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.
Yesterday, I learned Ben Meiselas (and of course his family) had to be evacuated from Los Angeles. He posted a roughly 16 minute rant about how right wing lies interfere with the capability of first responders to respond – in addition to all the other results of lies, none of which are good. Barbara Lee sent an email that she is opofficially running to be mayor of Oakland, CA. Robyn Pennachia at Wonkette ranted about a white man who claimed that on 1983 he could not get a job as a firefighter because he was white. She debunks that, but doesn’t address the fact that when he graduated at 19 his GPS was 1.7. Even on a 4-iscale, that is underwater (below “C” level.) But also, when I graduated from high school at 16 California high schools were using a 5 point scale, on which a 1.7 would be under a D average. I wouldn’t have hired him for anything, ever. Also, it was cold in my house. Overnight, high winds managed to blow open my back door. Even without wind I have to stuff something between the door and the jamb to keep it shut, and the wind had blown away the felt I had in there. I had to use some cardboard instead, and it’s thick enough to leave a crack between the door and the jamb, but it has warmed up some anyway.
Also yesterday, the Supreme Court denied Trump** a stay of his sentencing. As you read this, he will likely have been sentenced already.
The F* News complains (with reason) that the MSM is not giving us the background information and implications of Trump**’s greed to annex other nations (allied nations). So this article goes deeper into what his ideas could result in. Y’all are intelligent and could probably work it out, but this may at least save some time. And there are a few additional topics as well.
I’m reusing an older cartoon because it just fits with this Wonkette story. I have no Constitutional problem with people wanting to send their children to private schools (I do have a problem with how that affects our national security, but freedom of choice is also important.) Just not on my dime. If I have to pay for their children’s learning (and failurses therof), where’s my freedom? Where’s my choice?
Yesterday, I learned a lot of things I would prefer not to have happened (as, I’m sure, did you.) For one thing, the National Women’s Health Network is permanently shutting its doors. On the plus side, it looks as though my phone is working again. And one computer has internet access. But I need it on both. So, though I’m up to blogging again, this isn’t over. (and I had almost 300 emails in my inbox yesterday morning. I got it down to under 30, but I didn’t clear it. So today will also be busy.
I think Heather Cox Richardson is writing for reality skeptics in this post, because it sounds as though she didn’t know for absolute fact that Trump** was lying, and I’m sure she’s smarter than that These people who nightmared up (to coin a phrase) Project 2025 claim to be business people. But I have an MBA from George Washington University, and one absolutely basic principle I learned there was that if you were put in charge of a group you had no been directly promoted from, you should never institute any changes for AT LEAST SIX MONTHS. In this case that would be six months from the day you take office, not from the day you were nominated, nor from the day you were confirmed, nor from the inauguration – you need to be actively, physically in that division seeing what is actually happening for six months before changing a thing. Apparently no one ever taught these supposedly educated business people that. Or else they just think that since they are white men they must know better.
Well, this, from The Root, was definitely not on my Bongo card, and I’ll bet it wasn’t on yours either. But it certainly sounds like jolly good fun.
Yesterday, of course, was Hallowe’en. Without writing a novel, I need to provide the background that one of my backups when there’s a program on the radio i don’t like (or static, even worse) is “The Score” – a one hour each week program on film music which keeps a two-week archive on line. I went there today and listened to a program on scary movies rated G. The only one i found truly terrifying, and that really only because he featured its poster, was “The House with a Clock in the Wall” from 2018. Jack Black then just looks way, way too much like JD Vance now. And he was playing the good guy!
From ProPublica. Sure, this is Tennessee. But it’s also a preview of a Trump** second term anywhere and everywhere for anyone whom Tru,p** and his demons consider to be “the enemy within.” No one deserves this.
Sheesh! They are everywhere! Shasta County isn’t in the southern part of California – it’s about halfway between Sacramento and Oregon. The county seat even has a couple of universities. Stupid just is as stupid does.
Three million blind GOPs,”, See how they lie,”, They all ran after the people’s votes, tried to claim they were faked in totes, so much dumber than baby stoats, three million blind GOPs. Pardon me, I can get flaky when I’m mad.
Yesterday, having spent the week hearing about how Trump** wishes he had generals like the generals Hitler had, I think I should throw in my two cents. Hitler’s generals were not competent. This is proven by the fact that they attempted to assassinate him more than once, and failed every time. Trump** and his supporters conveniently forget that detail. Now, if he could have generals like Hitler’s generals only competent, I could live with that. Also, I did sleep in a chair, and even though I’m short on sleep as a result, my back is much, much better. I think I’ll keep doing that for a couple of weeks before trying to sleep in bed again – if as I suspect it is an arthritis flareup, those are supposed to last two to four weeks and then calm down. When my knee flared in 2018 I believe it was, it took the full four weeks, but it did calm down and has not flared since. If I can’t resolve it myself, I’ll seek medical help – but even two weeks should give me a better handle on whether to go to the sports injury center again or just to urgent care. Also, Robert Reich‘s Election Video of the Week gotposted.
I held this story from The 19th until the weekend because it is so different from anything you’d expect to see in the leadup to a presidential election (but appropriate for Hallowe’en. I suppose the story might anger some people – I’m thinking of anti-trans people who would be upset by a family who love each other this much – and I guess it could also make folks like you and me who respect every other human to be angry at how much they have suffered. But mostly I think it’s sad. I am not trying to pick on Missouri in general nor KC in particular (Tomorrow I’ll be singing KC’s praises). These are things which could happen just about anywhere, sadly.
You probably had no idea you were waiting for Talking Points Memo to publish this opinion piece (though not without facts to back it up) addressing bipartisanship, and the current pressure, especialy on Democrats, to be more bipartisan. But here it is.
