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 082026
 

Yesterday, after saying it was a slow day, Malcolm had to come back and make an emerbency sequel when Iran attacked Israel. To steal one of his expressions – “not healthy.” As I type, Ihave noclue what will be happening today.

Remember what I said last week about Graham Platner’s tattoos a while ago, based on my experience with young male Marines? This quote, from a former Marine who served with him and got tattoos with him, says the same thing, only blunter: “No, we did not purposely get hateful fucking shit because we’re racist people,” he said. “We got matching tattoos because we were in our 20s, drunk in Croatia, and that’s it. That’s all that fucking happened.” I had to laugh. It really took me back to the day.

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/whos-most-responsible-for-the-monopolization
This from Robert Reich is history. But it’s history I don’t think is terribly widely known, even if you know the players. I admit it surprised me.

https://thefrankfigliuzzi.substack.com/p/i-see-dead-people-and-the-friday
This Frank Figliuzzi video is from Friday, and I assume most won’t watch the whole thing, or maybe any of it, but there is a full transcript. Scroll down to the line below Frank’s picture on the left, and the last opyion before the three dots is “Transcript.” Frank’s presentations re like a whole newspaper (a real one, back in the day), so skim through it, and you are likely to find at least one thing no one else has covered. Plus there is good news at the end.

https://www.theroot.com/13-organized-plots-against-black-america-that-are-worki-2000109731
This, straight from The Root, is also from Friday, and is also history

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Jun 062026
 

I’ve been thinking about this for some time, and I’m not the only one. Several pundits have said that the GOP’s gerrymandering scheme may well backfire. Using numbers I’ve made up, here’s how. Let’s assume a red southern state has a majority minority district which in 2024 went blue by 12 points. It’s adjacent to a majority red district which went red by 10 points. So the state mashes them together and redivides them, expecting both to go red by maybe 8 points. But they haven’t taken into consideration how deeply the current regime’a approval ratings have descended. Some who voted Republican in 2024 will vote Democratic in 2026. I’m guessing that more will simply not vote. Those two dictricts could easily go blue by 2 points each – which would be enough. Especially if it happened in multiple states.

Yes, this page requests donations, and no, I am not asking you to donate. I just want us to be aware of this race. It is for Joni Ernst’s seat (Grassley’s current term will be up in 2028 – he will be 94 but may run again anyway.) Turek is endorsed by Elizabeth Warren (probaly by others, but she’s the one I just got the email endorsement from.)

This from Talking Points Memo is about Todd Blanche but Bill Polte is likely to be as big a problem.

The latest on Tina Peters – which IMO shows clearly why she should still be locked up. The next best thing would be laws at tgr Federal level, and Stale laws, County lawd, and municipal laws that no convicted felon can be eligible for public office.

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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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May 132026
 

Yesterday, I expected to have lab work again. My previous PCP wanted me to do that every three months. Over the winter, my PCP moved, and I tranferred to another provider at the same facility in a phone call. At least that was easy. But – because he hasn’t actually seen me yet (that will happen next week). the lab had no order on file. So that was a wasted trip. Not something one wants to do when gas is about to go up again, and we could run out of our reserve and not be able to get any at all. Today’s political video is longer than Belle’s are, but shorter than Glenn Kirschner’s are. I am trying to keep them down.

Sometimes I get frustrated looking for articles to feature. The ones with the most (and newest) news are too long, and/or too repetetive, either in themselves or of other articles, or just wrong. Then I trip over a history piece which is relevant to what we are now going hrough (not always in an obvious way, but in some way.) idt Steve Schmidt may not be a professional historian like Heather Cox Richardson, but he has a knack of finding and sharing historical events which feel extremely relevant. Here is one. (The General Butler mentioned cannot be Smedley, who was not born until the last year of the Hayes Presidency. My guess is that it was General Benjamin F. Butler, who was, in 1879, running for governor of Massachusetts [he lost] after failing to win re-election to Congress, so he was at least alive at the time and had the right connections.)

I don’t – not intentionally – subscribe to Political Voices Network – not because the folks are not factual )they are both factual and good), but because there are too many of them and I just don’t have the time. But this came into my inbox, and it has some solid facts and some very good questions. If health insurance CEOs are murderers – why aren’t Republicans who consistently vote against Medicare for all, who strengthen private health insurance providers, murderers too? I can’t help thinking of Wendell Potter and his first book, “Deadly Spin.”

This is a few days old, but I thought it could wait – I didn’t see the MSM covering it under this regime. And it’s good news, as far as it goes. I hope it gets past SCROTUS still standing.

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Apr 292026
 

Yesterday, Malcolm Nance changed the name of his daily Substack Video (also on YouTube after it ends) from the “US-Iran Warcast” to the “Global Crisiscast.” For good and sufficient reasons. If you have a tolerance for facing worst case scenarios – and the consequences of stupidity and also a tolerance for Malcolm’s style (which includes dark humor), I seriously recommend it. This link will not take you directly to it, because the specific address changes daily, but it will take you ro Malcolm’s Substack home page and the crisiscast should be at or very near the top.

