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.

Not magic dirt, not magic blood, but a magic idea

I finished the book An Equal Music by Vikram Seth. I read it because Michael, the main character, plays second violin in a string quartet that performs classical music – Haydn, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and such. Much of the setting is London. There are three primary threads to the story. The important one is life in a string quartet. What it’s like to rehearse, perform, and travel together. How to work out musical challenges. Working with a manager to get bookings. Another thread involves Julia. When Michael was a student in Vienna ten years ago he and Julia, a pianist, performed together and fell in love. But his relationship with his teacher soured and he returned to London and took too long to explain why to her. After a chance meeting in London he knows he’s still in love with her, but she now has a husband and son. The last thread is the quartet hires a pianist for a particular piece and discovers the pianist has gone deaf. The music is marvelous but they all have to adapt to visual cues rather than sonic ones. I quite enjoyed this one. The writing is beautiful and I appreciated all the musical references. That means if one isn’t a classical music fan a lot of terms won’t make sense. Jessica Huseman, in an article from more than a week ago for Votebeat posted on Daily Kos, reported that the nasty guy fired the two Democratic commissioners of the US Election Assistance Commission. The remaining Republican commissioner was allowed to resign. The other Republican commissioner had left earlier in the year to join the Heritage Foundation. There are supposed to be four members on the commission, two from each major party. Now there are none. The commission has workers that can keep current efforts going, but without people at the top it cannot take any official action. New members are nominated by the president and must be confirmed by the Senate.

The EAC was created by Congress after the 2000 election to help states improve election administration without federalizing elections. Its role is mostly supportive: distributing federal election funds, maintaining the national mail voter registration form, testing and certifying voting systems, and offering best practices and guidance to state and local election officials.

Yes, this firing happened just after the Supreme Court, in its Slaughter decision, granted the nasty guy the power to fire independent agencies simply because he wants to. An EAC that cannot act is also one that cannot alter voting registration and voting-system standards before the November midterms. Conor Murray of Forbes says that tarps have gone up around the North Portico of the White House. There is something about security upgrades to the White House front door that will take a couple months to complete. Or maybe the columns need repair. Or 150 year old paint needs to be removed. The White House is saying very little. That goes along with the helipad being built close to the south side. And the East Wing still showing little evidence of being turned into a ballroom.

$1.2 billion. That’s how much 18 major construction projects Trump launched across Washington, D.C., could cost, according to an estimate by the New York Times. It’s unclear how much of this is funded by taxpayers, but the Times reported a White House official suggested taxpayer money would be used for most of these projects.

David French, a columnist for the New York Times, tweeted (with a link to the full article):

Birthright citizenship is especially noxious to the populist right. They scorn it as relying on magic dirt — the idea that there is something inherent in American soil that makes a person an American citizen. Yet the same populists seem to believe in something like magic blood — that one’s lineage can make one superior. America doesn’t have magic dirt, and it certainly doesn’t have magic blood. But it does have a magic idea — the creed that declares “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Alix Breeden of Kos spoke with Brian Tyler Cohen, author of the new book The Day After: How to Wield Power in a Post-Trump World. Here’s some of what they talked about. The nasty guy gave a speech last week urging the Senate to pass his voter suppression bill he calls the Save America Act. As part of it he ranted again that the 2020 election was stolen. Cohen said this is laying the pretext that if Republicans lose the 2026 midterms he can claim they were stolen. Or ahead of time he can claim presidential powers to attempt to rig them. He’s doing this because Republicans are fully in control of the government and have failed to deliver on promises of lower costs, releasing Epstein file, starting no wars, and keeping prices down. He can’t credibly blame Democrats, though he is trying. The electorate was largely disillusioned with Democrats in 2024, which explains Republican gains. But Democrats are getting a second chance in 2026 because Republicans were “so focused on self enrichment and blind deference to Trump instead of delivering for their constituents” Democrats get a second chance. Republicans are tearing down the institutions of government. Democrats reflexively prop them up. But these institutions are part of the reason why Americans are struggling. Americans don’t want the institutions protected, they want them reformed to give them a better chance at life. Thankfully, the nasty guy got rid of the idea that institutions are sacrosanct. But he did it for self-enrichment. Democrats should not treat the institutions as sacrosanct, but should reform them to benefit those at the bottom. That means passing voting protections (including banning gerrymandering), taking serious action on climate change, and reforming the Supreme Court so they can’t veto what Democrats enact. In general, Democrats need a message that is more than being against the nasty guy. One way to do that is to urge the old timers who think they should die in office to step aside for younger people. Another is to create progressive media – Democrats had relied on mainstream media being liberal but the nasty guy is making them conservative. See CBS. Cohen believes there will be a world after the nasty guy. All of his cronies are also quite low in public opinion, especially the vice nasty. And the spirit of resistance (see No Kings protests) is still quite strong. Mark Kreidler, in an article for Capital & Main posted on Kos, reported that billionaires in California are spending big this election cycle, significantly bigger than before. Some of the reason is to defeat the one-time tax on their wealth. Some of it is to elect candidates who are favorable to unregulated AI and crypto. They donate to Republicans where they can and to business-friendly Democrats in races where Republicans don’t have a chance. A recent poll by NPR/PBS News/Marist shows the same thing as other polls back in 2023 have shown, that Americans love the idea of term limits in Congress. 80% to 90% want them. Andrew Mangan of Kos explains why term limits for Congress are a bad idea. Here are some of the reasons. Going back to 1975 American’s approval of Congress does not correlate with the average years of service of its members. Approval can fluctuate widely, average years of service fluctuates only a little bit. Yes, there are out-of-touch fossils (Grassley, Schumer). But being a member of Congress is a job and jobs take a while to learn and be good at. When a member is still new to the job (where “new” could be many years) they need to rely on experienced members and term limits would get rid of the experienced members. That means they would rely on lobbyists, the ones we don’t want them relying on. If a member knows their time is limited they have less of an incentive to learn the job, to delve into policy and procedures. Many of the most effective Democrats have been in Congress much longer than term limits would permit. Term limits appear to increase political polarization and to hamper economic growth. Enacting term limits would require changing the Constitution. Something just as effective to increase accountability and productivity with similarly high levels of public support is a lot easier to enact. That is to ban gerrymandering. Michigan enacted term limits many years ago. And, yup, the people who know how to make the legislature run are the lobbyists.

His death does not end the national nightmare

I did get down to the Detroit Film Theater Sunday afternoon for the last show in their silent film festival. This one was Go West, starring Buster Keaton, released about 1925. It is a lot funnier and has a more cohesive story than the early Charlie Chaplin films I saw a few days ago. Keaton plays a guy who was let go from his job. He tries city life, but doesn’t like the crowds. So he hops on a train going west. As soon as I saw a train car full of barrels not standing on end I knew they were not going to stay put and that an idiot loaded them. Of course, Keaton makes good comic use of the error. He leaves the train not far from a ranch, so he asks for a job there. And gets one. But he knows nothing about ranching – told to milk a cow he puts the bucket at one end and sits on a stool at the other end and encourages the cow. After the movie I thought my dad and his father (both went to college for farming) would have loved that scene – and the whole movie. Along the way he befriends a cow (or maybe it befriends him – I wonder if one is able to train a cow to act as one is able to train a dog). When the owner decides it is time to send the herd to market he tries to protect his cow. Yeah, this was an enjoyable afternoon. Here be spoilers. The cattle are loaded onto a train, including Keaton’s cow and himself. There is a gun battle with workers from another ranch. Keaton’s boss will be ruined if the cattle don’t arrive at the stockyards and the other ranch will be ruined if they do. After the battle the train becomes a runaway, which he stops, but they’re a long way from the stockyards. So he drives the cattle through the city – with people fleeing and lots of fun when cattle wander into the various stores. Of course, he saves the day and gets to keep his cow. Kos of Daily Kos listed ten reasons why Republicans are screwed in 2026. I’ll mentioned some of them. Republicans are losing elections and losing big. The nasty guy is noticeably ill. Republicans are associated with the nasty guy and his policies. The nasty guy isn’t on the ballot and many of his devoted followers vote only when he is. The economy stinks. A historic number of Republicans are retiring from Congress. Young voters and Latinos have turned against the nasty guy. A MAGA civil war has begun. In sharp contrast to that glee... I have an idea for a post that would be appropriate when the nasty guy dies. However, Christopher Armitage of the Kos community posted one quite similar to what I have in mind, so I might as well discuss his. The basic idea is that the death of the nasty guy does not end the national nightmare. He is a pawn of the billionaires, even if he doesn’t always do what they want, and those billionaires will still be around and still be protected by the Republican Party. The billionaires and their front organization the Republicans groomed him and protected him and funded him, because they saw he would do the damage to democracy and government they wanted done. The whole goal of the billionaires and the Republican Party is “insulating Republican rule from democratic accountability.” “The party has spent decades building the infrastructure of preventing democratic functioning.” That doesn’t end when the nasty guy dies. Armitage listed some other things that remain after his death. The Supreme Court, who Republicans rigged to allow him to appoint two extra justices and who declared he’s above the law, serve for life. They will happily continue to protect conservative efforts and overturn progressive efforts, ignoring what the Constitution says. Project 2025 is partially implemented – Armitage lists 47% -- and will stay that way until actively revoked. Armitage says that 47% number comes from the Partnership for Public Service and their federal harms tracker. Project 2025 came from the Heritage Foundation, not from the nasty guy. The gutted federal agencies do not get rebuilt overnight, the 200,000 federal employees forced out likely have gotten jobs elsewhere. Dismantled regulations stay dismantled. The Federalist Society built a conservative judicial pipeline, which is still active. The courts remain captured. Gerrymandering for partisan reasons remains legal. Efforts to suppress voters continue. The John Lewis voter rights law was not passed. Dark money is still legal. The Republican method of declaring Democrats not just wrong, but evil, continues. Fox News still spews its conservative propaganda.

