yes, let’s take it one day at a time…just get through the day…don’t worry about tomorrow and don’t worry about the yesterday…hard to do, but worth the effort…the mantra of AA…but works for all of us…I watched All The King’s Men…a film from 1949 based on the novel of the same name written by Robert Penn Warren published in 1946…he won the Pulitzer prize…and the film won the Best Movie Oscar…from Wikipedia: “All the King’s Men is a 1949 American drama written, produced, and directed by Robert Rossen. It is based on the Robert Penn Warren‘s 1946 novel of the same name. The film stars Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, Mercedes McCambridge, and Joanne Dru. The plot focuses on the rise and fall of the ambitious and ruthless politician Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford) in the American South. Though a fictional character, Stark strongly resembles Louisiana governor Huey Long.

The film won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Broderick Crawford), and Best Supporting Actress (Mercedes McCambridge). In 2001, All the King’s Men was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.”…from Wikipedia: “Huey Pierce Long Jr. (August 30, 1893 – September 10, 1935), nicknamed “The Kingfish“, was an American politician who served as the 40th governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and as a United States senator from 1932 until his assassination in 1935. He was a left-wing populist member of the Democratic Party and rose to national prominence during the Great Depression for his vocal criticism of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal, which Long deemed insufficiently radical. As the political leader of Louisiana, he commanded wide networks of supporters and often took forceful action. A controversial figure, Long is celebrated as a populist champion of the poor or, conversely, denounced as a fascistic demagogue.

Long was born in the impoverished north of Louisiana in 1893. After working as a traveling salesman and briefly attending three colleges, he was admitted to the bar in Louisiana. Following a short career as an attorney, in which he frequently represented poor plaintiffs, Long was elected to the Louisiana Public Service Commission. As Commissioner, he prosecuted large corporations such as Standard Oil, a lifelong target of his rhetorical attacks. After Long successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, Chief Justice and former president William Howard Taft praised him as “the most brilliant lawyer who ever practiced before the United States Supreme Court”.

After a failed 1924 campaign, Long appealed to the sharp economic and class divisions in Louisiana to win the 1928 gubernatorial election. Once in office, he expanded social programs, organized massive public works projects, such as a modern highway system and the tallest capitol building in the nation, and proposed a cotton holiday. Through political maneuvering, Long became the political boss of Louisiana. He was impeached in 1929 for abuses of power, but the proceedings collapsed in the State Senate. His opponents argued his policies and methods were unconstitutional and authoritarian. At its climax, political opposition organized a minor insurrection.

Long was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1930 but did not assume his seat until 1932. He established himself as an isolationist, arguing that Standard Oil and Wall Street orchestrated American foreign policy. He was instrumental in securing Roosevelt’s 1932 nomination but split with him in 1933, becoming a prominent critic of his New Deal. As an alternative, he proposed the Share Our Wealth plan in 1934. To stimulate the economy, he advocated massive federal spending, a wealth tax, and wealth redistribution. These proposals drew widespread support, with millions joining local Share Our Wealth clubs. Poised for a 1936 presidential bid, Long was assassinated by Carl Weiss inside the Louisiana State Capitol in 1935. His assassin was immediately shot and killed by Long’s bodyguards. Although Long’s movement faded, Roosevelt adopted many of his proposals in the Second New Deal, and Louisiana elections would be organized along anti- or pro-Long factions until the 1960s. He left behind a political dynasty that included his wife, Senator Rose McConnell Long; his son, Senator Russell B. Long; and his brother, Governor Earl Long, among others.”…the Willie Stark character from the novel: “

The central character of Willie Stark (often simply referred to as “the Boss”) undergoes a radical transformation from an idealistic lawyer and weak gubernatorial candidate into a charismatic and extraordinarily powerful governor. In achieving this office Stark comes to embrace various forms of corruption and builds an enormous political machine based on patronage and intimidation. His approach to politics earns him many enemies in the state legislature, but does not detract from his popular appeal among many of his constituents, who respond with enthusiasm to his fiery populist manner.

Stark’s character was inspired by the life of Huey P. Long, former governor of Louisiana and that state’s U.S. senator in the mid-1930s. Huey Long was at the zenith of his career when he was assassinated in 1935; just a year earlier, Robert Penn Warren had begun teaching at Louisiana State University.^[12] Stark, like Long, is shot to death in the state capitol building by a physician. The title of the book possibly came from Long’s motto, “Every Man a King” or his nickname, Kingfish. In his introduction to the Modern Library edition, Warren denied that the book should be read as either praise for Huey Long or praise for his assassination.”…the title of the novel and subsequently the film comes from the nursery rhyme “Humpty Dumpty.”…

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men

Couldn’t put Humpty together again.”…a novel and film for our time…trump has been described as a “populist”… and has also been described as trumpty dumpty…who had a great fall…but is back on the rise…he resembles the character of Willie Stark…who learned to play the game of politics…trump had no idea of his power as president…and thank The Force for that…our twice impeached, 4 time indicted president…who will destroy our democracy if we let him back into the White House…novelist Robert Penn Warren claimed that All the King’s Men was “never intended to be a book about politics.”…”As of 2022, it is the last Best Picture winner to be based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.”

I also watched Crazy Heart…the film that gave Jeff Bridges the Best Actor Oscar…the down on his luck, alcoholic country singer…who saved himself by becoming sober…one day at a time…from Wikipedia: “Crazy Heart is a 2009 American drama film, written and directed by Scott Cooper in his feature directorial debut. Based on the 1987 novel^[3] of the same name by Thomas Cobb, the story was inspired by country singer Hank Thompson.  Starring Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrell, and Robert Duvall, the film follows an alcoholic country singer and songwriter who tries to turn his life around after beginning a relationship with a young journalist. Bridges, Farrell, and Duvall also sing in the film.

Filming took place in 2008 throughout New Mexico, as well as Houston and Los Angeles. Original music for the film was composed by T Bone Burnett, Stephen Bruton, and Ryan Bingham. It was dedicated to Bruton, who died the same year the film was made. The film was produced by Country Music Television and was originally acquired by Paramount Vantage for a direct-to-video release, but was later purchased by Fox Searchlight Pictures for theatrical release.

Crazy Heart opened in theaters in the United States on December 16, 2009. From its $7 million budget, it amassed domestic earnings of $39.5 million plus $7.9 international for a worldwide total of $47.4 million. The film was met with critical acclaim and received three nominations at the 82nd Academy Awards, winning Best Actor for Bridges and Best Original Song for “The Weary Kind“, written by Bingham and Burnett.

part of the plot: “Blake briefly loses Buddy at a shopping mall while drinking at a bar, Jean breaks up with him. Blake resolves to quit drinking. After going through a treatment program at a rehab center, and with support from an Alcoholics Anonymous group and old friend Wayne, Blake finally manages to get sober. Having cleaned up his act, he tries to reunite with Jean but, despite congratulating him on getting sober, she tells him that the best thing he can do for her and Buddy is to leave them alone.”…Bad Blake turns his life around after hitting bottom having lost the son of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s character Jean Craddock…yes! one day at a time…one day at a time…

Sofia Coppola’s films are hit or miss…and her directing is much better than her acting…she single-handedly ruined The Godfather, Part III…she’s had good and bad films and probably her best was Lost in Translation…she won an Oscar for the Best Original Screenplay…and she was sufficiently a teenager in Peggy Sue Got Married as Peggy Sue’s younger sister…what is beyond me is the positive reviews Sofia Coppola’s film Priscilla garnered…it is dreadfully boring…the same Priscilla angst over and over again…Caliee Spaeny who is 25 years old was believable as a 14 year old…and really, how could her parents let their 14 year old be wooed by Elvis…I guess I would too…celebrity is as celebrity does…Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis and Coppola’s Elvis are two different animals… Coppola’s is a bully and Luhrmann’s is the bullied…?…from Wikipedia: “Priscilla is a 2023 American biographical drama film written, directed, and produced by Sofia Coppola, based on the 1985 memoir Elvis and Me by Priscilla Presley (who serves as an executive producer) and Sandra Harmon. It follows the life of Presley (played by Cailee Spaeny) and her relationship with Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi)”…a relationship which was pretty repetitive by Sofia’s standards or maybe by Priscilla’s standards since she wrote the book and was the executive producer giving her okay with the entire film…Elissa and I both thought it was a waste of time and money…and a few of the people we questioned as we left the the small theater at the Ambler…boring was the main word used by all…Pam dropped off a few things for me for my trip to California…I asked her if she was doing anything this evening…she said no by design…I asked her if she wanted to go see Priscilla…she answered
“what’s that?”…my daughter is up on pop culture…not up on Priscilla however…and too make matters even worst…we were rushed for dinner…we tried to go to the Chestnut Hill Farmer’s Market…we couldn’t find a place to park…Elissa went in to see if the restaurant Elissa wanted to get dinner from was open for business…I did eventually get a parking space…and the restaurant was closing, cleaning up…we ended up at McDonald’s… believe it or not…it was dreadful…and I decided the meal was a tad more bad than the movie…good and bad?… more bad than good…for sure…but all was not lost…I came home to watch one of my favorite Laurel and Hardy films…The March of the Wooden Soldiers…also known as Babes In Toyland…Stannie Dum and Ollie Dee live in “the old woman’s shoe…and work for the toy workshop…Stannie Dum takes the order from Santa but get it wrong…instead of 600 1-foot soldiers…they make 100 6 foot ones…and get fired…before they could ask for an advance on their salary to pay the mortgage on the shoe…they and the old woman, Bo Peep’s Mom, will be evicted by the villainous Silas Barnaby…who eventually sics the Bogey Men on Toyland…which is saved by the 100 6 foot soldiers…I love this movie…all the characters from nursery rhymes…including the three little pigs, Peter Piper, Mother Goose, little Miss Muffet, Little Jack Horner and of course, the cat and fiddle…love this Laurel and Hardy…just in time for Christmas before Thanksgiving…I also watch An Affair to Remember…Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr…always so romantic…and warms your heart…as to Priscilla…not romantic…wait to see it on HBO, it will be there shortly…you can make up your mind…good? or bad?…you be the judge…

found a penny and a quarter…

“The bread-enclosed convenience food known as the “sandwich” is attributed to John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792), a British statesman and notorious profligate ( recklessly extravagant or wasteful in the use of resources ) and gambler, who is said to be the inventor of this type of food so that he would not have to leave his gaming table to take supper…A Noble Beginning: In 1762, John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich®, invented the meal that changed dining forever. As the story goes, he was playing cards and did not want to leave the gaming table to eat. He asked for a serving of roast beef to be placed between two slices of bread so he could eat with his hands.”…yes, as the story goes…we have the sandwich…and Susan invented the Sandwich Club…our first meating was at Susan’s this summer…with the BLAT as our kickoff…

but first, something to worry about…as if we weren’t already…from The Economist: “Donald Trump poses the biggest danger to the world in 2024: What his victory in America’s election would mean: As shadow looms over the world. In this week’s edition we publish The World Ahead 2024, our 38th annual predictive guide to the coming year, and in all that time no single person has ever eclipsed our analysis as much as Donald Trump eclipses 2024. That a Trump victory next November is a coin-toss probability is beginning to sink in.

