Is this school better? You're not allowed to know.

I visited the Detroit Auto Show this afternoon. My purpose was to talk to representatives of the various car companies to ask if they have an electric car that meets my needs. My needs are straightforward. I want a car. Not an SUV or a truck. A car. And it doesn’t need to be very big. I want one car. I don’t have space for two. I want an electric car with a sufficient range to visit by brother on one charge. He lives about 275 miles away. The trip is short enough that I don’t want a lengthy recharging stop halfway through. Any farther than that and I’ll likely stop for a meal and could include a charge. The bad news is car companies are not there yet. The good news is they’re getting close. Several said they have vehicles with a 300 mile range or close to it. Alas, most of these vehicles are SUVs and bigger than I want and costing much more than I want to pay. Stellantis has a nice little electric car, but it gets only 150 miles on a charge. Jon Paul Sydnor is a writer for Street Prophets, a progressive Christian community on Daily Kos. He recently wrote that concepts of God matter and he proposed a progressive concept of God. The post discusses a lot of theology, most of which is of no interest to me (and likely to you). However, this is one idea that is interesting and is related to conservative Christianity.

Christian theologians, following Plato, have insisted that since only imperfect things can develop or increase, and God is perfect, God cannot develop or increase. Divine development would imply divine imperfection. ... Intentionally or accidentally, this concept of God condemns change. If God is immutable—static and unchanging—then to be static and unchanging becomes our highest ideal. If God is immutable, then by implication that which is must take priority over that which could be. All change becomes decline. Divinized immutability reinforces social rigidity, preserving entitlement and preventing reform. Such stasis was never the intention of the Hebrew prophets or Christ Jesus.

Eli Hager, in an article for ProPublica posted on Kos, discussed the school voucher program in Arizona. The example in the story was Title of Liberty, a private Mormon school in Mesa that went out of business. It’s source of income was voucher payments through the Empowerment Scholarship Accounts. There were some reasons why this particular school failed. But there were other reasons related to the way Arizona set up their voucher program. Some of them: The law that created the ESA provided zero transparency into a school’s finances, or academic quality. Parents has no information on whether this school was better than that school (or any good at all), had a solid or shady past, and was financially healthy enough to stick around for the entirety of their child’s education. Public schools in Arizona are tightly regulated and their performance is known. That’s not true of charters. Schools that take public money yet have no public accountability is baffling to many educators and parents. The vouchers benefit the rich, who could afford the tuition anyway. They don’t benefit the poor mainly because high-quality private schools don’t exist in their neighborhoods. Parents who send their kids to private schools can speak at public school board meetings and vote in school board elections. Public school parents cannot attend the board meetings of a private school. Defenders of vouchers say the American education should be a free market of options. But if the quality of a school is a secret a parent can’t make good purchasing decisions. A parent needs quality assurance. The No Child Left Behind law, a big legislative achievement of Bush II, was big on transparency and accountability. Schools had to prove they were educating kids up to state standards. The same standards applied to schools accepting vouchers. About 2017-2020 studies “found that larger voucher programs had produced severe declines in student performance, especially in math.” The declines were blamed in part on overregulation, which prompted no regulation and secrecy. Is the school you’re considering for your child better? You’re not allowed to know. Oliver Willis of Kos discussed why Republicans are so eager to blame various people for the Los Angeles fires and their severity. Willis includes several examples of their accusations. Their tirades aren’t just about the fire and they’re not new. California is frequently targeted because it is highly Democratic.

Over the decades, conservative politicians and right-wing media have frequently used California as subject of scorn and derision because of the state’s liberal politics. California has embraced many progressive policies on the environment, gender equality, LGBTQ+ equality, and racial equality, while also being the home to the entertainment industry and much of the tech industry. When something bad happens in California, conservatives flock to the issue to use it as “proof” that liberalism and the Democratic Party are also bad.

In the case of the fires the severity can partly be blamed on conservatism and their climate change denial. Willis also reported that this time Republicans aren’t content to lay blame. They’re now talking about politicizing the fires. There is talk to link relief funds to a plan to raise the federal debt limit. I’m not sure if this is good or bad. With the way the government is spending money (to soon be made worse by renewing tax cuts) the debt limit has to be raised. Not doing so means a government shutdown. Also, because of the House Freedom Caucus Republicans on their own don’t have enough votes to raise the limit. So enticing Democrats to vote for the increase by throwing in wildfire aid might be good. But it is also bad because it sets a precedent. If done once there will be a next time. And next time the pairing may not be with raising the debt limit, but with such things as tax cuts for the rich, or efforts to remove LGBTQ books from school libraries, or authorization to invade Greenland. I also remember that a big reason why the nasty guy wants the debt ceiling raised is so he can extend tax cuts to billionaires. That’s bad. But he is going to do that anyway. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Edward Helmore of The Guardian:

The politicization of the Los Angeles fires could be showing signs of intensifying. To opposing political factions, the ruin of parts of Los Angeles offers an inviting but deadly tableau on which to lay out their contrary agendas. To Democrats, the intensity with which the fires took hold, propelled by the late-season Santa Ana winds, is evidence of climate change that some Republicans deny as a political hoax. To some Republicans, including Trump, the fires are evidence of mismanagement under Democrats’ racial- and gender-equity drives. ... Warren Davidson, an Ohio representative, called on Friday for federal disaster relief to be withheld from California unless the state reforms its forestry management practices.

And from Parker Malloy of The New Republic:

The same people who spent years telling us climate change isn’t real are now trying to blame the fires on the fact that the L.A. Fire Department’s chief is a woman. Never mind that Kristin Crowley worked her way up through the ranks for 22 years. Never mind that the department’s leadership is still predominantly male. The right has found a way to combine their favorite bogeymen: diversity initiatives, California governance, and climate science. ... This is the playbook we’re going to see for every climate disaster going forward. Rather than acknowledge the role of climate change, rather than have honest discussions about infrastructure and emergency preparedness, the right will search for ways to blame their cultural grievances. Everything becomes evidence of their preferred narrative: Hydrant failures become proof of Democratic mismanagement, female leadership becomes proof of “woke” politics gone wrong, and the actual causes get buried under an avalanche of manufactured outrage.

In the comments of a second pundit roundup is a cartoon by Mike Luckovich. It shows a person at the base of a devastated hillside crawling for help. A person labeled “GOP” says, “You want aid? Put on this MAGA cap.” And exlrrp posted a meme:

Over a MILLION acres of wildfires in Texas last year. Funny that it wasn’t blamed on poor water resource management, black or female firefighters or [Gov.] Greg f---ing Abbott.

The power of the Justice Department, FBI, IRS, and CIA

My weekend movie came Saturday afternoon in a showing of Hugo at the Detroit Film Theater. When the film first came out in 2011 it didn’t sound interesting. When I encountered it again a few months ago it sounded intriguing. And when I saw it on the DFT calendar I had to see it. This is one of Martin Scorsese’s films and is set in 1931. The title character is Hugo Cabret, twelve years old. He learned how to fix mechanical things from his father, who also showed him an automaton, a mechanical person, created to write. But his father died before they got it working. Hugo’s uncle takes him to the train station where the uncle lives and tends the clocks. After teaching Hugo how to do it the uncle disappears. So the boy now tends the clocks while living in the maintenance spaces of the station and swiping food from the various vendors. His nemesis is the station inspector, who has sent orphan boys to the orphanage. He also gets on the wrong side of the toy vendor, whose mechanical toys enchant him. Even so, he manages to befriend Isabelle, the toy vendor’s ward, who is ready for adventure. Hugo gets the automaton working, hoping it would write out a message from his father. Instead it draws an image of the Man in the Moon with a spaceship hitting one eye. This is a famous image (one I had seen before) from the movie A Trip to the Moon by Georges Méliès who made fantastical movies before World War I. Of course, that sets Isabelle and Hugo on that adventure to discover how all this ties together. Along the way there is a flashback to watching Méliès make his films. So part of the story is an homage to that early filmmaker and early films in general. Since this story mostly takes place in a train station there are frequently crowds. Hugo and Isabelle of course get caught in them at critical moments. I became impressed at how well the crowd scenes were done. I quite enjoyed this film and recommend it. This was a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Actor Asa Butterfield, who played Hugo, did a marvelous job. I may have to see the mini Georges Méliès festival the DFT will host at the end of March. The IMDb trivia page for this movie says it is based on the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick that came out in 2007. Another bit of trivia is the movie was filmed in 3D, though the version I saw was not. IMDb also has a page on Butterfield, who has maintained his acting career and is now 27. Kos of Daily Kos wonders if the nasty guy’s infatuation with Greenland and his desire to invade it is based on how huge Greenland looks on a typical Mercator Projection map. A Mercator map was great for 18th century navigation. But there are big problems when it is used in modern life. Yeah, it makes Google Maps easier. But the farther from the equator a country is the larger it appears. And since much of the world’s land is significantly north of the equator countries in the global south looks much smaller in comparison. @neilrkaye created a Mercator map that also shows the true size of countries. In a Mercator map Russia looks huge (which is why Putin love Mercator maps). But Russia is actually smaller than Africa. Canada looks much bigger than the US, but they’re actually almost the same size. I found the site MapPorn, which, is one I may have visit frequently. Posted in the last couple days is one the compares the size of Greenland to other areas of earth. The US is 4.5 times bigger than Greenland, South America is 8 times bigger, Africa is 14 times bigger (though a Mercator projection shows them about the same size), India is 1.5 times bigger. When trying to represent a sphere with a rectangle something is going to be distorted, usually shape or size or both. Another Greenlander has responded to the nasty guy’s claim on the country. Emily Singer of Kos reported Pipaluk Lynge-Rasmussen, a member of the Greenland Parliament, talked to Politico Europe in response to nasty junior flying there and posing with locals to show they were in favor of the nasty guy taking over. She said the event was staged and a sham. She also said their natives are similar to Alaska’s Inuits and the Greenlanders have seen how America treats the Inuits. So no thanks. The nasty guy’s hush money case was in the news this past week. An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported the Supreme Court narrowly decided the nasty guy could be sentenced on Friday. The case went to the Supremes because his team said the appeals should be allowed to play out during the transition, meaning he wouldn’t be sentenced before getting presidential immunity. So, on Friday the sentence was handed down. Singer reported the details. The case is from New York and is about the 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush money. There could have been jail time, a hefty fine, or simple probation. But Judge Juan Merchan said there was only one lawful sentence, that of “unconditional discharge.” Singer wrote:

The fact that Trump is escaping pretty much unscathed from the legal jeopardy he found himself in is a miscarriage of justice. He was able to escape accountability both because of an unprecedented decision by the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court, which dragged its feet before ultimately ruling in July that Trump was immune from anything deemed an “official act” in office.

