Jun 102026
 

The next “No Kings” day will be June 14. That is Flag Day. It is also the birthday of a wannabe king. There are of course multiple organizations involved, sp there are multiple places to sign up. Here’s a link to one of them. There’s no ? in it – but it is so long it might have my info in it – if so you’ll need to remove all that to enter your own. Or use one from emails addressed to you instead.

I had not read about this case before (which probably says more about me than about the case.) It doesn’t starve people, nor make health care any tougher than it already is, nor kill anyone with preventable diseases, but it’s still infuriating – not the Judge, but the fact that it needs the court at all just to be prevented. It is disrespectful – and infuriating.

If I were the National Trust for Historic Preservation, or some senior member of it with authority, I would start right now making casts of the Statue of Liberty, the Lincoln Memorial, and any other monuments Cankles McTacotits might despise – which would probably include s good number of statues inside the Capitol Building – so that if he did shoose to destroy them, we would be able to replace them. (I might even use AI to make the molds – it has to be good for something – it certainly s not good in the next article.) And if they needed to be used, I would use every tool possible to unsure that, if we needed to make those replacements, he – or his estate – or his heirs – paid for them.

From The Root. Kudos to my alma mater for doing and publishing this study – and maybe even more for establising the organization which conducted it. Depresing though the study may be, it is something we all need to be aware is happening.

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Jun 072026
 

Yesterday, the Met season was over, but WFMT’s summer season was just beginning, with “The Bartered Bride” by Smetena, from Vienna. It was perfomed in German, as opposed to the original Czech, which I thought might give me a fighting chance to ubderstand some dialogue as it was sung. But individual words like “I”. “My”, “your,” “no”, “yes”, even “love” (hey, it’s a rom com) don’t give much to go on. But the plot is simple, based on concealed identity, and there’s a lot of great dance music (which must have come in handy for Paris), so it wasn’t hard to follow. Also, John Pavlovitz had a thought for so-called Christians who want to turn Pride Month into Niclear Family Month – they should celevrate Mind Your Own Damn Business Month instead.

Another short ABC video on loop. It speaks for itself. ABC is pretty good at this.

This, referred by The Smile, is closer to politics than I usually try to get on Sunday. But it is very good indeed.

From National Public Radio. This is limited to melanoma – for now – but it’s progress. (My mother had a melanoma, but she was lucky. It was very visible even when very small, and even with just outpatient surgery with local, it never returned. Not everyone can be that fortunate.


Animals, Dogs, Cats, Personal Profiles,

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Jun 052026
 

Yesterday, The House passed a War Powers Resolution 215-208. It went to the Senate, but if they voted, I haven’t heard the numbers.

Talking Feds/Harry Litman. Please forgive the insult to drunken sailors. Other observations are totally on target.

From Lever News. This is short, it’s currently only in one house, and there are caveats. But it’s as important as the words “or of such other body as Congress may by law provide” are in section 4 of the 25th Amendment. It opens up a way around a Presidential veto or a captive cabinet.

Too late for Alex Trebek – and for so many other beloved people – but I’m thankful something is finally here

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Jun 032026
 

On Monday, Malcolm a photo of Rubio and Hefseth that someone had shopped to look like Milli Vanilli. I took a screen shot, enlarged it, skewed it, and stretched it a little horizontally since it had gotten suqished- and it’s still comewhat blurry, but I think recognizable. So I’m sharing it as rge fearyes image today for your amusement. And after that, he found a post saying “If I wanted to see Trump’s ballroom, I’d just look in Lindsey Graham’s mouth.”

Yesterday, I steeamed the opera “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, ” which was the radio opera on January 2. My goodness, what a tear jerker. But not without hope. The synopsis in Wikipedia definitely does not do it justice – although I’m not sure any syn0psis could – it’s that complex.  I really needed to see it – and not just for this quote from near the end: “The world will always be broken. Repair it anyway.”

Harry Litman (Talking Feds) writes about legal happenings of last week, and how, on balance, they supported or at least aided democracy.

Elizabeth Warren and Greg Casar are working on this same problem from a taxation perspective, and the article quotes them. I’m not sure who has the better chance. I think Bernie’s idea might benefot more propl – but both plans look good to me.

It really is terrifying what some people will do to convince themselves they are not weak. Statistics din’t really communicate that. But this is a personal story.

RReich Tariff refunds

Dog

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May 312026
 

Yesterday, the radio opera was a new one – not a premiere, but new enough to not be in Wikipedia yet. It was the El Ultimo Sueño de Frida y Diego by Pulitzer Prize winning Gabriela Lena Frank. The premise is that on the Day of the Dead, Diego Rivera is about to die. He reaches out to his late wife Frida Kahlo (who, though 20 years younger, predeceased him) to return from the land of the dead and help him transition. (You may have noticed that this premise is kind of a mirror image of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth.) Their marriage was one of those stormy ones where the couple fights a lot, at least in part because making up feels so good. It’s not my idea of a relationship, but it works for dome couples – and it makes for great opera. Other characters include Catrina, the goddess of the underworld, who is a trickster goddess; Leonardo, the souls of a Grets Garbo impersonator (a counter-tenor); and various spirits. I wouldn’t call it a comedy. but there is a lot of humor in it,both in the libretto and in the orchestration. Frank has an unusual heritage – her father was Ashkenazi Jewish and her mother was half Peruvian and half Chinese, and all of those musical traditions were in her childhood home. The opera is not terribly long – an hour and 55 minutes of music in two acts is pretty short – and it seemed to fly by – which means it’s very easy to listen to. “Viva la vida!” Off to see Virgil now- will chwck in upon return

If you thought that all the firsts for women (except, of course, US President) had been accomplished by now – Mikala would like you to hold her beer.