Mr Trump dominates the Republican primary. Several polls have him ahead of President Joe Biden in swing states. In one, for the New York Times, 59% of voters trusted him on the economy, compared with just 37% for Mr Biden. In the primaries, at least, civil lawsuits and criminal prosecutions have only strengthened Mr Trump. For decades Democrats have relied on support among black and Hispanic voters, but a meaningful number are abandoning the party. In the next 12 months a stumble by either candidate could determine the race—and thus upend the world.

This is a perilous moment for a man like Mr Trump to be back knocking on the door of the Oval Office. Democracy is in trouble at home. Mr Trump’s claim to have won the election in 2020 was more than a lie: it was a cynical bet that he could manipulate and intimidate his compatriots, and it has worked. America also faces growing hostility abroad, challenged by Russia in Ukraine, by Iran and its allied militias in the Middle East and by China across the Taiwan Strait and in the South China Sea. Those three countries loosely co-ordinate their efforts and share a vision of a new international order in which might is right and autocrats are secure.

Because maga Republicans have been planning his second term for months, Trump 2 would be more organised than Trump 1. True believers would occupy the most important positions. Mr Trump would be unbound in his pursuit of retribution, economic protectionism and theatrically extravagant deals. No wonder the prospect of a second Trump term fills the world’s parliaments and boardrooms with despair. But despair is not a plan. It is past time to impose order on anxiety.

The greatest threat Mr Trump poses is to his own country. Having won back power because of his election-denial in 2020, he would surely be affirmed in his gut feeling that only losers allow themselves to be bound by the norms, customs and self-sacrifice that make a nation. In pursuing his enemies, Mr Trump will wage war on any institution that stands in his way, including the courts and the Department of Justice.

Yet a Trump victory next year would also have a profound effect abroad. China and its friends would rejoice over the evidence that American democracy is dysfunctional. If Mr Trump trampled due process and civil rights in the United States, his diplomats could not proclaim them abroad. The global south would be confirmed in its suspicion that American appeals to do what is right are really just an exercise in hypocrisy. America would become just another big power.

Mr Trump’s protectionist instincts would be unbound, too. In his first term the economy thrived despite his China tariffs. His plans for a second term would be more damaging. He and his lieutenants are contemplating a universal 10% levy on imports, more than three times the level today. Even if the Senate reins him in, protectionism justified by an expansive view of national security would increase prices for Americans. Mr Trump also fired up the economy in his first term by cutting taxes and handing out covid-19 payments. This time, America is running budget deficits on a scale only seen in war and the cost of servicing debts is higher. Tax cuts would feed inflation, not growth.

Abroad, Mr Trump’s first term was better than expected. His administration provided weapons to Ukraine, pursued a peace deal between Israel, the uae and Bahrain, and scared European countries into raising their defence spending. America’s policy towards China became more hawkish. If you squint, another transactional presidency could bring some benefits. Mr Trump’s indifference to human rights might make the Saudi government more biddable once the Gaza war is over, and strengthen relations with Narendra Modi’s government in India.

But a second term would be different, because the world has changed. There is nothing wrong in countries being transactional: they are bound to put their own interests first. However, Mr Trump’s lust for a deal and his sense of America’s interests are unconstrained by reality and unanchored by values.

Mr Trump judges that for America to spend blood and treasure in Europe is a bad deal. He has therefore threatened to end the Ukraine war in a day and to wreck nato, perhaps by reneging on America’s commitment to treat an attack on one country as an attack on all. In the Middle East Mr Trump is likely to back Israel without reserve, however much that stirs up conflict in the region. In Asia he may be open to doing a deal with China’s president, Xi Jinping, to abandon Taiwan because he cannot see why America would go to war with a nuclear-armed superpower to benefit a tiny island.

But knowing that America would abandon Europe, Mr Putin would have an incentive to fight on in Ukraine and to pick off former Soviet countries such as Moldova or the Baltic states. Without American pressure, Israel is unlikely to generate an internal consensus for peace talks with the Palestinians. Calculating that Mr Trump does not stand by his allies, Japan and South Korea could acquire nuclear weapons. By asserting that America has no global responsibility to help deal with climate change, Mr Trump would crush efforts to slow it. And he is surrounded by China hawks who believe confrontation is the only way to preserve American dominance. Caught between a dealmaking president and his warmongering officials, China could easily miscalculate over Taiwan, with catastrophic consequences.

The election that matters

A second Trump term would be a watershed in a way the first was not. Victory would confirm his most destructive instincts about power. His plans would encounter less resistance. And because America will have voted him in while knowing the worst, its moral authority would decline. The election will be decided by tens of thousands of voters in just a handful of states. In 2024 the fate of the world will depend on their ballots. ■”…this article was originally titled “Next year’s great danger”…wake up America…we are on the brink of destruction… our democracy is on the brink of dissolution…gone forever… place this into your browser https://youtu.be/t4tZUpbnaKU

tonight’s Sandwich Club was originally supposed to be at Elissa’s…but she was overwhelmed by feeling lousy last week that she bowed out…Pam picked up the mantel…it was to be at her house…taking over for Elissa…she asked me to make cucumbers and sour cream…and then later Julia asked me a question which I will always answer yes…”do I have potato chips?”…Susan and Mark were coming but then Mark wasn’t feeling well so Susan was coming by herself…then Mark had a fever and Susan felt she shouldn’t come…she was supposed to bring the potato chips…Julia and Henry picked Elissa up…and the Sandwich Club met at 7:00…with built your own corned beef specials and turkey specials…YUM!…Maddy made Cosmos…and I had a taste before I had my coconut vodka…and had one of each of the specials…I brought Herr’s and Dippsy Doodles…I came home to watch a little MSNBC and hear about the Economist article…and as usual fell asleep on the sofa…wrote this blog…and watched the end of Green Book…the Oscar winning Best Picture from 2018…from Wikipedia: “Green Book is a 2018 American biographical comedy-drama film directed by Peter Farrelly. Starring Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali, the film is inspired by the true story of a 1962 tour of the Deep South by African American pianist Don Shirley and Italian American bouncer and later actor Frank “Tony Lip” Vallelonga, who served as Shirley’s driver and bodyguard. Written by Farrelly alongside Lip’s son Nick Vallelonga and Brian Hayes Currie, the film is based on interviews with Lip and Shirley, as well as letters Lip wrote to his wife.^[5] It is named after The Negro Motorist Green Book, a guide book for African American travelers founded by Victor Hugo Green in 1936 and published until 1966.

Green Book had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2018, where it won the People’s Choice Award. It was then theatrically released in the United States on November 16, 2018, by Universal Pictures, and grossed $321 million worldwide. The film received positive reviews from critics, with praise for the performances of Mortensen and Ali, although it also drew some criticism of its depiction of both race and Shirley.

Green Book received numerous awards and nominations. It won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor (for Ali). It also won the Producers Guild of America Award for Best Theatrical Motion Picture, the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, and the National Board of Review award for the best film of 2018, and was chosen as one of the top 10 films of the year by the American Film Institute. Ali also won the Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, and BAFTA Awards for Best Supporting Actor.”…as an aside…Mahershala Ali graduated from my Alma Mater, St. Mary’s College in Moraga, California…he’s won two Supporting Oscars, one for Moonlight ( 2016 ) and for Green Book ( 2018 )…this afternoon I watched Hidden Figures in which Ali also starred…you remember Hidden Figures, right?…from Wikipdia: “Hidden Figures is a 2016 American biographical drama film directed by Theodore Melfi and written by Melfi and Allison Schroeder. It is loosely based on the 2016 non-fiction book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly about three female African-American mathematicians: Katherine Goble Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe), who worked at NASA during the Space Race. Other stars include Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Jim Parsons, Mahershala Ali, Aldis Hodge, and Glen Powell.”…good movie…good afternoon while I made the cucumbers and sour cream for Sandwich Club…our second…YUM!

found a quarter…

Thanks Julia for alerting me that my blog didn’t post…XXOO

the Ethics Committee ( bipartisan committee ), after a 9 month investigation concludes “George Santos cannot be trusted”…to say the least, a damning ethics probe…Santos announced he would not seek re-election but called the report “biased”… gee, what a surprise!…there’s “substantial evidence” that Santos used campaign funds for his personal use for things like money for gambling, purchases at Ferragamo, travel and hotel stays and hilariously for Botox…a fraud but looking good…Ricardo Montalbán would say “you look marvelous”…perhaps…Santos continued “It is a disgusting politicized smear that shows the depths of how low our federal government has sunk. Everyone who participated in this grave miscarriage of Justice should all be ashamed of themselves. I will however NOT be seeking re-election for a second term in 2024 as my family deserves better than to be under the gun from the press all the time.”…there’s a good chance Santos could be expelled from Congress ( a vote recently failed ) as soon as the Tuesday after Thanksgiving when Congress is back in session…I’d like to know if we can get the money we paid him as salary…to the tune of $174,000…I want that back…from The Advocate by Neal Broverman: “Most freshmen congress members earn $174,000 a year, according to Indeed.com. Benefits also include health insurance, a “family death gratuity” in case they expire, a pension (if they serve in office five years or longer), and “annual allowances that cover the personal expenses of doing their job. This includes expenses for their office, travel, goods and services. The allowance provides additional funds added to the base salary for the use of job-related purchases and costs.””…

from The Bulwark by Tim Miller: “Estoy alarmado: Univision Goes in With Trump:

1. No Way, Jorge

For what feels like my entire adult life Jorge Ramos has been the face of Spanish-language TV journalism in America. Renowned for his tough interview style and vast Univision audience. Ramos sat down with George H.W and George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama while they were in office. But Trump never gave him the chance. During a 2015 press conference Ramos tried to repeatedly press the candidate on his immigration policies. Trump shot back derisively “Go back to Univision” and had his security escort the reporter out. 

For the rest of Trump’s term, Univision offered a highly critical perspective of his presidency (for good reason!) and in 2020 Trump bookended the hostile relationship, calling the network a “leftist propaganda machine.”

That was then. 

Now Univision is under new ownership and there are concerns that as we head into 2024 the new suits have something a little different in mind: MAGAvision.”…apparently, Jared is friendly with the new suits as Tim Miller calls them…has dinner with them…and even though Jared and Ivanka “don’t have anything to do with trump’s third bid for the presidency”, Jared brokered a trump interview…Jorge Ramos was not the interviewer, someone more trump friendly gave trump soft questions…and they didn’t run Biden campaign ads, even though they were paid for…from Newsweek by Kate Plummer: “Univision’s shifting policy regarding Donald Trump should be “setting off alarms” for Joe Biden, a Hispanic business leader has said.

Speaking to Newsweek President and CEO of the United States Hispanic Business Council Javier Palomarez reacted to news that the former president and frontrunner in the Republican primaries hosted executives from the nation’s most influential Spanish-language network at Mar-a-Lago last week while the network interviewed him, per The Washington Post.

