Yesterday, the radio opera was Puccini’s “Turandot” in an archived broadcast studded with stars from my youth. I always subconsciously expect it to be longer than it is, and I think that may be because the casting for it, especially the principal soprano, require singers capable of singing Wagner, whose operas are notoriously long. Anyway, it received rave reviews at the time, and rightly so.
From Democratic Underground. Video in Italian with English titles. No telling how much, if any, impact it will have. But he’s not wasting time.
This from goodgoodgood – well, you’ll see. As much time and energy as we have all probably sped worrying about 3D “printed” guns, this reallt is a ray of sunshine.
Yesterday, I picked up some Belle videos. She’s still posting four a day, and of course they are all of interest, but to different groups, so they are no means all of equal interest to PP readers. Sometimes the choices are tough. Also, I picked up some music parodies, including a Canadian parodist I was not familiar with. Tomorrow, I’ll post his praise for Australia – for Lona. Also, there is a new Pope (or in Latin, Habemus Papa) on only the second day of the conclave. His papal name is Leo XIV, and I don’t know much else about him, but he appears to be someone Francis himself might have chosen. He was born in Chicago, so (not all) American Catholics are going nuts over the first American Pope. In America we have so many – or maybe they aren’t that many, but they are loud – bishops and archbishops who are Nazis that I was worried. But I’m not sure he should be called an American Pope, except in the broadest sense – he was born in the US but has mostly worked in Peru and is a naturalized Peruvian citizen.
This Letter is about corruption in general, which includes tariffs along with many other grifts. If you want to know exactly how the Apricot Antichrist is grifting you (and the rest of the nation), this is the place to come. But wait – there’s more. The following day’s letter follows up on the first one.
I certainly don’t want to encourage complacency, but if Robert Hubbell is reading the room correctly, this is worth at the very least a sigh of relief.
Yesterday, I slept even later than usual – which I really needed – sometimes the stress created by not being able to do something one had planned is even more debilitating than the work of actually doing it. That was me yesterday. I don’t think I mentioned earlier that my primary credit card company over the weekend for some reason changed every blessed cardholder’s card number (and expiration date and CVV) on the same day. I had done most of on Sunday, but I had forgotten one. After I finished changing that one, which was a struggle because the site isn’t exactly intuitive, I decided to go to Democratic Underground for a while before tackling other email. The first article I looked at had me almost in tears. So did the second one I read, although not in quite the same way. And then there was this one – I’d almost forgotten about Anonymous in all the commotion.
This from Chris Bowers at “Wolves and Sheep” Substack discusses strategies which are necessary (though not, I think sufficient) to get us through this mess. Certainly it’s a place to start.
Naomi Klein recently wrote an essay for The Guardian which Rolling Stone then interviewed her about, and then MSN passed on the interview. It starts with her credentials – which you probably know – and then goes through the whole thing. It isn’t pretty. But we need to know as much as we can. And, yes, it’s long. But not a word wasted.
Yesterday, the radio opera was Verdi’s “Il Trovatore.” Yes, the “Anvil Chorus,” as you may have heard on TV cartoons as a kid. The opera takes less than two and a half hours excluding intermissions, but the story – that’s a revenge tragedy which was decades in the making. And so hard to believe that many people still want it explained to them. I think someone finally told this guy, but there sued to be a cafê in Italy whose owner offered a free bottle of wine to whoever could explain it to him. Frankly, it didn’t totally click for me until the last decade. Sometimes I’m slow. But at least in this case I have good company. Now I need to go back to Friday, when I got an email from Virgil’s prison that my paperwork was expiring and they needed new paperwork by 2:30 pm that day or I would not be able to see Virgil today. Well, I didn’t even see it until after 2:30. I was able to put it all together and email it, but not until about 10:00 pm (still Friday though.). So you don’t have to worry about me being on the road today, and I won’t post a comment. Almost forgot – May the Fourth be with you.
This from Reasons To Be Cheerful pretty much speaks for itself. I could wish we could have this here, of course. But it’s probably happening where it most needs to.
From Democratic Underground – You have probably read or heard this. I’ve seen references to it but not the actual story yet.
This is from Good News Network, and it’s regarding something I’ve been worried about for quite some time now. Maybe you have too. I’m not suggesting we can be complacent – but it is a step in the right direction.
Yesterday, I got the first email I’ve ever received from a political action committee called The Six PAC. It was formed in 2019 in California to support six progressive Democrats running there for the House. Now it feels the need to put effort into supporting birthright citizenship. I think just its name deserves recognition. Also yesterday, a federal judge in Texas – who was appointed by Trump** – issued an opinion that using the Alien Enemies Act as the basis for deportations is illegal. I’m sure you caught that -it was all over the place.