Trump is their most effective instrument. He normalized what was previously unthinkable. He proved what was possible. He moved the ball further down the field than anyone before him. But he is still an instrument. When he is gone, everything he proved remains proven. Every precedent he set remains set. Every norm he shattered remains shattered. The Republican Party has been building toward this for 50 years. The Powell Memo. The Heritage Foundation. The Federalist Society. Gingrich burning down congressional norms. The Southern Strategy. Gerrymandering. Voter suppression. McConnell holding a Supreme Court seat hostage for a year. Trump did not break the system. He is the product of a party that spent half a century crafting the tools to end American democracy.

Armitage wrote that while the current Republican Party exists our democracy remains under threat. While true, it misses the greater threat, that being the billionaires and their unrestricted efforts to bribe the president, Congress, the Supreme Court, and state legislatures. In the comments is another component. The billionaires have also bought the Democratic Party. They won’t do anything that would stop the flow of donation checks. They will only make small changes, not the big ones needed to protect and reinforce our democracy. We’ve allowed ourselves to focus on one guy. That way we can believe when he’s gone our job is done. But don’t wait for his death because the same fight will continue.

So what actually works? Three things. First, states must investigate, prosecute, and criminally indict corrupt politicians at every level and refuse to hand those cases up to federal jurisdiction. If we don’t hold these people accountable ourselves, no one will. This should be done through an interstate anti-corruption compact where states work together to rid our federal government of criminal actors. Second, states must build social safety nets at the state and multi-state level that actually improve residents’ lives, because the federal government has been captured and isn’t coming to help. Third, multi-state non-compliance with bulls--- SCOTUS and federal decisions. That’s it. That’s what needs to happen. It takes political will, and it takes us demanding it from every state official we can reach.

A couple items from the comments of Sunday’s pundit roundup for Kos. A cartoon by Jimmy Margulies shows a well dressed couple leaving “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” The man says, “Great concert... Terrific Trump-Beethoven 5th Symphony... Sparkling Trump-Tchaikovsky Nutcracker Suite... Rousing Trump-Vivaldi The Four Seasons.” The other item is a pair of tweets. John Strand tweeted:

America is a Christian nation. It was settled by Christian pioneers, established by our Declaration of Independence based on biblical truth. Our constitution was designed by Christians based on Judeo-Christian principles. We must return to God. We must restore the promise.

Micah Erfan responded with three quotes:

Thomas Jefferson: “Christianity neither is, or ever was a part of the common law.” James Madison: “Religion and government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together.” John Adams: “The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”

Strand’s demand that America return to God implies Strand demands America enforce the social hierarchy he claims is a central part of Christianity, but completely misunderstands what Jesus is about. Almost two weeks ago Lisa Needham of Kos reported that the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which Congress created to protect historic structures, sued to stop construction of the nasty guy’s ballroom at least until they had a chance to review the plans for the building. Yeah, there is doubt the plans exist yet. But a US District just said the Trust didn’t show it would face harm while it waited to see the plans. So construction may continue. Gosh, the nasty guy didn’t have to go all the way to the Supremes.

He tore it down to create a crisis he'd be paid to fix

Clio2 of the Daily Kos community has started posted a weekly LGBTQ world news summary. Some of it is great to hear, some is hard to take. From the December 7 post here are a few of the stories: Biden was a highlight speaker at the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute, which helps us run for office, then Biden was given an award. As part of his speech he said we need to keep fighting. And, “There’s nothing more American than the notion of equality. Nothing, nothing, nothing.” I like his thinking but it’s never been true. Carla Antonelli is the first trans woman elected to the Spanish Senate. Gay couple Matthew and Allan Marreno went to an interview for a marriage-based green card. Allan was detained for deportation. Georgia’s prison system is refusing to let trans inmates continue to get their hormone therapy, forcing a detransition with severe mood swings along the way. That overloaded the mental health caseload. The detransitioning regime has been halted by the courts. Puberty blockers, used to delay puberty in trans youth, are facing claims they are harmful. New Zealand recently prohibited their use. First gay Miss England has been crowned. Over 400 trans flags were stolen from a Trans Day of Remembrance memorial in Boston. A trans teen in Iowa committed suicide after severe bullying by classmates and teachers. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis banned rainbow colored crosswalks. One had been near the Pulse Nightclub massacre site. Two men were arrested for “aggressively chalking” to fill in that crosswalk. A Pew survey shows only 31% of trans people report being accepted by their parents. That prompted Alejandra Caraballo to tweet:

One of the most perverse ideas on the anti-trans side is that trans people are instantly affirmed and celebrated by everyone when they come out and that acceptance is driving a social contagion. It's the ultimate form of gaslighting against our community.

The Royal Canadian Air Force answered questions associated with their Trans Day of Remembrance post and did a fine job of it. They gave a good definition of transgender.

“Transgender” describes someone whose gender – who they know themselves to be – doesn’t match the sex they were assigned at birth. It’s not new, and it’s certainly not a fad. People have lived this experience for as long as people have existed; we’re just finally talking about it openly. You don’t have to fully understand it right away, most learning takes time, but we can always start from a place of respect. That’s how decent folks handle things they’re still getting used to.

Here’s a link to the December 14 post. One story in that post is related to the soccer World Cup tournament to be held next year in various cities in the US. One city is Seattle. The city’s organizing committee said the game on June 26 will be its “Pride Match.” The two nations who drew that game are Egypt and Iran, and homosexuality is illegal in Iran and frequently prosecuted in Egypt under “debauchery” laws. They want the “Pride Match” designation changed. Seattle says they’re keeping it. Ryan in FL of the Kos community, working from an article in Salon, reported the nasty guy’s White House Ballroom will never be built.

Basically, it’s skyrocketed in cost, had judicial rulings against it’s construction, and the paths to easy grift in terms of him making a giant windfall off the whole process have been short-circuited. He just tore it down, hoping he’d created a crisis he could extract a giant paycheck for fixing. ... So… in a truly apt metaphor, Trump had a plan to tear down America, and replace it with a golden vision, but that plan was only a self-serving mess that hurt the nation, and failed even in the earliest planning phases. ... Republicans just come in, create as many crises as they can, tear down our shared public commonwealth and welfare (in all the senses), then if they can’t be paid an enormous ransom to fix it, they wipe their hands of it, and call the damage itself success.

Maybe we should plan a federal highway that just so happens to pass through the nasty guy’s golf courses. Eminent domain will allow us to grab up the land. Demolition could begin immediately. Oh, look at that, the actual construction schedule is slipping. By a dozen years. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted The Bulwark saying the nasty guy’s prime time speech on Wednesday was pointless but gave him a sense of relief.

Why? Because Trump didn’t use the network prime time he’d requested to announce we were going to war in Venezuela. After all his bellicose rhetoric, after all his bluster in press gaggles, Trump had a chance to make his case for war to the nation. He failed to take it. He didn’t even mention Venezuela.

Zack Beauchamp of Vox also said there was no point to the speech.

So why am I writing about it at all? Because the fact that it happened at all tells us something much more important: that the Trump administration is sinking, and his White House has no idea what to do about it.

Matt Johnson, also of The Bulwark:

The Trump era has forced Americans to reconsider and reaffirm first principles: Why is the peaceful transfer of power important? What is the purpose of judicial independence? Why is corruption corrosive to democratic governance? The same applies to the public understanding of the liberal international order: Why is free trade important? How do immigrants contribute to the country? Why does NATO matter? Trump’s failures are rapidly piling up. The bill is already coming due on the tariffs, from farm bailouts to sticky inflation. Americans are quickly turning against the mass deportation campaign. It has become increasingly clear what unrestrained Trumpism means for the country: corruption and cruelty at home, incompetence and anarchy abroad. Trump likes to present himself as the reckoning for decades of elite failures, but he’s in for a reckoning of his own.