The publication reported that the company cancelled ads by the Biden campaign that had been scheduled to air during an interview with Trump. As per a new Univision policy, opposition ads are no longer allowed during single-candidate interviews, meaning that Trump ads would similarly not be allowed to run during a Biden interview.

Univision also cancelled a booking with Biden’s Hispanic Media Director Maca Casado in response to the Trump interview after it aired on the network’s late news broadcast, according to anonymous sources cited by the newspaper.

Palomarez and accused Biden of being “tone deaf” to the needs of the Hispanic community.

He said: “For the Democratic Party, which has proudly touted its stronghold among minority voters, Univision’s shift toward Trump should be setting off alarms.”

“It’s evident that Hispanic voters are in search of a political home, and painfully clear that they feel they have none,” he added, and said Biden is losing support from younger voters in swing states over concerns about topics like inflation, interest rates and the cost of living.

The ethnic group that was least supportive of Biden’s run in the 2020 presidential race was Latinos, with only 59 percent of Hispanics backing him over Trump, according to Pew Research Center data. In comparison, 90 percent of Black voters and 64 percent of Asian American voters cast their ballots for Biden.

“As a large and growing community that shows a willingness to vote based on beliefs rather than party lines, Hispanics will play a crucial role in deciding the next president,” Palomarez said. “Hispanics worry about all the same issues and challenges that all Americans are worried about. In that regard, we are no different.

“The Biden administration is tone deaf to the issues Hispanics care most about. Losing the focused support from Univision sets the tone of the most crucial race Biden faces—the race to deeply connect with Hispanic households and demonstrate a belief that Hispanics are indeed the electoral force of the future.”

A spokesperson from Univision told Newsweek: “Univision News had been pursuing an interview with Donald Trump since 2015, about eight years ago. This interview held significant importance for our audience, and we are delighted that Enrique Acevedo, one of our company’s most prominent award-winning journalists, with experience in both the U.S. and Mexico, had the opportunity to sit down one-on-one with Trump.

They added: “Univision remains committed to its longstanding mission of providing the Hispanic community the information it needs to make informed decisions. We understand the importance of the Hispanic community as the decisive electorate in the upcoming presidential election, and we know Univision is the number one platform to reach them. We pride ourselves on being a neutral platform that encourages broad and open debate.” ( Newsweek contacted representatives for Biden via email to comment on this story. )…doesn’t look good for Biden…and is alarming because of trump’s stance on immigration and migrants…which trump has said he would round them up, place them in “camps” awaiting deportation and use the military to do so…among other horrible things trump has told us what he would do…not to mention calling Mexicans rapists and criminals…

I went to see Anatomy of a Fall…it was the last day Amber would be showing this Palme d’Or winner at the Cannes Film Festival…I went this afternoon, it was a 3:00 showing…from Wikipedia: “Anatomy of a Fall (French: Anatomie d’une chute) is a 2023 French courtroom drama thriller film directed by Justine Triet from a screenplay co-written by Triet and Arthur Harari. It stars Sandra Hüller as a writer trying to prove her innocence in her husband’s death.

Anatomy of a Fall had its world premiere at the 76th Cannes Film Festival on 21 May 2023, where it won the Palme d’Or and the Palm Dog Award and competed for the Queer Palm. It was released theatrically in France by Le Pacte on 23 August 2023.

The film received acclaim from critics, who praised Triet and Hüller, and it has sold over one million admissions in France.”…did she or didn’t she kill her husband?…that is the question…it was in French and English with subtitles…a great story…I voted that she did not kill her husband, but there’s questions in my mind…I thoroughly enjoyed this film…great performances…as I walked out of the theater around 5:45, they were setting up for a film called Rabbi on the Block…part of the Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival…I was intrigued and since I was already there, I bought a ticket and went to get something to eat…I had an hour or so to do so…I went to the little pasta place called Sorrento Pasta + Provisions…I’ve been trying to eat there forever…but never able to get in…I could only sit outside, so I decided to stay…had a beet salad and pesto curly pasta, homemade, for dinner…I was able to move inside for the end of my meal…getting out of the cold was a good thing…I had my gloves on, well one of them… back at the theater in plenty of time…intrigued…a documentary film about a black rabbi who also happens to be a woman…in the side side of Chicago…Tamar Manasseh is her name…the film, a revelation!…from Ambler’s website: “For Tamar Manasseh, a Black Jew, rabbinical student, and the founder of Mothers/Men Against Senseless Killings (MASK) in the South Side of Chicago, Judaism is not about gender or the color of your skin. Throughout her life, her experiences with racism and misogyny have compelled her desire to bridge the gap between Black Jews and Ashkenazi Jews. In her journey to becoming an ordained rabbi, this outspoken leader enables the Jewish practice of tikkun olam (“repairing the world”) in an effort to create connection among individuals, open dialogues into what it is like to be a Jew in 21st century America, and lessen the marginalization of Black Jews in modern society. Whether she’s hosting Yom Kippur services on her street for non-Black Jews or addressing the topic of racism in intimate discussions with white Jews, Tamar is representative of a certain kind of Jewish activism that calls for a larger cognizance of race and gender in the Jewish world.

In his follow-up to his 2020 smash hit, They Ain’t Ready for Me, director Brad Rothschild has crafted a rousing documentary that stresses the fundamental value of inclusivity in the Jewish world. Tamar’s rousing personality, along with her effortless actions to bring communities together, makes RABBI ON THE BLOCK a prime example about the ways to confront lingering issues in society, Jewish or not, and subsequently work through them hand in hand.”…I loved this documentary…and after the showing, the director Brad Rothchild would have a Q & A… turned out, not only was Rothschild there but also Tamar also…great questions…great answers…lively and informative…so happy I happened upon this film…an important film that hopes to go around the country to other Jewish film festivals…got both of there autographs…hoping that they continue to make stellar reputations…which I think they will…we will hear about both…years ago, Doris and I were having a discussion about Judaism…she told me she believed in Judaism more that she believed in God…it gave her comfort that she could go around the world and Jews around the world would be the same…and she specifically mentioned Ethiopia…the black Synagogue in Chicago is the Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation…in the South side…

found 2 pennies…

the Senate passed the funding bill to avert a government shutdown…the Senate voted 87 to 11 passing the bill but kicking the can down the road for another fight in the new year…we have two new deadlines set for January and February…

the Israel and Hamas war churns on, Israel shows us a cache of weapons in a Gaza hospital…from The New York Times: “The Israeli military was solidifying its hold on the Gaza Strip’s largest hospital on Wednesday, after storming the complex overnight. Soldiers were conducting searches and interrogations inside, and Israeli officers said they had found rifles, ammunition, body armor and other military equipment in a radiology building.

In a video filmed at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, showed about 10 guns, ammunition, protective vests and Hamas military uniforms, some of which he said were hidden behind M.R.I. machines, others in nearby storage units and some behind what he described as a “blast-proof door.” The assertions made in the video could not be independently verified.

Hamas, which has repeatedly denied using the hospital for military operations, issued a statement calling the Israeli claims “a fabricated story that no one would believe.” A Hamas official, Bassem Naim, speaking to Al Jazeera, dismissed the video as falsified “theatrics.”

Al-Shifa Hospital has become central to Israel’s 40-day effort to wrest control of Gaza from Hamas, and its capture by Israel was a significant step that could shape the pace and extent of its war with Hamas. Israel maintains that Hamas built a military command center at the hospital, using its patients and staff as human shields.

The seizure of Al-Shifa, along with whatever evidence the Israelis produce of Hamas’s military presence there, could affect international sentiment about the invasion as well as the continuing negotiations to free the hostages captured by Hamas last month. Gazan authorities said Wednesday that the Israelis were in control of the complex.

Israeli soldiers briefly exchanged fire with gunmen outside the hospital before going in, a senior military official said, but more than 12 hours after it began, the operation appeared more like a police raid than a pitched battle.

One senior Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a continuing operation, said that troops were interrogating people inside the hospital and had found weapons, but declined to provide evidence or further details.

A Palestinian man inside a surgery building at the hospital complex said word had spread among the people there of interrogations and searches, including excavations, and that a tight cordon of Israeli armored vehicles had closed around the hospital.

Little information was available on Wednesday afternoon, as communications were disrupted in Gaza City.

Palestinian officials, the heads of United Nations agencies and some Mideast regional leaders condemned the raid, warning that it risked the lives of Gaza’s most vulnerable.

For years, Israel has said that Hamas built a military command center beneath the hospital, turning its patients into human shields.

To Palestinians, Al-Shifa Hospital is a civilian institution that for weeks has served as a refuge for thousands of displaced Gazans in addition to the gravely ill and wounded. Hamas and the hospital’s leadership deny its use as a military base.

The Israeli military invaded Gaza last month after roughly 1,200 people were killed in Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7. Since then, Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 11,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to Gazan health officials — one of the largest tolls in any air campaign this century.

The Hamas-run government media office in Gaza said in a statement that the Israeli soldiers had beaten patients and displaced people sheltering at the hospital and had expelled others from the complex.

Muhammad Zaqout, a senior health Gazan official, said in a news briefing that the Israeli soldiers had first entered part of a surgery department before later taking control of the radiology and cardiology departments.

Because of the communications disruption, The New York Times could not reach hospital administrators. The Palestinian man interviewed by telephone in the surgery building at the hospital said he had not heard of anyone being beaten. Rawan Sheikh Ahmad contributed reporting from Ibillin, Israel. — Patrick Kingsley reporting from Jerusalem”

Biden meets Xi in Woodside, California in a “lush estate” that was built with Gold Rush Money…from The New York Times by Katie Rogers and David E Sanger: “Filoli, a grand house and garden on 654 acres of rolling green grounds near the California coast, has been a supporting character in the 1980s television drama “Dynasty” and the 2001 romantic comedy “The Wedding Planner.” It has been the venue for top-dollar nuptials of Facebook executives, and the public can tour the gardens.

The site was appealing for a few reasons. It is set among the hills, one of the more isolated spots in a densely populated corner of California. The White House kept the location of the meeting secret until a day before, presumably to keep protesters from surrounding the venue. None were visible at the gates on Wednesday morning as Mr. Biden’s motorcade approached the locale, but some could be seen along the route from San Francisco.

Filoli is a giant estate amid some of the most expensive real estate in the country, built in the early 20th century by a family that made its fortune in the California gold rush and wanted a retreat not far from San Francisco. William Bowers Bourn II, the original owner of the home and an owner of one of the largest gold mines in American history, decided on the name “Filoli” by mixing together the first few letters of his personal motto: “Fight for a just cause. Love your Fellow Man. Live a good life.”

The two leaders shook hands at the entrance to the 54,256-square-foot, 56-room house before an extensive bilateral meeting, flanked by their security teams. They met with their teams in a room often used for wedding receptions. During their lengthy meeting, the two leaders dined on herbed ricotta ravioli, artichoke crisps, tarragon-roasted chicken, rice pilaf, charred broccolini and almond meringue cake.