There was also foot-dragging by other judges in other courts and by the nasty guy team delaying other cases long enough that he was able to avoid them by being voted back to the White House. This post includes a cartoon by Clay Bennett that shows the nasty guy in prison clothes digging himself out and surfacing in the Oval Office. The way I understand the situation is that a judge or jury may convict a person of a crime, but that conviction isn’t official until the sentencing. So while there was no jail time, fine, or even probation the sentencing says yes, the nasty guy is a felon. He is officially the first felon in the Oval Office. Last week I had lunch with my friend and debate partner. He said surely the judge could have ordered probation. He was hoping for the prospect of the nasty guy having to check in with a parole officer once a month, even if it was through Zoom from the Oval Office. I like his idea. Scott Detrow and Domenico Montanaro of NPR talked to Law Professor Kim Wehle of the University of Baltimore on issues related to the case. First, the Constitution does give immunity to members of Congress. So it’s authors knew about immunity. The Constitution does not give immunity to the president. So when the Supremes said he does have immunity they invented it out of nothing and rewrote a portion of the Constitution. And that essentially turns the president into a king. Of a second issue Wehle said:

Well, law, at the end of the day, is about incentives and disincentives. We have laws and constraints to disincentivize bad behavior, but those constraints don't mean anything if there's no consequences. So the Supreme Court, through this process, has removed any consequences for committing crimes using official power. That's the scary stuff, right? It's not the unofficial private power that is going to lead to some real abuses against individuals. It's the power of the Justice Department. It's the power of the FBI, the IRS, the CIA, the military. It's the stuff that Donald Trump will have at his fingertips that no one else on the planet has. That's the power that needs to be disincentivized to abuse, and that's gone. So we really are moving into a new era of American history and American law.

A third issue: Special prosecutor Jack Smith has been working to get some or all of his report on the nasty guy’s classified document’s case made public. From the effort the nasty guy’s lawyers are putting into blocking release means there is more information and it is likely highly damaging. The big question in that case is about the empty folders that supposedly had contained classified data. “Who got it? Is there a threat to national security that was created in that scenario?” After that discussion was recorded Jack Smith resigned. Singer reported House Republicans have posted a list of federal programs they want to trim or cut. Some of what’s in the list: Letting current subsidies for Obamacare expire. Require work requirement to receive Medicaid, even though many who are cut because of the rule are working. Cut food stamps by redefining what a healthy diet is and how much it costs. Yes, the cuts will make life harder for low income workers and people in poverty. The purpose of the cuts is tax breaks for billionaires. Republicans want to use the budget reconciliation process, which can’t be filibustered and thus cuts Democrats out of the process. However, using that process means the legislation must be budget neutral – tax cuts must be matched by spending cuts. And, on their own, these tax cuts would explode the national debt.

Meanwhile, the document Republicans are circulating that outlines the possible budget cuts is Orwellian as heck, labeling cuts to food stamps as "ending cradle-to-grave dependence;" cuts to Medicaid as "making Medicaid work for the most vulnerable;" and cuts to Obamacare as "reimagining the Affordable Care Act." Apparently to Republicans, war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength.

All that reminds me that the rich don’t measure the greatness by the size of their net worth, but by the difference between that and the (perhaps negative) net worth of those low in the social hierarchy. It isn’t enough to have over $400 billion (as Musk does). They also need to take away the scant resources of those in poverty. Oliver Willis of Kos reported a coalition of over 17,000 doctors sent a letter to the Senate, asking them to not approve Robert Kennedy’s nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services.

The Committee to Protect Health Care said in its letter that Kennedy is “not only unqualified to lead this essential agency—he is actively dangerous.” The group describes Trump’s decision to nominate him as “an affront to the principles of public health, the tireless dedication of medical professionals, and the trust that millions of Americans place in the health care system.” Chief among the group’s concerns about Kennedy are his years promoting conspiracy theories about vaccines and his activism against vaccination. The letter describes Kennedy’s support for these unscientific notions as “direct threat to the safety of our patients and the public at large.”

Would your state like to become Canada's 11th province?

Yesterday I wrote that the House ban on transgender people (meaning Rep. Sarah McBride) using single-sex bathrooms didn’t make it into the rules for this Congress. Alix Breeden of Daily Kos has an update. As was done after the election Speaker Johnson announced the ban, using his authority as Speaker to just do it. So the ban is back. A staffer says Johnson did it on his own so that House members didn’t have to vote on it (and have that vote on record). Over the last couple days I’ve had in a browser tab the Incidents page from CalFire zoomed in to Los Angeles and on to the north to see the extent of the Palisades Fire (over 21.3K acres or 33 square miles), the Eaton fire (over 13.7K acres, 21 square miles), and the smaller Kenneth, Hurst, and Lidia fires. The fires ignited in hurricane strength dry Santa Ana winds and have destroyed more than twelve thousand buildings, most of them homes. Thankfully, only ten deaths reported so far. Reports say this will be the most expensive disaster in the history of Los Angeles. This huge loss of housing will make the housing crisis much worse. Rebuilding will take years. Emily Singer of Kos discussed that this disaster will be the first test of the new Congress and the nasty guy. The test will be simple: Will they help through supplying disaster relief and recovery money, or not? Speaker Johnson was noncommittal. The nasty guy spread lies and hurled insults at Gov. Gavin Newsom. So... probably not. Biden already triggered federal emergency response and said he’ll be there “as long as it takes” (or until he leaves office in ten days). That link and the ones below include photos of the fire, which you may want to look at or avoid. Morgan Stephens of Kos has more about the lies Musk and the nasty guy have been saying about the fires. They’re more interested in the politics they can squeeze out of the damage than they are in the lives of the people who are now homeless. Oliver Willis of Kos reported that far right media is blaming the fires on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. The claim is such programs undermine the effectiveness of business and government response. Supporters of DEI say that the programs make government more effective and please stop saying that white men are the only ones who are capable. Following the lead of the nasty guy far right media has “prioritized bigotry and politics over the lives of tens of thousands Americans.” I’ve written that the nasty guy wants to annex the Panama Canal, Canada, and Greenland. With force, if necessary. He’s also talked about renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. Breeden reports that officials in both Canada and Mexico are trolling. Elizabeth May, leader of Canada’s Green Party has an offer. Would California, or maybe Oregon or Washington be interested in becoming Canada’s 11th province? From a press conference on Wednesday:

No more one-year-olds who suddenly fall off the Medicaid list and their parents are in the news because they’re trying to do a GoFundMe to get their daughter to a doctor. And guess what? Those gun laws that your Congress is too afraid to pass because of the National Gun lobby? We already got our strict gun laws. That’s why we have the safest streets around the world.

She added Canada still offers the right to abortion. She has an offer for the nasty guy. He could get rid of all the states that always vote for Democrats. They’d even take Bernie Sanders off his hands. Drat. Michigan doesn’t always vote Democratic. Yet I think we have closer ties to Canada than California does. Off the Southern border Claudia Scheinbaum stood in front of a map of North America of 1607 with a big chunk of the center of the continent labeled Mexican America. “It sounds pretty, no?” As for the Gulf of Mexico, it was named 170 years before the US was founded. Stephens reported:

GOP senators were left bewildered after President-elect Donald Trump delivered a bizarre hour-long rant on Tuesday about annexing Greenland and the Panama Canal. Two top Senate Republicans voiced their confusion and uncertainty as to what Trump meant when he said he wanted to acquire Greenland and the Panama Canal during his press conference.

Bill from Portland, Maine, in a Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, included late night commentary. A good one:

“Canada can’t become part of America. That’s the country I pretend to be from when I’m traveling abroad.” —The Daily Show host Desi Lydic

In the comments of a pundit roundup for Kos is a cartoon by Michael de Adder. It is labeled “Canada invading the USA” and shows planes helping put out the Los Angeles fires. I had heard on Canadian news that planes had been sent and that one had already been damaged by striking a drone. There is also a cartoon by Max Espinoza and posted by BabylonBros. He added the trash talking would happen soon, but saw it is already happening. The cartoon shows an elephant watching a woman read her crystal ball. She says, “I see you blaming the L.A. fires on a water restoration declaration that doesn’t exist! Then, when that doesn’t work, you’re going to blame DEI, gay kids and illegal immigrants!” Singer reported:

Donald Trump's co-president, Elon Musk, admitted on Wednesday that he probably can't cut $2 trillion from the federal budget as he had promised, running into the political reality everyone told him existed but that he refused to accept because he’s a billionaire who thinks he knows better than everyone else. In an interview with Mark Penn, the contemptible political strategist who once backed Democrats but now has become a Trump defender, Musk said that his toothless Department of Government Efficiency advisory committee can probably cut only half of the original $2 billion he promised to slash.