A tweet from Rep. Thomas Massie (and yes, I have a good reason to quote a Republican):

If the 2020 elections involved widespread coordinated fraud and conspiracy, why hasn’t this administration arrested or indicted anyone yet?

Defense One reported that the nasty guy is issuing checks of $1,776 to members of the military as a “Warrior dividend.” The problem is the checks come from a Congressionally-allocated fund for subsidized housing allowances for service members. He gets his name on a check to look benevolent while also screwing over the recipients. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos from Friday a week ago quoted late night commentary. Here’s one of them:

“Basically, all the bulls--- reasons we used to justify the disastrous war in Iraq, the 'non-interventionist' Trump regime is trotting out to justify war in Venezuela. … America's new foreign policy is basically this: don’t kill people over there, kill them over here in your own time zone. It's classic advice: s--- where you eat. That's the new Trump Doctrine. It's not in any way about stable democracies. It's about spheres of influence. Russia can have their sphere of influence. China can have theirs. And we get South America. America is no longer the shining city on the hill, it is merely just one of the five crime families splitting up the territories.” —Jon Stewart

In the comments of Monday’s pundit roundup rebel ga posted a meme:

Donald Trump, a rich guy convincing poor people to vote for the rich guy by telling the poor people that the other poor people are the reason they’re poor.

In the pundit roundup for Friday a week ago Dworkin explains “Lorem Ipsum” and its use in the House. The phrase is Latin nonsense. Both Republicans and Democrats in the House are tired of Speaker Johnson’s repeated efforts to thwart anything getting done. So they are going around him with discharge petitions and doing so almost weekly. The bill to force the release of the Epstein files was passed through a discharge petition. There are rules for discharge petitions. They must be ignored by a committee for a certain length of time, I think months. So the House has set up “Lorem Ipsum” bills that get ignored by committees. The actual content of the bills is filled in when needed.

When they fear the voters more than they fear the man

I finished the book Monk and Robot by Becky Chambers. The book is made up of short novels A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, originally separately published. The second is a continuation of the first. I was interested in the book because I had previously read her Wayfarer novels and enjoyed them. The monk is Dex, who is either nonbinary or intersex. Because of that they aren’t Brother Dex, but Sibling Dex. They work as a tea monk, pedaling a wagon from village to village and creating blends of tea for those who need relaxation or comfort. But they are no longer satisfied with this work and don’t know what to do instead. The thought of visiting a hermitage deep within the Wild offers a chance to deal with their dissatisfaction. About two hundred years before the story the robots that did the majority of work in factories “woke up.” (Peace, friend and debate partner, this is just a way to generate a story.) The robots left the factories and forged an agreement with the humans on what is human territory and what is Wild. The robots moved to the Wild. Shortly after entering the wild Dex encounters Mosscap, a robot name after a type of mushroom. It is a wild-built robot, created in the Wild from parts of previous robots. Mosscap guides Dex to the hermitage. That was the first novel. The second takes place back in the human lands. Mosscap wants to check up on humans because the robots are curious about what has happened since the time of factories. It gets discussions going by asking humans “What do you need?” and doing what it can to meet that need. So maybe don’t think of Mosscap as a robot. Think of it as a character from another culture. Mosscap can explain the culture of the Wild to Dex and Dex can explain the human culture to Mosscap. A great deal of the story is Dex and Mosscap talking. The human culture that Chambers describes is, of course, an idealized culture, one very much she (and I) would want to live in and in many aspects different from what we know on earth in the modern age. One example is that the humans didn’t reconfigure factories for human labor after the robots left. They abandoned factories and returned to hand-crafted goods. That has a lot of implications on the rest of life and is why Dex’s wagon – which includes their apothecary and living quarters – is powered by their own legs. Another example is the replacement for money. Instead of the seller demanding so many dollars in exchange for a good or service, the receiver offers so many “pebs” (short for pebbles) in thanks to the provider of the good or service. That’s an important distinction. A person’s pebs account can go negative because goods, especially food and shelter, are never denied. If a person’s pebs account, always publicly visible, stays negative for a length of time friends know to check in. All this is explained because Mosscap does things for humans and he is rewarded pebs before he knows to open a pebs account. I enjoyed this book, though I admit it is a discussion of ideas and won’t have much appeal for those who want action in their stories. A tipping point is where a gradual change in something causes something else that had been stable to suddenly change rapidly. News Corpse of the Daily Kos community wrote about the seemingly stable relationship between the nasty guy and the Republicans in Congress as the nasty guy’s actions get increasingly vile. Then the nasty guy wrote something vile in response to the murder of actor-director Rob Reiner and his wife allegedly by their son Nick Reiner. Steadfast Republican support suddenly isn’t. The response in MAGA-land was one that the nasty guy had gone too far. So Republican supporters in Congress are speaking out. And we get this comment from News Corpse:

It was inevitable that as Trump's approval ratings decline, as they have been, his supporters would start to fear the people – i.e. voters – more than they fear Trump. That's the tipping point at which we may be now. If this trend continues, Trump will not only find himself without a Republican majority in Congress, but without support from what remains of the GOP. Nobody will want to be associated with someone who disparages beloved Americans who were taken from us far too soon.

Kos community member jhecht reported that lawyers for the Pulitzer Prize Board have dropped a “discovery bomb” on the nasty guy. He sued the Pulitzer for some sort of slight, it hardly matters what, though it is about their 2018 investigation into Russia (their influence in the 2016 election?). Every suit there is a discovery phase in which each side has to share with the other all the facts and evidence of the case. And the Pulitzer team, playing hardball, said a great deal of information is relevant to determine how much the nasty guy was physically or mentally harmed. The Pulitzer team asked for detailed financial records, including tax returns from 2015, and complete medical and psychological records. Yeah, that’s a great deal of what the nasty guy has worked hard in the last decade to keep hidden. That gives him two choices: withdraw the suit or fight to keep all that info hidden, an effort he’ll likely lose. And the hits just keep on coming. Alex Samuels of Kos reported the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a nonprofit preservationist group chartered by Congress to protect historic buildings, filed a lawsuit against the nasty guy saying he did not legally demolish the East Wing. Their goal is to stop work until the necessary federal commissions have approved the project’s plans, adequate environmental reviews have been done (the East Wing likely had a great deal of asbestos), and Congress authorizes construction.

Where the lawsuit goes from here is uncertain—but the idea of the court blocking construction after the East Wing has already been razed has not gone unnoticed.

This next bit is highly speculative and the evidence is slight and circumstantial, but it is intriguing in a bad way. TheSheeple of the Kos community discussed a Substack article that suggests the White House Ballroom is just a cover for a big military AI data center. Whether the ballroom sits on top of the data center to hide it or the data center’s code name is “ballroom” is part of the speculation.

They can’t contain the fury of the people

A break in my schedule allows me to post today. My next post will likely be in another week. I finished the book The Extraordinaries by TJ Klune. This is the story of Nick. He’s 16, gay, has ADHD, lost his mother two years before, and has a cop for a father. He has a great group of friends – Seth, who has been his bestie since first grade, and lesbian couple Gibby and Jazz. He also has a crush on Shadow Star, an Extraordinary, also known as a superhero, battling his archnemesis Pyro Storm. The crush is strong enough that Nick wants to become an extraordinary, to better attract Shadow Star’s attention and to protect his father from bad guys. But his ADHD gets in the way of sense and logic. As the story moves to the ultimate battle (of course, there is one) and goes through a few twists, there are discussions about good and evil and whether the life of an extraordinary is something to be desired. There is also, of course, Nick generally being 16 with ADHD and gaining a bit of maturity. In addition to the fun there are moments that are quite touching. Klune is a very good writer. I enjoyed the book. Now the question is whether I enjoyed it enough to read the two sequels and the answer isn’t obvious. Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reported that in response to the Missouri legislature gerrymandering their US House districts to squeeze out another Republican seat, the group People Not Politicians submitted over 300,000 signatures demanding a voter referendum on the new map. Those 300K signatures are almost three times the number required to force a vote. The new map cannot take effect while the referendum is pending, blocking it from being used in the 2026 election. So, of course, Republicans are looking for ways to nullify the signatures, or at least enough of them to get below the threshold. About 90K signatures were collected before the referendum paperwork was certified and will be the first to be challenged. Republicans are challenging the constitutionality of the referendum in court. They’ll also try to have the Secretary of State make that declaration without the court. They claim signatures were gathered by illegal aliens (no, not the starship kind, the border-crossing kind).

The GOP will do its damnedest to prevent Missouri voters from voting. But the campaigns will keep pushing, the people of Missouri will keep pushing, and while GOP elected officials might eventually kill this particular referendum, they can’t contain the fury people have over this.

A couple days ago Needham reported that while the nasty guy is killing people in boats in the Caribbean because he claims they are transporting drugs to the US he gave a pardon to Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández who was convicted of taking bribes to move 400 tons of cocaine.