Filoli, which was opened to the public in 1975, drew about 400,000 visitors last year. Its marketing materials call it “one of the finest remaining country estates of the 20th century.” The opulent backdrop did little to soften the rigid formality of the summit, which was a far cry from the cozier gatherings of Mr. Xi and Mr. Biden’s predecessors.

Relations are different today.

“I think this is the type of summit you have after you’ve had a spy balloon go overhead, after you’ve had a trade war, after you’ve had a lot of close calls in the China Sea,” Thomas Schwartz, a professor of history at Vanderbilt University, said. “You can’t do the sort of panda summits and the rest of that.”

But the talk wasn’t limited to world conflict and nukes. At one point during their four-hour meeting, Biden wished Xi’s wife, Peng Liyuan, a happy birthday — she shares the same birthday as the president, who turns 81 next week. Xi replied that he was embarrassed, he has been working so much that he’d forgotten that his wife’s birthday was coming up.

After their meeting, Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi took a walk among the pomegranate trees and heather under gray California clouds. Then Mr. Xi departed for San Francisco, where he was scheduled to meet with American business leaders at a $2,000-a-plate dinner. Mr. Biden stayed behind to deliver a news conference, where he said he still viewed his guest of honor as a dictator, a comment that his aides tried to walk back the last time he said it.”

from The Washington Post by Meaghan Tobin and Lyric Li: “Whiplash in China as state media does U-turn on U.S.: Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s meeting with President Biden was an unmitigated success, according to the Chinese version of events, as state media made an about-face so abrupt it caused whiplash on social media.

After months of criticizing the United States for trying to contain China’s growth, state-controlled Chinese websites were filled Thursday with reports on the “positive, comprehensive and constructive” talks between the leaders of the world’s two largest economies.

This left more than a few Chinese social media users confused. “I haven’t been online for two days … a look at the trending topics shows the atmosphere between China and the U.S. is as if a couple in an arranged marriage fell in love,” read one post on the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo. It was later removed, apparently by censors.

The sharp shift in tone came as the leaders of the world’s two biggest economies met for the first time in more than a year in an attempt to ease tensions and reestablish stronger lines of communication after a series of disputes.

They also made progress on transnational issues, cementing a deal to restart climate talks and agreeing to strengthen counternarcotics cooperation in the hopes of easing the United States’ fentanyl crisis.

Xi’s trip came at a time when U.S.-China relations had reached their lowest point in more than 40 years, but analysts said the Chinese leader needed a win because he is facing so many headwinds at home: a slowing economy, latent unhappiness among young people in particular and questions about his leadership decisions.

“The world is big enough to accommodate both countries, and one country’s success is an opportunity for the other,” Xi reportedly told Biden, according to state media coverage. The phrase immediately became one of the top trending topics on Weibo.

For audiences inside China, Xi’s comments positioned China as a global superpower able to take the long view without compromising on key issues.

The meeting showed Beijing’s willingness to find a way to cooperate, rather than compete, with Washington, said Zhao Minghao, a professor of international relations and senior fellow at the Center for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.

“Xi is saying that China and the U.S. are powerhouses on equal footing,” he said. “What Xi wanted to get across was that China rejects seeing competition as a policy goal, an endgame or the nature of China-U.S. relations.”

The modest results of the four-hour meeting between Biden and Xi were hailed as a success in Chinese state media.

Xi did not appear with Biden at the news conference after their meeting, but the official interpretation of events is conveyed through state broadcasters and other news outlets.

“China and the United States’ respective successes are opportunities for each other,” read a commentary released by state news agency Xinhua. “Great power competition is not the backdrop of this era and cannot solve the problems facing China, the United States and the world.”

This progress at the summit on issues like climate change and fentanyl was largely thanks to China, according to nationalist commentator Shen Yi.

“We can see that the Chinese side took the initiative in this meeting,” Shen said in a column on the news site Guancha that was published after the meeting. “Obviously, the United States needs such a meeting more than China does, and the Biden administration most of all.”

There were plenty of signs in the weeks leading up to the meeting that Beijing wanted to ease tensions. Chinese state media had been taking a notably warmer approach toward the United States, with a flood of editorials praising incremental steps like an increase in passenger flights as steps toward positive relations.

Just hours after Xi landed in San Francisco on Tuesday, state broadcaster CCTV advocated for more communication between the two superpowers in a short video commentary.

“Those big influencers who have made a fortune by criticizing the United States are rapidly changing the topic these days,” wrote one Weibo user in the lead-up to the summit, noting the thaw. “The trend has turned 180 degrees.”

Others were amused. “As Sino-U.S. tensions ease, my first thought is: When will Taylor Swift and Bruno Mars come hold a concert in Shanghai?” said one. ( Tobin reported from Taipei, Taiwan, and Li from Seoul. )…

from CNN by Kevin Liptak and MJ Lee: “Biden hails productive talks with Xi as agreements reached on fentanyl and military communication: Woodside, CaliforniaCNN — US President Joe Biden emerged Wednesday from four hours of talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping confident the fraught US-China relationship was improving, touting agreements on curbing fentanyl production and restoring military communication while still acknowledging that deep strains remain.

Biden said he and Xi had each agreed to pick up the phone and talk during periods of disagreement, and called the talks “some of the most constructive and productive discussions we’ve had.”

Yet departing the summit following a news conference, Biden said he still considered Xi a dictator, despite the progress they’d achieved over the course of their meeting.

The results on fentanyl and military communication were expected ahead of the talks, and amount to important progress in improving the still-tense relationship between Washington and Beijing. During his news conference following the summit, Biden summed up his approach to the Chinese leader.

“Trust but verify, as the old saying goes,” he said. “That’s where I am.”

Biden had aimed to use the meeting to put the US-China relationship on steadier footing after months of tension between the two superpowers. Ahead of the talks, US officials were careful to manage expectations, saying they did not expect a long list of outcomes or even a joint leaders’ statement, as is customary after such summits.

The primary objective for the talks appeared to be the restoration of channels of communication, principally through the military, to avoid the type of miscommunication or miscalculation US officials fear could lead to open conflict

“My responsibility is to make this rational and manageable, so it doesn’t result in conflict. That’s what I’m all about,” Biden said afterward.

Biden said China agreed to go after companies who produce precursor chemicals to fentanyl, the powerful narcotic that has fueled a drug crisis in the United States. The US will watch closely to see if China follows up on the commitments made in the summit.

The president said the agreement from China to reduce precursor chemicals for fentanyl would “save lives” and said he appreciated Xi’s commitment on the issue.

Xi also agreed to mechanisms that would address potential military miscalculations and agreed to forums for the two sides to present their concerns.

Senior Biden administration officials said leading up to Wednesday’s summit that their Chinese counterparts had been “reluctant” over the past few months to agree to re-establishing military-to-military communications.

But it was an issue that Biden himself and his top advisers like Secretary of State Antony Blinken, national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin raised in “nearly every conversation we’ve had with the Chinese,” as the US tried to underscore that it was “absolutely critical” that this channel be re-opened.

US officials said that the Chinese spy balloon incident, in particular, underscored the importance of military-to-military communications.

Trying to keep tension from tipping into conflict

Despite a deep and apparently warm personal relationship cultivated during their time as vice presidents – Biden wished Xi’s wife a happy birthday at one point during the summit, with the Chinese leader thanking him for the reminder – the two men have overseen a deterioration in US-China relations to the lowest level in decades.

The talks in California were “very direct” and included more back-and-forth discussion between the two men than their meeting a year ago, a senior US official said. The US president was “very direct” with Xi on a number of topics, the official said, while Xi also raised his concerns about rhetoric inside the United States about China.

According to readouts provided by US officials and Chinese state media, it appeared both leaders were very frank with one another.

Xi at one point called on the United States to “not scheme to suppress or contain China,” Chinese state media reported.

“China has no plans to surpass or unseat the United States, and the United States should not scheme to suppress or contain China,” Xi said, according to a readout released by China’s state news agency Xinhua.

The men had a “substantial” exchange on Taiwan and Xi made clear that concerns over the island were the biggest and most dangerous issue in US-China relations. Xi said China’s preference was for peaceful reunification and laid out conditions under which use of force would be utilized. Biden responded by reiterating the US position was to maintain peace and stability in the region.

“President Xi responded: Look, peace is all well and good, but at some point we need to move towards resolution more generally,” the senior US official said. Xi also urged the US to stop arming Taiwan and support China’s “peaceful reunification,” according to a readout released by Xinhua.

In the meeting, the US asked China to respect Taiwan’s electoral process in the lead-up to a vote in January. Despite continuing concerns about China’s massive military buildup around Taiwan, American officials emerged from the meeting believing Xi was not preparing for a massive invasion.

“Look, I reiterated what I’ve said since I’ve become president, and what every previous president of late has said: That we maintain an agreement that there is a One China policy and that I’m not going to change that. That’s not going to change,” Biden told reporters traveling with him in San Francisco. “And so that’s about the extent to which we discussed it.”

Other areas of discussion

During an exchange over the war between Israel and Hamas, Biden did most of the talking and Xi mostly listened, a senior US official said. Biden encouraged Xi to use China’s leverage with Iran to warn against a wider escalation. In the talks, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said they’d already held discussions with the Iranians on the topic.

It remained unclear to Biden’s aides afterward how seriously Iran was taking China’s messages. In the talks, Biden made clear to Xi that he viewed Hamas as separate from the Palestinians.

In one exchange about restrictions the US has applied on technology exports to China, Xi likened the steps to “technological containment.” Biden responded directly to say the US was not going to provide technology to China that could be used militarily against it.

Biden also raised direct concerns to Xi about harassment of American businesses in China, the official said.

The two men discussed artificial intelligence, and agreed to work together moving ahead on the new technology.

And Biden told Xi it was important China be more transparent on nuclear issues, as it rapidly expands its arsenal.

Biden did not “pull any punches,” the official said, noting Xi experiences little pushback within the Chinese system, adding that the US president was “respectful” but “clear.”

A highly choreographed meeting

With conflicts raging in the Middle East and Europe as he prepares to fight for reelection, Biden hoped to prevent another crisis from exploding on his watch. He was not only looking to demonstrate to Americans – but also to Xi directly – why an improved relationship with Beijing is in everyone’s interests.

“I think it’s paramount that you and I understand each other clearly, leader to leader, with no misconceptions or miscommunication,” Biden told Xi as their talks got underway in a secluded estate south of San Francisco.

Speaking afterward, Xi offered his own view of the complex moment in US-China ties.

“Planet Earth is big enough for the two countries to succeed,” he said.

The optics of the summit were carefully negotiated between the two sides and the formal welcome to the estate was highly choreographed. As host of the meeting, Biden walked out of the building first to welcome Xi. A red carpet had been rolled out, with Marine guards and flags from both countries. The Chinese president’s black sedan pulled up and stopped at the end of the carpet. Xi emerged with a smile and the two men shook hands, each grasping the others’ wrists.

As the meeting got underway, Biden told Xi it is essential the two men have a frank understanding of each other.

Biden said the leaders had a responsibility to their populations to work together, including on issues of climate change, countering narcotics trafficking and approaching artificial intelligence. He added competition between US and China could not tilt toward conflict.