They know their plan is not legal and not moral

I watched the funeral for President Jimmy Carter this morning. In all a fitting tribute to the great man. I was amused and a bit annoyed that the church officials, in their prayers, referred to him as “James” and not “Jimmy.” Carter was the one who insisted he take the oath of office beginning with “I, Jimmy Carter.” I was also annoyed that the CBS commentators took the moments of music to talk, to share their useless observations. I wanted to hear the music. Thankfully, at each musical moment they talked less and let us listen more. Seven people gave eulogies. Carter’s predecessor Gerald Ford had written one that his son Steve Ford read. Carter’s VP Walter Mondale had also written one that his son read (I didn’t catch the name). Both eulogies talked about how they became solid friends with Carter. Stuart Eizenstat, a staffer in the Carter White House said we should evaluate a presidency by how his policies and programs have lasted through time. By that measure Carter’s presidency did quite well. Rev. Andrew Young (he has his own long list of accomplishments) did a good job. I was disappointed in Biden’s eulogy – it seemed to be a lot of recycled cliches. Grandsons Joshua and Jason Carter talked about their grandfather. Jason gave the best eulogy of the bunch. Jason said his grandfather was the same in public as he was in private, demonstrating his integrity and authenticity. The hearse arrived about 20 minutes before the service and the casket was kept in it until the service started. An honor guard also stood in the cold with a wind strong enough the soldier with the presidential flag struggled to hold on to it. Yes, a fitting tribute. Oliver Willis of Daily Kos reported that Mark Zuckerberg, head of Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, announced the company will no longer use independent fact checkers. He claims he is a big defender of free speech, as is the incoming Oval Office occupant. Yeah, that’s a similar reason Musk gave to fire the moderators in what was then Twitter. And his claim about the nasty guy being a defender of free speech is laughable. Another reason for the change: Fact checkers are too politically biased. Does this confirm reality has a liberal bias? Zuckerberg said Meta would use the same idea used on X, that individuals can post corrections and then they are voted on.

But in practice, very few users see these notes, which are easily manipulated, and they are published after misinformation has been widely circulated. Meta’s announcement that it is pursuing the same model to deal with misinformation as Musk likely means that the company’s platforms will be awash with lies, bigotry, and other content that misinforms the public. ... Ditching fact checking is the most Trump-like behavior that Meta could embrace and is another sign that tech and media leaders are lining up behind the incoming administration and against an informed public.

Not surprisingly, this came after Zuck visited Mar-a-Lago and donated to the inaugural committee. I wrote after the election that the nasty guy’s base won’t turn on him, no matter how bad their lives get, because they won’t know he was the cause of their oppression. This is another reason why they won’t know. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted a few articles describing Zuck’s change. Kev also quoted Jordi Pérez Colomé of El País in English talking to disinformation researcher Renee DiResta about the difference between “misinformation” and “propaganda.” I’ll summarize: In the case of misinformation when more accurate information is presented a person would change their mind. So most of what we’ve been calling misinformation is really propaganda. Jan Sorensen posted a cartoon on Kos about corporations cozying up to the nasty guy with the key line: “It’s almost as if capitalism doesn’t have a problem with a dark authoritarian future.” I had written that Rep. Nancy Mace had proposed a transgender bathroom ban that would affect only new Rep. Sarah McBride. The new House convened. They elected Mike Johnson as speaker again (after a couple members switched votes to him). And they adopted the rules that are to be followed for this Congress. Alix Breeden of Kos reported that Mace’s ban is not in the rules. Was Mace snubbed? Did other Republicans back away from the bathroom ban? Or are they all relying on statement Johnson said a couple months ago that there is a ban? When Johnson announced the ban it was not accompanied by any House approval. Amanda Becker of The 19th, in an article posted on Kos, wrote about how Project 2025 could get implemented. The nasty guy has already nominated to important positions several key people who were authors of the project. Likely many of them will be confirmed. One of the authors is Russell Vought, nominated to lead the Office of Management and Budget. Vought’s vision for the OMB, according to Bel Olinsky of the Center for American Progress, is “to basically change the plumbing so they can do whatever they want without any meaningful checks and balances” during Trump’s second term. Vought has said his goals are to destroy diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives (unknown whether that’s in government or across the country, likely both) and to advance Christian Nationalism. Vought sees his purpose is to ensure all policy initiatives are in sync with his goals and to stop plans veering off course. He has two ways to guide wayward policies. First, by eliminating dissent within agencies. Second by withholding money appropriated by Congress for programs he and the nasty guy don’t support. That first goal is to be accomplished by reclassifying federal employees, turning 50,000 jobs from being career jobs to being political jobs. Then firing those who aren’t loyal to the nasty guy. As for the second, yes, the Constitution says Congress controls the purse. The executive branch is to spend money in the manner Congress directs. More below. Vought’s alignment with Christian Nationalism means implementing Project 2025’s call for restricting abortion and removing policies that support LGBTQ families. He would also work to turn the FBI into a political entity to settle scores and help with deportations. Project 2025 says all its goals are to be done by executive action. No Congressional oversight needed. Here’s the “more below.” Back at the end of November Molly Redden of ProPublica, in an article posted on Kos, explained what the nasty guy and Vought plan to do. The idea is called impoundment. The name refers to a president deciding to “impound” or not spend money he deems wasteful. The nasty guy would use it to cut the vast array of government services Musk and Ramaswamy want to make disappear. Most of the examples of impoundment are cases where Congress left details up to the President. When Jefferson was president Congress said the number of gun boats to be purchased should not exceed 15 and the price should not exceed $50,000. Jefferson decided zero fit within what Congress authorized.

President Richard Nixon took impoundment to a new extreme, wielding the concept to gut billions of dollars from programs he simply opposed, such as highway improvements, water treatment, drug rehabilitation and disaster relief for farmers. He faced overwhelming pushback both from Congress and in the courts. More than a half dozen federal judges and the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the appropriations bills at issue did not give Nixon the flexibility to cut individual programs. Vought and his allies argue the limits Congress placed in 1974 are unconstitutional, saying a clause in the Constitution obligating the president to “faithfully execute” the law also implies his power to forbid its enforcement.

To me that sounds like Alice in Wonderland style reasoning. “Faithfully execute” is supposed to mean carry out and enforce every detail of the law. It doesn’t mean prevent a law from being fulfilled. The Supremes confirmed my understanding back in 1838. But this will likely be the first case the nasty guy takes to the Supremes and this court is quite different from the court in 1974 or 1838.

Vought was also a top architect of the controversial Project 2025. In private remarks to a gathering of MAGA luminaries uncovered by ProPublica, Vought boasted that he was assembling a “shadow” Office of Legal Counsel so that Trump is armed on day one with the legal rationalizations to realize his agenda. “I don’t want President Trump having to lose a moment of time having fights in the Oval Office about whether something is legal or doable or moral,” Vought said.

Note that last bit. The nasty guy and Vought know what they want to do is not legal. They know what they want to do is not moral. They intend to do it anyway.

The Greenland, Canada, and Panama talk is to distract us

My Sunday movie was Wallace & Gromit, Vengeance Most Fowl. Wallace is an inventor of things that most people don’t see a need for (a mechanical hand to pet your dog, another to feed you your toast). Gromit is his dog, who seem smarter and more aware of what’s really going on than his owner. This is the sixth film in this British series and I’ve seen at least four, likely five of them. This film is definitely a sequel where the rest are standalone stories. When I realized it is a sequel I thought of stopping this film and finding the previous one, but kept on anyway. Good that I did – I had seen the first one ... thirty years ago. These films are claymation or stop motion and take a long time to create (a minute of movie is a good week’s work). That’s why four of the six movies are only 30 minutes and this one was only 80. In this film Wallace has invented a garden gnome robot run by AI. He thinks the gardening Gromit does is too much actual work. Of course, the gnome had a very different idea of what the yard should look like that Gromit does. The gnome does beautiful work, the neighbors are impressed, and Wallace now has a business of renting gnome robots to the neighborhood, which he can monitor from home. The bad guy from the previous film is able to reset the settings of the gnome from “good,” past “dull” and “grumpy” all the way to “evil.” The neighbors complain about theft and it looks like Wallace will be blamed. And Gromit goes out to find learn what’s really going on. The workroom in the basement has an odd mix of computer equipment. The computer has a CRT monitor and there are reel-to-reel tape drives in the background (I used those in college). Yet, there is also internet access and the ability to program robots. I enjoyed it as I had enjoyed the previous films in the series. However, it’s the sort of humor, loaded with puns, I don’t think I could binge watch. Jay Waagmeester of Florida Phoenix, in an article posted on Daily Kos, reported that the Board of Governors for the State University System in Florida plans to pay for a study of the economic return from Women and Gender Studies programs. They would compare these programs against Computer Science, Civil Engineering, Finance, and Nursing. In 2023 lawmakers proposed dropping the Women and Gender Studies programs, but were told eliminating the programs based on content would violate free speech. So they’re trying the economic argument instead. The programs are to be evaluated on career roles, expected starting compensation and expected career earnings contrasted with state funding expenditures and student expenditures. That gives a return on investment (ROI). The reasons for the study include: (1) Nearly 21,000 students were enrolled in computer science and related fields in the fall of 2023. At the same time 224 students were enrolled in ethnic, cultural, gender, and group studies. (2) Universities too often fail to align programs with the labor market, leading to disappointed graduates and public. (3) “Truck driver” tax dollars should not have to pay for someone else’s degree in gender studies (yeah, that’s intentional choice of opponent). (4) Universities, not the state government, should back student loans, so schools need an economic way to evaluate what kind of loans will get paid back. Democratic state Rep. Anna Eskamani from Orlando provided the objections: (1) The study is just a way to find a reason to eliminate gender studies. It’s politically motivated. (2) The university system already has metrics to evaluate programs, as do accreditors and groups that compile national rankings. (3) It’s an “apples to oranges” comparison. It’s bogus to say humanities programs, like gender studies, as not being valuable to higher education and civil society. Oliver Willis of Kos explained why the right keeps blaming Biden for the open border. They are doing that even though the border isn’t “open” – Biden only overturned the worst of the nasty guy’s border policies. Also, Republicans were the ones to blow up the bipartisan bill to reform immigration. So, why?