When confronted with this contradiction—lethal strikes on defenseless boaters versus mercy for well-heeled drug traffickers—White House press secretary Karolilne Leavitt responded with a typical word salad.

I’ll leave it there. Kos of Kos noted a few things about the pardon for Hernández: “That 400 tons amounted to 4.5 billion individual doses of cocaine.” In addition to attacking boats in the Caribbean the nasty guy has also used drug trafficking to justify tariffs against Canada, Mexico, and China. When asked about the pardon the nasty guy said, “Well I don’t know him.” Then blamed Obama and Biden, as in Biden was president when Hernández was convicted so that must have been a setup.

It takes a certain kind of callous incompetence to hand out a pardon and then claim, “I don’t know him” and “I know very little about him.” Someone told him Hernández was “set up” by Obama and Biden? How about maybe you have your staff investigate the matter, talk to prosecutors, read the f’n Wikipedia entry—anything!

Kos included a photo of Honduran farmers protesting the pardon of Hernández. Last week Needham reported the nasty guy had gotten an MRI as part of a medical exam, but couldn’t remember what part of his body was scanned.

This, of course, raises not one, but two, health concerns: Which health condition is the president hiding that required a magnetic resonance imaging test, and which health condition is the president unwittingly revealing when he can’t seem to recall why he even had an MRI?

That hasn’t stopped him from bragging about how smart he is and from insulting female reporters who ask about the MRI. Needham listed other things the nasty guy has done recently that question his mental fitness. One of them is the frequency he falls asleep in meetings. Now that the process of releasing the Epstein files is supposedly underway, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has started a new campaign, “Release the MRI results.” Kos community member xaxnar posted a video of Robert Reich discussing the nasty guy’s health. He is also annoyed at the way the media is not covering it, especially compared to the way the media covered and gloated over Biden’s “every verbal slip, stumble, or momentary lapse.” Wrote xaxnar, emphasizing a point Reich made:

Granted he’s a monster, but he doesn’t have the energy, the focus, and the knowledge to perpetrate the cruelties in the detail now being carried out in his name. The press is willing to credit people around Trump — Miller, Vought, Vance et. al. — for instituting these policies, but they are reluctant to ask if Trump is just rubber stamping what gets put in front of him.

Reich’s six minute video documents some of those mental issues. That includes dementia increasing a person’s paranoia. He adds:

Stephen Miller, Russel Vought, JD Vance, and RFK Jr. seem to be feeding into Trump’s paranoid delusions to increase their own power and advance their own fanatical agendas. ... [People with dementia] can be manipulated and taken advantage of by unscrupulous relatives or caretakers. Is this what’s happening in the White House?

Reich encourages us to spread his video and its content because mainstream media isn’t. I’m doing my part. At the bottom of the post xaxnar includes a link to a more complete discussion of mental health issues created by Dan Rather. I’ll repeat the link here. It’s worth a read. Alex Samuels of Kos reported one of the nasty guy pardons went to Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar. At the end of the article Samuels discussed Cuellar’s crime. Now with pardon in hand Cuellar decided to run for reelection – as the Democrat he has always been. And the nasty guy accused him of a lack of loyalty. He assumed the gift of a pardon would prompt Cuellar to switch parties.

In short, Trump all but acknowledged that he viewed the pardon as a political transaction. And when the transaction failed, he reacted as if he’d been swindled. ... A pardon cannot force gratitude or obedience. And once issued, it cannot be revoked when the beneficiary declines to play along. Trump expected a Republican seat in exchange for his presidential largesse. Instead, he got a Democrat who thanked him politely and then went right back to being who he has always been. And Trump, as ever, took it personally.

Needham reported last Friday that the nasty guy has fired McCrery Architects, the ones to design the huge ballroom for which the White House East Wing was demolished. The new firm is Shalom Baranes. Good luck guys. Shalom Baranes might be better suited than the previous firm, but the nasty guy is very hands-on with is building projects and difficult to please. This leads to speculation (including by me) that the East Wing was torn down way before construction on its replacement was ready to begin. Also possible is that the ballroom never gets built even after a slew of architects, or if it is built it will be such a national disgrace a part of the 2029 inauguration ceremony will be its implosion.

Standing up despite the fear

Last Friday, the day before nutrition assistance money didn’t go out Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported that even though the poor will go hungry the nasty guy bragged that he had renovated the Lincoln bathroom (the bathroom by the Lincoln bedroom?). The old décor as he described it was “art deco green tile” – “totally inappropriate for the Lincoln Era.” That was replaced with black and white “statuary marble,” – supposedly more appropriate for the time of our great president? Wrote Singer:

The absolute lack of self-awareness it takes to post about fancy renovations to the White House that virtually no Americans will ever see or utilize, while millions of federal workers are not being paid and throngs of Americans are worried about losing the funding they rely upon to feed their families is hard to fathom.

This is after razing the East Wing for a ballroom, gilding the Oval Office, and paving over the Rose Garden.

Trump is obsessed with renovating the White House, turning the historic building into a second version of his tacky Mar-a-Lago resort—a terrifying sign as it’s hard to imagine Trump willingly leaving the building when he’s remade it to be his own.

Oliver Willis of Kos, as part of his series on Explaining the Right, tackled the question: Why Republicans think it’s okay to starve poor people. As before in this series Willis is good at documenting that at least since Reagan Republicans are starving people, repeatedly refusing to fund food assistance programs. Their reasoning can tie them into rhetorical knots, producing nonsensical answers. They oppose food assistance and say getting rid of the social safety net is popular. But that idea is really only popular with billionaires and other hard conservatives. Though Willis is good at documenting what Republicans are doing, he’s not so good at answering the questions he poses and I don’t think he did this time either. So I’ll provide the same answer I usually do. To assert a place at the top of the social hierarchy they oppress those towards the bottom. Causing hunger is another way to do it. I’ve written about Kat Abughazaleh, who is running for Congress in a district near Chicago. She has protested at the ICE detention facility in Broadview, IL and has now been indicted by the Department of Justice for impeding an ICE officer’s work, something about he had to drive slowly to avoid injuring Kat’s fellow “conspirators.” That gave Daily Kos another chance to interview Kat. The interviewer was Alix Breeden. Here’s a bit of what Kat said:

And don't get me wrong, this is scary, just like every time I've been thrown to the ground by ICE, every time I've been tear gassed, every time I've been shot with pepper balls, that's been scary. But standing up for what you believe isn't about doing it without fear. It's doing it despite the fear. And that's what so many people across the country and especially right here in Chicago, have been doing. That's really what the far right is. At its core, it's fear of being irrelevant, of things that are different, fear of losing control, losing power. That is why their messaging depends on fear. It depends on pitting us against each other to distract us from billionaires and oligarchs that are trying to hold this country ransom for their own profit. No matter how scared I or anyone else feels, I think we can take some comfort knowing that they are more scared. They are more afraid, and they know that they are on the wrong side of history. ... I have believed in my values since I was a child. I truly believe that if you don't stand by your values, even to your own detriment, then you have nothing at all. And so there is no unconstitutional attack that can make me stop talking about what is right and stop standing up for others. That's why I'm running for Congress, and that's why I'm going to win on Election Day and in court. ... If they're triggered by the people that they claim to represent, what do you think they'll do to you if you don't stand up to them? ... This is a state terror campaign that is meant to attack the people they have spent years prepping the public to accept as “other.” And this has happened in every authoritarian regime we've seen.

In Monday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Greg Sargent of The New Republic, which I’ll summarize. Admiral Holsey resigned from leading the Southern Command of the military before his term was up. Democrats of the House Armed Services Committee would very much like to get Holsey’s testimony about why he left. Was it because he was uncomfortable about the US rattling sabers off the coast of Venezuela? Congress should want to know. But Republicans don’t want Holsey’s testimony. Zack Beauchamp of Vox discussed Republican antisemitism and the feeling that one gets a lot more likes and clicks when promoting an anti-Jewish agenda than when doing the opposite.

Yet this raises a deeper, and more troubling, question: Why is it that they’ve been able to build such a large audience? Why do “you get a lot more clicks” nowadays if you promote right-coded antisemitism? And why is it that so many of the party’s youth operatives get seduced by neo-Nazism?

Kim Holmes tweeted:

I am one of those people who left Heritage for this reason. And I was Executive Vice President.

This tweet included one from Jonah Goldberg which included an excerpt from The Dispatch Newsletter which says, “Unlike other think tanks, scholars at Heritage [Foundation] are not permitted to publicly deviate from the part line.” Conservatives shouldn’t argue among themselves because it “sows division.” I’ve heard that phrase used a lot to silence dissent. A tweet from David French:

The reason this moment isn't remotely surprising is that the conservative movement (such as it exists) has been refusing to police itself in large part because Trump fails any reasonable character test. He'd be one of the first policed out of the movement. So, instead, all too many people try an untenable middle way – sanctifying Trump and anyone in his inner circle while trying to maintain standards on everyone else. It simply can't work. When your leaders are hateful and nihilistic then your movement becomes hateful and nihilistic.

