Yesterday, the ACLU announced in an email that it had quickly refiled to block the executive order against birthright citizenship as a class action, allowing a federal judge to block it nation wide. Also, I got my blood test results and none of my meds is changing this time – a welcome first. Also, the 19th advised me that the first Barbie doll to have Type 1 diabetes is here. This is what she looks like. If it seems weird to you to se something so comparatively “normal” in the news, you are not alone.
This from the F* News is brilliantly framed and might possibly even suck MAGA into reading it, though they might not get the point.
Press Watch with Dan Froomkin – who does know what journalism is, and also what it isn’t. If you claim to be a journalist, and have “a strong belief and passion” in anything other than truth and accuracy – you are nor a journalist. Period. (And the New York Times is just as bad and getting worse by the day.)
It’s hardly news that Republicans lie. Some of us who have been saying they lie like Democrats breath are now starting to re-evaluate that, because they lie so much more than Democrats breathe. It should be no surprise that Heather Cox Richardson has their number.
Yesterday, I got up late, having had a somewhat difficult night, but somehow I got everything done that I needed tp do and a tad extra. Of course I would have liked to do more and have a little cushion, but at least I’m no farther behind than I was.
Wonkette covers most of the reasons why the Times story is BS. Mamdani was a teenager at the time, There was probably no box on the application that fit him, so he checked the closest. Then, to clarify it, he wrote “Ugandan” on the application. Incidentally, he was not accepted, so he gained nothing from anything on that application. Never forget that the New York Times is no longer “The paper of record.” There is no longer an American “paper of record.” The closest think I can think of is The Guardian, and it can only retain accuracy because it is not American.
In “The Week Ahead,” Joyce Vance includes addressing Social Security and the extremely misleading letter sent by the Social Security Administration regarding taxation on Social Security income. It’s all twitter-pated about ending taxation on Social Security income. Let me provide a little insight here from a Social Security recipient. My monthly check is not large, but it’s enough for me to live on if I am careful (and by “live on,” I mean to pay my mortgage and utilities, including trash and recycling pickup, electricity and gas, water and sewer, landline phone and internet.) For the last ten years or more I have been using a company in the IRS’s FreeFile program (not the same as direct file, which appears to be going away before it even gets started, but similar – Federal is free, but they can charge to file in your state.)I receive the data on my Social Security earnings on a 1098 form, and I put it in, and the program puts it on my return but does not count it as taxable income. I have never paid a penny in taxes on Social Security. I grant that I might not be able to live on it if I didn’t have an HRA – but I do. Still, anyone getting federal tax relief on Social Security from this bill must be getting payments in between what I get and what billionaires get.
After several years of not getting newsletters from Daily Kos, despite regularly checking that I have been signed up for them, I am now receiving them again, and this one included a story on something which has been bothering me – Abrego Garcia, his wife, and their legal issues have been getting substantial coverage – and they should be – but what about all the other innocent people?
Yesterday, Elon Musk apparently resigned as a “temporary government employee” or whatever the “official” title was. But that doesn’t mean “DOGE” is gone. His hand-picked lackeys are still around, as loyal to him as MAGA is to Trump**(*). We aren’t going to escape that easily. Also , Andy Borowitz came out with a jest that I wish (and I expect we all do) was real. Finally, after reading the CPR newsletter, and deciding no one else was about to do it, I put up a petition on Care2. You don’t have to be in Colorado to sign it. The other side is sending from all over.
One of my core principles is that, if someone does something wrong due to a condition in which you played a part in creating, intentionally or not, knowingly or not, you don’t get to punish them for it. It’s acceptable to take non-punitive steps to alleviate the condition, but that’s it. If necessary to protect the community, it is permissible to apply restraint, but it cannot be punitive. And you must accept your own accountability. This applies to big and small issues equally. There used to be a commercial about a mother helping with her daughter’s wedding, and the daughter acting somewhere between disappointed and disgusted because mom had frequent urination. I used to think “you little brat, she has frequent urination now in large part because she brought you into the world. If you have children and make it to her age, you’ll have frequent urination too, and it’ll be too late to make it up to her.” But that’s really nothing compared to this story – which incenses me as a veteran.
If you have seen this elsewhere, I apologize for making you look at it again. I mean, not that we didn’t know that GOP lies and cruelty go together like syphilis and gonorrhea, but this expands the definition of judicial murder into new territory. What we need now in this country, and in particular anyone in this country who has both a heart and a brain, is more righteous outrage. (And of course more people like Anna Stout.)