Fear about border security is an extremely potent motivator for conservative voters, so it’s in the GOP’s best interest to keep those voters in a fevered pitch of worry about who or what could be coming across the southern border into the United States.

An Associated Press article posted on Kos reports that sales of nuclear bunkers are on the rise around the globe. This is in response to global security leaders warning that nuclear threats are growing and that spending on weapons passed $91.4 billion last year.

Critics warn these bunkers create a false perception that a nuclear war is survivable. They argue that people planning to live through an atomic blast aren’t focusing on the real and current dangers posed by nuclear threats, and the critical need to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Disaster experts say that staying inside away from outside walls or in a basement for a day or so is enough to protect from radioactive fallout. If you’re not killed in the initial blast the chance of surviving is pretty good. Except...

“Bunkers are, in fact, not a tool to survive a nuclear war, but a tool to allow a population to psychologically endure the possibility of a nuclear war,” said Alicia Sanders-Zakre at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Sanders-Zakre called radiation the “uniquely horrific aspect of nuclear weapons,” and noted that even surviving the fallout doesn’t prevent long-lasting, intergenerational health crises. “Ultimately, the only solution to protect populations from nuclear war is to eliminate nuclear weapons.”

Collapse of health care and society in general is something not talked about but would affect survivability. So you survive the fallout. Then what? In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted David Frum of The Atlantic about the Capitol attack four years ago (which didn’t happen this year).

If you’re a normal journalist trying to report on inauguration plans or the staffing of the Cabinet or the administration’s first budget, your job depends on access, and access depends on playing ball to a greater or lesser degree. If you keep banging on about an attempted coup that happened four years ago, you are just making yourself irrelevant. And when you encounter somebody else who bangs on about it, you will be tempted to dismiss them as irrelevant, too. The coup makers won. The coup resisters lost. Washington is not a city that spares much sympathy for losers.

Down in the comments is a cartoon by J.L. Westover. A woman is holding big a sign saying, “Anything helps.” A man lectures her:

Man: You don’t need help. You need to put on your big boy pants, roll up your sleeves, and pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Woman: But I can’t afford clothes. Man: Well tighten your belt... No, buckle down... S---, wait...

In another roundup Greg Dworkin quoted Ruth Braunstein of Religion News Service:

The right’s support for democratic institutions like elections has always been contingent. Specifically, it has been contingent upon those institutions maintaining a traditional social hierarchy. For the past decade, large shares of white Christians have lamented the demographic and social shifts that have made them a minority in “their own country.” Trump rose to power, in part, by promising this group that he would return them to a position of power and privilege in a country they believe God intended for them to rule. The MAGA movement has coalesced around this political theology of hierarchy, which sanctifies a social order resting on hierarchies between social groups—racial, religious, gendered and moral. Moreover, it asserts that the nation’s very survival depends on the maintenance of this hierarchical social order in which conservative white Christian men are at the top. But one need not feel invested in all of these forms of hierarchy in order to embrace the general package Trump offers, or to feel anxious about threats to this hierarchical system in general. The MAGA movement has masterfully stoked fear that threats to any one prong of this hierarchical system augurs social collapse.

Down in the comments is a cartoon by Mike Luckovich in which Justice Roberts is trying to administer the oath of office to the nasty guy: “Do you swear to, bwa-ha-ha, uphold, the bwa-ha-ha, Constit... wait, lemme, giggle, giggle, start over...” There are many cartoons about the nasty guy wanting to annex Greenland, including a meme posted by exlrrp quoting Congressman Jim McGovern:

Donald Trump’s Greenland, Canada, and Panama talk is a distraction so everyone forgets what he promised. He said he would end the war in Ukraine before he even becomes president. He promised chaper groceries, $2.00 per gallon gas and no more taxes on overtime. Don’t let him move the goalposts.

And a cartoon by Robert Leighton posted by The New Yorker showing a man at a US customs check at an airport. The agent says, “Fine, you travelled for pleasure. I’m asking why you’re coming back.”

A gay Cinderella fantasy

Last March when I watched the series Young Royals that tells the story Wilhelm, Prince of Sweden falling in love with commoner Simon I though there were three possible ways it could end.

Simon could be designated prince consort and become part of the royal family. Simon could decide he could never fit in with the royal family and say goodbye to Wilhelm. Or Wilhelm could give up royalty and go with Simon.

At the time I thought, though I probably didn’t write, that if the first idea is where this is heading shouldn’t the royal family start teaching Simon how to be a royal? They should teach him what would be demanded of him and how to act in public. And get to know him. Which leads me to the book I just finished, The Rules of Royalty by Cale Dietrich. It is the growing love between Jamie and Erik. It is quite the gay fantasy and partly a Cinderella story. Jamie is a typical American in Providence, Rhode Island. He lives with the woman who adopted him when he was one year old and the man she married when he was a pre-teen. On his 17th birthday Mom tells him who is biological parents are. His mother, deceased, was European aristocracy and his father, still very much alive, is King Alexander of Mitanor. Happy birthday, kid, you’re royalty. Your father would like us all to spend several weeks with him at his summer palace. Erik is the second grandson of the Queen of Sunstad. He’s gay and also 17. His bit of fantasy is that Gran thinks it is time for him to have an official boyfriend – yeah, the queen has no problem with him being gay and she is willing to get things going with some matchmaking. Perhaps the mayor’s son will do. Then Alexander calls Erik to say my American son is coming and I’d like you to tutor him in how to act like a royal. Erik feels if a king calls one does not say no. Gran, the queen, says yes, go, but just be friends. You’re not allowed to fall in love. The author reminds us of that. Frequently. Yeah, we know where this is going. Saying that is not a spoiler because there are hints on the cover. It’s still an enjoyable read. Erik does provide lessons in how to shake hands, how to dance, how to eat (and navigate all that silverware), how to handle media interviews, how to use a royal position to influence society, and much more. Cinderella didn’t get these lessons. Actually, that one about influencing society Jamie came up with on his own. Sunstad is briefly described as somewhere near Sweden. Mitanor is between Spain and France. Since Alexander and the lads drive “a few hours” to get from the palace to the coast Mitanor must be a pretty big place, perhaps including about half the Pyrenees Mountains. Perhaps Mitanor is a stand-in for the Catalan region of Spain? While I enjoyed the story there were some things that annoyed me. At the top of the list is it seems the author doesn’t understand time zones. In the morning Jamie texts his friends back in Providence and they respond rather quickly, even though for them it is the middle of the night. Early in the book Jamie and Erik text and it felt like the author got the time difference backwards. The author bio says he was born in Perth and lives in Brisbane, Australia. I’m sure there are time zones there. We see a lot of interaction between Jamie and Erik. We see little between Jamie and his father Alexander. Getting to know his father is the reason for the trip. We see even less between Jamie and his maternal grandparents. And Jamie’s older brother, the heir, is conveniently sent to Florence for the summer. Jamie is the result of a one-night stand his mother had with the king at a time the queen was away. That queen is quite tolerant, even pleased, when her husband’s indiscretion comes for a visit, which is a plus for her character. I’ve never lived in a palace, though I’ve toured a few. Jamie and his American parents are given an apartment in the palace, which is good, but why did it include a kitchen? Were mom and dad expected to cook (they do) and not take advantage of the palace’s chef? I’m puzzled why the big news came when Jamie was 17 and not 18. Once acknowledged as royalty (yeah, news gets out) is he really going to be able to return to Providence for his senior year of high school? The difficulties and dangers aren’t mentioned at all. That whole year is just skipped. And the biggest puzzle – why did Jamie’s bio-mom flee to America and want her son to grow up as American before being told he is royalty? What advantage did she think that gave him? Why was that important to her? Erik did comment a bit on the advantage of Jamie’s upbringing. Jamie was less interested in the societal hierarchy and more interested in getting things done than worry about how his actions affect the monarchy. At the new year I counted how may books I read last year and it came to about one a week. Did I read books that quickly? Yes. I read this one in three days. Getting my winter exercise by walking laps in my basement while reading definitely helped. Seth Masket of Tusk on Substack did research into norm violations as a way to show how political parties and our society have changed. Norms are the mostly-unwritten rules that keep a government and society running. They’re needed when the Constitution is brief or vague or showing its age. They aren’t inherently good. A good norm is the peaceful transfer of presidential power. A bad norm was only men should serve in Congress. Masket researched the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal for events talked about as norm violations or could be seen that way (the term wasn’t used much prior to 2016). He counted events, not the amount of discussion about them. He looked back only to 2010. He looked at which party violated the norm. Prior to 2016 only Democrats violated norms and did it maybe once a year. Starting in 2018 Republicans usually had 6-8 norm violations a year. Things have changed a lot since the nasty guy first sat in the Oval Office. Masket is not surprised that WSJ reported almost solely on Democrat’s norm violations and WaPo reported almost solely on Republican ones. After 2016 nearly every Democratic violation was in response to a Republican violation. An Associated Press article posted on Kos gave the history of Sarah McBride, who served in the Delaware Senate and has become the first trans person to be elected to Congress. It’s a good read. Tim Zeak of the Kos community wrote about people leaving Christianity, including giving a dozen reasons why they have. Baby Boomers and earlier generations lived when there was a lot of the world science could not explain. There was room for supernatural explanations. But science has made great strides – we understand DNA, lightning, and fossils – and access to science is now quite easy. Noah’s flood may have taken place around the Black Sea, but it wasn’t a world-wide event. Here are Zeak’s dozen reasons (summarized): 1. The Bible is too contradictory and ambiguous (there are so many interpretations) to come from a perfect god who should be a clear communicator. 2. Modern discoveries make the story of Adam and Eve, and many stories from the Bible, impossible. 3. Many things portrayed in the Bible – genocide, slavery, rape, animal sacrifice – are now considered immoral. 4. The Bible is anti-woman, with several examples from Deuteronomy. 5. The Bible is racist, with examples from Deuteronomy and Samuel. This racism was deeply incorporated into many denominations. 6. Our ability to travel allow us to observe other cultures and we see ours is not superior in morality and ethics. Having the “right God” did not give a higher standard of morality or greater love. 7. People who were forced to attend and disliked it left as soon as they were independent. 8. Churches, and not just the Catholic Church, protected abusers rather than the abused. 9. The church went political. Over 80% of white evangelicals supported a guy who has none of the virtues they profess as important. Their support of him is about power and white supremacy. 10. Hypocrisy