Dan Froomkin at Press Watch does a deep dive into the implications of The Mango Menace’s interview with Terry Moran of ABC. He’s not the only one looking at it – it is so revealing that it’s getting a lot of attention. It would be great if it would wake some people up.
POGO analyzes the relationship between surveillance and deportation. I mentioned Palantir a couple of days ago – this is a sort of a follow-up on that.
Heather Cox Richardson compares the first 100 days of FDR with the same time period of the current regime. Who loses bigly? You get three guesses and the first two don’t count.
Yesterday, the Contrarian posted a “Words and Phrases We Could Do Without,” as it sometimes does. The phrase was “Golden Age.” Of course what the Rockmelon Regime actually wants to duplicate is actually the “Gilded Age” – and I have a personal story about how different that is. I have never cared for turkey, but my aunt always made it for Thanksgiving and we always went to them for Thanksgiving = they came to us for Christmas. The part of the turkey I could basically stand was the part no one else wanted – the tail (you have probably heard some bigoted nicknames for it – I certainly have.) The first Thanksgiving I was not there because I was in the USMC, my uncle decided that a cute was to say “we missed you” would be to “gild” the tail of the turkey, mount it on a little block of wood, and send it to me, so he did just that. Of course he didn’t use actual gold, but gold paint – however, I suspect the results would be the same had he used actual gold – you can gild a turkey’s ass, but you can’t prevent it from rotting. And that’s why the term “Gilded Age” is so appropriate. However, if “Gilded” bothers Republican snowflakes, may UI suggest “Fools’ Golden Age” as a possible alternative? Also, this Borowitz is from Sunday but I haven’t completely trained tutamail yet on what is and isn’t spam, so I just found it – and can’t resist sharing.
I just found this Heather Cox Richardson also. You may have seen the information, but I don’t know who is better than a great historian to analyze it.
The ACLU put this up and out on Monday. But since today, Wednesday, is the actual Day 100, I don’t consider it terribly late. there’s a donate screen, but you can just scroll down past it. I suspect everyone who has the means is already giving.
Robert Reich mentioned Al Gore as one of the past Presidents and Vice Presidents he had not heard speaking publicly about the Rockmenlon Regime. Then he found this. I figure if he missed it, we probably all missed it – know I did – so here it is.
Yesterday, as usual, I signed a bunch of petitions in my email. Lately, at least one of the groups sponsoring them has added an item in the personal information – “Do you want a response?” Frankly, as any as I sign I’d just as doon not have a response to every pne especially if it goes to multiple senders. This particular one also allows signers to edit (personalize) their individual letters. I decided to check “No” on a response and add this in a separate paragraph at the bottom of the letter: “Your vote will be my response.” I like that. It says “You are being watched and your votes are being noted. No amount of boilerplate language by a staffer is going to blind me to your record.” I am going to start doing that in every case where I am able to edit the message.
Digby quotes Josh Marshall at length to good effect. Most of us are aware that ships, railroad, trucks, all are part of the Supply Chain. But that’s not the same as understanding the timelines (and even that is incomplete unless one knows what cones from where.) There is still a little time for stocking up, but very little. This link from Fortune also has good information. If it looks like there’s nothing there, scroll down a bit.
Colorado Public Radio reprinted this from Chalkbeat (and has a link to it.) I guess how you look at this depends on how you define “legal system.” The laws themselves, though not perfect are what I would call broken. The enforcement, on the other hand, is catastrophic. It seems like every LEO involved in immigration in any way has the mindset of a small town sheriff in the deep South during the Civil Rights movement. Who wouldn’t be confused and anxious, for heaven’s sake? I’m very glad Denver University has this clinic, but I’m certainly not expecting it to solve everything.
Yesterday, an FBI agent arrested a judge in Wisconsin for allegedly “trying to help an undocumented immigrant avoid arrest.” Axios has the story. I have seen sources refer to her as a Federal judge, which she is not. She is a state district judge (at the County level.) And Steve Schmidt is pissed.
I am doubling up on Robert Reich today, partly because he’s interesting, and partly to take the taste of the FBI action away. This post leads to a documentary, and I’ll stop now to avoid spoilers. If you don’t want to watch “NOT the White House Correspondents’ Dinner,” maybe you’d prefer this. (On the other hand, if you do want to watch NOT the White House etc., and you reserves a spot of the pay per view, you’ll be able to re-watch it through June 30.)
Does it sound silly to say that we need to know what a national civic uprising would look like so that, armed with that knowledges, we won’t miss or dismiss it when it happens? It does sound so to me. But since so many people so disastrously did not see the Rockmelon Regime coming, maybe it isn’t silly at all.
