Yesterday, Adam Klasfeld interviewed my man Phil Weiser – my state Attorney General (who is running for Governor) on the 64 or 65 cases in which our state is fighting the Regime, and also on the resentencing of Tina Peters – why it was decided to do it, and why it’s unlikely to get her out of prison any sooner than the old sentence. It took about 28 minutes. I’m not asking anyone to listen (or read the transcript), but am sharing the link in case anyone wants to do so.
From Common Dreams. Humans have survived so many natural an man-made disasters over the billions of years since the earth was made that I expect we will survive this too. But – we may end up wishing we hadn’t.
Archived from The New Yorker. Quick quote: “In the past several years, the phrase ‘alpha male’ has seeped into the language around us, like the contamination of an underground aquifer.” These techniques are basically brainwashing. The techniques can be used for good – but rarely are.
Robert Reich – “Memories of Vietnam” – so I am not the only one experiencing those memories.
Yesterday, SCROTUS took oral arguments on a Birthright Citizenship case. Adam Klasfeld was there, and spoke afterwards with Jen Rubin for The Contrarian, and the head of LULAC was also there. Then Klasfeld spoke with Andrea Flores, who works with immigration issues usually not involving Latinx, but often involving TPS. The Supreme Misleader was present in court (the first time in history a sitting US President has been present at SCROTUS during oral arguments), apparently just to intimidate by his presence. It doesn’t appear to have worked, although we won’t know for certain until the opinions come down. (Incidentally, I am not the only person who has noticed that Neil Gorsuch has a soft spot for Indigenous Americans. (Klasfeld phrased it differently, though – he says Gorsuch is “all about Native Americans.”) Thomas surprised by making the point that it is important that the 14th Amendment addresses citizenship in the States as well as in the nation (we may want to amend the Amendment to specify territories as well.)
Archived from Forbes, shared with me by Carrie B. I figure if we want to humiliate him by pointing and laughing (which seems to be about the only thing those of us not in public office can do to really get under his skin), we need things to point and laugh at – and this one looks to me like a doozy. (I am not old enough to actually remember seeing a Duesenberg, but I have it on pretty good authority that that is what the word derives from.)
I see this from The Independent as another example of Kristi Noem’s taste in men – which is, to say the least – unusual.
Whether or not this from Talking Feds deserves a short take as opposed to just a mention, it’s getting a short take. If you can think of an emotion, other than anger, that can lead to change in one’s life or in the world, I’d be interested to hear it. (And yes, I realize it doesn’t always work alone.)
Yesterday, No Kings 3.0 brought out over 8 million participants within the US. This is closer to 3.5% than you might think. I looked up the adult population of the US this time along with the total population – because that historical 3.5% is supposed to be applied to the adult population – and that number is 8,925,000. This time around, there were expats – many of whom are still citizens and still vote – and vacationers holding rallies outside the US. Robert Hubbell has photos from Madrid (Spain), Geneva and Zürich (Switzerland), the British Virgin Islands, Rome (Italy), Uzes (France – today’s cartoon is a poster from that one – the featured image is from Brattleboro VT), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Milan and Camogli (Italy), Paris (France), and Barcelona (Spain). May 1 has been announced for No Kings 4.0 On the other hand, Malcolm Nance posted this – I thought it was important enough to put it in a comment yesterday – but there were already comments, so I’m repeating it here.
This is an extra because I know not everyone will want to follow this link – But my message is here. Last week, John Pavlovitz posted a series of videos, some numbered, some not, under the umbrella title of Love Loathe Your Neighbor, addressing how and why Christian denominations (particularly evangelical ones) have slid into the mix of patriotism, misogyny and general fascism the are now mostly mired in. One of his guests (Diana Butler Ross) brought up the history of The Great Awakenings. She has her doctorate in American Religious History, and looks at the Awakenings through the lens, not of organized anything, but through the lens of real moral progress. And she noted that each Great Awakening has been followed by pushback which is at least morally, and often also physically, violent. You won’t find her descriptions in the history books or encyclopedias – but she made much more sense to me: 1. Abolitionism (pushback – Civil War) 2. Reconstruction (pushback – Jum Crow and lynching) 3. Civil Rights movement starting with Brown v. Board (pushback – School vouchers push, gated communities) 4. The Obama Presidency (pushback – MAGA, “Christian Nationalism”). The last two occurred in my lifetime – and both times I thought we had made real progress. And I was not alone. Decent people in general did not see the pushback coming. I’m fairly certain I won’t be around for the next one – but those who are – please, at least try to anticipate the pushback and prepare for it.
Many years ago – centuries really – there was a phrase: “noblesse oblige.” In English – if you are born into a titled family, you have a moral obligation to behave in an honorable way at all times. I am not going to claim it was always observed in real life, because it actually never even came close as a general rule – though dome did respect it. We don’t have titles in the US any more than we have kings. But here richesse has been substituted for noblesse, and “richesse oblige” might be something that should be introduced into American English, forcefully if necessary.