While many evangelicals try to justify their vote for the protection of the “unborn,” the fact is, that same conservative platform also attempted dozens of times to strip health care from over 20 million people and they fight very hard against any attempts to provide fair housing, fair justice, equal education, equal voting, and safety nets that desperately are needed by families with children who have already been born.

11. LBGTQ issues: A couple verses from Leviticus are declared to be sacred while many other verses in Leviticus (eating pork, clothing with mixed fabric) are ignored. 12. Answers to prayer can be also be caused by natural forces. And many prayers are not answered. The author provided links to articles that provide documentation to what he says here. He noted that this article was published in Excommunications last June.

A bunch of technocrats, who are also welfare queens

Alex Samuels of Daily Kos does not like Laura Loomer because Loomer is so far right. But recently Loomer said something quite good. She was on Steve Bannon’s right-wing podcast “War Room” where she said:

I don’t think it’s acceptable for billionaires to have this much power and this much access. What is it going to mean for the future of our country, our national security, and the incoming Trump administration if we have a bunch of technocrats, who are also essentially welfare queens because their companies are receiving government subsidies, and they want to take over our defense industry?

Loomer was also on Eric Bolling’s show. He was on Fox News, though the article doesn’t say who is hosting the show. On that show Loomer responded to Musk spending more than a quarter billion dollars to help the nasty guy win.

This is the problem when you allow for a billionaire to make a $200 million donation and so maybe we really do need to have campaign finance regulations in this country.

Loomer added that Republicans don’t want to annoy Musk because he’s so rich. I add that rich people have been playing Republican campaign bills, like Musk did for the nasty guy, so of course they don’t want to annoy him. This is all part of the spat within the Republican Party between the billionaires and the white supremacists. Each hates what the other is saying and doing that might thwart their own goals. For the sake of democracy what Loomer said is important. Alas, she’s not in favor of democracy. What will come of this Republican spat is simply more chaos. Speaking up for democracy... Morgan Stephens of Kos wrote Democrats are talking about how to invigorate their party and some are saying things I’m glad to hear. These voices say the party needs to focus on the huge economic inequality. Sen. Chris Murphy suggested on MSNBC the breaking up of monopolies, raising the minimum wage, and focusing on the needs of the working class. The economic institutions propped up by neoliberalism should be reformed. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines neoliberalism as saying

a society’s political and economic institutions should be robustly liberal and capitalist, but supplemented by a constitutionally limited democracy and a modest welfare state.

That definition is part of a long article on the term. I note the terms “limited democracy” and “modest welfare state.” To me that translates as the rich as saying they’ll tolerate a little bit of democracy but don’t forget we control everything. And we don’t want to share with the unfortunate because that means less money flowing to us. As part of that visit to MSNBC Murphy said:

Attacking power is not easy for everybody in the Democratic party because we have become a party that is dependent on high-income elites.

For a long time Democrats received money from high-income liberal elites. In recent decades they also gladly accepted money from high-income conservative elites – and tempered their message to accommodate their donors. Murphy proposes a “common-good capitalism” in which workers are valued as much as shareholders and some things – like health care – should never be for profit. Greg Casar is the new chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He notes that voters tend towards the left of Democrats on economic issues and to the right of them on cultural issues. He says he will make sure Democrats support workers over corporations. Populism says the system is rigged against the workers and for the wealthy. There is a broad sense of economic discontent. Republicans exploited that through lying. Democrats allowed that to happen by not doing very much to dismantle the rigged system. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have already been calling for Medicare for All, livable wages, and breaking up monopolies. Outgoing Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison, who is black, doesn’t want to lessen the impact of “identity politics” that draws black and LGBTQ voters. Harrison says his identity – his skin – is how he is seen and treated. Even so, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez say economic issues are more important. Back at the start of December Emily Singer of Kos wrote that the nasty guy nominated Rep. Billy Long to head the IRS. Long sponsored the Fair Tax Act that would have abolished the income tax and replaced it with a 23% sales tax, a move that would be a huge tax increase on the middle class and poor and a huge cut for the wealthy. That bill also sought abolish the IRS and to repeal the 16th Amendment which authorizes income taxes. He also wants to repeal the estate tax. He left Congress in 2023 and has been working as a tax advisor, encouraging businesses to use the Employee Retention Tax Credit from the pandemic. There was a lot of fraud with the ERTC, though the article doesn’t say if Long was a part of it. That work is what attracted the nasty guy’s attention. There is a current head of the IRS, Daniel Werfel, his term doesn’t end until November 2027. So the nasty guy would have to fire him to install Long. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Jill Lawrence of The Bulwark discussing that if Republicans really were populists they would not try to chop IRS resources.

A better, more consumer-friendly IRS? One that has the people, expertise, and technology it needs to answer taxpayer phone calls, clear 24 million backlogged paper tax returns, contact high-income taxpayers who owe more, delve into complicated tax-evasion schemes, and offer more online digital services? And collects far more money from rich and corporate tax evaders than it spends on audits, thus helping to reduce deficits and the need to raise taxes? “It seems like a fiscal no-brainer to me,” Maya MacGuineas, head of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said in November. Count me in, too.

In the comments exlrrp quoted a meme created by Occupy Democrats based on the words of Sen. Murphy.

Trump is intentionally lying about the New Orleans attacker being an immigrant – he wasn’t. Why does this matter? Because he is going to use episodes of violence to justify his crack down on immigrants and his attack on dissent – whether the facts line up or not. This is just the start!”

exlrrp also quoted a meme from Betty Bowers:

If your response when people are killed by someone driving thru a celebrating crowd is to opportunistically make up facts about the driver to further your preexisting prejudices, instead of mourn the dead, your indifference to the lives of those killed means you have much in common with that driver.

Nick Anderson posted a cartoon about that New Orleans attack. A man behind an FBI podium says, “We now believe the New Orleans attacker acted alone.” Beside him is a man dressed to only show his eyes and identified as Islamic State Propaganda says, “Not entirely.” And another meme from exlrrp shows a bunch of teen boys. One asks “Why do they call us ‘the left?’” Another replies, “Because if you take away all of the fascists, corporate sycophants, warmongers, racists, and traitors, we are what’s left.” David Hayward, the naked pastor, posted a cartoon, saying “Too many of us are blind to our privilege.” The cartoon shows a group that includes a gay person, a trans person, a pregnant person, a disabled person, and several more. Facing them is a white man who says, “But why would you call him a fascist when my privilege is only improving?”

If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power

An Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos noted that the states that have banned abortion tend to have the fewest social services for new mothers.

It is clear that from the time a Tennessee woman gets pregnant, she faces greater obstacles to a healthy pregnancy, a healthy child and a financially stable family than the average American mom.

What services exist require confusing and convoluted applications. Some people feel the process was made difficult on purpose. Mark Kreidler wrote in an article for Capital and Main posted on Kos that Gov. Gavin Newsom of California signed some pretty good bills over the last few months. A new law helps speed the creation of tiny homes to get homeless people into temporary shelter. These homes are prefabs, are self-contained, and can be moved with a forklift as needs change. They cost $50K instead of the $800K for affordable housing. Other new laws provide more protection from evictions, paid leave for family needs and for acts of violence, and banning medical debt from credit reports. And a company is banned from holding mandatory “captive audience” anti-union meetings. Oliver Willis of Kos explained why Musk wants to buy Wikipedia, which says it is not for sale. The reason goes back to Stephen Colbert saying during the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Dinner that “reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

Conservatives believe that sources of information must reflect a conservative worldview rather than objective reality, which is why Trump has gone after news outlets like ABC News and The New York Times for not repeating right-wing propaganda. Even though many of these outlets have promoted conservative narratives and buckled under right-wing criticism and legal threats, it still isn’t enough for Trump. Now Wikipedia is under fire for promoting facts instead of right-wing talking points, further proving that conservatives believe everything must bend to their will—even the encyclopedia.