“As always, there is no substitute to face-to-face discussions. I’ve always found our discussions straightforward and frank,” Biden said.

Speaking after Biden, Xi offered starker view of US-China ties.

“The China-US relationship has never been smooth sailing over the past 50 years and more, and it always faces problems of one kind or another. Yet it has kept moving forward amidst twists and turns,” he said through a translator.

“For two large countries like China and the United States, turning their back on each other is not an option,” he went on. “It is unrealistic for one side to remodel the other and conflict and confrontation has unbearable consequences for both sides.”

Seeming to reject Biden’s view of “competition” between the US and China, Xi said he was “still of the view that major country competition is not the prevailing trend of current times and cannot solve the problems facing China and the United States or the world at large.”

A political tight rope

For the better part of the last year, US officials have been laying the groundwork for the summit. With the aim of reestablishing diplomatic channels between the two countries, Sullivan has met with Wang three times, while Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and US climate envoy John Kerry have all traveled to Beijing.

The overtures have been extended in the other direction too, with China’s senior-most officials – including its foreign minister – traveling to the US to meet with their American counterparts. US officials said that working-level consultations had been established with Beijing on especially sensitive topics like arms control and maritime issues.

Sources familiar with those efforts say that Washington has seen signs in recent months that the Chinese are beginning to accept the wisdom of both countries working together to strengthen their lines of communication and mitigate misunderstandings.

Still, as Biden was preparing for Wednesday’s summit, Republicans questioned his decision to seek a meeting with Xi. Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor seeking the GOP presidential nomination, claimed Biden had “begged” for the meeting.

Republicans on a House select committee on China sent Biden a letter spelling out areas they believe he must challenge Xi, including wrongful detention of Americans and the production of fentanyl.

Biden and his aides are acutely aware of the political backdrop for his meeting. Sullivan said Biden was “looking for … practical ways to show the American people that sitting down with Xi Jinping can defend American interests and also deliver progress on the priorities of the American people.” ( This story has been updated with additional developments on Wednesday. )…Biden and Xi remain at odds about Taiwan…

amid the world’s woes…Elissa and I went to see Paul Giamatti in The Holdovers…RUN, don’t walk to see this wonderful film…from Wikipedia: “The Holdovers is a 2023 American comedy drama film directed by Alexander Payne and written by David Hemingson, and stars Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and Dominic Sessa. Set in 1970, it follows a curmudgeonly history teacher at a New England boarding school who is forced to chaperone the handful of students with nowhere to go over Christmas break.”…Alexander Payne has given us About Schmidt (2002) with Jack Nicholson…Sideways (2004) with Paul Giamatti…The Descendants (2011) with George Clooney…he won Oscars for Sideways and The Descendants for Best Adapted Screenplays co-writing…the kind of film you don’t want to end…we both loved this movie…tender, bittersweet, and just plain wonderful…I predict that the performances of Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Dominic Sessa in his first film will be nominated for Oscars…especially Da’Vine Joy Randolph…I can’t stress enough what a wonderful film…get yourself to the Amber…

found 2 quarters and 36 pennies…the pennies were outside of my McDonalds just waiting for me to pick them up… all in a nice little pile…

thousands gather in D.C. to show support and solidarity for Israel…the March For Israel…D.C. protestors yelled “no ceasefire”…heavy security…

Fani Willis files for a protective order after those videos leaked…Sidney Powell saying numerous people told trump he had lost the election…Jenna Ellis saying trump, the Boss, was “not going to leave under any circumstances. We are just going to stay in power.'”… and Scott Hall, the bail bonds guy who pleaded guilty to “five misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties.” said he did provide “access to voting equipment inside the Coffee County Board of Elections Registration office.”…not a good thing that these video were leaked from the proffer sessions interviews, often a required part of a plea deal…

repugnant Republics ready for “fists a cuffs”…making violence part of their party…through trump grooming us to “get used to” violence as patriotic…he told us “he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any followers”…he’s “loved” for that…more than hinting to us what he will do in his second term ( which would go on indefinitely )…he would fire anyone not loyal to the MAGA movement…he’s already pardoned convicted felons, all his cronies who were indicted and convicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller…the likes of Steve Bannon, George Papadopoulos, Roger Stone, Michael “lock him up” Flynn, Alex van der Zwaan and of course Paul Manafort…from CNBC by Dan Mangan: “healthcare frauster Philip Esformes in Florida…former top fundraiser Elliott Broidy…Albert J. Pirro, Jr., the ex-husband of Fox News host and longtime ally Jeanine Pirro…convicted former GOP congressmen Duncan Hunter of California who misused campaign funds of upwards of $250,000 along with his wife and New York’s Chris Collins ( who was the first congressman who endorsed trump ) convicted of crimes related to “insider trading”…former Congressman, Steve Stockman, of Texas convicted of misuse of charitable funds ( you know trump knows a lot about that )…from CNBC by Dan Mangan: “Four former Blackwater USA guards who were convicted in the killings of 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007. The four former Blackwater security contractors who received pardons, Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard, opened fire in and around Nisur Square in Baghdad on Sept. 16, 2007, according to evidence in their cases. Fourteen civilians were killed, including two women and two boys, age 11 and 9, according to the Justice Deparment. At least 17 more victims were injured…Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., condemned many of the pardons in a scathing statement.

“I doubt government contractors who slaughtered civilians or corrupt Congressional cronies were what the Founders had in mind when they drafted the pardon clause,” said Blumenthal, who is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“Most despicably, President Trump is twisting this presidential power to reward allies who broke the law on his behal,” he said. “Donald Trump leaves the presidency just as he took it: without a shred of respect for the Constitution and as a complete disgrace to his office. ( Tommy Tuberville is giving trump his help to stage the military with trump sycophants…”William “Ed” Henry — President Trump granted a full pardon to William “Ed” Henry of Alabama. This pardon is supported by Senator Tommy Tuberville. Mr. Henry was sentenced to 2 years’ probation for aiding and abetting the theft of government property and paid a $4,000 fine.” )…

The pardons come as Trump has refused to concede that he lost the presidential election to Joe Biden, whose victory was certified last week by the Electoral College. Trump’s loss set off immediate speculation that he would reward allies and others with executive clemency actions in his final weeks in the White House.”…and let’s not forget those who asked for a blanket pardon like Rudy Guiliani and Matt Gaetz…all this to maybe install these people in his second administration “friendly” to his destruction of democracy…trump tells us about his plans for immigrants…from The New York Times by Charlie Savage, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan: “Sweeping Raids, Giant Camps and Mass Deportations: Inside Trump’s 2025 Immigration Plans: If he regains power, Donald Trump wants not only to revive some of the immigration policies criticized as draconian during his presidency, but expand and toughen them.: Former President Donald J. Trump is planning an extreme expansion of his first-term crackdown on immigration if he returns to power in 2025 — including preparing to round up undocumented people already in the United States on a vast scale and detain them in sprawling camps while they wait to be expelled.

The plans would sharply restrict both legal and illegal immigration in a multitude of ways.

Mr. Trump wants to revive his first-term border policies, including banning entry by people from certain Muslim-majority nations and reimposing a Covid 19-era policy of refusing asylum claims — though this time he would base that refusal on assertions that migrants carry other infectious diseases like tuberculosis.

He plans to scour the country for unauthorized immigrants and deport people by the millions per year.

To help speed mass deportations, Mr. Trump is preparing an enormous expansion of a form of removal that does not require due process hearings. To help Immigration and Customs Enforcement carry out sweeping raids, he plans to reassign other federal agents and deputize local police officers and National Guard soldiers voluntarily contributed by Republican-run states.

To ease the strain on ICE detention facilities, Mr. Trump wants to build huge camps to detain people while their cases are processed and they await deportation flights. And to get around any refusal by Congress to appropriate the necessary funds, Mr. Trump would redirect money in the military budget, as he did in his first term to spend more on a border wall than Congress had authorized.

In a public reference to his plans, Mr. Trump told a crowd in Iowa in September: “Following the Eisenhower model, we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” The reference was to a 1954 campaign to round up and expel Mexican immigrants that was named for an ethnic slur — “Operation Wetback.”

The constellation of Mr. Trump’s 2025 plans amounts to an assault on immigration on a scale unseen in modern American history. Millions of undocumented immigrants would be barred from the country or uprooted from it years or even decades after settling here.

Such a scale of planned removals would raise logistical, financial and diplomatic challenges and would be vigorously challenged in court. But there is no mistaking the breadth and ambition of the shift Mr. Trump is eyeing.

In a second Trump presidency, the visas of foreign students who participated in anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian protests would be canceled. U.S. consular officials abroad will be directed to expand ideological screening of visa applicants to block people the Trump administration considers to have undesirable attitudes. People who were granted temporary protected status because they are from certain countries deemed unsafe, allowing them to lawfully live and work in the United States, would have that status revoked.

Similarly, numerous people who have been allowed to live in the country temporarily for humanitarian reasons would also lose that status and be kicked out, including tens of thousands of the Afghans who were evacuated amid the 2021 Taliban takeover and allowed to enter the United States. Afghans holding special visas granted to people who helped U.S. forces would be revetted to see if they really did.

And Mr. Trump would try to end birthright citizenship for babies born in the United States to undocumented parents — by proclaiming that policy to be the new position of the government and by ordering agencies to cease issuing citizenship-affirming documents like Social Security cards and passports to them. That policy’s legal legitimacy, like nearly all of Mr. Trump’s plans, would be virtually certain to end up before the Supreme Court.

In interviews with The New York Times, several Trump advisers gave the most expansive and detailed description yet of Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda in a potential second term. In particular, Mr. Trump’s campaign referred questions for this article to Stephen Miller, an architect of Mr. Trump’s first-term immigration policies who remains close to him and is expected to serve in a senior role in a second administration. ( “Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown,” said Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s former White House aide who was the chief architect of his border control efforts. Credit…Cooper Neill for The New York Times )…

All of the steps Trump advisers are preparing, Mr. Miller contended in a wide-ranging interview, rely on existing statutes; while the Trump team would likely seek a revamp of immigration laws, the plan was crafted to need no new substantive legislation. And while acknowledging that lawsuits would arise to challenge nearly every one of them, he portrayed the Trump team’s daunting array of tactics as a “blitz” designed to overwhelm immigrant-rights lawyers.

“Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown,” Mr. Miller said, adding, “The immigration legal activists won’t know what’s happening.”

Todd Schulte, the president of FWD.us, an immigration and criminal justice advocacy group that repeatedly fought the Trump administration, said the Trump team’s plans relied on “xenophobic demagoguery” that appeals to his hardest-core political base.

“Americans should understand these policy proposals are an authoritarian, often illegal, agenda that would rip apart nearly every aspect of American life — tanking the economy, violating the basic civil rights of millions of immigrants and native-born Americans alike,” Mr. Schulte said.

‘Poisoning the Blood’

Since Mr. Trump left office, the political environment on immigration has moved in his direction. He is also more capable now of exploiting that environment if he is re-elected than he was when he first won election as an outsider.