In the comments paulpro posted a cartoon by Jeff Danziger of two generals talking quietly, demonstrating why the military frequently goes along with despots.

First: Why don’t we go public? Second: You mean let everyone know that we think Hegseth is a punk and a moron with no idea what he’s doing, pushing the U.S. toward a war with millions of deaths? First: Nobody would believe us. Second: We’d be fired the next day. First: Goodbye career... Second: Goodbye retirement... First: Hmm... Millions of deaths. Second: Shhhh...

In Tuesday’s roundup Chitown Kev quoted Sophia McClennen of Salon on the way the nasty guy attacks the minds of Americans.

It isn’t just that the Trump team offers an incessant flood of faulty logic. They also create an environment that makes thinking critically exceptionally difficult. As cognitive scientists Keith Stanovich and Richard West have shown, humans possess two systems of thought: One fast and emotional, the other slow and deliberative. Trump keeps the public in the first mode — triggered, reactive, impulsive. Under Trump, critical reasoning collapses from emotional overload. The threat, then, isn’t just misinformation; it’s misreasoning.

In the comments is a cartoon by Toonerman:

American Mainstream Media kowtows to Trump. ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN... They all kiss the Orange one’s ass. There’s no reason to watch any of them. We already have FOX State TV. An authoritarian only needs 1 propaganda network. Fox should be getting worried about all of their kiss ass rivals.

Starvation is apparently not an emergency

Instead of handing out Halloween candy I went to see the movie Blue Moon. It is about Lorenz Hart of the musical team Rogers (music) and Hart (lyrics) who dominated the 1920s and ‘30s. The show is about ninety minutes of the evening of the opening of the musical Oklahoma! in 1943. If you remember much of musical history you know this was the first show by the team Rogers and Hammerstein. Hart leaves watching the show before it ends and goes to Sardi’s, where the after-party is to be held. He talks to the bartender, to the piano player, and to author E. B. White about how bad the lyrics of “Oklahoma-Exclamation-Point” are (“Corn as high as an elephant’s eye”? There are no elephants in the Midwest). There are hints that Hart was gay or bisexual. He can tell that, as bad as he thinks the show is, it will be a success. But not his success. Hart talks to his protegé and dear friend Elizabeth. He does a lot of talking. Eventually the theater crowd comes in and Rogers explains to his dear friend Hart why he turned to Hammerstein as Hart pitches ideas for another show. Along the way we’re introduced to George Roy Hill (who later made The Sting) and a preteen Stephen Sondheim. The real Lorenz Hart was quite short. Ethan Hawke, who played him, isn’t. So through the movie I wondered how tall Hawke is (almost a foot taller than his character) and what kinds of things the director and camera crew had to do to make the actor appear short. I mostly enjoyed the show but this one may be for theater nerds. Hart does a lot of talking and not much happens. I think Hawke will be mentioned as awards season comes around. Margaret Qualley, who played Elizabeth, might also get a mention as a featured actress. The screenplay might get a nod too. Once home after the movie I joined the neighbors around a bonfire. While I was there one child came by. Oliver Willis of Daily Kos, as part of his series on Explaining the Right, tackles the question “Why Republicans want you to die – and fast.” Willis has many examples of Republicans wanting us to die. The current government shutdown because Republicans refuse to restore health care subsidies. Back in the 1960s the creation of Medicare and Medicaid were claimed to open the door to communism. In the early 1990s the health care reform promoted by first lady Hillary Clinton was killed. Obama did get the Affordable Care Act through Congress with a great deal of pushback and long-term efforts to kill it. Add to that the constant lack of any sort of a plan from Republicans. Willis concludes:

Conservatives have devoted themselves to destroying and undermining government assistance on health care while failing to provide any real alternative. The right supports a world where health care is so nonexistent that the alternative is sickness, suffering, and death—and the quicker the better.

I think Willis has provided enough examples showing that Republicans don’t want much of the country to have health care. I don’t think he got to the why. So I’ll add a bit from my own understanding, which is the same as I’ve written previously. Those high in the social hierarchy – which Republicans desperately claim to be – demonstrate their position in society by the oppression they can inflict on those below them. And denying health coverage is as good a tool of oppression as is a much too small minimum wage. Speaking of tools of oppression, Lisa Needham of Kos discussed the nasty guy’s refusal to extend SNAP food support beyond the end of October. There is a $5 billion SNAP contingency fund that should be used in an emergency, though starvation is apparently not an emergency. That’s even though previous government shutdowns didn’t pause SNAP payouts. As is typical the nasty guy and Republicans are blaming Democrats using bogus reasons. Needham included a tweet by lawyer Mike Davis ranting that the people with SNAP benefits are from the ghetto, don’t have jobs, and have too many kids while the program gives benefits to immigrants. Needham responded:

Shhh, nobody tell him that no matter how you slice and dice the government’s own data, white people are the largest racial demographic of SNAP recipients. Definitely don’t tell him that the majority of SNAP recipients who can work do work. Withholding SNAP funds is nothing but abject cruelty toward some of the most vulnerable people in America. Meanwhile, when it comes to Immigration and Customs Enforcement goons or the military, the cash flows freely. The administration is making its priorities crystal clear.

In Halloween’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted the first verse of “The Raven of the Republic” by David Shuster of Blue Amp Media. It is definitely inspired by that poem by Edgar Allen Poe. Here’s that first verse.

Once upon a term infernal, through a midnight dark, nocturnal, While I watched the news external, trembling at Trump’s fresh uproar— While I pondered, weak and weary, over the state of freedom’s theory, Suddenly there came a query, echoing through the chamber door— “Is this justice still?” I whispered, staring through that oaken door— Answer came: “Not anymore.”

This has a tiny bit more hope than Poe’s original. In the comments is a cartoon by Dennis Goris of a woman trying to pay for groceries. The clerk says, “Your SNAP card has been declined, but you do have a large deposit of thoughts & prayers.” Liberal Jane posed a meme with the message, “No one chooses to need welfare.” Around that are many of the types of people who do need it, including low-wage workers, foster kids, veterans, seniors, and those on disability. A meme posted by exlrrp, who included a link to the full story, says:

Trump is found to have paid for most of the January 5th [sic] protesters. Jack Smith’s new document drop shows that the Trump Campaign PAID for travel, hotels, expenses, and organizing efforts to bring outside radical organizers to the Capitol on January 6th. Trump and his lackeys planned the assault on our Capitol.

A couple more memes posted by exlrrp:

Watching poor people go hungry is a wet dream to MAGA Republicans. They have dreamed of doing this for years. Prove me wrong.

And...

If 42 million people going hungry makes you happy, you might be a bad person. Might? There’s no might. You are a bad person.

Needham wrote “The East Wing never had a chance.” She then listed the steps the nasty guy took to make sure no one opposed his demolition of part of the White House. He asked Meredith O’Rourke, a top fundraisers, to ask for donations from corporations willing to bend a knee. So when the proposed price kept rising, no problem! He found an architectural firm to create plans on the cheap. He had cronies loot the East Wing, emptying it of anything of value, without telling anyone else about what is coming. I’m not sure if “loot” should be replaced with “preserve”... Gabe Gutierrez, Monica Alba, Peter Alexander and Dareh Gregorian of NBC News reported all the stuff was stored under the supervision of the National Park Service and the White House Historical Association. I wonder what it cost him from them to keep their mouths shut. This article also shows a model and position of the ballroom, and it is indeed bigger than the rest of the White House. Avoid the mountain of approvals by gutting the National Capital Planning Commission and installing cronies. Back to those architectural plans. Needham says the problem is there are multiple sets. Is the ballroom to hold 650 people or 1350? Another source (that I mentioned) said it would hold 999. One rendering appears to have a stairway to nowhere. So how can construction begin if he hasn’t definitely decided on one set of plans? Is construction subject to his daily whims? Does he not care about quality, but only about how much gold is used to decorate the surfaces? In Saturday’s pundit roundup Dworkin included a pair of tweets from Aaron Rupar. The first:

Kristi Noem: “We will continue to do this work until there are no longer anybody in our communities that's here illegally.”

Rupar’s response:

note how the messaging has shifting from "we're targeting criminals" to "we're deporting everyone"

In the comments is a meme from Seth Myers discussing the nasty guy:

If you take a dementia test and think it’s an IQ test, then I’m sorry to say you failed both the IQ test and the dementia test.

And a meme by David Pakman, showing Putin and Xi:

How does Trump fall for the same playbook every time, where an authoritarian mildly praises him, completely plays him, and he comes away thinking he “won” even though he got manipulated?

He falls for it every time because he hasn’t figured out he’s been played. He’s satisfied with the mild praise. His minions are also satisfied with the mild praise, also haven’t figured he’s been played, or won’t contradict him. Alan Austin of the Kos community posted an edited version of an article published on Monday in Independent Australia.

