don’t sell a wealth tax as a way to raise money for this project or that, or even to generally supplement what a government has for its budget. Sell a wealth tax because people that rich warp our society, culture, and politics. People that rich and income that unequal is a problem all by itself. xaxnar quoted Robin Givhans of the NYT discussing the show Your Friends & Neighbors about a former hedge fund manager and member of the Epstein Class.

We’re conflicted by the financial success of others. We always think we’d be better at being rich — more empathetic and philanthropic, better dressed and better behaved — than the people who actually are. You think you wouldn’t be a jerk, until you realize being the only decent soul in a room full of rich jerks makes you feel like a sucker.

Walter Einenkel of Kos posted a speech by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, discussing his plans to tax the rich. Use the reason that taxing the wealth can help the poor if you need to. Mamdani said:

We’re here today talking in some ways about art, but in other ways also about affordability and the importance of a tax on a secondary home worth more than $5 million is that it raises half a billion dollars and that is money that makes our streets safer.

Alonzo del Arte of the Kos community wrote that Mandle Cheung, CEO and chairman of ComputerTalk, merely a multi-millionaire, has a new hobby. That is to make a hefty donation to an orchestra with the provision he gets to conduct that orchestra. His usual choice of repertoire is the Second Symphony of Gustav Mahler, one of the biggest pieces for orchestra, one you don’t give to even the best freshmen in a conducting class. He also has his own orchestra, the Mandle Philharmonic in Canada. The Royal Philharmonic has scheduled a concert for later this week with Cheung directing. Del Arte has a problem with their advertising. It doesn’t say the professional orchestra and soloists will be led by an amateur conductor who paid money to do so. In the comments of the July 24 pundit roundup for Kos are some interesting cartoons and memes. In response to a NewsWire tweet that says the House rejected an amendment to cut off aid to Israel, Dr. NSPM-7 Whoa wrote:

You have no healthcare, can’t buy a house, rent is almost unaffordable, food is skyrocketing, no paid leave, no childcare. But your tax dollars will fund a foreign country with healthcare, paid leave, childcare + funding the entire lives of unemployed settlers & the orthodox.

A cartoon posted by exlrrp shows protesters holding signs:

Save U.S. Forests! Home for our Homeless Save U.S. Schools Fund our National Libraries Protect our Constitution Bring U.S. Troops Home! Healthcare for All!

A guy in a suit comments to a colleague, “It’s awful how they hate America!” A meme posted by exlrrp about something that was big in the news before my travels and appears to still be a thing.

You have died of diarrhea lettuce because some DOGE kid used AI to decide safe quality foods are woke.

A meme by skol_vikings 21 shows packets of $100 bills. “The lettuce that Trump got form Taylor Farms is different from the lettuce they gave us.” In the pundit roundup for July 29 Greg Dworkin quoted Seth Masket writing for Substack and discussing why Democratic Socialists are having a moment now. I’ll summarize: People over 45 grew up when socialism was equated with communism, which was evil. Younger people believe capitalism isn’t all that great. Young people are frustrated our political system does not allow for criticism of Israel and the US support for it. A tweet from Acyn: Senator Thune says there isn’t enough Republican votes to get rid of the filibuster: I’ve had this conversation with the president many times. The votes are not there to do it. I know he thinks he can persuade people, but this is a hard position for a lot of Senate Republicans. Sahil Kapur added:

I’m a broken record on this, but again: Senate Republicans oppose nuking the filibuster because they believe the 60-vote rule blocks many more liberal goals than conservative goals in the long haul. Liberals have come to the same conclusion hence they mostly favor nuking it.

A tweet from Lakshya Jain includes a link to an article in The Argument Mag. The tweet says:

Today, far more people seem to agree with the left-coded view of elites ("billionaires") rather than the right-coded view ("college educated liberals and academics"). That may lend some surprising potency to today's forms of Democratic populism.

Way down in the comments exlrrp posted a meme:

Republicans: “Democrats were the slave owners. Republicans never owned slaves.” Democrats: “We’re taking down the monuments.” Republicans: “Leave our heritage alone!!!”

In the comments of yesterday’s roundup exlrrp posted a meme. The upper portion shows presidents

The IRS has audited every President annually for decades to ensure there was no corruption. Only one president found that to be a problem.

In the comments of today’s roundup exlrrp posted a meme:

Donald Trump wants to create a “paid version” of his “Truth Social” app. Users will pay $100,000 per month. Paid members will get priority access to all of his posts several minutes before anyone else, enough time for paid members to make life changing stock trades... while leaving non members in the dust. This is called insider trading. And it’s illegal. Donald’s plan is for the rich to get richer and everyone else gets f---ed.

David Michigan posted a tweet by Greg Sargent listing seven narratives that are key to understanding neofascism. I’ve condensed them a bit:

1. Only white people can sustain the highest culture, Western Civilization. 2. Different cultures are zero-sum, leading to violent conflict. 3. Violent masculinity is needed to save Western Civilization. 4. Women aren’t capable for that job. They’re to breed the race, not lead it. 5. Western leadership has been feminized, corrupted, and contaminated. 6. The contamination must be purged from politics and society. 7. This will restore whiteness to its previous (mythic) glory.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted late night commentary.

“The top one percent put the American Dream behind a paywall.” —Texas U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico (D) at a campaign rally “My answer to everyone who’s hurting is, look at who’s in control. On the federal level, it’s Republicans across the board—Democrats control absolutely nothing. In a state like Texas, it’s Republicans across the board. And it’s so funny cuz they campaign on everything they’re gonna fix. I’m like, but you’re the ones that’ve been breakin’ it! It’s wild, because it’s like: Let me be the arsonist, but I’m also gonna be the firefighter.” —Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) on Jimmy Kimmel Live

No money for health care, endless money for unpopular war

Charlie Warzel of The Atlantic discussed Poolgate, the mess in the Reflecting Pool at the National Mall. Warzel says the mess is an example of the nasty guy’s debacles, which tend to unfold in 13 steps. I won’t mention all 13, partly because some of them repeat. Devise unnecessary spectacle, such as improving a landmark. All the better if he can claim he’ll do it faster, cheaper, and better than Obama. Disregard expertise. Bypass normal procedures because it has to be done right away. Declare victory too early. Spend way more than estimated. Realize it’s not going well. Bypass procedures to fix the problem. Allege conspiracy and sabotage, blame other people. Lose interest. Pretend it never happened and move on to the next thing. Emily Singer of Daily Kos said the nasty guy has asked Congress for $87.6 billion cover costs of the war with Iran, to bail out farmers hurt by his tariffs, and to fund his vanity construction projects around DC. He’s asking for that much even though the war is widely unpopular and many voters think it was a waste. As for his vanity construction projects he appears to be turning his eye towards the WWII Memorial and its fountain (having learned nothing from Poolgate).

If Republicans vote to give Trump more money for the conflict and bail out farmers but not help average Americans afford their skyrocketing cost of living, Democrats will almost certainly use that in attack ads this year. “President Trump launched a reckless and costly war with Iran—without authorization from Congress or the support of the American people—that he should never have started, and now, instead of doing anything to help families get by, he is asking taxpayers to pick up the tab and give him billions more to wage wars overseas,” Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a statement. Murray added, “This president is telling the American people there’s no money for health care, housing, or child care—but there should be endless taxpayer dollars to fund wars they don’t support.”