In a pundit roundup for Kos from December 22 Chitown Kev quoted Renée Graham of the Boston Globe:

When Trump refuses to recognize his mistakes, he’s not just broadcasting his insecurities. With his total disregard for facts, and especially the expertise of those smarter than him, he’s positioning himself as an omnipotent arbiter of truth. If he says a hurricane will hit Alabama, it will hit Alabama. If he says massive tariffs will be the best thing ever, then the more than 20 Nobel Prize-winning economists who’ve disputed his comments are wrong. In his essential book, “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century,” Timothy Snyder, a Yale University professor and historian, warns, “To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle.” It’s well-documented that Trump loves spectacle as much as he despises truth. That’s why he’s threatening retribution against the media and fellow politicians — any truthteller who knocks down his lies. He doesn’t care about party or country; his intent is to unleash an infestation of misinformation that magnifies his power and replaces truth with whatever best serves his authoritarian goals.

In the comments of the pundit roundup for December 24 are a couple memes posted by exlrrp that haven’t disappeared yet. The first one: “A Christmas Carol is the heartwarming tale of how rich people must be supernaturally terrorized into sharing.” The second one is for fun. “If your gingerbread house fails, just add a dinosaur!” It shows a crumbled gingerbread house and a plastic t-rex with a piece of gingerbread in its mouth. Last Sunday I saw the 1922 silent movie Robin Hood and wrote about it a few posts back. Here are a few things about the movie from IMDb and it’s trivia page about the movie. The set included a castle, which was designed by Lloyd Wright, junior to architect Frank Lloyd Wright. It was the largest set created for a silent era film. The “banquet hall” was actually open air and was larger than the waiting area of Penn Station in New York. The budget for the sets was $248,000 (in 1922 dollars), required a million feet of lumber and 30 tons of nails. Douglas Fairbanks allowed the set to be open to the public as a charity benefit. Bleachers were set up so the public could watch filming. The costume department had to make several thousand costumes. They used 20,000 yards of fabric and the output of three tanneries to make the shoes, and had a budget of $82,000 (in 1922 dollars). Larger scenes had up to 1,200 extras. Total production costs topped $930,000. The movie was the first one to have a gala premier, which was held at Sid Grauman’s new Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. The film ran there long enough that street car conductors didn’t announce the theater, instead said, “All out for Robin Hood!” Another AP article lists Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2024, then listed the rest of the top ten. At the top: Polarization – causing strong disagreement between opposing factions. The word has extended beyond politics to pop culture and elsewhere. Demure – reserved or modest. It got a big bump through a makeup influencer. Fortnight – two weeks, got a bump from a Taylor Swift song of that name. Totality – where the moon fully blocked the sun, from the April eclipse. It also means the full amount or wholeness. Resonate – to affect someone in a personal or emotional way. And AI uses it too much. Allision – when two things are moving and hit, that’s a collision. When one thing is stationary and another hits it – like a ship and that Baltimore bridge – that’s an allision. Weird – popularized by Tim Walz. Cognitive – used often with “decline” to describe Biden and that debate performance. The pair should also be applied to the nasty guy. Pander – say or do what someone demands even though it is not good, proper, or reasonable. Frequently used in political campaigns. Democracy – the word of the year in 2003 and towards the top of the list since then. Lake Superior State University has released its 2025 “List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness.” I don’t have an opinion about banishing words from the Queen’s English, banishing words from American English is good enough. A few of this year’s words: Cringe – Describing someone as “cringe” now makes others cringe. Game Changer – If everything is a game changer, nothing is. Era – Yeah, Taylor Swift can use it, but a man’s “fatherhood era” is overuse. Dropped – Used and overused to describe music and movies that have been released. Sorry not sorry – Sounds like an excuse to be a jerk. Utilize – Most of the time “use” is just fine. This has long been an annoyance of mine.

A completely new vector of chaos

Yesterday I went down to the Detroit Film Theater for a third silent film with live accompaniment. This one was The Last Laugh, made in Germany in 1924. This is from the “Golden Age” of silent films, known for its innovative camera work. This time the accompaniment was by the ensemble Little Bang Theory. The central character is the head doorman of the posh Atlantic Hotel in Berlin. He wears a fine uniform that, when he goes home at night, gives him a lot of prestige with his neighbors. He lives in an apartment with his daughter, who is about to get married. But he’s getting old. He’s been such a valued employee for so long he isn’t fired, but demoted to washroom attendant, handing towels to the gentlemen who use the facilities. So he steals the uniform. Alas, that doesn’t restore his prestige and his life goes downhill. The last laugh is that the movie decides his story needs a better ending. Little Bang Theory played various drums, metallic percussion, a few instruments, and a couple synthesizers. They added sound effects, such as car horns. I felt the music matched the mood of the movie a bit better than the two earlier silent films. But the music was way too repetitive, endlessly repeating just a few notes. I finished the book The New Guys by Meredith Bagby. It’s the history of the NASA astronaut class of 1978 and of the space shuttle. This class, 35 of them, was the first class that wasn’t all white men with military backgrounds. Yeah, there were some of those kinds of men, but there were also women, black men, and a Japanese-American man. Their occupations included doctor, scientist, and engineer. They significantly expanded the definition of astronaut. They were hired before the first shuttle flight and a few were still around at the last shuttle flight. The book focuses on about a dozen of the New Guys, starting with why they chose to apply to NASA. Nichelle Nichols, Uhura of Star Trek, was a big reason. We see why NASA thought it was necessary to broaden its pool of applicants beyond white men. And we learn that the shuttle design – many details being filled in after this class was hired – had some significant flaws, such as the ceramic tiles serving as the heat shield. Yes, about 20% of the book deals with the 1986 Challenger disaster. There is a thorough recounting of what went wrong and of how they learned what went wrong. Another 5% deals with the Columbia disaster in 2003. The second failure was around different circumstances, but caused by the same lack of management not listening to the engineers who had strong doubts about the safety of the spacecraft. We get the story of Sally Ride, the first American woman in space. She was afraid managers would discover she was lesbian, very much a reason not to hire her back in 1978. After her historic flight she had to deal with the public relations tour that seemed relentless. She also served in both the Challenger and Columbia investigation teams and was the one who noticed the same managerial problems. The reason to end the shuttle program was rather simple. Since the late 1990s it’s primary purpose was to get the International Space Station built. After it was, many recognized its original design flaws and its outdated technology and recommended it be replaced. Alas, its replacement by NASA hasn’t materialized in the dozen years since the shuttle program ended and we’re stuck with SpaceX. I’ve now read several books on the lives of astronauts and my book shopping list includes a few more. This is a good one, an enjoyable read for anyone interested in space. In 2024 I read 48 books, plus one more I gave up on halfway through. That’s almost a book per week. The pundit roundup for New Year’s Eve by Chitown Kev for Daily Kos included several discussions of Jimmy Carter. His Chief Domestic Policy Advisor Stuart E. Eizenstat writing for Haaretz noted how he embraced the suggestion to establish the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Since the museum opened in September 1993 there have been over 47 million visitors from the US and around the world, over 90 percent of them not Jewish. In the comments is a cartoon by Peter Schrank showing a living room with the nasty guy on TV as a man reads a newspaper with headline announcing Carter’s death. A boy asks, “Hey Grandpa... Can nice guys really become president?” For New Year’s Day the pundit roundup for Kos dispensed with the pundits and went straight to the cartoons, both in the body of the post and in the comments. Of course, there are several about Jimmy Carter. David Horsey posted one showing the old man labeled 2024 saying, “Hey! Where’s the little New Year’s baby?!” Another old man, labeled “2017 2025” replies, “2025 is kind of a Déjà Vu year, so they just brought me out of retirement.” One about Carter is by Pat Bagley of the Salt Lake Tribune and uses the words from a song I learned in the 1960s.

If I had a hammer I’d hammer in the morning (building respect) I’d hammer in the evening (building a roof of justice) All over this land. I’d hammer out danger (bars over the door to extremism) I’d hammer out a warning (hanging a sign saying “Hate has no home here!”) I’d hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters All over this land.

A Calvin and Hobbes Fan Account posted one of Calvin shouting

If the new year requires resolutions, I say it’s up to everyone else, not me! I don’t need to improve! Everyone else does!”

Tom Gauld posted a cartoon showing a room with one side tidy and the other side messy. The guy on the tidy side says:

My New Year’s resolutions are to jog to work every day, choose the healthy option at lunch, and run a pleasant, well-ordered workspace.

Th messy guys replies:

In the interests of scientific rigor, I’ll be the control, and change absolutely nothing.

Mike Luckovich posted a cartoon on Kos showing two billionaire hands, one with a nasty guy puppet and the other with a Clarence Thomas puppet. The nasty guy puppet says, “Remember when yachts were status symbols?” A couple older pundit roundups. A roundup from December 19 by Chitown Kev quoted Ari Breland of The Atlantic talking about the MAGA desire for revenge displayed at a MAGA gathering.

Trump and his supporters haven’t exactly been quiet about their fantasies and promises. Trump talked about mass deportations all throughout the campaign, and has doubled down since his victory. But there is a meaningful difference between being aware of the rhetoric and truly experiencing its full force. As a reporter who covers the far-right internet, I’ve seen countless posts from people like Gill and Bannon talking about deporting as many immigrants as possible or incarcerating Democrats and the press. But to hear these men fervently say it and watch a crowd of more than 1,000 erupt into cheers and laughter in response added a new dimension. They don’t just want policies, and they’re not just s---posting to provoke people online; they want their enemies to suffer, and they want to relish in their pain. “Reckoning is coming, and there will be retribution and there will be accountability,” Lewandowski said onstage. “And that accountability will be to the highest levels.”

