Jul 252025
 

Yesterday, I got the email from Families First (via Americans for Tax Fairness) that there will be another national protest event tomorrow. Cleaning up tie URL did not remove or change the locations it was showing me, so you may need to select “Filters” and scroll down a bit and enter your location. I realize this is short notice – but you can also filter by date and find future events, and also filter by other criteria. Also, yesterday, I got multiple emails with “Trump’s name is in the Epstein files” in the subject line. But – you know – it might not be – or at least, if there is a “client list”, it might not be in that. They were such close friends that Epstein might not have charged him. Today, had my mother lived, she would have been 119, so it is a blessing that the didn’t. For someone who lived through Roosevelt’s terms – all of them – this would be devastating.

This is from Press Watch – which means there is at least one journalist who can/will do what he is asking others to do. But I’m afraid there’s little we can do to straighten out the ones who won’t. Either they are themselves i the cult, or their publications are owned by wealth people who, whether or not they are actually in the cult, want the country to be so. There’s your answer, Dan.

This article from Wonkette – I can’t describe it any better then the title, “creepy-ass” – shows the extent to which soe men will go to have (or believe they have) total control over a woman’s body. Some men. Not all men. I might point out that Plutarch, who lived mostly in the first century CE (and into the second) tells the story of Timoclea of Thebes in two of his books, one a history of Alexander the Great, the other titles “Virtutes mulierum” [The virtues of women], which suggests that he approved not only of her but of Alexander for respecting her. The little attorney of the creepy-ass plaintiff is no better. Perhaps there are wells (dry ones would do) near where they live which could be put to good use.

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Jul 242025
 

Yesterday, Malcolm Nance and Bryan Cunningham did a video on Substack including a visit from Lev Parnas. It’s about an hour and a quarter long, and there is a fair amount of profanity, but little time is wasted, and a lot of details discussed, while not new, are new to the public. Many are in Nance’s book, but his knowledge is so far ahead of pretty much everyone else’s that it must have been hard to read or even to listen to. I might add that there is some content on which the participants don’t agree on what is going to happen. IT really is worth the time in my opinion. 1700 people watched it live – which is apparently big for Substack – but small compared to the number of people who should learn about it.

As Robert Hubbell points out, one doesn’t have to go to another country to be in exile. At this point all the good and decent people in the US are virtually and politically in exile.

I considered putting this story in Sunday’s post, but decided to post it today – because, although the hero of it is a good man indeed, and deserves credit (actually for all his accomplishments), the does not resolve into a smooth good news ending.

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Jul 232025
 

Yesterday, Virgil did call, and I broke the news to him about Joe’s death. He took it well. As I said, it was not unexpected. Today is his birthday, so I also told him Happy Birthday early. I also have a card on the way to him – it has attitude, but it is perfect for him since he so often tells me I am the best thing that ever happened to him. It says “Happy Birthday from the best decision you ever made.” I’m sure it will give him a smile.

Robert Reich puts the use of non-government individuals to influence power into the context which now exists, and addresses how that is different from the lobbying system we had all become so accustomed to, and how much more it is like the reign of the “Sun King.”

This article is from Malcolm Nance’s Substack “Special Intelligence.” If you aren’t familiar with Malcolm Nance, it’s time you were, so I am also linking to the Wikipedia article on him. The dude knows what he speaks and/or writes about. And even though what he writes about here is next to impossible to take seriously, it’s still important. MAGA and/or QAnon people have taken action in the past about propositions which were too ridiculous to take seriously, and people have been endangered and hurt, even killed, by those actions.

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Jul 222025
 

Yesterday, as is usual for me on Mondays when possible, I relaxed a lot. I did order a grocery delivery for the evening, and received most of it, and put away most of what I received.

It’s been a long time since I heard from Margaret Atwood. She has written a new post called “The Woman Thing, Part 1”. Her starting point is pretty much where she left off earlier – the French Revolution (or Revvie.) That’s because she has been invited to create a video audiobook, has agreed, and has chosen “A Tale of Two Cities.” But I expect her to move on from there and provide insights few people could.

Joyce Vance takes on misogyny. We tried our best to warn people about all of this too. Someone in the comments, probably close to my age, says it is exhausting to think about having to do it all over again. Yes, it certainly is.

https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/obama-posts-video-of-trump-actually
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-barack-obama-ai-video_n_687dff31e4b0502d85e56715

This by Steve Schmidt is the big truth bomb of the day. Not that anyone should be surprised. Allow me if you will to compare humans to pit bulls. Pit bulls are basically big sweet goofballs. But pit bulls can be trained for dog fighting to be vicious killers. The people in charge of ICE detention are like pit bulls trained for dogfighting – all their grievances, both real and imaginary, have been catered to and they have been assured that nothing in their lives they don’t like is their fault, and that they have been terribly wronged. I dont suppose they have been taught much if anything in the way of specific torture techniques, but they are filled with anger and it’s not difficult to translate that into cruelty – in fact, it’s harder not to. Encouraging them to focus on wanting revenge (rather than actual improvements in their lives) has turned them into dogfighting pit bulls. Or, to use a different analogy, if anyone remembers, like those entities in Star Trek episodes who fed upon human misery and needed it to survive. I don’t know how to untrain them, or if it is even possible, but decent people need to know about evil things being done in our name.