I heard a bit about this in the morning news and I’m glad I found links to the whole story. That story is told by Pete Buttigieg on his Substack about what his family just went through. An anonymous person called Child Protective Services saying that a woman claimed that several years ago Buttigieg told her he had committed violent crimes against his twin children, now age 4. The caller thought those children were still at risk. I’ll pause the story to note that if Buttigieg said that “several years ago” the children would have been infants or it happened before they were born. Did CPS spend any time investigating the veracity of the claim before traumatizing the family? Buttigieg doesn’t say. He eventually told them he had never been to the place where the woman said it had happened. Because of the allegation he had to stay away from the children for 24 hours. They stayed with grandparents. The next day each child was interviewed with no family member present. Only after that would the case workers interview him, then explain what was going on. They ended by saying there was nothing to substantiate the allegation. That was traumatic for the kids. After being warned against talking to strangers each child had to spend an hour with only strangers. The night before they couldn’t have Papa read their bedtime stories and couldn’t understand why. That was also traumatic for Buttigieg. He’s endured all kinds of hate and cruelty from opponents and is able to take it in stride. But this cruelty involved his kids. And it appears to be politically motivated. Buttigieg noted that the target of this cruelty was a family led by gay dads and done during Pride month.

Now our family is left to deal with the aftermath. I worry about any unseen effects this had on our kids, on Chasten and me, and on the rest of our family. Even though the accusation was absurdly and obviously false, and was promptly rejected by law enforcement, I still worry about the harm it has done. Chasten and I worry about who else might try to do this kind of thing, to us or to others. And at the most basic level, I worry about how anyone, even in today’s world, could fail to respect the absolutely fundamental principle that whatever you think about someone in politics, you leave people’s kids out of it.

Jon Paul Sydnor of the Kos community and its Street Prophets group discussed a progressive Christian political vision. Towards that he discussed authenticity. To be in a relationship with God we must be honest and authentic.

If a church demands that we hide our self to be accepted, if a church creates an artificial standard and demands that we conform to it, then that church has stifled the image of God within us.

Sydnor divides churches into low social control and high social control.

A low social control church respects members’ uniqueness, trusting that cohesion will emerge from diversity, as it does within God. Some churches deny the possibility of unity-in-diversity and become high social control groups, subjecting members to shame, shunning, denial of sacraments, and threats of damnation if they fail to be who the church wants them to be. These churches demand that members subordinate their God-given uniqueness to a church-generated stereotype, hiding their authentic self within a conformist shell.

Where there is hiding, there are secrets, and there is shame. A low social control church, an authentic church, celebrates their LGBTQ members. A high social control church does not, instead it denies what LGBTQ people know about themselves. And that causes horrific harm. When transgenders transition they frequently change their name. The Bible has stories of people who undergo a profound change and change their name.

Abram became Abraham, Sarai became Sarah (Genesis 17), Jacob becomes Israel (Genesis 32), Simon becomes Peter (Matthew 16), and Saul becomes Paul (Acts 13).

A church that is a true reflection of God is one that celebrates the authenticity of its LGBTQ members.

A nation of private opulence and public squalor

I finished the book To Be Taught, if Fortunate by Becky Chambers. I’ve read several of Chambers’ other science fiction books and enjoyed and wrote about them. This one is a novella, only 140 pages. The title comes from words by UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim that went on the Voyager Golden Record in 1977 saying that humanity (or at least its artifacts) leave the solar system...

to teach, if we are called upon; to be taught, if we are fortunate.

The story is of four astrobiologists who go to another solar system to study four planets that might have life. That is wrapped up in a report they send back to earth. The story isn’t so much conflict and resolution, but a description of what an astrobiologist might do in their setting and how they would go about doing it. I enjoyed the story and if this kind of science fiction is your thing, you might enjoy it too. A week ago Oliver Willis of Daily Kos reported that Democrats in New York have reached an agreement to tax multimillion-dollar second homes. The money raised, perhaps up to a half billion will help pay for the affordability issues Mayor Mamdani wants to address. He announced the plans for the tax in front of the $238 million penthouse owned by billionaire Ken Griffin. Of course, Griffin and other billionaires had a few things to say. They described Mamdani’s words as “Just as hateful as some disgusting racial slurs.” That it’s a message to “resent success rather than trying to emulate it.” They called Mamdani a communist and un-American. I see that phrase “resent success” and think Mamdani isn’t resenting success as he is opposing the oppression that billionaires do to get that much money, then refusing to support the society that helped them get it. This past Monday Willis reported on words by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the response by Jeff Bezos, the guy made rich by Amazon. AOC had said:

You can abuse labor laws. You can pay people less than what they’re worth. But you can’t earn that.

Bezos replied through the editorial board of the Washington Post, the paper he owns and has bent to his will.

If someone becomes a billionaire selling expensive shoes, it’s because people want and are willing to pay for them. That’s something to celebrate, not admonish. ... To say that it’s impossible to legitimately earn a billion dollars is to put an arbitrary limit on human potential.

I’m amused that the Post editorial board included the word “legitimately.” Bezos certainly got his billions legally. But he did it by overworking and underpaying the people who work for him. That’s ethically wrong. Also, the editorial board sidestepped the possibility that a company can sell shoes, even expensive ones that people will pay for, and then make sure all the employees and suppliers are paid well, even if the CEO doesn’t reach the billion dollar level. Every Thursday Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, quotes a bit from the late columnist Molly Ivins. Today, Bill posted:

The conservatives have been preaching this Me First stuff as though life were a race to the finish and the only object is to pick up as much money as you can. It doesn’t work—not even if you wind up with a lot of toys. As another noted economist said, we are becoming a nation of private opulence and public squalor. Look, we all do better when we all do better. You raise the minimum wage, it works for everyone. —May, 2006

In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Bob Flaherty of The Bulwark. The topic is the “autopsy” of the 2024 campaign that the Democratic National Committee shelved. It was said to be a detailed assessment of the Harris campaign. Flaherty wrote:

My understanding—based on Dem-world hearsay—is that the truth is stupider than the fiction: No autopsy was released because there is no actual autopsy. The members of the “autopsy team” were in over their heads and struggled to put the thing together.

Flaherty added that he wonders what an actual 2024 autopsy would have said. Yes, 2024 was the year that incumbents around the world were thrown out of office.

We underestimated then—and are underestimating now—just how disillusioned people are. There was and is a pervasive sense that nothing works and the institutions holding us up have failed. Media, government, business—no one trusts anyone anymore. For reasons both of Democrats’ own making and from simply being incumbents, the Democratic brand sucked.

I think people are disillusioned because Democrats seem to be beholden to billionaires as much as Republicans are. Historian Timothy Snyder, in his “Thinking about...” Substack discussed Superpower Suicide. The war with Iran, which is utterly unethical and utterly self-destructive, suggests the nasty guy’s foreign policy is superpower suicide. I think Snyder came up with the term and readers asked him to spell it out.

Empires have risen and failed before, but to my knowledge no state has ever chosen to kill its own power, and succeeded with such rapidity.

To explain Snyder listed thirteen traditional bases of state power and what the nasty guy has done with them. Here are some of them. Of course, Snyder has a much fuller explanation. 1. A superpower must be a state. It has institutions of law and other things. But the nasty guy sees it as a commercial opportunity. (Or a grifting opportunity.) 2. The power must be used for the good of the people. The nasty guy sees the power to be used for the good of himself. 3. The state must be able to maintain itself, to have a line of succession. Democracy can provide that. The nasty guy has declared he wants to stay in power indefinitely. 4. The right people have to be in charge. There is a tension because those who gain authority want to pass it to their children, which is why Roman Catholic priests are celibate. The source of qualified people is usually civil service or the military. The nasty guy gutted the first and is firing the competent ones of the second. 5. Education is the way to refresh society and help citizens understand the challenges of the world. The nasty guy is attacking them. 6. A great power forges an alliance with science. The nasty guy is shutting down research. 9. A great power practices diplomacy to understand other countries. The nasty guy trashes it. 10. A great power has allies. They may change as national interest changes. But the nasty guy damages alliances based on personal whim. 12. A superpower tends to win confrontations. The nasty guy loses a lot and others see his actions as loss (see: TACO and then Iran).