This is from Americans of Conscience. All of my experience with running elections was prior to 2016, but when I was doing that work, even under Republican Secretaries of State, the Colorado state government had a strong attitude of inclusion. (Not all the others I worked with did (in precinct  work, workers must comprise equal numbers of Ds and R)s, but the state did, and the County Clerks did.) I did realize that was not the case everywhere. But the extent of the differences may not be as widely known. Plus, these are just two examples – there are at least 49 more.

From The Intercept. I realize there are a lot of things in this world which can hurt other people – or which can hurt oneself if one tries to work with them without good sound understanding of how they work, or to push their limits. Stoves. Cars and trucks. Construction Equipment. Large animals. Large bodies of water. Knives. Stupid people. None of these things are evil in themselves, but people get hurt by them every day. Of them, AI most resembles large animals and stupid people. If the incidents of AI talking people into suicide have not sufficiently convinced you to use it with great caution, if at all, consider this article.

This from Rights and Insights is not new information, but it’s from a different perspective than most. It points out something no one else is saying – that the practices this regime wants to eliminate from elections in order to “make them safer” are exactly the safeguards which allow elections to be free and fair.

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Apr 172026
 

Yesterday, I was fairly well rested, and even managed to get to bed early (for me.)  Malcolm Nance mentioned more or less in passing. that Australia has been hurting for oil and  that now one of their only two oil refineries there has blown up. If that interferes with internet there, it may be a while before we hear from Lona. He also mentioned (it was breaking news to him – and he was shocked) that Justin Fairfax, former LtGov of Virginia apparently shot his wife and himself, but apparently not their teen children. I expect The Root will have more information.

No telling whether the archive is needed – we all get at least one free story a month, but I have no way of knowing whether any of you have used yours. So, archived to be safe and save time. This is sad – but I can’t call it unexpected, alas.

[analysis Magyar election] I was a bit taken aback by the new Prime Minister’s name which I now know I have been pronouncing wrong all my life.) I thought about it off and on trying to think of similar names. First I came up with xomposer and conductor Edward German (he wasn’t.) Eventually I also remembered a General while I was in the Marines – Lowell English (he was American, but I suppose at least some of his ancestors were English.)
(Also, her letter dated April 15 reviews Lincoln’s assassination on April 14 – and how Andrew Johnson undermined reconstruction almost before it started.

Another analysis piece, this one from ProPublica. Of course, investigation was needed in order to publish it with receipts. But couldn’t you have predicted it? I would think any sane person could have. The more people you arrest at random, the less likely any of them is to be a criminal.

Brian Tyler Cohen is not a favorite of mine, partly because his videos are so long. But this one is the only place I have seen anything about this stunt – and as far as I’m concerned you can shut it off when he finishes with that part. (even in full, it’s only 8½ minutes – which is very short for him)

Dog

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Apr 062026
 

Yesterday, I saw Virgil and we played cribbage. The deck we had (I just pick up whatever is closest in the games cabinet now ) was not brand new, since it was rather sticky, but it was missing no cards, and no cards were torn or peeling – that’s not always the case. Colorado prisons’ visiting rooms are always cold, but yesterday it was colder than usual. But we had fun anyway. I posted after I got back home but didn’t respond to comments – I’ll do that today. After getting home (and finally making a cup of coffee, and dinner), and while I was looking for a video for today, I tripped over a channel I was not aware of, called “Sideprojects”, whose purpose is to inform people of things you learned in history or even from (usually older) books, are not true, and how we found out. I watched one on the Roman Empire – some of it I knew, but some thinks, especially DNA things were new even to me – and Latin was my major in college, and Roman History was a requirement. I don’t know that I’d call the false stories lies, actually, because I believe a falsehood requires intent to deceive in order to be a lie. But if I “know” something which is false, I do like to learn the truth. Most of the videos, as far as could see, not looking at the whole library, run in the neighborhood of 20-30 minutes, though some are longer – and while many are history based, some correct scientific “knowledge.”

I didn’t want to put this on Sunday. Wajeeh is a Saudi Arabian political analyst who now lives in Minneapolis and is a co-host for Malcolm Nance, along with Jacob Kaarsbo, who is Danish. I’m pretty sure all three pilots who were shot down have been rescued now, thankfully. But that does not mean that he risk is over. We have more pilots, and more planes, and neither the Emperor nor Kegsbreath appears to care much. See also this.

Heather Cox Richardson writes a short history of the origin of NATO, for its anniversary. I just hope this is not also its epitaph.

From Bowers News Media. Besides demonstrating how despicable Republicans can be (even without the Mango Moron as a model, but particularly with), it’s an extremely good argument for not having “jungle primaries.” I’ve been following the California Governor’s race since Katie Porter announced for it, and I’ve been nervous for most of that time – but I haven’t been terrified until now.

From The Seneca Project. Obviously this was made to recruit people to No Kings III, so all the signs shown will have been from II or I. But many people believe that viewing this type of presentation can help build morale anyway – and besides, there is another No kings scheduled for May Day. (And the song will never go out of fashion.)

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