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Jul 212025
 

Yesterday, an email from the Dekleptocracy Alliance (AKA anticorruptionaction.org) pointed out that Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok, has a $200 million contract with the Pentagon and is “is now being embedded inside our most sensitive military infrastructure.” It is an email only, so I cannot link to the full letter, but it does go on, and it doesn’t get better. It’s just an email, not a post, and there is no link to the full text; if there were, I would have posted it. Also, Trinette came by, to take care of some stuff that I can’t. And Virgil’s aunt called to say his stepfather had passed away. This was not unexpected, as he was 100 last December. I can’t call Virgil, but when he calls me I shall tell him. He’s been expecting it and I’ve been telling him that when it happened his aunt Donna would let me know.

If this reminds you of the opening of LesMiz – you are not alone. That was the first thing I thought of. “Look down, look down, sweet Jesus doesn’t care.” Rümesa Oztürk is Muslim, but the principle is the same.

I know there are hundreds and thousands of stories much like this. But one person’s story can speak louder than the numbers. You can be confident ProPublica is looking into as many as they are aware of.

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Jul 202025
 

Yesterday, the radio opera was the second opera about Manon Lescaut. This one is called simply “Manon” and is by Jules Massenet. This is the version in which after des Grieux, her lover, has been kidnapped by his father and enters the seminary to become a priest (leaving Manon pretty much no choice except to hook up with the rich dude), she visits him in his church and you can guess what happens. The other two don’t spell that out. Also, in this version, she doesn’t even make it to Louisiana but dies en route to the ship which was to take her there. As I said last week, the stories are similar but not the same. About the music video  today – John D. Cundle is a Canadian who has produced and posted quite a little library of upbeat videos, many aimed at us in a friendly way. This is just one. It’s not satirical, although he also does satire. I also watched one about corruption, in which he appeared as “Judge Clarence.” I don’t know how much more pointed one can get than that.

This is about the Superman movie I discussed recently.  MAGA was all up in arms to boycott is as “woke,” and they may be doing so,  considering their attitude toward non-humans, including people they consider to be non-human.  I don’t see them responding in the way this article describes.

(Not paywalled, but you need to close a popup) This from the 19th is on Instagram. It is good news about a workaround.

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Jul 192025
 

Yesterday, Talking Points Memo published Maurene Comey’s farewell letter to her colleagues at SDNY, fro BlueSky where it had been posted by some one from Lawfare. Whatever you may think of her father, the message is on point and worth a look. It’s in hte second section of their newsletter.

There is another national protest scheduled for a week from today. This one is sponsored by Families First and being publicized by Care in action. Families First is specifically trying at this point to protect domestic workers, many of whom are immigrants, documented or not. Yes, the Apricot Antichrist wants to rip children’s nannies away from them, Quelle surprise. The link to find an event is here. Also there are some photos for the most recent one here.

The F* News refers to Amanda Marcotte (of Salon), but doesn’t link to her – I don’t know why – maybe because Salon is paywalled if you go there too often – but I found the article and archived it. So if anyone wants to go straight to the source, here it is.

I cannot honestly say this article is encouraging. But it is honest and frank, and probably pretty much correct. Democratic leaders need to deal with the fact the most voters are not like good Democrats, who follow the facts enough to know that middle class and poor people are better off under Democratic leadership than under what passes for Republican leadership, and therefore it is in the best interest of anyone not a billionaire to vote in Democrats. On the contrary, far too many voters are far too easily swayed by appeals to their guts.

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Jul 182025
 

Yesterday, I hope everyone who is willing and able found a protest to join, and did so safely (and had a great sign. And got home safely.) The Senate passed the bill to kill public radio and television, and sent the bill back to the House.

This story, newly released by The 19th, took a lot of time, multiple lawyers, even more proofreaders, and an unknown (but definitely non-zero) number of fact checkers to put together. I don’t know how alone I am in this, but I have a tendency these days to look at , for example, the UK, Germany, New Zealand and others and think they are ahead of us when it comes to eliminating misogyny. This story makes me seriously question whether anyone at all is at all ahead of us. That’s ugly, but we need to know the truth.

Other than the remark about Joe Biden’s intentions, which no one but Joe really knows, but I seriously doubt Hubbell’s guess, this is a real problem and good advice. I’m not sure exactly how an unimaginative person can be expected to acquire imagination (though I’d guess it isn’t something that can be done quickly, least of all instantly.) But we can learn to listen to people who have it without shooting them down as fantasizers.

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