After a year of Trump, we face a situation where reform and repair are not the relevant categories. And, in a certain sense, this is useful. The fact that we reached this point, the fact that just a year of Trump could bring superpower suicide, shows us that the prior status quo was unsustainable. The systems that made the United States a superpower cannot be rebuilt as they were, nor should they be: they involved structural injustices that made the present attempt at self-annihilation possible. From where we stand now there are two ways forward: one is the self-induced downfall of the American republic; the other is to reconsider American ideals and to restructure American politics so as to bring the people greater power over a more just future.

In Sunday’s pundit roundup Kev quoted Michael McFaul, writing for his own Substack, about the growing cracks in Valdimir Putin’s rule of Russia. The top reason is his failure in Ukraine. That war has now lasted longer than the Soviet’s war against Nazi Germany. I hear he’s losing ground. He hasn’t achieved regime change. Instead of stopping NATO expansion he hastened it. The Russian economy is stagnating, a combination of recession, inflation, and budget crisis. The lifting of oil sanctions in response to the closed Strait of Hormuz won’t produce enough cash to make enough of a difference. The military is eating too many resources. Demographic challenges are worse because so many young people have fled or have died in the war. How long until this might remove Putin from power is not discussed.

The illusion that their fortunes are entirely their own

Last week Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reported on the chaos the Supreme Court created by releasing its decision that gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the part that bans gerrymandering based on race. In Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry postponed primary elections until after that legislature redraws maps, even though early voting begins in ten days. Mass voter confusion will result. In Alabama they’re ready to redraw maps, but their case before the Supremes back in 2023, which the state lost because of Section 2, requires them to keep their existing maps until 2030. They’re trying to get that little provision removed. I’ve heard Tennessee has passed a new map destroying black majority districts around Memphis. Emily Singer of Kos reported in Florida, which just approved new maps that give Republicans a more seats, a lawsuit has been filed saying the maps were drawn for partisan advantage, which is illegal according to a state constitution amendment passed in 2010 with 63% of the vote. We know the maps were drawn for partisan advantage because important people said exactly that. Jason Poreda, the guy who drew the new districts, admitted such during a hearing. Fox News presented the map by coloring the new districts red and blue. The new districts were drawn using the standard gerrymandering principles. Tampa was divided into three districts so that the Democrats in the city are much fewer than the Republicans in the surrounding rural areas. David Horsey posted a cartoon on Kos showing this opinion was written by Justice Jim Crow while Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson looks on. In Saturday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Adam Serwer of The Atlantic discussing the gutting of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court.

What the Roberts Court is making possible is a country where white people can maintain their political dominance at the expense of Americans who are not white. The anticaste provisions of the Reconstruction amendments, intended by their authors to reverse the “horrid blasphemy” that America was a white man’s country, are being inverted to defend that dominance. This is not the color-blindness of Martin Luther King Jr., but what the scholar Ian Haney López has called “reactionary colorblindness,” the purpose of which is to maintain racial hierarchy through superficially neutral means. It takes the view that the Constitution’s “color-blindness” renders any attempt to remedy anti-Black racism unconstitutional, because by definition that would involve making racial distinctions. Similarly, the ruling in this case does not explicitly overturn the VRA’s ban on racial discrimination in voting so much as rewrite it to allow such discrimination.

David Shuster of Blue Amp media:

California’s billionaires are freaking out. Like most other obscenely wealthy Americans in this Trump era, the plutocrats have been bloated with paper wealth, fortified by legions of accountants, and possess a moral philosophy that rarely extends beyond their own reflection. They hold to the illusion that their fortunes are entirely their own. But, more than 1.5 million California voters have a different view and have now signed a petition pushing forward a ballot initiative that would impose a billionaire tax. The California proposal is disarmingly simple: If voters approve the initiative this November, the state will impose a one-time levy of roughly 5 percent on the swollen fortunes of those whose wealth has passed the billion-dollar mark. The proceeds will be directed largely towards health care, food assistance, and the assorted necessities of a functioning civilization.

See below for more on taxing the rich. In Sunday’s roundup Chitown Kev quoted Jermaine Fowler of his “The Humanity Archive” Substack discussing the bankruptcy of Spirit Airlines.

Spirit carried the people the legacy carriers did not want. Working class. Disproportionately Black, Latino, and immigrant. The fees, the seats, the mockery were the visible signs of the sorting. […] The hubs tell the story. Fort Lauderdale. San Juan. Detroit. Atlantic City. The Caribbean. Latin America. Spanish at the customer service line since 2001, the year of the San Juan route. The carrier the legacy airlines mocked was the one that flew the diaspora home. Thirty-seven percent of American households earning under fifty thousand dollars flew at all in the past five years. Seventy-three percent of households earning over fifty thousand did. Take the floor away and the slice that depended on it does not move up. It stops flying.

In Monday’s roundup Dworkin quoted David Daley and Eric J Segall of The Guardian:

The court has essentially ruled that unless a legislator records a confession of their own bigotry, the map is constitutional – making the only person allowed to define a racist act the person committing it. Congress understood the absurdity of this in 1982, which is why legislators wrote an effects-based standard into the law. Discrimination does not announce itself. The intent standard is the cloak of the coward. Roberts sealed the trap years ago: in Rucho v Common Cause, he ruled that partisan gerrymandering is beyond federal review. Now, any map that dilutes Black voting power hides behind partisan strategy, and the courts cannot touch it. The court has achieved something more perverse still: drawing districts to protect Black voters is itself the racial discrimination. Erasing them is not.

Dan Pfeiffer of The Message Box on why the press is harder on Democrats than Republicans.

For the press, the story of Trump and his family being corrupt is old news. The New York Times and others still do deep investigative pieces uncovering the corruption, but those stories rarely make it into the daily coverage of the Trump administration. Trump, Karoline Leavitt, and other Trump surrogates are rarely pushed to answer tough questions about it, and when they are, they just feign outrage and never engage with the substance. The second reason is that the press holds Democrats to a higher standard. This has always been sort of true, but it’s been particularly true in the Trump era. Reporters think Democratic voters care about whether their leaders are corrupt and Republican voters don’t. Therefore, a Democratic scandal could have bigger political implications, while a Republican scandal dies on the vine. Third, most of the media is VERY sensitive to accusations that they are biased against Republicans. This is less true than it used to be, but most reporters are personally liberal on issues like abortion, guns, and climate. Some end up overcompensating by being tougher on Democrats.

In today’s roundup Kev quoted Gaby Goldstein of Talking Points Memo discussing the ruling that did the gutting, known as Louisiana v. Callais:

The conservative strategy for consolidating state-level power has never been a secret. In March 2010, Karl Rove penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed literally titled “The GOP Targets State Legislatures.” The sub-head: “He who controls redistricting can control Congress.” The piece laid out the whole playbook for Project REDMAP: by flipping a few handfuls of state legislative seats in the 2010 midterms, Republicans could redraw congressional and state legislative maps for a generation. Democrats either did not believe them or had nothing to counter it. That year, Republicans gained control of 11 additional state legislatures and ran the table on redistricting. Today, they hold 23 trifectas — a net loss of just two in 15 years. But REDMAP was only one part of a larger architecture. The deeper strategy has three moves. First, build and solidify power in state legislatures. Second, strip away federal protections — through the courts, and by dismantling federal regulations, funding, and programs. Third, devolve that authority to the states where you’ve already built structural advantages through gerrymandering, voter suppression and long-term policy infrastructure. The linchpin of the whole operation is control of state legislatures.