This is not you average pet rescue story. (It’s also not a video

Try to avoid looking around the web page on this one – stick to the story.

Carrie B found a second Raging Granny group – this one is in California, near Yosemite. The song in this video is a rough Diamond for sure,

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May 292026
 

Yesterday, Malcolm Nance reported that Israel wants to take away from Jordan of the Dome of the Rock and the the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and hold custody jointly with the United States. If this happens, there will be “holy war” across the entire middle east, with terrorism which will make Isis look like kid stuff. (his co-host Wajeeh Lion shared some of the stories/history which underlie Muslim theology.)

This from Robert Reich is admittedly a distraction. Bbut it’s kind of a sweet one.

From Talking Points Memo. One of the things that happened in the Abrego Garcia case was that the well-publicisied actions of the regime from the very beginning caused the judge to make a presumption of vindictive prosecution, which in turn put the burden of proof on the regime to prove that the prosecution was not vindictive nor selective (which of course they could not do, because it was as vindictive as hell.) I don’t know that the regime’s vindictiveness has been quite that egregious against Smartmatic or the SPLC (although anyne with two eyes and a brain jnows it exists), but I hope the respective judges will see it. James Comey has a better chance, I suspect, because the Evil Emperor has been shooting his mouth off about Comey for years – all the way back to 2017. But, as the article points out, the more defendants are successful with this approach, the more likely the courts are to seriously consider it. So I wish them all success.

From Talking Feds. Nothing about how the Saffron Sauron’s mind works is really news, nor will he ever learn his lesson.He just won’t. But its good to hear he is at least getting one.

250 to 250. There are a number of these videos already posted here, narrated by many different people for this project of Heather Cox Richardson’s. I am obviously not going to get to them all, but I’ll be leaning heavily on them. If you want more, they can be found at her YouTube channel here.

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May 272026
 

Last weekend, it happened again. In case you missed it, starting around Easter, the announced on Saturday that peace talks were going well and peace was imminent. The oil futures market responded – the price per barrel dropped. On Monday (or Tuesday if Monday was a day the market was closed) the same went all hawkish and threatened to bomb Iran to Kingdom Come. The price of oil futures went up. American oligarchs who had bought low (who can affords to buy futures th the hundreds of millions of barrels) then sold high. This has happened every weekend for eight weekends. Every weekend for those eight weekends, ‘s personal friends who could afford to buy oil futures in the millions of barrels made millions of dollars. And don’t think it’s over. It will go on as long as they can get away with it. Malcolm dtill called his show the “confuion-cast” yesterday, but said he may soon go to “dementia-cast.”

You don’t have to go to X to watch the graphic. It plays fine right in the article. I personally think the final still at the end is every bit as jawdropping as the video.

Robert Reich is talking about the political compass here – and so on point that I expect he is aware of it. This is not the first time I have heard someone advise that a third axis is needed, and I beieve that person suggested good and evil – which is fine with me. It would have to be in and out, since that’s the only dimension left in our three-dimensional world, and it would be a challenge to draw in two dimensions, but I think probably worth the effort.

There’s a lot in Mornng Memo, and it’s all valuabe. But the first section is what first caught my eye.

Better a couple of days late then never (IMO)

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May 252026
 

Yesterday, I saw Virgil and we played cribbage. It was a brand new deck – no tears, no peeling, no sticking. Hands with a wide range of values (zero to 21.) It’s always cold in the visiting room – but it was extra cold today – and quite warm outside – too warm for comfort, actually – but at this time of year the sun is not in my eyes, for which I was grateful.

And on Saturday, I received a Memorial Day email from Major General Eaton (retired) of Vote Vets. He wrote about the wars in Iraq And Afghanistan, and included a statistic which was new to me. In those two wares combined we lost almost 7,000 military in combat – and more than 22,000 to suicide after they came home. More than three times as many to suicide as to combat.

Snarl at me if you like. Because I’m not postinng this from JoJo from Jerz for news value. I’m posting it because of the sheer beauty of the righteous rant. The pure vitriol of the analogies, metaphors, and needle-sharp points made. I’m in awe. I can come up with the occasional zinger, but I could never come up with a string of them like this.

We’re all familiar with the term “kleptocracy” – Maybe too familiar. The term “corruptonomics,” coined by Robert Reich, may help us look more closely at it. As he also says – “Please send to any candidates you care about.”

From Press Watch. The saying goes that a competent prosecutor could get a true bill from a grand jury on a ham sandwich. That’s an exaggeration for a competent prosecutor – but for a crooked prosecutor – maybe not so much.

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