Obviously, no one ever told the Mango Moron about the grains of wheat on the chessboard. (If you put one grain of wheat on the first square, 2 on the second, four on the next, and so on, you will not only run out of room on the squares pretty fast, but you won’t be able to finish, because the total will have come to the point where there are not that many grains of wheat in the world. The courtier [IIRC it was a vizier] who allegedly asked the king for that chessboard as a reward for some striking deed thought he was being cute but ended up losing his head.)
Yeah, I know, two by Reich. But all my other deep thinkers were either too tired to post anything, or just too tired to do it in writing, so did videos instead. And this is a really good purpose statement – and the other is or will be pivotal in establishing a government that works – for us.
Yesterday, Malcolm Nance speculated (and this is pure speculation, but it is history based – Malcolm’s life is packed with history) that, since the US tends to attack between midnight and 4 am local time, and because Friday is the Muslim Sabbath, that the strike which will put boots on the ground is likely to land in that (local) time frame this Saturday because our “leaders” will think no one is awake or active. But those like Hegseth and possibly Miller are ignorant of jihad tradition, in which Muslims literally anywhere in the world can be assigned to respond – in which case the surprise would be on us. In war, as in any other endeavor, ignorance is a sure way to get into trouble (and not good trouble.) And the treasured and cultivated ignorance of white supremacists may well be the most dangerous kind of all. I can almost guarantee that, if this is not the time that gets proven, nevertheless, that time is coming. Also, JoJo from Jerz (with “Brooklyn Dad Defiant”) started this weekly conversation by showing maps of No Kings events confirmed for Saturday – including events in Mexico and Europe. It will take less than 3 minutes of your time to see those maps here. And finally, the US Treasury declared that the United States is currently insolvent. Multiple sources, including Fortune magazine and Yahoo news.
On Tuesday, Heather Cox Richardson had a conversation with Timothy Snyder, mostly about his latest book, “On Freedom.” Something went wrong (Facebook failed), so Heather posted the video which gets made on to You Tube. It is 41 minutes exactly (at full speed), which is a lot less time than it would take you to read the book or listen to the Audiobook, though both are good ideas.) They did allude to his earlier book, “On Tyranny,” near the end, and I would guess that the two books would make good companions.
From Talking Feds. Not, certainly, the least bit surprising. But what it lacks in surprise, it more than makes up for in disgust.
As obvious as this from Robert Reich – and he is far from the only one, including people you would never expect to get financial advice from – one still isn’t going to see it unless one is looking at it. Let’s take a look.
Yesterday, I spent much of my day on Substack video, or YouTube, or, in the case of the F*ing News, just audio. Not because i intended to, but because there was so much, and so much of it seemed important. I left out the one about Mike Flynn getting awarded a large settlement with our money, and the one which did a deepish dive into our tax laws, and although I still think Malcolm’s is the best, there’s enough war news out there that I don’t need to report every day (Malcolm had the news already that Robert Reich’s report reports.)
This from the Root is, I believe, important. But it will become even more important if and/or when we achieve a Congressional majority again we will seriously need to put up – or we will be back to being shut up.
Robert Reich points to a report from the Wall Street Journal – which, as he also points out is “hardly an outlet of left-wing propaganda.” You can read – or listen to , your choice – the full article at the link Bob provides (unless they limit free stories and you have already used yours. If that happens, you – or I if I know it is needed – can archive it.) I don’t think these occurrences were predicted quite as loudly as some others, but they were predicted.
If you have about 42 spare minutes, and want to get the taste of the Evil Emperor’s disgusting Xeet about Robert Mueller out of your mouth and mind, this conversation between Joyce Vance and Andrew Weissman should help. Caution: it may also make the loss even more painful.
Yesterday, I saw Virgil, we played cribbage, he loved my latest sweater. I now do not have to worry about getting home by sunset – but I do need to watch the time of sunrise. I drive south to see him, and, although the sun rises in the east, at this time of the year where I live, the sun is always toward the south (I’m guessing that where Lona lives, it always tends toward the north.) This makes it shine right into my eyes if it is too low. I was lucky yesterday in that it was just enough overcast to spare me until it got high enough to be above my windows. And, again, at this time of year, that will only get better up to the summer solstice. I had not heard from Nameless on my day off question, and I hasn’t heard from him here or in email since the 15, do I sent an email, and I’ happy to say he is fine – just computer issues. Well, we all know how that is! He mentioned he had commented Saturday, but I couldn’t see it, and it was not in moderation – I checked. Anyway, I am taking tomorrow off, so don’t panic if there is no Open Thread. I’ll be back on Wednesday.
This column is mostly about the SCROTUS calendar – which is normal during their argument-hearing season. Right at the top is the issue of accepting or not accepting ballots postmarked before (or possibly on) Election Day if they are received late. When Colorado went to all mail voting, it decided we would not accept them late (at least not from people inside the state – I don’t know about overseas and/or military since I was well out of the military when we went to all mail.) But for that reason, they send out the ballots very early so we have plenty of time to research. And also plenty of drop boxes in case we are procrastinators. And they print the must-be-received warning on virtually all election materials. As far as I know, it hasn’t been an issue here.