Alphonso David of The Contrarian:

But there is also a simpler economic truth: voter suppression has a price. When districts are manipulated and voting becomes harder, people pay by driving farther and spending more on gas or transit to vote. For working people, especially hourly workers and parents without flexible schedules or support systems, voter suppression leads to increased childcare costs or missing a shift to vote. The cruelty of it all is that voters are being asked to absorb those costs when they’re already living paycheck to paycheck in a system attempting to further dilute their political power. That is the math of modern voter suppression: make voting more expensive while making each vote feel less powerful. ... A 2019 study on Black disenfranchisement and taxation in the South found that after literacy-test requirements were introduced, counties with larger Black populations saw a nearly 5.4% decline in real per-person tax receipts. Put simply, when Black people were pushed out of the electorate, local governments collected and invested less money to serve Black communities. That meant fewer resources for schools, weaker public services, and less support for the very communities whose political power had been stripped away. The result is a double economic penalty: you make less money, and then your community gets less support from the government meant to serve you.

Daniel Nichanian of Bolts Magazine hosts an Ask Bolts column where readers can ask a question and a couple experts will answer them. The column for May 5 was about the Calais decision with Kareem Crayton and Justin Levitt providing the answers. I didn’t read the whole article, jumping to the section on what are possible remedies. Here are part of the answers. Crayton noted we haven’t explored all of the 14th Amendment. The second provision is the Penalty Clause, which says that if a state denies or curtails voting rights Congress can penalize it with a reduction of Congressional representation. It has never been used. Crayton also said, “We’re not going to get better from this court, I don’t think. I think they’ve shown us who they are.” Levitt discussed what Congress can do. It still has some things it can do.

There are ways to insulate congressional bills from judicial review. There are ways to insulate current bills from review by the Supreme Court. There are ways to craft remedies that rely on things like the 14th Amendment’s second section or on the Guarantee Clause (which guarantees “a republican form of government” for all states in the union). There are ways to craft remedies that do things other than what the court has forbidden in Callais, including relaxing the assumption that the remedy has to be single-member districts. By the way, other remedies are already available under the VRA: There was a Federal Voting Rights Act claim resolved using proportional representation in Eastpointe, Michigan. But I’ll say it’s going to take a really strong push by the public to get a Congress that’s willing to reform voting rights in this way. And while we’re there, there’s an awful lot that could be done on court reform. If there is a strong enough prodemocracy movement to change Congress’s orientation, that means there is a strong enough prodemocracy movement to change the court’s orientation.

Crayton again:

Our mission is to do the “citizen work” (organizing, speaking up, and voting) without distractions. What are the distractions? They include the voices that say you must accept second class citizenship when the constitution guarantees you first-class. And it also means ignoring and sometimes pushing back on friendly voices stuck on dismay and disorder. Things are bad, but they don’t have to be if we use the power we each have to demand change.

Kevin Hardy, in an article for Stateline posted on Kos, discussed the growing effort to tax the rich. Maine recently passed a bill to add a 2% tax to those with an income more than $1 million a year. Maine joins Washsington, New Jersey, and Massachusetts that have passed such laws. A dozen states, including Illinois, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Virginia have proposed new taxes. In California advocates gathered enough signatures to put a one-time tax on billionaires on the November ballot. Proponents say these bills make the tax structure, already tilted against the poor, more fair. Opponents fear taxes on business owners will dissuade starting new companies (yep, again trotting out the smallest companies to protect the greediness of the biggest). There is also the claim that taxing the rich more will prompt them to move to a state with lower taxes. But data doesn’t show that happening. Taxing the rich in liberal states comes as conservative states are making their tax systems more regressive, placing more tax burdens on the poor. Both efforts come as the wealth gap has been getting wider for decades and made worse by last summer’s Big Brutal Bill.

The gap between the rich and poor has been widening for decades. Wealth for the bottom fifth of American households has barely moved in recent decades, while the top 0.1% have seen their wealth increase by nearly $40 million each, according to an analysis by the anti-poverty nonprofit Oxfam America. Between 1980 and 2022, the share of national income going to the top 1% doubled, while the share going to the bottom 50% fell by a third, Oxfam reported.

Thom Hartmann of the Kos community and an independent pundit started a post with:

Nikita Khrushchev famously said “We will bury you” (“My vas pokhoronim”) to Western ambassadors in Moscow on November 18, 1956. Seventy years later, it appears that Russia’s goal is being realized.

Hartmann listed several ways that this is happening. The nasty guy announced pulling 5,000 troops from Germany, harming NATO. He ended sanctions on Russian oil, giving Putin billions in revenue. Robert Kennedy is undermining trust in vaccines and disease prevention, making us more vulnerable. Pete Hegseth is purging senior career leadership of the military. DOGE hollowed out federal institutional expertise. Musk ended USAID, allowing China and Russia to secure natural resources and military outposts. Voice of America broadcasts propaganda, weakening America’s advocacy of democracy. ICE and Stephen Miller are gutting the asylum system, straining courts, devastating tourism, and destroying our reputation. Russel Vought concentrated the budget in the nasty guy’s hands, overriding Congress. The FBI has been weaponized and purged, as has the Department of Justice. The Department of Education is being vandalized, cutting school and student protections. A climate denier runs the Department of Energy and another runs the National Park Service. The Transportation Department is loosening safety regulations The Treasury Department pushes for financial concentration and deregulation. The Commerce Department is pushing tariffs and trade decisions, straining trade relationships and exploding inflation. Witkoff and Kushner have screwed up negotiations with Iran. The Department of Agriculture favors agribusiness over family farms while stripping food stamps and school meals. The Environmental Protection Agency has rolled back regulations for Big Oil billionaires. Housing and Urban Development is dropping programs for poor families. The intelligence agencies have politicized their analysis and sidelined career analysts. The State Department has hollowed out diplomatic staff, allowing Russia and China to set the agenda.

This list is an operational blueprint, the kind of document a hostile foreign intelligence service might draw up if it had been handed unlimited access to the executive branch and told to dismantle the American republic from inside without firing a single shot: — Hollow out the public health system so disease can do its work, — Demoralize the officer corps and burn through munitions in unconstitutional wars, — Terminate the diplomats and intelligence professionals who keep allies aligned, — Replace independent journalism with state propaganda at Voice of America, — Defund the agencies Congress created, — Abandon the clean energy transition that would have weakened OPEC and Russia simultaneously, — Politicize the FBI and DOJ so they target dissenters instead of crooks, and — Turn armed, masked ICE thugs loose to terrorize immigrant communities while training the rest of us to accept anonymous federal agents disappearing our neighbors into massive concentration camps. Every line item that would appear on such a plan has been checked off in the last 14 months, executed by a cabinet of grifters, ideologues, and 13 billionaires whose loyalty runs to Trump and the morbidly rich rather than to the nation whose Constitution they swore an oath to defend. ... [Khrushchev] may have been right about something deeper than ideology: a great power can absolutely be killed from the inside by people who pretend to govern while methodically removing every load-bearing wall in the structure just to enrich themselves.

This will end with “ordinary Americans deciding we’ve finally had enough.”

Khrushchev never managed to bury us. Let’s make damn sure Trump, Putin, and America’s rightwing billionaires don’t either.

Oliver Willis of Kos, as part of his series of Explaining the Right, discussed the conservative media bubble.

The point of this fake world is to keep conservative-leaning voters in a state of constant agitation, fuming about the supposed excesses of the left while being fed a steady diet of lies about right-wing leaders, both elected and cultural, fighting against these forces. ... But this isn’t reality for millions of people. Despite the success of right-wing media outlets, they haven’t fooled everyone yet.