The ebbing of the Covid-19 pandemic and resumption of travel flows have helped stir a global migrant crisis, with millions of Venezuelans and Central Americans fleeing turmoil and Africans arriving in Latin American countries before continuing their journey north. Amid the record numbers of migrants at the southern border and beyond it in cities like New York and Chicago, voters are frustrated and even some Democrats are calling for tougher action against immigrants and pressuring the White House to better manage the crisis.

Mr. Trump and his advisers see the opening, and now know better how to seize it. The aides Mr. Trump relied upon in the chaotic early days of his first term were sometimes at odds and lacked experience in how to manipulate the levers of federal power. By the end of his first term, cabinet officials and lawyers who sought to restrain some of his actions — like his Homeland Security secretary and chief of staff, John F. Kelly — had been fired, and those who stuck with him had learned much.

In a second term, Mr. Trump plans to install a team that will not restrain him.

Since much of Mr. Trump’s first-term immigration crackdown was tied up in the courts, the legal environment has tilted in his favor: His four years of judicial appointments left behind federal appellate courts and a Supreme Court that are far more conservative than the courts that heard challenges to his first-term policies.

The fight over Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals provides an illustration.

DACA is an Obama-era program that shields from deportation and grants work permits to people who were brought unlawfully to the United States as children. Mr. Trump tried to end it, but the Supreme Court blocked him on procedural grounds in June 2020.

Mr. Miller said Mr. Trump would try again to end DACA. And the 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court that blocked the last attempt no longer exists: A few months after the DACA ruling, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died and Mr. Trump replaced her with a sixth conservative, Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Mr. Trump’s rhetoric has more than kept up with his increasingly extreme agenda on immigration.

His stoking of fear and anger toward immigrants — pushing for a border wall and calling Mexicans rapists — fueled his 2016 takeover of the Republican Party. As president, he privately mused about developing a militarized border like Israel’s, asked whether migrants crossing the border could be shot in the legs and wanted a proposed border wall topped with flesh-piercing spikes and painted black to burn migrants’ skin.

As he has campaigned for the party’s third straight presidential nomination, his anti-immigrant tone has only grown harsher. In a recent interview with a right-wing website, Mr. Trump claimed without evidence that foreign leaders were deliberately emptying their “insane asylums” to send the patients across America’s southern border as migrants. He said migrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.” And at a rally on Wednesday in Florida, he compared them to the fictional serial killer and cannibal Hannibal Lecter, saying, “That’s what’s coming into our country right now.”

Mr. Trump had similarly vowed to carry out mass deportations when running for office in 2016, but the government only managed several hundred thousand removals per year under his presidency, on par with other recent administrations. If they get another opportunity, Mr. Trump and his team are determined to achieve annual numbers in the millions.

Keeping People Out

Mr. Trump’s immigration plan is to pick up where he left off and then go much farther. He would not only revive some of the policies that were criticized as draconian during his presidency, many of which the Biden White House ended, but also expand and toughen them.

One example centers on expanding first-term policies aimed at keeping people out of the country. Mr. Trump plans to suspend the nation’s refugee program and once again categorically bar visitors from troubled countries, reinstating a version of his ban on travel from several mostly Muslim-majority countries, which President Biden called discriminatory and ended on his first day in office.

Mr. Trump would also use coercive diplomacy to induce other nations to help, including by making cooperation a condition of any other bilateral engagement, Mr. Miller said. For example, a second Trump administration would seek to re-establish an agreement with Mexico that asylum seekers remain there while their claims are processed. (It is not clear that Mexico would agree; a Mexican court has said that deal violated human rights.)

Mr. Trump would also push to revive “safe third country” agreements with several nations in Central America, and try to expand them to Africa, Asia and South America. Under such deals, countries agree to take would-be asylum seekers from specific other nations and let them apply for asylum there instead.

While such arrangements have traditionally only covered migrants who had previously passed through a third country, federal law does not require that limit and a second Trump administration would seek to make those deals without it, in part as a deterrent to migrants making what the Trump team views as illegitimate asylum claims.

At the same time, Mr. Miller said, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would invoke the public health emergency powers law known as Title 42 to again refuse to hear any asylum claims by people arriving at the southern border. The Trump administration had internally discussed that idea early in Mr. Trump’s term, but some cabinet secretaries pushed back, arguing that there was no public health emergency that would legally justify it. The administration ultimately implemented it during the coronavirus pandemic.

Saying the idea has since gained acceptance in practice — Mr. Biden initially kept the policy — Mr. Miller said Mr. Trump would invoke Title 42, citing “severe strains of the flu, tuberculosis, scabies, other respiratory illnesses like R.S.V. and so on, or just a general issue of mass migration being a public health threat and conveying a variety of communicable diseases.”

Mr. Trump and his aides have not yet said whether they would re-enact one of the most contentious deterrents to unauthorized immigration that he pursued as president: separating children from their parents, which led to trauma among migrants and difficulties in reuniting families. When pressed, Mr. Trump has repeatedly declined to rule out reviving the policy. After an outcry over the practice, Mr. Trump ended it in 2018 and a judge later blocked the government from putting it back into effect.

Mass Deportations

Soon after Mr. Trump announced his 2024 campaign for president last November, he met with Tom Homan, who ran ICE for the first year and a half of the Trump administration and was an early proponent of separating families to deter migrants.

In an interview, Mr. Homan recalled that in that meeting, he “agreed to come back” in a second term and would “help to organize and run the largest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.”

Trump advisers’ vision of abrupt mass deportations would be a recipe for social and economic turmoil, disrupting the housing market and major industries including agriculture and the service sector.

Mr. Miller cast such disruption in a favorable light.

“Mass deportation will be a labor-market disruption celebrated by American workers, who will now be offered higher wages with better benefits to fill these jobs,” he said. “Americans will also celebrate the fact that our nation’s laws are now being applied equally, and that one select group is no longer magically exempt.”

One planned step to overcome the legal and logistical hurdles would be to significantly expand a form of fast-track deportations known as “expedited removal.” It denies undocumented immigrants the usual hearings and opportunity to file appeals, which can take months or years — especially when people are not in custody — and has led to a large backlog. A 1996 law says people can be subject to expedited removal for up to two years after arriving, but to date the executive branch has used it more cautiously, swiftly expelling people picked up near the border soon after crossing.

The Trump administration tried to expand the use of expedited removal, but a court blocked it and then the Biden team canceled the expansion. It remains unclear whether the Supreme Court will rule that it is constitutional to use the law against people who have been living for a significant period in the United States and express fear of persecution if sent home.

Mr. Trump has also said he would invoke an archaic law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, to expel suspected members of drug cartels and criminal gangs without due process. That law allows for summary deportation of people from countries with which the United States is at war, that have invaded the United States or that have engaged in “predatory incursions.”

The Supreme Court has upheld past uses of that law in wartime. But its text seems to require a link to the actions of a foreign government, so it is not clear whether the justices will allow a president to stretch it to encompass drug cartel activity.

More broadly, Mr. Miller said a new Trump administration would shift from the ICE practice of arresting specific people to carrying out workplace raids and other sweeps in public places aimed at arresting scores of unauthorized immigrants at once.

To make the process of finding and deporting undocumented immigrants already living inside the country “radically more quick and efficient,” he said, the Trump team would bring in “the right kinds of attorneys and the right kinds of policy thinkers” willing to carry out such ideas.

And because of the magnitude of arrests and deportations being contemplated, they plan to build “vast holding facilities that would function as staging centers” for immigrants as their cases progress and they wait to be flown to other countries.

Mr. Miller said the new camps would likely be built “on open land in Texas near the border.”

He said the military would construct them under the authority and control of the Department of Homeland Security. While he cautioned that there were no specific blueprints yet, he said the camps would look professional and similar to other facilities for migrants that have been built near the border.

Such camps could also enable the government to speed up the pace and volume of deportations of undocumented people who have lived in the United States for years and so are not subject to fast-track removal. If pursuing a long-shot effort to win permission to remain in the country would mean staying locked up in the interim, some may give up and voluntarily accept removal without going through the full process.

The use of these camps, Mr. Miller said, would likely be focused more on single adults because the government cannot indefinitely hold children under a longstanding court order known as the Flores settlement. So any families brought to the facilities would have to be moved in and out more quickly, he said.

The Trump administration tried to overturn the Flores settlement, but the Supreme Court did not resolve the matter before Mr. Trump’s term ended. Mr. Miller said the Trump team would try again.

To increase the number of agents available for ICE sweeps, Mr. Miller said, officials from other federal law enforcement agencies would be temporarily reassigned, and state National Guard troops and local police officers, at least from willing Republican-led states, would be deputized for immigration control efforts.

While a law known as the Posse Comitatus Act generally forbids the use of the armed forces for law enforcement purposes, another law called the Insurrection Act creates an exception. Mr. Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act at the border, enabling the use of federal troops to apprehend migrants, Mr. Miller said.

“Bottom line,” he said, “President Trump will do whatever it takes.” ( Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Eileen Sullivan contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research. )…if that doesn’t raise the hair on the back of your neck…or maybe make you vomit, nothing will…trump is the most dangerous man on the planet…bar none…

to escape all this and not think and dray about…I went to see Judy Garland in In the Good Old Summertime…co-starring Van Johnson…from Wikipedia: “In the Good Old Summertime is a 1949 American Technicolor musical romantic comedy film directed by Robert Z. Leonard. It stars Judy Garland, Van Johnson, S. Z. Sakall, Spring Byington, Clinton Sundberg, and Buster Keaton in his first featured film role at MGM since 1933.

The film is a musical adaptation of the 1940 film The Shop Around the Corner, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, starring James Stewart, Margaret Sullavan, and Frank Morgan, and written by Miklós László, based on his 1937 play Parfumerie. For In the Good Old Summertime, the locale has been changed from 1930s Budapest to turn-of-the-century Chicago, but the plot remains the same. The plot was also revived in the 1998 film You’ve Got Mail, starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan…Garland’s three-year-old daughter, Liza Minnelli, makes her film debut, walking with her mother and Van Johnson in the film’s closing shot.”…and I noticed Judy was left-handed… “It was the second-to-last film that Garland made at MGM (with the final being Summer Stock). MGM terminated her contract – by mutual agreement – in September 1950…the Plot/Synopsis: In turn-of-the century Chicago, Andrew and Veronica are co-workers in a music shop who dislike one another during business hours but unwittingly carry on an anonymous romance through the mail…Production: Director Robert Leonard originally hired Buster Keaton as a gag-writer to help him devise a way for a violin to get broken that would be both comic and plausible. Keaton came up with an elaborate stunt that would achieve the desired result; however, Leonard realized Keaton was the only one who could execute it properly, so he cast him in the film. Keaton also devised the sequence in which Johnson inadvertently wrecks Garland’s hat and coached Johnson intensively in how to perform the scene. This was the first MGM film that Keaton appeared in after having been fired from the studio in 1933.”