I moved (from California) to Colorado in 1976, to Alamosa, and then in 1991 to Colorado Springs, And the Air Force Academy was already doing this unconstitutional crap. But – in 1977 James Dobson founded Focus on the Family in Southern California. In 1991, FOTF moved to Colorado Springs. They were in a building downtown until they built their campus around 1998. If they were the only such organization I wouldn’t bother to bring it up. But in the 90’s (I think actually starting in the 80’s) fundamentalist “Christian” organizations were coming to Colorado Springs like flies to – well, you know. And that presence had an effect on the Air Force Academy. An Unconstitutional effect. Obviously I don’t know what the Academy was like before 1991. But as far as I can remember, it has been subject to Christian Nationalist pressure. I don’t think West Point and Annapolis have been affected – certainly not to the extent the Air Force Academy has – and I know darned well Quantico wasn’t when I was in OCS/OBT. I didn’t meet a whole bunch of Air Force officers when I was in, but the ones I met were not Christian Nationalists. I don’t doubt there were Christian Nationalists in the service when I was, but I was fortunate not to meet any – and not just including the chaplains – but especially not the chaplains. None of that is to say that the Air Force Academy doesn’t need a massive turning over of tables with whips, because it does. It has for a long time. Nor do I think it isn’t a danger, because it is. But I do think it’s still an anomaly – for now.
I’ve spent so much time following the Iran war, I didn’t even know there was a blockade of Cuba. Color me embarrassed. You can’t make this stuff up.
Robert Reich did not make this – but he endorsed it by putting it on his personal YouTube channel
Yesterday, Malcolm Nance‘s daily update reported that all eight of the US military whom we have lost were reservists. Not one of them was on active duty before the war – all eight were called up for the war. This report – the one for day 16 – has a lot of strategic speculation (you might say “what ifs”) which appear to me to be well worth knowing – some are speculative, some deduced. And this video, at just over 40 minutes, is shorter than most of them. So I’m sharing the link. Also, Trinette was by – for once I was ready. Always great to see her.
Common Dreams: Well, this is not good. IANAL – but I think I heard somewhere that a lower court decision does not become a legal precedent until it is upheld by a Circuit appellate court. On the other hand, who knows what the Fifth Circuit will do – this is Texas, after all.
The new cartoon doesn’t really inspire me – but the captions for the old one impressed me. I do think the top prize should have gone to the last runner-up – but see what you think.
This from The Hill in not all that interesting, but it was probably the slowest news day I’ve ever seen (I hope it wasn’t just the calm before the storm!). So slow I’m going to throw in a story about a T-shirt.
This link is to a Video with JoJo from Jerz and Harry Dunn. Harry is wearing a Tshirt which you can’t see all of – within the first 30 seconds he pulls it up enough that you can see more of it, but there is still at least one “book” that you can’t. I managed to collect the “titles” of all but the very bottom “book”(s) so here they are:
DREAM LIKE MARTIN
FIGHT LIKE MALCOLM
LEAD LIKE HARRIET
THINK LIKE GARVEY
BUILD LIKE MADAM CJ
CHALLENGE LIKE ROSA
WRITE LIKE MAYA
EDUCATE LIKE W.E.B.
If I ever wore Tshirts, I’d want one – but I wear long sleeves when it’s cold and sleeveless when it’s hot – and there doesn’t seem to be any in-between for me.
Yesterday, it snowed here. It was predicted – for about a fifth of an inch – it looks more like a half inch to me – but that’s just looking out the window. I didn’t measure it. The video today is long – about 48 minutes – but the subject is so huge, I don’t know how it could have been much shorter I won’t get upset if people choose to skip it. Just keep the title in the back of your mind.
This is a supplement to the daily “Chalet of the Two Spies” video update on the war in Iran. It’s no surprise to me. I don’t personally remember World War II (I was born before VJ Day, but only by days), but I remember Korea, and Vietnam, and Desert Storm, and I think it’s safe to say that all wars are subject to Hofstadter’s law (“Everything takes longer than you think it will, even after you have considered Hofstadter’s law.”) Doug and I went to the same high school – I graduated just before he moved to town when his father became a professor at Stanford. But I did meet him at the high school bridge club, which I kept attending because I was not good enough at it to play by tournament rules, which the university club required. (I never got terribly good.) I only have something like 3/8 of a master point.)
I can’t believe that there is anyone who reads here who has not noticed this happening. But Robert Reich says “All this has happened so suddenly that most Americans still haven’t noticed,” and he’s sadly probably correct, which means there are a lot of people who need to learn this. Please share it if you can.
Oh, good grief. WTF next? Will Ukraine ever catch a break? Certainly not from our country in the clutches of the Mango Monster. Ukrinform is on Substack, so I subscribed to it. One more new email every day, but we’ll never learn stuff like this from American media.
BREAKING: Sheldon Whitehouse Details Report On Alleged Ties Between Epstein, Trump, And Russia