Federal U.S. debt has just clicked over 38 trillion dollars for the first time, bringing total borrowings in Trump’s second term to an eye-watering $1.81 trillion. Most of this has been added since the so-called Department of Government Efficiency ostensibly cut wasteful spending in order to reduce the deficits and the debt. One trillion dollars was added in just eight weeks in August and September, by far the deepest peacetime increase anywhere in the world.

Interest paid on that dept in the fiscal year just ended is reported (though maybe not accurately) to be $1,218.5 billion. Which is also $1.2185 trillion. Paying interest on all that debt is above a trillion a year. So how did a trillion get spent in eight weeks?

Fraud and theft are rampant now Congress refuses to monitor White House decisions, Trump has fired the inspectors general, and the Supreme Court has given Trump monarchic powers.

We know about the $40 billion currency swap with Argentina, which didn’t get Congressional approval (and Congress doesn’t seem to care). How much has been handed out in similar payments to other people? How much has been given to Putin? We probably won’t know until the nasty guy vacates the Oval Office.

Is there a cost to opposing the government?

My Sunday movie was Two 4 One. Miriam and Melanie used to be lovers. Melanie has now transitioned to Adam. He is still working to establish himself as Adam in an industry that knew Melanie, so he is short of cash and hasn’t completed all the surgeries. Miriam is desperate to have a child, though her current lover Julia doesn’t want one. So while Julia is on a cruise with her mother Miriam orders an at-home insemination kit and asks Adam to help. Both get pregnant – that’s not a spoiler because the movie’s advertising poster says as much. The movie explores Adam’s conflict of still working to be a man yet having this big feminine thing barge into his life. I enjoyed it and the actors did a fine job. It’s a good view into an aspect of a trans life. And the Victoria, Canada scenery is pretty good too. This is perhaps a spoiler: Missing from the film is what happens when Adam begins to show. Daily Kos community member annieli posted a poll by YouGov that asked “Did you participate in the No Kings protest on October 18?” This is another way of getting an estimate of the size of the crowds. Out of all US adult citizens 8% said yes. If I’ve done the math right that means the attendance wasn’t 7 million, but ... over 25 million. Of course, polls depend on the honesty of those polled. When people are asked what they ate they are quite bad at accuracy, frequently replying with what they should have eaten or what they think the questioner wants to hear. Even so, this shows attendance was likely significantly higher than the 3.5% threshold that can cause governments to topple. In addition to the percentage of all adult citizens the report also shows percentages of categories of liberal leaning groups. For example, the poll shows 25% of those 65 and older say they attended the rallies. I had discussed an article that compared the proposed size of the nasty guy’s ballroom to the size of the building it is to be placed in. The building appears to be 50,000 square feet bigger than the ballroom and support services. What’s with all that extra space? RETIII of the Kos community quoted an article in the Washington Post:

The East Wing will be replaced by the ballroom, offices for the first lady and her staff, and new “guest suites” for the “President’s White House Guests,” according to a project description on the résumé of lead architect James McCrery II. The White House would not confirm whether the new guest suites and offices were included in the 90,000-square foot estimate.

RETIII notes this may be for billionaire donors who want to stay or live in the White House. There is no info on the number of suites, their size, and who these guests might be. There is also no info on why the Blair House and the many hotels in the city aren’t good enough. Maybe the suites are the story and the ballroom is a distraction. Thom Hartmann of the Kos community and independent pundit posed the question: Is the nasty guy a lot less powerful than he seems? Yeah, we’ve been seeing Republicans, especially Mike Johnson, groveling and doing all they can to protect him. But Hartmann has also noticed that scams, even with the power of a corrupted government behind them, usually don’t last. See presidents Harding, Nixon, and Clinton. A few House Republicans are demanding details about the Epstein scandal. A few voted to block is tariffs against Brazil. A few Republican senators have spoken their concerns about the murder of “drug traffickers” in the Caribbean. Tariffs have caused inflation to rise. His policies are making groceries and housing prices rise. Because of AI centers electricity prices are way up. He is making relations with the rest of the world – especially Canada – worse. His deportations are wreaking havoc on the economy. His base is turning against him. Republicans are busy gerrymandering because they know how unpopular he is. The nasty guys downfall may be just a matter of time, though Hartmann wisely doesn’t say how much time. In Sunday’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Christopher Armitage of The Existentialist Republic Substack.

[Steven] Levitsky’s test is simple and measurable: is there a cost to opposing the government? When the answer becomes yes, democracy ends. The playing field must be level enough that opposition can realistically win. Loss of power must be accepted as legitimate by incumbents. And two informal norms must operate: mutual toleration (treating rivals as legitimate, not enemies) and institutional forbearance (not using legal powers to their maximum to entrench advantage). When these conditions disappear, formal institutions remain but democracy dies. So have we crossed that line? Levitsky thinks so. ... Competitive authoritarianism has a known definition with precise boundaries. It means formal democratic institutions remain “the primary means of gaining power” but rules get violated so systematically that the regime fails minimum democratic standards. Elections still happen. Opposition parties exist. Courts function. Media operates. But all of these operate on a playing field tilted so severely that calling it democratic becomes inaccurate.

Adam Gopnik of The New Yorker explains the stated justification for demolishing the White House East Wing:

This, of course, is the standard line of Trump apologetics: some obvious outrage is identified, and defenders immediately scour history for an earlier, vaguely similar act by a President who actually respected the Constitution. It’s a form of mismatched matching. If Trump blows up boats with unknown men aboard—well, didn’t Obama use drones against alleged terrorists? (Yes, but within a process designed, however imperfectly, to preserve a chain of command and a vestige of due process.)

Kellie Carter Jackson and Nicole Hemmer writing for The Guardian describe the teach-in the Smithsonian held as a way of resisting the nasty guy’s edicts against museums.

In an authoritarian regime, one of the first things that is taken from the public is honest and credible information. The past itself becomes treacherous terrain: authoritarians attempt to seize control of the country’s history, reworking it into a vision of a glorious, powerful, patriotic – and largely fictional – past. The people and events may be real, but the stories they’re used to tell are false. In such a moment, telling the truth, and teaching the truth, about the country’s history is an act of both defiance and solidarity. [...] A teach-in represents a different kind of activism than the No Kings rallies held last weekend. Such rallies show mass opposition to the regime; but a teach-in represents a step toward deeper organizing and activism.

In Monday’s roundup Greg Dworkin quoted Sarah Stein Lubrano of Zeteo. In an article titled, “You Don’t Argue With Extremists. You Organize Against Them” she wrote:

Studies show debate doesn’t work as a tool of persuasion, and we can’t use it to affect political change in that way. Organizing and action can. ... This might be surprising to hear. As I write in my newest book, the “West” is steeped in debate culture, where debate is prized as part of how everything works – school, the news, parliaments, and social media. It’s even worked into the algorithm that structures what we see on the internet. My Instagram reels never do so well as when people fight furiously in the comments. It makes sense that debates do not change minds once one considers psychology. Psychological research shows political beliefs are not very alterable through argument, evidence, or information – especially compared to other beliefs.

Max Burns, through Threadreader:

In the last 9 days, Trump: - Demolished the East Wing without approval - Told Congress he won't seek approval for boat airstrikes - Said the US is considering land strikes in Venezuela - Threatened war with Colombia - Accepted $130 million in military funding from a billionaire - Threatened Argentine voters with consequences if they didn't support Javier Milei - Said he doesn't care if Congress stays out of session for the rest of the year - Refused to distribute legally required SNAP benefits to 40 million kids and families

Dworkin didn’t quote the complete list. In the comments exlrrp posted a meme showing Princess Diana dancing with a guy I don’t recognize and in the background are men in tuxes and women in gowns. The caption says:

This iconic moment took place in 1985, in the East Wing of the White House. We already HAD a ballroom.

In Wednesday’s roundup Dworkin quoted John Stoehr and his Editorial Board discussing the state of the government shutdown and the heat Republicans are feeling because of it. The article is as expected, so I’ll only mention the article’s title and the subheading (which I think Dworkin added).

The Republicans are used to burning their own people as leverage They are not used to the Democrats saying, “let them burn.”

David Graham of The Atlantic wrote a scenario showing how the midterm election could be stolen. I won’t go into the details because this is just one way it might happen. Just know scenarios like this are being gamed out and planned for by Republicans. They’ll be ready. Ted Littleford posted a cartoon showing a dog gazing upward because his sparkly bowl is empty. The voice says, “Of course there’s no food. But look – it’s gold!” The caption, “The Trump Doctrine.”