House pass a bill to keep the government open…127 Republicans and 209 Democrats for a total of 336 YES… 93 Republicans and 2 Democrats voted NO…Johnson with the help of Democrats passed stopgap funding bill…no aid for Ukraine, no aid for Israel, no aid for Taiwan…

found a penny and a quarter…

if ever there was a blue Monday…today was such a the day…listening to the news is enough to give me gloom and doom…believe trump when he tells us what he will do…first of all, not to be blue about…Rhode Island’s Gabe Amo, first black congressman from RI, was voted in office in a special election to replace David Ciciline… “on February 21, 2023, it was announced that Cicilline would resign from Congress on June 1, 2023, to become president and CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation. The special election was won by Mr. Amo last week in the November elections…

secondly, not to be blue about, Pope Francis “fired” Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, an outspoken conservative… Strickland supposedly had no clue why he was asked to resign, which he refused to do… Strickland spoke at a Stop the Steal rally in Texas and had challenged the Pope’s leadership over social media, having thousands of “followers” on X…I think his “mouthing off” got him investigated…and the results of the investigation was referred to the Pope…who asked for Strickland’s resignation…he refused and subsequently was removed…”The two Vatican investigators sent into investigate Strickland — Bishop Dennis Sullivan of Camden, N.J., and the retired bishop of Tucson, Ariz., Bishop Emeritus Gerald Kicanas — “conducted an exhaustive inquiry into all aspects of the governance and leadership of the diocese,” said the head of the church in Texas…there’s more to this story to be sure…having to do with his “stop the steal” rantings and his criticism of Pope Francis…Rachel Maddow tells us about Catholic priest Charles Coughlin, a radio broadcaster who was opening antisemitic…from the Holocaust Enclyclopedia: “

During the 1920s, Coughlin’s antisemitic views were muted on the air. After his split with Roosevelt and with the rise of National Socialism and fascism in Europe, however, he attacked Jews explicitly in his broadcasts. Some historians attribute this change to Coughlin taking advantage of rising antisemitism around the world in order to keep himself relevant. Based on his speeches, writings, and associations, however, he appears to have had significant antisemitic sentiment throughout his career.

In the days and weeks after Kristallnacht, Coughlin defended the state-sponsored violence of the Nazi regime. He argued that Kristallnacht was justified as retaliation for Jewish persecution of Christians. He explained to his listeners on November 20, 1938, that the “communistic government of Russia,” “the Lenins and Trotskys…atheistic Jews and Gentiles,” had murdered more than 20 million Christians and had stolen “40 billion [dollars]…of Christian property.”

For years Coughlin publicly derided “international bankers,” a phrase that most of his listeners understood to mean Jewish bankers. Such antisemitic views were expressed on the pages of Social Justice. In a series of articles published in 1938, Coughlin lambasted “Jewish” financiers and their control over world politics. These articles culminated with a story recounting his own version of the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This antisemitic publication falsely purported to be minutes from meetings of Jewish leaders who were plotting to take over the world.”…just a sampling of this priest’s extreme right views…”a paid Axis powers priest calling for the overthrow of the US government”…

believe trump when he tells us what he’s going to do…Maya Angelou “The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them.”…from The Washington Post by Azi Paylarah telling it like it is: “Trump calling opponents ‘vermin’ draws rebukes from White House, some in GOP: Former GOP congresswoman Liz Cheney warned Republicans about ‘appeasing this dangerous man’”: The White House, President Biden’s 2024 campaign and some prominent Republicans on Monday criticized former president Donald Trump for calling his political opponents “vermin” and more dangerous than foreign enemies, comments historians said mimic the language used by authoritarian leaders.

The remarks came during Trump’s campaign speech Saturday in Claremont, N.H., and in a post on social media.

“We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections,” Trump said in New Hampshire, repeating the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen. “They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream.”

White House spokesman Andrew Bates explained he wouldn’t comment on the 2024 campaign but said in a statement Monday, “Using terms like that about dissent would be unrecognizable to our founders, but horrifyingly recognizable to American veterans who put on their country’s uniform in the 1940s.”

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian at New York University, said in an email to The Washington Post that “calling people ‘vermin’ was used effectively by Hitler and Mussolini to dehumanize people and encourage their followers to engage in violence.”

It was a point Biden’s reelection campaign spotlighted Monday when it shared on social media a clip of CNN host Dana Bash echoing The Post’s reporting with her own: “We just need to say, the term ‘vermin’ was really effectively used by Adolf Hitler and by Mussolini, to dehumanize people and encourage their followers to go after their opponents.”

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump’s campaign, repeated an earlier statement to defend the former president’s comments. “Those who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything because they are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome and their sad, miserable existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.”

In the Saturday speech, Trump also called himself a “very proud election denier,” and said “the threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within. Because if you have a capable, competent, smart, tough leader, Russia, China, North Korea, they’re not going to want to play with us.”

Trump’s remarks drew stark condemnation, and warnings, from historians and politicians across the political spectrum.

Former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming — who served as co-chair of the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol and the efforts to overturn the election results — said on X, formerly Twitter, that Republicans who refused to denounce Trump’s remarks are “appeasing this dangerous man.”

Cheney shared a video of Ronna McDaniel’s Sunday appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” in which the Republican National Committee chairwoman declined to comment on what Trump said. Cheney criticized McDaniel’s refusal to condemn Trump “for using the same Nazi propaganda that mobilized 1930s-40s Germany to evil, it’s fair to assume she’s collaborating,”

“It’s unfortunate yet not shocking that Liz Cheney is parroting DNC talking points,” RNC spokesman Anna Kelly told The Post in response to Cheney’s comments.

Michael Steele, a former RNC chairman, wrote on social media that, “Trump calls his enemies ‘vermin’ and wants to end the ‘Radical Left Lunatics.’ Don’t dismiss his fascist reference while also noting it’s not the Left who have testified against him, it’s the Conservatives who supported him. HE is ‘the threat from within.’”…a comment by MadDog Mike: “If there was ever a time for patriots, loyal Americans, (to do their duty and vote), the time is now.Trump is loyal, only to himself, and would burn his loyal followers in a heartbeat, to save himself. He is a bully, and like all bullies, he’s a coward. He would sell this country out for every dime he could get, and never look back. Remember that.”…comment by Jeremy Harris: “Nazi Germany comes to America. Like millions of other patriotic Americans, my father fought the fascist Nazis and Adolf Hitler in WWII. Those brave patriots who fought and gave their lives to save the world from that evil would be outraged to learn that the once Conservative Republican party has become a Fascist Authoritarian party reminiscent of the Nazis. Trump’s speaches could easily be coming right out of Hitler’s Mein Kamph.”…comment by Anthony Clifton: “Elections are not won by hope. They are won by action. Time to get up and mobilize to do the hard and necessary work to defeat Trump, Trumpism and send this deranged man to prison were he belongs.”…

The New York Times by Michael Gold: “After Calling Foes ‘Vermin,’ Trump Campaign Warns Its Critics Will Be ‘Crushed’: The former president’s Veterans Day speech used language similar to the dehumanizing rhetoric wielded by dictators like Hitler and Mussolini.: Former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign rejected criticism that he was echoing the language of fascist dictators with his vow to root out his political opponents like “vermin,” then doubled down: It said on Monday that the “sad, miserable existence” of those who made such comparisons would be “crushed” with Mr. Trump back in the White House.

“Those who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything because they are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome,” a campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, said, “and their sad, miserable existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.”

At a campaign event Saturday in New Hampshire, Mr. Trump vowed to “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” He then said his political opposition was the most pressing and pernicious threat facing America.

“The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within,” Mr. Trump said. “Our threat is from within.”

The former president’s remarks drew criticism from some liberals and historians who pointed to echoes of dehumanizing rhetoric wielded by fascist dictators like Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

An earlier version of Mr. Cheung’s statement, in which he said the “entire existence” of those critics would be crushed, was reported by The Washington Post on Sunday. Mr. Cheung said on Monday that he edited his initial statement “seconds” after sending it, and The Post amended its article to include both versions.

Ammar Moussa, a spokesman for President Biden’s re-election campaign, said in a statement that Mr. Trump at his Veterans Day speech had “parroted the autocratic language” of “dictators many U.S. veterans gave their lives fighting, in order to defeat exactly the kind of un-American ideas Trump now champions.”

Though violent language was a feature of Mr. Trump’s last two campaigns, his speeches have grown more extreme as he tries to win a second term.

At recent rallies and events, Mr. Trump has compared immigrants coming over the border to Hannibal Lecter, the fictional serial killer and cannibal from the horror movie “The Silence of the Lambs.”

He called on shoplifters to be shot in a speech in California, and over the weekend in New Hampshire, he again called for drug dealers to be subject to the death penalty. He has insinuated that a military general whom he appointed as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should be executed for treason.

Last month, Mr. Trump told a right-wing website that migrants were “poisoning the blood of our country,” a phrase recalling white supremacist ideology and comments made by Hitler in his manifesto “Mein Kampf.”…we should possibly credit Steven Miller, trump’s aide who wrote the book on ripping children from their immigrant parents at the border, with all the fascist references…”vermin”…“poisoning the blood of our country”…

trump’s older sister Maryanne Trump Barry died at 86 year old…she was a retired Federal Judge appointed by Reagan…she was critical of trump but supported him…she retired 11 days after an investigation was underway regarding the trump family tax practices…her resignation shut the investigation down… tree/apple….

and speaking of ethics of justices…from ABC News by Lawrence Hurley: “WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday announced it has formally adopted what it called a new code of conduct following allegations of ethics lapses, although its impact is likely to be limited because the justices are left to enforce it themselves.

The court issued a 14-page document that included five canons of conduct on issues such as when justices should recuse themselves and what kind of outside activities they can engage in.

“The undersigned justices are promulgating this Code of Conduct to set out succinctly and gather in one place the ethics rules and principles that guide the conduct of the Members of the Court,” the justices said in an attached statement. All nine justices signed the statement.”…Sheldon Whitehous, Rhode Island Senator said it was “better than nothing”…but not much…”Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have proposed legislation that would impose a new ethics code on the court, with lawmakers saying they are being forced to act because of the justices’ failure to do so.

They welcomed the announcement but said it falls short of what they would like to see.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who chairs the committee, said the Supreme Court’s actions were “important steps, but they fall short of what we could and should expect,” including by leaving too many decisions up to individual justices.

“For now, I will note that the court’s adoption of this code marks a step in the right direction,” he added.

The failure to mention how complaints about ethics lapses would be enforced was an omission that Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., seized upon.

“This is a long-overdue step by the justices, but a code of ethics is not binding unless there is a mechanism to investigate possible violations and enforce the rules,” he said in a statement. 

What he called the “honor system” of individual justices’ handling ethics issues has not worked, Whitehouse added.

Gabe Roth, the executive director of ethics watchdog Fix the Court, had similar complaints.

“If the nine are going to release an ethics code with no enforcement mechanism and remain the only police of the nine, then how can the public trust they’re going to do anything more than simply cover for one another, ethics be damned?” he said in a statement.