Yesterday, I got an email from Faithful America that SCOTUS deadlocked on the OK charter school case so the lower court ruling that giving the charter school government dollars in unconstitutional will stand. For now. (I’m not sure whether this is the same case where there were four recusals so they didn’t have a quorum, or whether that was a different case. Sorry, I’m finding it difficult to keep track.)
Jen Rubin of The Contrarian has been travelling in Europe, and is sharing some historical insight from there, specifically from Spain.
This from Wonkette may be relatively minor, compared to, say, the deaths that will result from gutting Medicare, Medicaid and SNAP. However it pisses me off (all racism does), and goes along with the next post.
Press Watch has what might be good news if it only went far enough. I suppose it’s a start.
Yesterday, ProPublica released the results of an investigation they did into “Terrorgram.” They worked in cooperation with PBS’s “Frontline,” and if you watch it regularly, you saw this last night. if not, you can read about it here, and or pick up links to YouTube, the PBS a[[, and Frontline’s website, and watch it at one of those. Only by knowing how these – people – operate can we hope to detect them and report them. Also yesterday, Louis DeJoy resigned – at the worst possible time. Just at the right moment for the Valencia Vlad-the-Impaler to appoint a lunatic who will buy and privatize the Postal Service. Is Philadelphia having earthquakes? Benjamin Franklin is probably finding that turning over is not enough, and taking up break dancing instead.
Yeah, “The Week Ahead” is late. But she has put together a number of related ideas that are being mentioned, but mostly not together, and personalizing it from her own experience.
Also late, and also from Joyce Vance, a discussion of something Judge Boasberg might do (or, of course, might not, but he seems like someone who might.) Incidentally, if you see anyone refer to him as “Jeb” Boasberg, J.E.B. are his initials. There is precedent for the nickname.
This is old from Wonkette also. But it is so surreal that I couldn’t resist.
Sunday, I couldn’t find any decks of playing cards in the game locker, and I had managed to time my arrival so that Virgil was already there when I got to the visiting room, so I grabbed the Scrabble board instead. We payed three games which brought us right to the end of the visiting time. We accepted a lot of things I’m pretty sure are not acceptable, but we did have fun. It must be close to a year since we played Scrabble, and I can see some deterioration in Virgil, but as long as he remembers me, and that he loves me and I love him, and is more or less happy most of the time, I don’t worry. He is getting good care, much better than I could possibly care for him; he has many people he considers friends among both other inmates and staff, there is even a resident dog (almost certainly not a purebred black Lab, but he looks and acts like one.) Pretty much the only time he gets upset is if he has a vivid dream that he believes actually happened, and when that happens he calls me and I calm him down. And they are getting noticeably less frequent. (An example of one of those dreams would be that he thought his first wife phoned him demanding back child support. For one thing, no one can phone him – the phones they are allowed to use cannot receive calls. Secondly, I’m pretty confident she has no idea where he is. Thirdly, even if she did, she is not on his visitor list, so would not be allowed to contact him. Fourthly, the child in question is now 56. And he can grasp all of that – but he can also forget it.)
Yesterday, I see there was apparently a huge security breach wherein the top editor at The Atlantic was “accidentally” included in a Signal chat regarding airstrikes in Yemen. I don’t for a moment believe this was an accident. I think we will see more and more f this type of event until the media stops covering them. Let’s face it – we have no national security.
So far what I’ve had to say for today has been fairly bleak. But if you read this, it should put you in a mood to thank the universe that we still have people like Boasberg. I can’t confirm this, but I think I read somewhere that his ancestry is at least pertly Ukrainian. I remember thinking that would not surprise me. Back when the Russians were telling tha Vikings, “Hay, you guys are pretty good managers, why don’t you stay her and form our government,” the Ukrainians – Cossacks – were mercenary soldiers who never, ever, swore any oath or had personal loyalty to any of the monarchs who paid them. Yes, a deal was a deal, but they remained independent.
I need to explain that this is not a cartoon. It is an actual mail piece I received last week. I did not open it, I just scanned it front and back – I plan to forward it to the Governor unopened. There is, however, enough information on the outside for anyone to know whom to boycott.