To that last point note since Fox News launched in 1996 Democrats won presidential elections in 1996, 2008, 2012, and 2020 and won the popular vote in 2000 and 2016. There have also been several times Democrats held majorities in at least one house of Congress. Which is the reason for the current gerrymandering drive. That conservative media bubble is vulnerable when voters can see for themselves there is a disconnect, which can prompt voters to vote for Democrats.

The responsible actor in contrast to the infantilized giant

This week the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the nasty guy’s attempt to rewrite the 14th Amendment to make birthright citizenship unavailable to children of immigrants. Part of the attempt is to eliminate birth tourism, in which a mother comes to the US primarily to give birth here so the child will be a citizen. Part of the attempt is he just doesn’t like people of color. On Tuesday Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reviewed how this case came about. Part of her focus is the white supremacists who developed the argument the nasty guy is using. On Wednesday Needham summarized how the oral arguments went. Before she got into that she noted the nasty guy attended the arguments, the first Oval Office occupant to sit in the Supreme Court chamber while arguments were heard. Perhaps he was trying to glare his appointees into submission. He left after his side of the case was presented so didn’t hear much of the other side, which was much better prepared. The nasty guy’s side was presented by Solicitor General John Sauer. He had a hard time answering questions from the Justices. Jackson: Do parents need to have citizen documents in the birthing room? Gorsuch: Do Native American children get automatic citizenship? Barrett: What if you don’t know who the parents are? Kavanaugh: Why consider whether other countries have birthright citizenship? – Sauer had claimed there weren’t any others when there are 32. While the final decision may not match the questions asked in oral arguments, this does not look good for the nasty guy’s position, which is good for the country. Given the rage tweeting afterward the nasty guy has the same opinion. Two weeks ago Mark Kreidler, in an article for Capital & Main posted on Kos, reported that Washington state passed a millionaire tax. It will go into effect in 2028 and will tax income above $1 million at a 9.9% rate. The tax will affect about 20,000 households or less than 0.5% of them. One reason for doing it is Washington relies on sales and business taxes, rather than income taxes, making it one of the most regressive in the country – the tax hits hardest on those least able to pay it. That system may have been great when the economy was based on timber and apples. But it is now based on defense contractors and tech giants. The advocates for the bill include Patriotic Millionaires, based in DC. Chuck Collins is one of their founders. They advocate for tax reform because the wealthy pay so little. The group is concentrating on the states because there is no action at the federal level. Massachusetts passed a wealth tax in 2023. New Jersey has had one since 2020 and Minnesota since 2024. California may vote on one this fall. Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Michigan, New York and Rhode Island are all debating a wealth tax. Data from Massachusetts shows a wealth tax does not drive the rich to move to other states, as is frequently claimed. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Paul Waldman, writing for his Substack.

Last weekend, Yonatan Touval wrote an essay in the New York Times with an explanation for the American and Israeli governments’ apparent failure to consider that if they attacked Iran, the Iranians might, you know, do things in response, making choices colored by their history, their beliefs, their culture, and their politics. “Our leaders preside over an extraordinary machinery of destruction, but they remain strikingly obtuse about human beings — about their pride, shame, convictions and historical memory,” Touval wrote. Donald Trump in particular is incapable of empathy, the capacity to see the world from the perspective of someone else, even only for a moment. Some responded to Touval’s essay by saying Trump has no theory of mind, no capacity to imagine how someone else thinks and makes decisions. But that’s not quite true. He has a theory, it’s just that it’s one in which all other minds exist only to regard him with awe. Everyone is a member of the his audience, watching him and reading about him and shaking our heads in wonder at him. You can see it in Trump’s obsession with the gaze of the crowd, which has gripped him all his life. The true measure of a person, an action, or an event, he believes, is that it is seen, and by how many. And the highest compliment one can pay, the greatest superlative imaginable, is that the crowd will say “We’ve never seen anything like it before.”

I note the emphasis on seen. Both the nasty guy and Pete Hegseth (and I’m sure many others) put their emphasis on being seen as smart, handsome, manly, and in power. They really don’t care whether they actually are any of those. The title of David Mastio’s article in the Kansas City Star is enough: “Pam Bondi was the best attorney general we’re going to get from Trump.” A tweet from PaulleyTicks plays on the old Star Trek idea that in a bad situation the characters wearing the red shirts are the one who will get injured or killed. This meme shows the nasty guy talking to Kash Patel and Pete Hegseth, who are both wearing Star Trek style red shirts – and, goodness, the sweat stains. In the comments exlrrp posted a cartoon by Winters showing men in a military aircraft:

Soldier: Where are we heading, Sarge? Sarge: Not sure. But @DonnieJunior just made a $150M Polymarket bet on Kharg Island beachfront futures.

A cartoon posted by paulpro and created by Daniel Medina shows Jesus talking for today’s world: “Blessed are the meek... Care for the poor... House the homeless... Feed the hungry... Love the immigrant and refugee for I was one, too.” A MAGA man: “Crucify him!” In the roundup for Tuesday, March 24, Chitown Kev quoted Andrea Rizzi of El País in English discussing American geopilitical suicide.

The first fundamental aspect of the self-inflicted blow to U.S. primacy is the destruction of the formidable network of alliances that Washington built, with bipartisan consensus, across the globe over eight decades. No ally trusts the White House anymore. Many are putting on a brave face for fear of suddenly being left without support—but all are organizing themselves to never again be so dependent on the U.S. In public, many leaders are opting for restraint, but in private, this writer has heard significant remarks that attest to an extraordinary level of distrust toward Washington from nominally pro-American sectors. The underlying logic is that the risks of dependence on Washington must be reduced, just as they must be with China, in a striking political equation. [...] The second crucial aspect is the devastation of the globalized economic system that has underpinned U.S. hegemony. It is true that, in recent decades, this foundation has allowed China to achieve astonishing growth by exploiting weaknesses in the system. But Washington’s furious assault shows no sign of correcting this situation. Instead, it produces damaging side effects for Washington, fostering distrust and disaffection that extend across the entire spectrum of the economic sphere. While some have caved in with unfavorable agreements and promises of investment, the reality is that everyone is now distrustful. And this is bad news. Because while Trump is obsessed with the manufacturing deficit, the U.S. was able to consolidate an impressive dominance in the services sector within that system. [...] The third aspect of this self-inflicted damage is the abandonment of an international order that the U.S. helped build more than any other nation. It is no coincidence that Republican and Democratic administrations, despite their differing sensibilities, agreed on the construction and maintenance of this project. It wasn’t due to a lack of vision, nor to the misguided concept of benign hegemony; it was because it benefited the U.S. Kennedy and Nixon, Reagan and Obama understood this. There must have been a reason. Now, its withdrawal from the system is causing a dangerous atrophy of many institutions. Some are becoming completely irrelevant. But the U.S. retreat also opens the door for others to build other things, for others to influence the development of initiatives while the White House is on its way out. China is seizing every opportunity to position itself as the responsible actor in contrast to the infantilized giant.

Krugman reminds us that the Strait of Hormuz is not the only important choke point in the world economy. Here are more: China could attack Taiwan, where 60% of all computer chips and 90% of advanced chips are created. North Korea could attack the South, a major exporter of memory chips. A dispute between the Netherlands government and Chinese chip company Nexperia could damage auto production around the world. India is a major exporter of vaccines. China is the largest source of rare earth elements needed in electronics. Over 40 years that global interdependence worked (though not perfectly) because the US supported it. And now the guy in charge is erratic.