Flattery inflation

Last night I went to the Ringwald Theatre, housed in the Affirmations LGBTQ center in Ferndale to see the play Silver Foxes. The show is about three senior gay men coming to terms with their advancing age. Charlie was discharged from the Army when being gay was automatic grounds for dismissal. He used to be lovers with Ben, who lives in Charlie’s house in Palm Springs and is HIV positive and amazed he’s still alive. There is also their friend Cedric who lives in a senior home but has to be closeted there. Also a frequent visitor in the house is a young man about a third their ages who is the lover of another senior man. Charlie and the rest can’t remember his name and refer to him as the Twink. The seniors talk about their lives, the advances in gay rights, and their refusal to give up those rights. A comment about Anita Bryant getting a cake in the face goes right over the Twink’s head (that actor said working on the show was quite an education in gay history). Cedric had worked as a hairdresser in Hollywood and was able to dish. There is talk about how much time they may have left and what they want to do with it. The play was written by James Berg and Stan Zimmerman. The latter was in the theater and talked to the audience a while afterward. He had been a writer on shows such as the Golden Girls and Gilmore Girls. He said that some of the incidents related in the play come from gay men he knew. I quite enjoyed and recommend the play. It is funny and has many touching moments. The show will be presented twice more, Sunday afternoon and Monday evening. Zimmerman said a sequel is about to start rehearsal (somewhere else) and a sequel to that is being discussed. I finished the book On Tyranny, Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder. The lessons are about how to act when a tyrannical state is arising around you. It’s a small book and a quick read. I’d like to mention all twenty lessons with their short explanations, but that could easily reproduce the book. So I’ll mention only a few. 1. Do not obey in advance. Many people adapt to the demands of tyranny with little prompting or thought. 7. If you must carry a weapon as part of your job be ready to say no. Most of those who did the killing in the Holocaust did it not out of conviction, but it avoid drawing attention. 8. Stand out. When you do others will follow your example. 10. Believe in truth. Truth dies through lying; endless repetition of lies; an embrace of contradictions; and misplaced faith (“I alone can solve it”). 11. Investigate. Figure out things for yourself. Read long-form articles rather than ones offering quick takes. Support sites that investigate. 12. Greet those around you to maintain community. 18. Tyrants create crises and use them to justify taking away rights. Don’t offer your freedom in hopes of getting security. 19. Know the difference between a nationalist and a patriot. A nationalist wants power. A patriot wants what is best for all. I highly recommend this small book. In Tuesday’s pundit roundup for Daily Kos Chitown Kev quoted Paul Krugman who explained flattery inflation discussed by scientist Xavier Marquez and Henry Farrell:

Here’s how it works. The ruler’s lackeys and courtiers believe that they must praise him to the skies, proving their loyalty by offering paeans to his wisdom, character, and golf game. And they must continually up the ante… [...] ...a similar process of self-reinforcement applies to telling lies that serve the autocrat’s ego. Call it “mendacity inflation.” Trump insists that he’s overwhelmingly popular and that only a lunatic fringe disapproves of his presidency. Well, to show loyalty his hangers-on must go further, declaring that grandmothers and parents pushing prams down 7th Avenue are illegal aliens and violent criminals. The humiliating absurdity is a feature, not a bug. Simply lying about demonstrators isn’t enough; to prove their MAGA mettle people in Trump’s orbit must tell lies that are grotesque and ridiculous.

Michael Goldberg of the New York Times discussed the video the nasty guy posted that shows him dumping poop on protesters.

What’s curious, then, is not Trump’s eagerness to degrade us, but his uncontrollable urge to defile himself and his office. Most national leaders, after all, do not willingly associate themselves with diarrhea. Scatological attacks are usually the province of outsiders trying to cut the powerful down to size... Perhaps the most puzzling thing about the second Trump administration has been its attacks on pillars of American strength that pose no challenge to its ideology. It was predictable that the White House would gut support for the humanities, but not that it would defund pediatric cancer research. I expected it to try to eliminate the Department of Education, but not to deliberately wreck the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which helps communities in both red and blue states when they’re beset by disasters.

That puzzle isn’t so puzzling to me. Those high in the social hierarchy, especially one like that nasty guy whose ego is so wounded, will use every means available to oppress those below them. And wrecking FEMA so that it can’t help people after devastation oppresses people quite nicely. In Wednesday’s roundup Greg Dworkin quoted the Wall Street Journal that reported the Treasury Department, across from the now demolished East Wing of the White House has told its employees not to share photos of the demolition because they could “potentially reveal sensitive items, including security features or confidential structural details.” They’re worried about confidential structural details of a building being demolished? Sure. John Stoehr of The Editorial Board discussing the No Kings rallies.

But let’s not lose sight of what has been accomplished. On the one hand, Trump is confessing to the allegations of illegitimacy against him. Protesters said he is not a king. Then he said, in effect, Oh yeah? Watch me. That alone is worth celebrating, as it affects people who have doubts about Trump, but don’t yet trust the opposition. No Kings drew about 5 million people in June. This time, it added a couple million more. Next time, perhaps, a couple million more than that. On the other hand, however, is something deeper and more powerful. The president and his party want the American people to believe that the Republicans – and the Republicans alone – are the real arbiters of reality. Critics do not have the liberty to interpret facts independently. They do not have the right to express beliefs according to guaranteed liberties. Only Republicans have the true authority to define America. With one voice, more than 7 million Americans said no.

Way down in the comments paulpro posted a cartoon by Naish showing a young person in a cafeteria line with a tray with a steaming bowl on it. The person says, “Yuck! How long are you gonna serve us slop?!” The servers are revealed to be Google, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and X and one says, “How long will you keep taking it?” In the comments of Friday’s roundup is a meme posted by exlrrp. It shows a MAGA guy saying, “Illegal immigrants don’t deserve due process! Send them all to El Salvador prisons!” A scholar responds, “How do you know they are illegal without due process?” The MAGA man thinks about that then turns into a sheep, saying, “Because the government said they are.” In the comments of today’s roundup is a meme posted by exlrrp showing a skeleton sitting by a window and saying, “Me waiting to finally get one of those checks from George Soros that MAGA has been talking about for years.” Below the cartoons The Geogre discussed an article by Igor Volsky at The New Republic titled “If Dems Won’t Tax Billionaires After This, What Are They Even Doing?” From Volsky:

The sequence of events over the past few months reads like a case study in how oligarchy actually works in America. First, billionaires passed legislation to enrich themselves. Then they shut down the government to avoid helping working Americans afford health care—a system those same billionaires profit from. And now, they’re trying to leverage the shutdown to fire thousands of workers who protect vulnerable Americans while gutting programs millions of families depend on. This is a moment that demands a response. If Democrats can’t run on a unified platform that centralizes and prioritizes taxing the ultrawealthy in order to dismantle their stranglehold on our government, then they need to get out of the way for people who will. ... Let’s start with the “One Big Beautiful Bill”—a piece of legislation that delivers more than 70 percent of its benefits to the richest fifth of Americans in 2026. The richest 1 percent will receive an average net tax cut of $66,000—at a cost of $1 trillion. Meanwhile, the bill would result in 14 million more Americans becoming uninsured by 2034, with more than $1 trillion in cuts coming from Medicaid alone—the largest cuts in the program’s history, and a stunning transfer of wealth, almost dollar for dollar, from the poorest Americans to the richest. ... Billionaires have used the power that comes with their extreme wealth to capture our government and bend it toward a single purpose, enriching themselves at everyone else’s expense. And if Democrats won’t confront that reality now, when will they?

The Geogre added that 73% support raising taxes on billionaires. The Geogre doesn’t agree with everything Volsky wrote. Volsky commented that nasty guy says he is cutting programs and personnel of programs that Democrats want, which would deepen the pain of the left. The Geogre says that’s a misdirection.

To the degree that the Republicans can hide their attacks on the poor and “minorities” (an absurd idea by itself, “minorities”) by calling them attacks on “Democrats,” they can hoodwink the victims of their attacks into cheering for their own suffering. Like the poor white southerners who applauded right-to-work laws because “they’ll hurt the Blacks,” the labeling of cuts in infrastructure, education, environment, and services for food, entitlements, and the safety net as “Democrat programs” is a lie that will work. It’s false consciousness.

Kos community member revrick2 mentioned a few items from a Facebook post by Andrew Kerr, an architect with more than 20 years experience. From the stated square feet of 90,000 and budget of $300 million the cost per square foot would be $3,333. But even a price of $1,000 per square foot is astronomically high. A ballroom usually allows for 20 square feet per person. Stated occupancy is 999 people, or 20K square feet. Add in 10K for support functions and 10K for lobby, both generous, that’s only 40K square feet. What’s the other 50K square feet for? The renderings of the interior show that 20K square feet. The renderings of the exterior are 90K square feet. They don’t match. James Tate tweeted a cartoon drawn in 1906 by William Balfour Ker. It shows a ballroom filled with gowns and tuxes. Below are people oppressed by the ballroom floor. There is a fist that has punched up through the floor to the consternation of those in the ballroom.