Heather Digby Parton of Salon wrote the current Great Capitulation by the media. The first time was when Bush II came to the Oval Office.

The media completely capitulated to him for more than two years. The propaganda spread by the Bush administration was slick and professional but it was deadly. In their quest to fulfill their long-held dream of toppling Iraq leader Saddam Hussein and remake the Middle East as a democratic paradise (at the end of a gun), they lied repeatedly and the news media helped them do it. One of the lowest points in New York Times history was when they allowed a Bush sycophant named Judith Miller to publish front page stories about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction which later turned out to be non-existent. But it wasn't just lies about the war. The media turned themselves into gushing super fans of George W. Bush. They exalted his brilliance when he stood on the rubble of the World Trade Center with a bullhorn and declared to the assembled workers "I hear you! The whole world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!" Soon after, he threw out the first pitch in the third game of the World Series at Yankee Stadium and the media swooned over his perfect delivery.

Matt Waite of NiemanLab wrote we should rethink journalism

Maybe, just maybe, we’ll put everything on the table. And I mean everything. Like how we write and who we write for. Like what we write about. Like the very assumption that people can even read our stuff. Gallup in 2022 found that half of Americans aged 16 to 74 had low literacy skills. Most people read at an eighth-grade level. Billions of words (it feels like) have been spilled dissecting why news organizations are in the state they’re in. (Radio! Television! Cable! Corporate ownership! The internet! Craigslist! Google! Facebook! TikTok!) Meanwhile, 130 million people struggle to read stories written by people who either went to grad school or have thought about it far more than people who read at the eighth-grade level. If journalism is going to live up to its lofty billing as being essential to an informed democracy, it has to stop thinking that anything is above replacement.

In the comments a cartoon by David Hayward shows a book labeled “Theology” strapped to a gurney and the nurse tells the doctor, “We had to restrain him. He was hurting a lot of people.” Hayward added, “Bad theology hurts good people.” In a roundup from December 21 Greg Dworkin quoted Joe Perticone of The Bulwark discussing the first time the nasty guy was in the Oval Office.

Chaos was visited on anything unfortunate enough to elicit the interest of the administration. There were sudden changes, ego-driven showdowns, and more backstabbing than you’d see in a Real Housewives episode. There were also multiple government shutdowns, including the longest one in U.S. history. And now, the decision by a re-empowered Trump to appoint Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to be his terminally online enforcers adds a completely new vector of chaos. Also, Vice President-elect JD Vance is there, too. Somewhere.

David Dayen of The American Prospect wrote about the spending bill that Musk railed against and was able to kill.

That brings us back to the initial reason for the blowup: Elon’s endless scroll. Which appears to be tied to none of the inaccurate reasons he offered on X, but an old standby for billionaires: personal financial and business incentives. The original bill would have made it harder for Musk to build Tesla factories in Shanghai.

Michael Tomasky of The New Republic about why people seem to be shrugging off the nasty guy picking rich people for government positions:

People don’t really know about these Cabinet picks because average Americans just aren’t as read-in to the news as they once were. They watch the news on their phones in 30-second snippets. If they read, it’s headlines and social media posts, maybe. So they know, probably, that Trump nominated Dr. Oz to something or other. But do they know that he has a roughly $30 million financial stake in companies that will be doing business with the very Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that he is probably going to lead? I very much doubt it.

In the comments PragmaticDem posted a cartoon (author not named) showing a woman talking to a man, “My desire to be well-informed is currently at odds with my desire to remain sane.”

Invest in belonging rather than belongings

Ari Shapiro of NPR spoke to Robin Wall Kimmerer, a botanist and the author of the books Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge And The Teachings of Plants and The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World. They talked about the economy of abundance. The central idea is whether an economy can be based on reciprocity rather than extraction. Capitalism is based on extraction, but that is not how natural landscapes are organized. Can human economy be circular and regenerative similar to how nature does it? Indigenous cultures widely use gift economies to distribute goods without a market. Other examples are little free libraries (I know of several within a few miles of me) on up to public libraries. Wall Kimmerer said:

So the notion is we don't all have to own everything. Abundance comes from sharing what we have.

Another example of a gift economy is ... NPR. Corporate America pushes the message that the more we consume the more successful and happier we will be. We’re even called consumers. Yet, hyper-consumption is one driver of climate change and environmental damage.

And so if we can start to put the brakes on consumption through practices like gratitude and reciprocity, we say, you know, I already have everything that I need. I really don't need to buy that next thing. Instead, I'm going to invest in relationship. I'm going to invest in belonging rather than belongings. And, you know, I think it's good for - I know it's good for the planet, but it's also good for us.

Wall Kimmerer is pleased that ecological economists are already thinking in this direction. Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos noted that the nasty guy, the supposed champion of the working class, has named several billionaires to his cabinet and administration. The list: + Linda McMahon for Education. + Howard Lutnick for Commerce. + Scott Bessent for Treasury. + Steven Witkoff for Middle East Envoy, who has conflicts of interest there. + Jered Isaacman for NASA administrator – yeah, he did pay to fly twice on SpaceX, but that’s not NASA. + Warren Stephens for Ambassador to United Kingdom. + Charles Kushner for Ambassador to France, yeah, the father of the pandemic prince. + And Musk and Ramaswamy for DOGE.

Many of Trump’s rich-as-hell picks have embraced austerity policies that have already failed western democracies. Their disdain for government projects to help the non-rich is likely to lead to more boom for billionaires and more bust for the American people.

Morgan Stephens of Kos reported that Biden signed the defense funding bill. This is the one that has lots of good things in it, such as increased pay for militarily personnel. But it is also the one that bans military medical insurance from providing gender affirming care for transgender minors.

Biden "strongly opposes" the part of the bill that limits transgender health care and said it will negatively affect the military’s recruiting abilities.

Biden could have vetoed the entire bill, sending it back to Congress for revision. But there were many important things in the bill, including keeping troops paid and maintaining national security, and not any time before the end of this Congress to demand revisions. As for recruiting abilities, anyone with a transgender child won’t want to enlist and those who learn their child is transgender may get out at the first chance. Alix Breeden of Kos reported Biden withdrew a proposed regulation that ...

would have prohibited schools from enacting bans on transgender student-athletes trying to participate on the teams that align with their gender identity while allowing schools to enforce some restrictions on competitive sports.

Yet Biden’s move is being praised by “ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio, the first openly transgender lawyer to argue before the Supreme Court.” What’s going on? Strangio says the nasty guy would have withdrawn the proposal anyway and with the notice of the proposed rule in place the nasty guy could have redirected it into something worse. While Strangio praised Biden on this action, he called Biden’s signing the defense bill a “disaster.” Three weeks ago Breeden reported on the case United States v. Skrmetti before the Supreme Court challenges the Tennessee law that bans transgender minors from getting gender-affirming care. The lawyer arguing for transgender care was Strangio. The ruling may come as late as June. Gillian Branstetter, spokesperson for the ACLU’s LGBTQ Project explained why protecting the ban would be bad. She also explains Tennessee lawmakers are relying on the same logic as the Dobbs decision that took away the right to an abortion. I just saw that I have about two dozen pundit roundups in my browser tabs. I’ll try to get through some of those now. Others will have to wait for another day. And some of those tabs will just get deleted. In the comments of a roundup for December 16 Dennis Goris drew a cartoon of a mother and child talking to a doctor. The doc says, “We’re not doing polio shots anymore. But you do have iron lung coverage.” Also a cartoon by Barbara Smaller for New Yorker Humor shows a young man in a coffee shop saying, “It’s only a conspiracy theory now, but with the right marketing it could be a widely held belief.” I’m finding that some of the memes posted by exlrrp have a limited life. When I revisit some of these roundups I see a lot of broken links. From a roundup for December 13 is a cartoon posted by Dark Warlord. It shows the Muppet Grover dressed as a doctor standing in a surgery suite with the title, “I’m Sorry You Can’t Afford to Be Alive, and Other Stories From America.” In a roundup from December 17 Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times wrote about the Great Capitulation.

Displays of submission aren’t limited to tech and media. Christopher Wray, the head of the F.B.I., agreed to step aside before the end of his 10-year term rather than make Trump fire him. Several Democrats have signaled their willingness to work with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, whose so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, seems poised to hack away at our already threadbare safety net. [...] Different people have different reasons for falling in line. Some may simply lack the stomach for a fight or feel, not unreasonably, that it’s futile. Our tech overlords, however liberal they once appeared, seem to welcome the new order. Many hated wokeness, resented the demands of newly uppity employees and chafed at attempts by Joe Biden’s administration to regulate crypto and A.I., two industries with the potential to cause deep and lasting social harm. There are C.E.O.s who got where they are by riding the zeitgeist; they can pivot easily from mouthing platitudes about racial equity to slapping on a red MAGA hat.

Malcom Ferguson of The New Republic wrote about the postal service.

USPS privatization has been in the works for some time now. Trump-appointed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has been doing his best to corrode one of the oldest, constitutionally ensured institutions in this country. On-time delivery rates fell when DeJoy was appointed in 2020, particularly in communities of color. He facilitated the removal and destruction of mail sorting machines that were crucial to allowing USPS to function smoothly. And he has multiple questionable investments. Last week, he even covered his ears while being grilled by congressional Republicans for dismantling USPS from the inside out. “Louis DeJoy is the perfect example of a Trump nominee. After Trump appointed him, he ran USPS into the ground. Now, he claims it doesn’t work & will propose privatizing it,” one X commentator wrote. “Then, he, Trump & their cronies will steal the business, charge exorbitant amounts & rape the public.”