You won’t need a heart

There was a shooting at the school where Niece works as a librarian. She was not on campus at the time. One injured, perpetrator in custody. That’s way too close. The single injury was why it wasn’t in the news – it wasn’t dramatic enough. My Sunday movie was Young Hearts, a movie from Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. The story is about Elias, who is 14. This is a farming community and grandfather owns a farm. This is the time of life when literature class starts talking about love. He has a girlfriend in Valerie. Alexander, also 14, moves in next door. He admits he’s been in love before, and to a boy. Alex had lived in Brussels and rural life is new to him. Elias is glad to show him around. Elias soon falls in love with Alex, but he doesn’t know what to do with the feelings. He doesn’t know any gay people in his community. Isn’t he supposed to be in love with Valerie? How will his parents react? It takes a while, and the loving grandfather, to sort it out. Thankfully, the level of homophobia is quite low. I enjoyed this little movie. The actor who played Elias, Lou Goosens, did a fine job and has a good start on an acting career. Trenz Pruca of the Daily Kos community and author of his own blog looked at average income tax rates over the last six decades. He looked at the effective tax rate for the bottom 50% and middle 40% of taxpayers, then for smaller groups in the higher income levels, so that the top two are the top 0.01% to 0.001% and those above 0.001% of taxpayers. He then discussed his conclusions. I’ll mention his major points. The tax code has become much less progressive. The tax rate of the bottom 90% is roughly unchanged over these decades. When bills are passed they are described as everyone getting a tax cut, but those at the bottom (more accurately, not at the top) see little benefit. Over this time Republican administrations have cut tax rates for those at the top by a big chunk. Democrat administrations do nothing or raise the tax rate at the top by a modest amount. Then Republicans cut them again. Each cut is lower than the time before. These tax cuts are not done because the economy needs them to recover or continue growing. These tax cuts are not “paid for” within the tax system.

The adjustment occurs elsewhere: through higher deficits, increased federal debt issuance, or pressure on non-tax mechanisms such as spending cuts. This directly links the chart to the broader fiscal debates that follow major tax cuts: debt ceilings, entitlement reform, and “tough choices” about public investment. ... For most Americans, this does not arrive as a line item labeled “tax increase.” It arrives as constraints: what government can no longer afford, what benefits must be means-tested, what investments are postponed, what risks are privatized. In that sense, the chart helps explain why debates over Social Security, Medicare, healthcare access, and public investment intensify after periods of elite tax reduction. The system has already made its choice; the argument is over who absorbs the consequences.

Last Thursday, just a day after Renee Good was murdered by ICE officer Jonathan Ross, Emily Singer of Kos discussed the various ways Republicans in the administration and elsewhere praised Ross and slandered Good. Much of what they said was lies, easily shown through the various videos of the incident. No surprise here. Lisa Needham of Kos wrote on the day of the murder that it or something like it was always going to happen. She goes into a lot of detail of how we got here – the nasty guy calling in the National Guard in various cities and courts telling him he can’t. Even so, ICE has been active and brutal, yet ICE goons are the ones claiming to be fearful.

This was a favorite lie that ICE invoked in Illinois and California—basically, if your car happens to be anywhere near an ICE agent, they become so scared that they have to shoot you.

Needham gets to the core of her argument.

Trump desperately wants to invoke the Insurrection Act, which he threatened to do in 2020 during uprisings following the police murder of George Floyd—which, of course, was also in Minneapolis. With that, it’s no surprise that this shooting occurred less than a mile away from George Floyd Square. Trump has already declared that he is allowed to invoke the Insurrection Act if the courts won’t let him send in the National Guard, and … the courts won’t let him send in the National Guard. ... What we have now is a blue city on edge, enraged, and fearful—and Trump likely has a brand-new justification for a military crackdown. And, really, that’s what he wanted all along.

Mark Sumner, Kos staff emeritus, discussed whether Ross can be charged with murder. Short answer: Yes, he can, but it could be a difficult process. Sumner cites a Supreme Court ruling that says the charge is permitted. I thought he was referring to a recent case, but this one is from 1890. In the other big distraction from the Epstein files... Alex Samuels of Kos reported that less than a week after the nasty guy kidnapped Maduro if Venezuela the Senate advanced a resolution that would block using military force there without Congressional approval. All Democrats voted for it and five Republicans did too.

While largely symbolic, Thursday’s vote is a rare bipartisan check on Trump, signaling that even in a polarized Senate, some lawmakers are willing to challenge his lawlessness.

David Horsey posted a cartoon on Kos. It has a caption saying, “Since the precedent has been set...” It shows a Danish news reporter saying, “In response to threats against Greenland, elite Danish forces have raided the White House and taken into custody the corrupt, authoritarian leader of the United States.” Last Wednesday Emily Singer reported:

The Trump team released a new food pyramid Wednesday, and it’s as confusing and completely out-of-touch with reality as the rest of the administration’s actions. The new pyramid is an inverted triangle that features protein, dairy, healthy fats, fruits, and vegetables at the top and whole grains at the bottom. But its guidelines are difficult to understand and fail to address how the Trump administration has been making those foods more expensive and harder to access. ... If the administration actually cared about health, it would be advocating for more assistance for poor communities to be able to access fresh fruits and vegetables, not crusading against them by vilifying food stamps. More than anything, it’s infuriating to watch the Trump administration embrace the very same idea that former first lady Michelle Obama promoted when Barack Obama was president—an idea that the right screamed about, accusing her of trying to create a “nanny state."

The next day Alix Breeden of Kos said the new guidelines “smell a little rotten.” At the news conference unveiling the new diet guidelines there was a lot of declaring these guidelines were free of conflicts of interest from food corporations. Well, that’s good. But then the actual guidelines seem to be the result of conflicts of interest – or maybe the people who put it together are a bunch of quacks. The top example is the recommendation for meat and dairy has been pushed to the top of the chart (meaning we should eat a lot of it), “despite that scientific research says these foods contribute to worsening heart health.” Robert Kennedy Jr. wants to end the “war on saturated fats.” There is some good in his efforts. He wants people to eat less processed foods and more whole foods. But his other weird efforts mean people will be skeptical of the rare good ideas he is promoting. In the comments of Friday’s pundit roundup for Kos are some good cartoons and memes. The Wolfpack posted a cartoon by BabylonBros of the nasty guy interviewing the Tin Man for a job. The nasty guy says, “You won’t need a heart. We’ll start you off working for ICE!” Adam Cochran tweeted about the way the vice nasty defended the Minneapolis killing:

The most insane thing about all this, is just that: -There is no reason to defend this. It’s not political. You could just say: “Officer didn’t follow protocol. Doesn’t reflect our values. Will be held accountable” There is NOTHING to gain from defending this UNLESS you *want* for ICE to have the freedom to kill US citizens for disagreeing with you!

Tom Gauld posted a cartoon for New Scientist marking going back to work after the break. Two scientists are talking:

First: I am a scientist, Martin. My observations must be meticulously documented rigorously analysed and objectively verified. Haste is the enemy of wisdom! Second: But could you share a preliminary appraisal of your general thinking? First: Well, if you insist on a crudely reductive answer, then, yes, I had a nice Christmas.

In Saturday’s pundit roundup Greg Dworkin quoted Lawrence Willerman of Blue Amp asking us whether the country is more like Charlie Kirk or Renee Good.

Renee Good was a queer mother of three. A poet. A neighbor. A human being who cared about her community and the people in it—especially the ones with less power, less safety, and fewer voices. She lived compassion in a way that didn’t require a microphone or a donor list. And that compassion is almost certainly what put her in the path of federal agents who never should have been there, doing a job they were wildly unqualified to do. She did not die because she was reckless. She did not die because she was violent. She did not die because she was dangerous. She died because she cared. She died because she believed that warning her neighbors—her fellow Minneapolis residents—that ICE was conducting raids was the right thing to do. Because she believed community mattered. Because she believed people deserved to know when armed agents of the federal government were sweeping through their lives.

In the comments The Literate Lizard posted a quote by Margaret Atwood:

Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.