Seven million people say no to kings

I attended the No Kings protest in Livonia, MI on Saturday. I saw very little of it and had no sense of the size of the crowd because I was at a table encouraging people to sign petitions for a ballot proposal to remove corporate money from Michigan politics. This work is to get the proposal on the 2026 ballot. I’m sure we pulled in over 200 signatures and our table was usually quite busy. I did watch a lot of people pass my table. I also heard a great deal of honking from cars showing solidarity with those on the sidewalk – the afternoon was a noisy one. Some of the attendees had cute signs, though I couldn’t pay a lot of attention to them. There were several signs saying they reject the nasty guy for free, refuting the claim that we were all paid to be there. I did note a shirt that said, “Aunt Tifa” and heard about another that said, “Gran Tifa.” I wasn’t able to get a photo of one that I liked. A friend was able to share her photo of it.

A new form of protest is inflatable animal costumes. That began when a person in a frog costume danced in front of ICE agents. Of course, the idea quickly spread. I saw several inflatable costumes of several animals. Kaili Joy Grey of Daily Kos posted photos of No Kings events around the country and invited people to share their photos in the comments. My favorite signs from those photos: A takeoff on The Cat in The Hat

I do not like your lying ways I do not like your hate for gays I do not like you grabbing rump I do not like you Mr. Trump

If Kamala was president we would all be at brunch. Peaceful resistance NOW is easier than hiding a family in your attic LATER. My Sunday movie was Egoist, a Japanese film based on a novel by Makoto Takayama. The story is about Kosuke who has a job in fashion (scenes of him actually working are few) and does quite well but he wears designer clothes as armor and to say he’s no longer from his birth village. His mother died when he was 14. His gay friends suggest Kosuke is getting out of shape and should get a personal trainer. They recommend one. That trainer is Ryuta and getting in bed with Kosuke takes very little time. Ryuta’s father left the family when he was a teen. He dropped out of high school to support his mother and continues to have a several jobs. So there is a rich man, poor man dynamic. Ryuta is reluctant to accept Kosuke’s generous gifts. Even so feelings develop. Ryuta takes Kosuke to meet his mother and she recognizes they care for each other very much. Kosuke begins to have the mother he lost. When the film description includes the words, “When tragedy strikes...” one keeps waiting for that to happen. I don’t want to say more. I’ll only say that Kosuke, though he doesn’t give up his designer duds, he no longer uses it as armor. This one is good enough to recommend. I have one mild complaint of the movie. In most scenes instead of a camera on each of the participants in a discussion there is a single camera that swivels back and forth among them. That’s a lot of camera movement. Back to the No Kings rally. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Monday Cheers and Jeers column for Kos included several photos of the event in his home city. One that I like is a guy wearing suit of armor holding a sign, “If we’re going back to the Dark Ages, better suit up.” In my reading I followed a link to an article in the Durango Hearald written by Christian Burney with story and photos of the protest there. My favorite line is from the sign of a woman in a frog costume, “United we ribbit, divided we croak.” In Monday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers who worked with The Xylom to estimate the turnout for all of the 2,700 No Kings rallies:

Our median estimate is that 5.5 million people participated in a No Kings Day demonstration somewhere in the country on Saturday, with an upper bound of 8.7 million people. We provide an “estimate” and not a “count” because we are making predictions of turnout in protest sites where official records are still missing. Our estimate is based on reports from local officials, local organizers, and attendees, and suggests the count from organizers — who report 7 million participants nationwide — may be a bit optimistic (but is not impossible). Still, regardless of whether the precise number is 5, 6, 7, or 8 million, Saturday’s events are very likely the biggest single-day protest event since 1970, surpassing even the 2017 Women’s March demonstrations against Trump.

Aaron Blake of CNN:

President Donald Trump and his allies have spent weeks painstakingly trying to manufacture an image of an irredeemably violent American left. ... The Trump team and its allies suggested that the rallies, which are likely to draw millions of people, will essentially be chock full of antifa, terrorist sympathizers and even terrorists themselves. It’s baseless and ugly, yes. But it’s also highly suspect strategically. The GOP rhetoric surrounding this and the Democratic base more broadly has grown remarkably pitched.

But no violence by the No Kings participants was recorded. The little violence reported was traced to those protesting the No Kings events. In the comments is a cartoon by Guy Richards Smit of an ICE agent handcuffing a small girl. The agent says, “It might be comforting for you to know that, on the inside, I’m also a terrified little child.” A meme posted by exlrrp shows what the nasty guy thought of No Kings.

In a late night Saturday post, Trump shared his official response to the historic “No Kings” protests by posting an AI video depicting himself as a King literally dumping his own shit on protesters heads.

The reaction is embarrassment that our president would post such a video. Of course, there are a lot of cartoons about it. Another meme posted by exlrrp is about the White House press secretary:

Karoline Leavitt officially announced the launch of a large-scale investigation to find the person behind “No Kings.”

To which exlrrp added, “time for everyone to stand up and say I am George Soros!” Or, as another suggests, the person behind No Kings is the nasty guy. Without him there would be no need to protest. Emily Singer of Kos reported on the reactions to the day by the nasty guy and others. He described the event as very small and very ineffective. No, it was not small. And since he was rattled by the size, it was effective enough. Republicans tried to defend their comments that the event would be violent. Or – the fun one – they claimed the participants were on a day trip from nursing homes. Seems that shortly after the nasty guy’s poop video came out there appeared photos of work on the White House Ballroom. In particular, photos of demolishing part of the East Wing. On Monday DRo of the Kos community has photos and tweets in reaction. This demolition comes after the nasty guy said the work would not “interfere” with the existing building, “near it but not touching it.” A sample of the reaction. Form Joseph Fink: “taking an actual wrecking ball to the White House is a little on the nose as far as metaphors go” Kevin Kruse:

"Yes, yes, it *is* sad that you lost the family farm, but have you heard about the big beautiful ballroom that President Trump is building at the White House? It's going cost a quarter of a billion dollars! Yes, billion, with a b. ... What? ... No, you can't come see it. What a stupid question."

There is a reminder that the destruction is breaking the law. Not that the nasty guy worries about such things. On Monday there was still debate about how much of the East Wing was being demolished. This morning host A Martínez of NPR spoke with White House reporter Tamara Keith, who said:

A White House official not permitted to speak on the record tells me the East Wing is being brought down, modernized and rebuilt as part of the ballroom project. President Trump has wanted to build a ballroom at the White House for more than a decade. But this demolition is taking a lot of people by surprise because when the project was announced in July, President Trump downplayed the impacts.

See the nasty guy’s comments above. The The National Capital Planning Commission is supposed to have a role in this but the nasty guy appointed chair Will Scharf. He conveniently said the commission doesn’t have jurisdiction over demolition. Besides, the commission is shut down with the rest of the government. Keith said that the construction is being paid by corporate donations is “a giant ethical red flag.” Today DRo reported that the White House is saying the entire East Wing is to be torn down, with demolition completed by this weekend. DRo included a tweet by Jon Cryer:

If this had happened during a Democratic presidency Fox News would be 24 hours of nonstop “AMERICA DESECRATED!” headlines.

And Republicans in Congress would have started impeachment proceedings. Comments of the ballroom architecture and its architect were supplied by davidkc of the Kos community. The architect is James McCrery, who specializes in religious buildings and describes modernist buildings as “ungodly.” Peter Eisenman, McCrery’s former mentor, described the ballroom plan as “bonkers.” And Christopher Hawthorne says the plan suggests...

not so much a bloated classicism or an effort to turn Washington into Mar-a-Lago north, although it is both of those things, as a blueprint for making concrete the notion that the White House has turned in some fundamental sense into a retail outlet, a place where access and influence are nakedly bought and sold.

Are we going to need to tear down that ballroom after the nasty guy vacates the place and we work to restore the country and government? Added to all of this yogipohaku of the Kos community wrote that since the East Wing was built in the 1940s it is full of asbestos. Is proper asbestos remediation being followed? Who will pay when the mesothelioma lawsuits go to court? Why isn’t Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, wearing a mask? And scott3460 of the Kos community wrote:

Putin’s tentacles are almost certainly in the construction of this new Ballroom. God only knows what sorts of technology will be embedded in to the White House after this construction in done. It must all be razed to the ground the afternoon of the next Inauguration. Tin foil hat conspiracy? Maybe, maybe not.

In Tuesday’s Cheers and Jeers column, Bill in Portland, Maine posted new lyrics to a famous Gilbert and Sullivan song. The first verse:

I am the very model of a modern fascist potentate, I gin up fear across the land and viciousness I advocate, I tweet my fingers to the bone and cable news I dominate To tear you down and smear your name and fill your world with spite and hate My propaganda is the very best that I can propagate I love Vlad Putin like a son, for he's my greatest surrogate When I slam 2020 you will hear me bellow "cover-up!" And whip my crowds into a froth by leading chants of "Lock them up!"