In a roundup from December 18 Greg Dworkin quoted The Bulwark discussing the real scandal of our media tycoons, which is the rich owners are increasingly antagonistic to their own journalism.

It’s no surprise media owners are rushing to make good with Donald Trump; they know he’s eager to hit them where it hurts. Trump hasn’t just vowed to punish media orgs that displease him, he’s also made it clear that owning such institutions is enough to earn a mogul his economic and political enmity. If you’re a newspaper owner or a corporation with a cable channel in your portfolio, the cost of subsidizing media that tells the truth about Trump has been jacked up tremendously. Say goodbye to that tariff waiver; good luck with that attempted merger.

Parker Molloy of Nieman Lab wrote on the same topic, first mentioning how Bush II treated the press after 9/11 and leading up to the Iraq War.

But this time could be worse. Media billionaires aren’t just staying quiet — they’re actively courting Trump’s favor. The coming wave of media consolidation means these owners have a vested interest in keeping Trump happy. After all, they’ll need his administration’s approval for mergers, favorable regulatory decisions, and continued tax breaks. The signs of this pre-emptive surrender are already visible in how outlets frame stories about Trump. Headlines have gotten softer. Coverage of his most extreme statements gets buried. Stories about his plans for retribution against political enemies are treated as horserace politics rather than threats to democracy.

A tweet from Shannon Watts:

I'm confused. Are Democrats fighting fascism or are we engaging in bipartisanship? Would be nice if leadership settled on a cohesive strategy and message. Either A) democracy is in danger, B) it's actually not, or C) it’s in danger but we still need to cooperate. Please advise.

And a tweet from Edward-Isaac Dovere

many things happened in the election, including an overall shift more toward Trump across a lot of demographic groups, but the difference in the election going to Trump over Harris in the Electoral College comes down to about 0.148% of the votes cast

In the comments Geo Is Pissed reproduced a child’s letter to Santa that sounds like a pretty good idea:

Dear Santa, I have a grate ideea. On Christmas when you are in every ones house you could take all of the guns and put them in your sack and hide them at the North pole and then no one could kill anyone in the world. Thank you.

And a meme that I remember but has a broken link: A family is throwing rocks. The caption says, “It’s not prejudice if you call it religion.” And the roundup for today. Dworkin quoted several pundits praising Carter. In the comments were several cartoons in honor of Jimmy Carter. I like the one showing Carter building a stairway to heaven. A meme posted by exlrrp:, “Notice how Jimmy Carter never gets condemned for mixing politics with his Christianity. That’s because he focused on living it out rather than making grand declarations about it our using it as a legislative weapon against others. Jimmy Carter just focused on loving other well!” – Rev. Benjamin Cremer, pastor and author.

Compassion, Dignity, Love, Honesty, Service and more

My Sunday movie was this afternoon, the 1922 silent film Robin Hood starring Douglas Fairbanks. As was the case a few days ago it was shown at the Detroit Film Theater with live piano accompaniment by David Drazin. This was quite an ambitious film for the time, 2:15 in length and includes many large crowd scenes. It was also the most expensive at that time. And it’s a good one. It also does a good job of explaining the Robin Hood story. The story opens with King Richard the Lion-Hearted preparing to head off for the Crusades. The Earl of Huntingdon (Fairbanks) does well in a jousting match and Richard appoints him as his second in command. Before they leave Huntingdon encounters Lady Marian. Prince John, Richard’s brother, knows he will rule England while Richard is gone and connives to make sure Richard and Huntingdon don’t return. And John is a tyrant. Huntingdon hears about it and leaves Richard to return to England, where he becomes Robin Hood, stealing from the rich (John and his allies) and giving to the poor (the commoners oppressed by John). They build a community in the Sherwood Forest, actually a pretty good response to tyrants. From there it is all about defeating John and his allies and returning Richard to the throne. There are, of course, lots of plot twists and close calls along the way and lots of battle scenes, both big and small. In all a pleasant day to spend the afternoon. I’ve now heard two silent film accompaniments by David Drazin. This one required him to play nonstop for 2:15. Alas, I’m not all that impressed with his music. I didn’t think it highlighted the emotions of the score all that well. Fairbanks was so athletic in this movie I had to look up how old he was when it was made. Wikipedia says he was born in 1883, so 39 when it was released. I came home from the movie to read the news that Jimmy Carter died. “Jimmy Who?” The Atlanta newspaper quipped when he announced his run for president in 1976. His time as president is now being assessed as much better than voters thought in 1980 when they replace him with Reagan. There are a lot of summaries of his life online, such as this one by the Associated Press posted on Daily Kos. Navy officer. Governor of Georgia. President of the United States, where he achieved a peace deal between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, but was thwarted by the Iran hostage crisis. Then came the work of the Carter Center. Monitoring elections around the world. Nudging governments towards democracy. Pressuring dictators to release thousands of political prisoners. Receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Building homes through Habitat for Humanity. Routinely teaching Sunday School. And that’s barely the highlights. Meteor Blades, Kos Emeritus, pulled together quotes about Carter. One of those is by Kate Riga at TPM:

Some found Carter to be prescient, almost prophetic, in his concern about climate change and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some found him to be ahead of his time in his diversification of the federal judiciary and preservation of wide swaths of Alaskan wilderness. Some found him to be distinctly unsung, with little attention given to his brokering of peace with the Camp David Accords and emphasis on global human rights. And some just liked him. A serious, intelligent, faithful, deeply honest man who spurned political expediency and burned through hundreds of pages of memos a day, he preached self-restraint, stewardship and commonality to an electorate that cast him off four years later for the glib excesses of Ronald Reagan.

His concern for climate change included putting solar panels (maybe for heating water) on the roof of the White House. Reagan removed them. When Carter went into hospice care, 22 months ago, there were a flurry of articles and cartoons praising him. I saved many to use when he died (which I thought would be in just a few months) and lost a few in the turmoil of social media sites. Chris Britt drew a cartoon of Habitat for Humanity houses Built by Jimmy Carter labeled Grace, Compassion, Dignity, Humility, Faith, Love, Honesty, Courage, and Service. Mark Sumner of Kos wrote in March 2023 that in 1980 Ben Barnes, the youngest speaker of the Texas House went with Gov. John Connally to the Middle East to convince Iran not to release the hostages. This was part of a plan to get Reagan elected. At the time of this article Barnes told the story, saying, “History needs to know that this happened.”

The plot was simple enough. Connally and Barnes traveled “to one Middle Eastern capital after another” over the summer of 1980, as U.S. hostages were being held in Tehran. On every one of those stops, they passed along the same message for the new leadership in Iran: Don’t make a deal with Carter. Wait for Reagan. He’ll give you a much better deal. When they arrived back in the United States, Connolly checked in with Reagan’s campaign chair, and future Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, William Casey. For his role in “torpedoing” Carter’s chance at reelection, Connolly hoped to be rewarded with the job of Secretary of State. He was not. Completely ignored in this strategy was that every day of captivity put the lives and health of the hostages in Iran at risk. In addition, the military planned and attempted to execute a rescue operation in which eight U.S. service members died and another four were injured. Prolonging the crisis created a risk every day to the lives of those in Iran, and to members of the U.S. military. It also created ongoing harm to U.S. standing abroad and to national security in general.

Ted Littleford posted a cartoon. On one side is the nasty guy wearing a MAGA hat and the caption “The Republican idea of what Jesus would do.” On the other side is Carter in a Habitat hat and holding a hammer and drill with the caption, “The Democratic idea of what Jesus would do.” In an article from April 2023 Walter Einenkel of Kos listed links to 27 stories about Carter. Just a few titles: Jimmy Carter is the voice of sanity and morality in a nation that’s dying for lack of either. Unstoppable Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter heading to Nashville for Habitat for Humanity’s 2019 project. 44 years ago, on his first full day in office, Jimmy Carter pardoned draft resisters, including me. Jimmy Carter calls for a return to publicly funded elections. Jimmy Carter: “Jesus would approve gay marriage.” An AP article from May 2023 discussed the stories of three political prisoners that Carter rescued from dictators. An AP article from June 2023 discussed the close relationship Carter had with the family of Martin Luther King. Towards the end is this:

During the first half of Carter's long life, “he had to navigate in a society, in a culture where, as a white person, you were expected to hate and see Black people in a very demeaning way,” Bernice King said. Considering the whole of his life, she said, “I think he managed that very well.”

JekylInHyde of the Kos community posted cartoons and memes in tribute to Carter. My favorite is in the comments. It shows a photo of Carter at a Habitat build with the caption, “This is what it looks like when a real Christian actually does something to make America great again.” I’m relieved that Biden is the one to preside over Carter’s funeral. That other guy wouldn’t show the proper respect. And Carter very much deserves that respect. Paul Berge’s cartoons regularly appear in gay newspapers. In March 2023 he created a cartoon of Carter’s words from a Huffington Post interview in 2012. I saw it in Between the Lines. Carter says that Jesus never said gay people should be condemned. Jesus reached out to people who were despised. Carter concluded:

The more despised and the more in need they were, the more he emphasize that we should go to and share with them our talent, our ability, our wealth, our influence. Those are the things that guide my life.

In the cartoon Jesus replies:

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Jimmy Carter very much understood what Jesus taught us.