Yesterday, I learned that one of my Senators, along with two other Democratic Senators, voted to advance the nomination of the Peach Pasha’s cabinet nominees – this one for the Department of Labor. If all Democrats on the committee had voted not to advance her, she would not have advanced. (The other two were Maggie Hassan and Tim Kaine.) I immediately sent him an email telling him to expect to be primaried in 2026. Jared Polis’s term as Governor ends at the same time Hick’s Senate term does, and I think Jared would be better. I am having more and more difficulty getting through a single day without being reminded of a short story told by Igor Stravinsky in a book of reminiscences titled Dialogues and a Diary (co-author or maybe a translator Robert Craft.) I have been looking for it on the internet in order to provide a link, but I cannot find one now, and, short though it is, it is too long to make into a meme. Fortunately I have kept a copy, and will quote it in full after today’s cartoon. It makes me somewhat uneasy that it can’t be found now, actually. Are there already people editing history? And is this where we are headed?
I realize this is already long, but the disgusting display that our so-called President and Vice president put on with Zelenskyy prompted a DU user to share this link. It’s to what you might call a “GoFundMe for Ukraine.” Right up front, don’t touch the “necessary” box, do click the other three, and select the middle choice (if you do it wrong, the next page’s lower left has an odd little icon you can go back with.) This is the only way Ukraine is going to get any money from the US for the next four years.
Robert Reich on some of the more egregious lies Dork Vader Muskrat is telling. Honestly, if I have to hear or read much more projection, I’ll likely be projectile vomiting.
Another by Robert Reich. I am not putting this into Sunday’s Thread because he’s right about the “modest” part. For example, sure, it’s good that DOGE staffers are quitting because they refuse to help Dork Vader dismantle government. But it won’t be good if they are replaced with loyalists.
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=Here is the Stravinsky story:
Though my visual impressions of world events were derived largely from films, they also were rooted in personal experience. One day in Munich, in 1932, I saw a squad of Brown Shirts enter the street below the balcony of my room in the Bayerische Hof and assault a group of civilians. The civilians tried to protect themselves behind sidewalk benches, but soon were crushed beneath these clumsy shields. The police arrived, eventually, but by then the attackers had dispersed. That same night I dined with Vera de Bosset and the photographer Eric Schall in a small Allee restaurant. Three men wearing swastika armbands entered the room, and one of them began to talk insultingly about Jews and to aim his remarks in our direction. With the afternoon street fight still in our eyes, we hurried to leave, but the now shouting Nazi and his Myrmidons followed, cursing and threatening us the while. Schall protested, and at that they began to kick and hit him. Miss de Bosset ran to a corner, found a policeman, and told him that a man was being killed, but this piece of intelligence did not rouse him to any action. We were rescued by a timely taxi, and though Schall was battered and bloody, we went directly to a police court where the magistrate was as little perturbed with our story as the policeman had been. “In Germany today, such things happen every minute,” was all he said.
Yesterday, it occurred to me that the name Zuckerberg – with just a little bit of license – translates to “Big Rock Candy Mountain.” I couldn’t even begin to count the possible disrespectful jokes that could be gotten out of that. Also yesterday, the story which was yanked last week did get published, and I went to the new link, and it is working. Here it is. You can see why I jumped to the conclusion I did. It’s very frank.
The Reich on the left is right again. I, and progressives and liberals I am aware of, generally have positive impressions of universities, nonprofits, and labor unions. The media is in a different position. But allowing media, however imperfect, to be destroyed by The new administration’s lawsuits and other attacks is not the solution. And that goes multiple times for small and independent media, who are as much more likely to promote truth as they are to come under attack. I know I probably sound like an obsolete “broken record,” but go over to Substack, see the many people who are posting there, and if you find someone or some two or so whom you respect (and preferably whom I am not regularly citing, to broaden yourself,) sign up for a free subscription. That costs nothing but time – and knowledge is priceless.
Robert Hubbell debunks all the lies being pushed by MAGA about the Los Angeles wildfire(s). Unfortunately, the LA Times, now MAGA-billionaire-owned, is widely spreading them anyway. Was it Mark Twain who said “a lie can get halfway around the world wile truth is still putting its pants on”? Or is he just one of the many to whom it has been mis-attributed? Also, you might appreciate, if you have any past or present connection to California, his next rant is here.
possibly even suck MAGA into reading it, though they might not get the point.