A cartoon posted by paulpro and created by Jonesy shows Jesus saying to a crowd, “Blessed are the meek. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth. Love your enemies. Blessed are the peacemakers.” In the crows is a guy with a MAGA hat saying, “What the hell kind of Christian is this guy anyway?”

Rich man Romney wants to tax the rich

RETIII of the Daily Kos community discussed a recent op-ed written by Mitt Romney for the New York Times. Its title is Mitt Romney: Tax the Rich, Like Me. Romney looks to be retired now or at least retired from politics, though he had been a Republican senator, governor, and presidential candidate and is described as having lots of money, though not at the billionaire level. So, on to what he’s calling for. I’ll summarize both quotes of Romney’s statements and RETIII’s comments and add a bit of my own. The need for the government to raise more revenue or to cut spending is obvious if the nasty guy can add a trillion dollars to the national in just a couple months. Tariffs won’t raise enough. The biggest part of federal spending (beyond the military?) is Social Security and Medicare. There are endless articles about both programs being in fiscal trouble (though many of those are excuses to limit the programs). Mucking with them too much can bring great wrath from senior voters. One proposal is to raise the income limit on FICA. This supports Social Security and incomes higher than $176K aren’t subject to FICA. Romney supports getting rid of the limit. Along with that Romney wants to add a means test to Social Security and Medicare. In a sense there is a means test for Medicare. The higher your income the higher your premiums. But Social Security was designed as a benefit to all. RETIII understands why. If there is a Social Security cutoff or reduction then the rich will see it doesn’t benefit them. Increased FICA and they will pay more for a benefit they don’t get. If they don’t get it they will more easily brand Social Security as “welfare” and work even harder to undermine it. Romney calls for raising the retirement age because we live longer than when Social Security was enacted 90 years ago. But RETIII says working longer at a job that is physical labor is quite different than working longer at a desk job. Romney wants to eliminate tax “caverns,” what are usually called loopholes. One proposal is to eliminate the current practice of not taxing capital gains at death. Romney explains:

Let’s look at a hypothetical scenario using Elon Musk as a proxy. If he had originally purchased his Tesla stock with, say, $1 billion and held it until his death, and if it were then worth $500 billion, he would never pay the 24 percent federal capital gains tax on the $499 billion profit. Why? Because under the tax code, capital gains are not taxed at death. The tax code provision known as step-up in basis means that when Mr. Musk’s heirs get his stock, they are treated as if they purchased it for $500 billion. So no one pays taxes on the $499 billion capital gain. Ever.

Romney mentions a couple more. I can think of more that RETIII doesn’t mention: Tax capital gains at the same rate as wage income. Raise the tax rate for the higher income brackets. RETIII’s conclusion and a few comments say why Romney’s comments are important. They get the debate started. Having a rich guy talk about taxing the rich is much more important than when a poor or middle-class person says the same thing. Much of politics is about persuasion and Romney has started his persuading. We’ll see how hard he keeps at it. Mark Sumner, Kos staff emeritus, commented that the nasty guy has long complained that Biden used an autopen a lot and claims anything signed by an autopen wasn’t officially signed. But the nasty guy is an autopen – between naps he signs anything put before him without reading it. Sumner calls him Grandpa Snoozy. Think about the large number of times he’s asked about something he’s signed and he says he knows nothing about it. That means his staff – including Russel Vought and Stephen Miller – are actually running the place. Well, no surprise there. And that means they will never invoke the 25th Amendment that allows the VP and Cabinet to declare the president incompetent, which would end his term. And perhaps theirs. Lisa Needham of Kos discussed the problem of the nasty guy’s executive order declaring fentanyl as a Weapon of Mass Destruction. First, it isn’t – it isn’t so destructive as to kill millions in a single moment. Second, the chemicals that are used to make fentanyl also have other good and important uses, so banning them doesn’t make sense. Third, Venezuela does not produce fentanyl. Fourth, this isn’t about fentanyl. It’s about providing an after-the-fact justification for bombing Venezuelan boats. It also allows the Department of Justice to get the Department of Defense involved.

This looks like a pretty blatant attempt at getting a widespread permission slip for military personnel to be used in domestic criminal investigations, which is not great! ... There’s also the problem that the administration has reassigned everyone to the “brutally torturing immigrants” project, which means drug arrests have already dropped, and fewer new investigations are being opened. But rather than do those actual investigations and prosecutions, which is what should be happening if we face such a deadly scourge, this instead is an attempt to get full war on terror authority, a blank check for Trump and Pete Hegseth and Pam Bondi and Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem to do anything they want, any time, anywhere.

In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Paul Krugman discussing the nasty guy’s viciousness:

Yet, on reflection, I realized that there’s a story here that’s bigger than Trump, a story in which Trump is one especially egregious example of a larger pattern. What is that pattern? That being vicious and bigoted is cool, is based in current slang. Trump is one data point in the midst of an epidemic of performative hatemongering in America. And while most of this is emanating from right-wing extremists, not all of it is.

I wanted to see what current slang reflects bigotry. So I went to Krugman’s article. It doesn’t discuss slang, though it does chart the rise of antisemitism and does talk about the increase in people of the far right around the world who say vicious and bigoted things. In the comments bjkeefe posted a cartoon by John Darkow of ICE agents picking crops. One of them says, “I guess we should’ve seen this coming!” Almost two years ago, about the time of Epiphany, marking the time the Wise Men visit the infant Jesus, I saw the phrase, “grifts of gold, frank nonsense, and merch.” Now Graeme Keyes did another take. His cartoon shows three guys in red “MAGI” hats. They guys could be Musk, the vice nasty, and the nasty guy. Their gifts are “Gold, Frankly dense, and Mire.” The Naked Pastor posted a cartoon of a brown Joseph and brown Mary – they lived in the Middle East – yet the just delivered baby boy is white. Which is how Westerners see him.

No evidence for his claims isn’t a bug: it’s the point

My friend and debate partner wasn’t done with his debate. A week ago Saturday I wrote about an essay by Trenz Pruca about the life cycle of capitalism and that it ends oligarchy. My debate partner asked what is Pruca’s relationship to reality? On Wednesday I addressed that question by discussing Pruca’s sources. My debate partner agreed that Pruca is credible. But is he effective? What is he doing to achieve the reform he says is so urgently needed? My debate partner (yes, he’s still a friend) pulled in Daily Kos, my primary source of news, and Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City. What are they doing to achieve effective reform? I’m going to leave Mamdani out of the discussion. He hasn’t started his term of mayor yet and we don’t know how effective he will or won’t be. I am aware that my friend has a much stronger tie to NYC than I do so he might be right that Mamdani might be thwarted at every turn. And my friend might be surprised. Back to Kos and Pruca. Kos is a news service that supports a community and Pruca is one voice in that community. That leads to a basic question: How effective is a news service supposed to be in prompting change? Do we expect that effectiveness from the Detroit Free Press or the Sacramento Bee (just pulled that one out of thin air), or the Washington Post? Yes, some opinion sections of newspapers and online news sources, grab hold of an important idea and make a lot of noise about it, loud enough to get significant public and political attention. But their job is to report the news and to spread ideas through the readers. Daily Kos does that too. The site spreads ideas through its progressive readers, making all of us aware of the things progressives should know. Some of that is “preaching to the choir” and it is also making sure the choir knows all the songs and can accurately sing them when away from the choir loft. Another aspect is that several prominent Democrats are readers (or at least have accounts). Essays like Pruca’s might be read by lawmakers. Also Kos has an activist arm. Every day they send out an email about how the reader can do something for democracy or the progressive cause. That included donating to a cause or suggesting how a lawmaker could be contacted. I got them for a while, but decided they were just filling up my email inbox. Kos is more effective than a visitor to their website might see. Is my own blog supposed to be effective? I didn’t begin it that way. Back in 2004 I started sending blurbs of important LGBTQ news to family, starting with Massachusetts legalizing same sex marriage. In 2007 a relative suggested I switch to blogging. My focus has shifted from LGBTQ issues into the nasty things politicians are doing. Through it all my purpose has been to spread what I see as important ideas out into the world (yes, it is the world, Singapore, Hong Kong, and China are at the top of viewer countries at the moment and the US is a distant 5th). In my friend’s email he mentioned the Trust Busting that happened between 1904 and 1919. He mentioned it because I had said I didn’t know how the US got through the age of Robber Barons, a time similar to now. My friend suggested I search for Trust Busting. I did, and learned a lot about Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Howard Taft applying an anti-trust law to break up big corporations. They did it by bringing cases through the court system to a Supreme Court willing to apply the law against corporations. Yeah, today we have neither a president willing to take on that fight nor a Supreme Court willing to go against their billionaire friends. In my friend’s discussion he mentioned Roosevelt’s efforts were backed by newspapers of the day. I’m sure my friend was saying see, here are newspapers being effective. But the websites I read, and I read several, said nothing about the role of newspapers. I hope I’ve shown Kos is more effective than my friend can see. As for Pruca, does he need to be the one to turn his ideas into policy or law, or is stating the ideas plainly enough for him to do, letting more appropriate people to take up the ideas? Also, I don’t know what Pruca does when he’s not writing for Kos. From his bio, which I quoted before, he does interact with government officials about government policy. Perhaps he has explained these ideas to them, about as effective as he can be. As always, dear friend, I’m open to the debate continuing. One more Trenz Pruca essay. His question is: Why are we so reluctant to tax the rich? Adam Smith, working in the 18th century, warned that insufficiently taxing the rich jeopardized democracy. But it also noted we admire those who strive with unrelenting industry, even if what they strive for is hollow. Pruca thinks in the last decade (and I think all the way back to Reagan and his tax cuts) there has been a shift from wealth affecting tax policies at the margins to a deference to wealth shaping the tax agenda. The wealth are portrayed as persecuted victims – of taxation, of regulation, of journalists, and of democracy.

If the wealthy are victims, then taxing them is cruelty. If they are persecuted, then oversight is tyranny. If they are heroes of capitalism, then regulation is sabotage.

No, the wealthy are not victims. They are not persecuted. They are not heroes. The middle class identifies upward, awaiting their ascent. Taxing the rich feels like taxing their aspirations. Tax law feels like an attack on “success.” The nasty guy has promoted the shift from billionaires influencing tax policy to authoring it. The government becomes a service provider for wealth, to remove “burdens.” The IRS is an inconvenience, regulators become enemies, and public spending becomes a threat. Pruca concluded:

Taxation, regulation, oversight, and enforcement have all been reframed—not as civic obligations, but as moral trespasses. And in that transformation, the democratic project itself has been bent. The task before us is not merely raising taxes on the rich—though that remains necessary. It is dismantling the cultural machinery that convinces us that the wealthy are fragile, persecuted, and unimpeachable. Smith would tell us plainly that our sympathy, however understandable, is misplaced. The wealthy do not need our protection. Democracy does.

Last week I reported that several senators released a video reminding those in the military that rejecting illegal orders is their duty. One of those senators was Mark Kelly of Arizona. On Monday this week Oliver Willis of Kos reported that the Pentagon announced it is now investigating Kelly. That may include recalling him to active duty for a court-martial. In response Kelly said he won’t be silenced by bullies. A reminder who Kelly is:

Kelly served as a captain in the Navy and flew 39 combat missions in the first Iraq War. He then went on to a distinguished career as a NASA astronaut and was inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame before successfully running for Senate.

The rest of the post is a review of the case. On Tuesday Emily Singer of Kos reported that polls show the public is siding with Kelly. Yesterday Thom Hartmann of the Kos community and an independent pundit discussed the incident behind Kelly’s notice to the military and the recent revelation from the Washington Post. The incident was back on September 2, the first time the nasty guy used the military to strike a boat in the Caribbean. The nasty guy and his goons claimed the boat was carrying drugs to the US and the people on board were members of the violent Tren de Aragua gang of Venezuela. The nasty guy and his goons provided no evidence either of the drugs or the connection to the gang. Hartmann wrote:

If these men had truly been high–value cartel operatives, Trump would be parading names and photos across every rally stage in America. The silence tells its own story.

Since that first strike there have been “more than 20 other missile strikes on small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing at least 80 people.” Now to the WaPo revelation. The first missile ripped the boat apart and set it burning. Two men clung to the wreckage.

They were unarmed. They were wounded. They were no threat to anyone. They were simply alive; inconveniently alive for a man who had allegedly already given the order that there be no survivors. And so, according to two officials with direct knowledge of the strike, the Special Operations commander overseeing the operation ordered a second missile. It hit the water and blew those two men apart.

Congress was told the second missile was to “remove a navigation hazard.” That’s an attempt to rewrite history. An order to kill wounded and unarmed survivors is defined by the Geneva Conventions as a war crime. Civilized states do not execute helpless people.

This, too, has been part of the authoritarian playbook since ancient times. Pick a foreign or criminal “other,” paint them as subhuman monsters, and then declare that the normal laws of war, morality, and basic decency no longer apply. ... The fact that the administration has produced no evidence for its claims isn’t a bug: it’s the point. When the government fabricates an omnipresent threat, it gives itself permission to kill whoever it wants.

These senators calling to disobey illegal orders makes sense. This was an illegal order. That the nasty guy called for their death also makes sense. The nasty guy (or at least his goons) know the order was illegal.

If Hegseth gave an order to “kill everybody,” he must be removed and prosecuted. If U.S. commanders falsified reports to mislead Congress and the public, they must be held accountable. And if Donald Trump approved or encouraged these actions, then impeachment and criminal referral are not optional: they’re required to defend the rule of law. America doesn’t have many chances left to prove to the world, and to ourselves, that we still believe in the value of human life and the restraints of democratic power. This is one of them.

In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin called Hegseth the “Secretary of War Crimes.” Dworkin starts with an excerpt of that WaPo article, which I’ll let you read. In the comments Lady Haha posted a cartoon by Jeff Danzinger showing two generals talking:

First: OK... Here’s what the secretary wants you to do: Go through Mark Kelly’s records and find anything we can use to court-martial him. Understand? Second: Yes, General, but that sounds like an illegal order.

In the main body of the post Cliff Schechter of Blue Amp talked about the nasty guy’s theory of politics. I think Dworkin’s summary at the start of the quote is good enough, I’ll stick with that.

Trump's never been guided by ideology — only ego. His one rule's simple: flatter him, you’re in; don’t, you’re done. From Pence to Putin, it's the real theory that explains every move he's ever made.

After all that this next detail is a bit of a toss-off. Willis, working from a segment on NPR, reported that Hegseth has prepared a draft memo that would pull the Pentagon’s support form Scouting America, formerly known at the Boy Scouts. His reason is the group is “detrimental to national security.” That phrase is important because the law compels the Pentagon to support scouts unless there is a security risk. The reason behind this is that scouting has become too woke. They are now genderless (girls and gays can join) and they support diversity, equity, and inclusion.

“The organization once endorsed by President Theodore Roosevelt no longer supports the future of American boys,” Hegseth’s memo alleges. He also argues that the scouts contribute to “gender confusion” and no longer “cultivate masculine values.”

If that memo becomes policy the military would no longer provide support for the National Jamboree and US military installations would be banned from hosting scout meeting. Many bases host the scouts because that’s a place of familiarity to boys whose parents move from base to base.