Progressives were dismissive of the court’s announcement. A legal group on the left, the People’s Parity Project, called it “nothing more than a symbolic gesture aimed at quieting the ever-growing concerns surrounding the unethical behavior of sitting justices.”

Although Supreme Court justices follow some of the same rules that are imposed on lower court judges, such as a requirement that they file annual financial disclosure reports, they are not bound by the code of conduct that applies to other judges.

The recent scrutiny was prompted by an April article by ProPublica that said Justice Clarence Thomas had taken trips funded by Republican billionaire Harlan Crow without disclosing them. ProPublica then reported in June that Justice Samuel Alito similarly failed to report a trip to Alaska in 2008.

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee had been scheduled to vote on issuing subpoenas for Crow and conservative legal activist Leonard Leo, but the vote was abruptly postponed.

In recent months, several justices have indicated support for the court’s adopting its own code. Alito questioned whether Congress would have the legal authority to impose one on a separate branch of government.

Republicans have complained that claims of ethics lapses have disproportionately focused on conservative judges. They have said Democrats want to delegitimize the Supreme Court because it has a 6-3 conservative majority that has issued several rulings that have enraged liberals, including rolling back the abortion rights landmark Roe v. Wade last year.

Where the new code differs from the rules followed by lower court judges is on issues specific to the Supreme Court.

The explanation of the rules notes, for example, that the approach to recusal in certain cases is tailored to the Supreme Court specifically. That’s because the court has only nine justices and cases cannot be reassigned to anyone else if several justices are required to step aside.

As a result, while justices are required to follow the normal rules for deciding whether they need to recuse because of conflicts of interest, they also have what the court calls a “duty to sit” if at all possible.

The statement said Chief Justice John Roberts has directed that court employees can assist the justices in complying with the new rules, including by drawing up a list of best practices.”…

better than nothing?…not good enough…but enough to make me crazy…nothing to enforce the code of ethics means nothing…Dalia Lithwik, Law and Political Analysis for MSNBC – ” isn’t happy about the rules, no enforcement…they are gaslighting the American public…they are not real rules…they are a Hallmark card”…

I often spend Sunday at the Art Museum…then have dinner at Little Pete’s Restaurant in the back of the Philadelphian…my mother-in-law lived there for years and years…when it went condo, she hightailed out of there…she didn’t want to own there…I never understood why…it was a good investment and her apartment was “cheap” by today’s standards…Philadelphia was so cheap for so long…now so expensive…everywhere in Philadelphia…but that’s another story…we would go to the restaurant there every once in a while…but in the last few year I discovered Little Pete’s has the Jimmy’s Milan salad…Jimmy’s Milan was a restaurant on 19th Street and Chestnut…the restaurant closed but the Milan Salad lives on…here and there…Little Pete’s calls it the Little Pete Salad…Bridgid’s in Ambler calls it Milan Salad…I have to have one every once in a while…and more ofte than not, I visit the Museum and I go have dinner there…their lentil soup is delicious…they only have it on Sundays…Julia made a date with me to go see the Korean show…The Shape of Time…Maddy and Henry would join us…I got myself together and was in town a little after 2:00…we were at the Art Museum around 2:30…from the Art Museum Website: “The Shape of Time: Korean Art after 1989:

Through February 11, 2024

This exhibition brings together works by contemporary artists of Korean descent in a vibrant installation that filters individual artistic practice through the collective memory of a generation that lived under South Korea’s authoritarian regime—and was the first to experience its new democratic freedoms. Born between 1960 and 1986, many of the artists trained in Europe and the United States, immersing themselves in Euro-American ideals while coming of age at a time of rapid change in Korea.

The artists bend time—addressing the past, present, and future, sometimes all in the same work—and place to make sense of their complex cultural experiences. They reflect on the rapid urbanization and industrialization that shaped South Korea, unresolved political tensions with North Korea, the use of traditional techniques in contemporary art, the pressure to conform to societal norms around gender and sexuality, and their own resistance to these experiences.

As we expect of contemporary art, nothing is off limits. Each artist works in the medium that best delivers their message, be it fiber, painting, ceramics, photography, embroidery, installation, lacquer, video, metalwork, or performance. This is the first major showing of Korean contemporary art in the US since 2009. Many of the artists are well known in South Korea or have an international following, but others have not yet been properly introduced to audiences beyond Korea, especially in American museums, until now.”…South Korea has come up the world…coming from an authoritarian regime into a democracy…it took years and years…and we see the Korean culture flourish…”from the hit Gangnam Style to Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite being the first foreign language winner of the Best Picture Oscar to the K-Pop boy band BTS to Netflicks Squid Game…my favorite piece in the exhibition belongs to the Denver Art Museum…an installation of Buddha bodies with heads of Howdy Doody, or Bert of Bert and Ernie fame…or Dennis the Menace…or Wimpy of Popeye fame and hamburgers…it’s great…there were a couple of fabric and embroidery that looked like photographs…amazing…and five of more that thirty or so of portraits of the King of Pop Michael Jackson in the traditional portrait of kings…the exhibition is small but well worth it…it’s there until February 11, 2024…we all enjoyed the show and then walked over to Little Pete’s…the three of them loved the place…zucchini sticks…Maddy had a meat ball sandwich…Henry and Julia each had onion soup and shared Milan salad…Henry had Clams Casino also…and I had my usual…the lentil soup, only there on Sunday, and Milan Salad…I pitched the lentil soup and the onion soup before we got there… and after Julia tasted the lentil soup pronounced the lentil soup “bursting with flavor”…Maddy ordered it after she tasted it…they loved the place…the bread and saltines slathered with butter were great too…we all left happy and full…I was happy they liked the place…I was home by 7:00ish…after having dropped Henry and then Julia and Maddy…Julia drove and then I took over to drive home…it was a lovely day…A Sunday in the Museum with Julia…wonderful…I used to take both Julia and Ben to the Museum when they were kids…and now they both love museums and art…Julia being a good artist herself…did you get inspiration today Julia?…

came home to watch the latest episode of The Gilded Age…episode 3…it gets juicier and juicier…I highly recommend Julian Fellows’ The Gilded Age…Season 2 seems better than Season 1…for sure…

and lastly…trump has told us what he will do in his second term…anyone who “crossed” him will be “punished”…he will decorate the entire government with sycophants who will do his bidding and his revenge…make no mistake…he’s telling us what he will do…believe him and keep him out of the Whitehouse…from The Guardian by Margaret Sullivan: “The public doesn’t understand the risks of a Trump victory. That’s the media’s fault: With democracy in the balance, the press must relay the crucial importance of this election and the dangers of a Trump win: Whatever doubts you may have about public-opinion polls, one recent example should not be dismissed.

Yes, that poll – the one from Siena College and the New York Times that sent chills down many a spine. It showed Donald Trump winning the presidential election by significant margins over Joe Biden in several swing states, the places most likely to decide the presidential election next year.

The poll, of course, is only one snapshot and it has been criticized, but it still tells a cautionary tale – especially when paired with the certainty that Trump, if elected, will quickly move toward making the United States an authoritarian regime.

Add in Biden’s low approval ratings, despite his accomplishments, and you come to an unavoidable conclusion: the news media needs to do its job better.

The press must get across to American citizens the crucial importance of this election and the dangers of a Trump win. They don’t need to surrender their journalistic independence to do so or be “in the tank” for Biden or anyone else.

It’s now clearer than ever that Trump, if elected, will use the federal government to go after his political rivals and critics, even deploying the military toward that end. His allies are hatching plans to invoke the Insurrection Act on day one.

The US then “would resemble a banana republic”, a University of Virginia law professor told the Washington Post when it revealed these schemes. Almost as troubling, two New York Times stories outlined Trump’s autocratic plans to put loyal lawyers in key posts and limit the independence of federal agencies.

The press generally is not doing an adequate job of communicating those realities.

Instead, journalists have emphasized Joe Biden’s age and Trump’s “freewheeling” style. They blame the public’s attitudes on “polarization”, as if they themselves have no role. And, of course, they make the election about the horse race – rather than what would happen a few lengths after the finish line.

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Here’s what must be hammered home: Trump cannot be re-elected if you want the United States to be a place where elections decide outcomes, where voting rights matter, and where politicians don’t baselessly prosecute their adversaries.

When Americans do understand how politics affects their lives, they vote accordingly. We have seen that play out with respect to abortion rights in Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin and beyond. On that issue, voters clearly get that well-established rights have been ripped away, and they have reacted with force.

“Women don’t want to die for Mike Johnson’s religious beliefs,” as Vanity Fair’s Molly Jong-Fast said on MSNBC, referring to the theocratic House speaker.

Abortion rights is a visceral issue. It’s personal and immediate.

Trump’s threats to democracy? That’s a harder story to tell. Harder than “Joe Biden is old”. Harder than: “Gosh, America is so polarized.”

Journalists need to figure out a way to communicate it – clearly and memorably.

It was great to see the digging that went into that Washington Post story about Trump and his allies plotting a post-election power grab. But it was all too telling to see this wording in its subhead: “Critics have called the ideas under consideration dangerous and unconstitutional.”

So others think it’s fine, right? That suggests that both sides have a valid point of view on whether democracy matters.

Deploying the military to crush protests is radical. So is putting your cronies and yes men in charge of justice. These moves would sound a death knell for American democracy. They are not just another illustration of Trump’s “brash” personality.

We need a lot more stories like the ones the Post and the Times did – not just in these elite, paywalled outlets but on the nightly news, on cable TV, in local newspapers and on radio broadcasts. We need a lot less pussyfooting in the wording.

Every news organization should be reporting on this with far more vigor – and repetition – than they do about Biden being 80 years old.

It’s the media’s responsibility to grab American voters by the lapels, not just to nod to the topic politely from time to time.

Polls can be wrong, and it’s foolish to overstate their importance, especially a year away from the election, but if more citizens truly understood the stakes, there would be no real contest between these candidates.

The Guardian’s David Smith laid out the contrast: “Since Biden took office the US economy has added a record 14m jobs while his list of legislative accomplishments has earned comparisons with those of Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson … Trump, meanwhile, is facing 91 criminal indictments in Atlanta, Miami, New York and Washington DC, some of which relate to an attempt to overthrow the US government.”

So what can the press do differently? Here are a few suggestions.

Report more – much more – about what Trump would do, post-election. Ask voters directly whether they are comfortable with those plans, and report on that. Display these stories prominently, and then do it again soon.

Use direct language, not couched in scaredy-cat false equivalence, about the dangers of a second Trump presidency.

Pin down Republicans about whether they support Trump’s lies and autocratic plans, as ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos did in grilling the House majority leader Steve Scalise about whether the 2020 election was stolen. He pushed relentlessly, finally saying: “I just want an answer to the question, yes or no?” When Scalise kept sidestepping, Stephanopoulos soon cut off the interview.

Those ideas are just a start. Newsroom leaders should be getting their staffs together to brainstorm how to do it. Right now.

With the election less than a year away, there’s no time to waste in getting the truth across.”…

I really have to think about what day it is…November 11…Veterans Day and Harvey’s birthday…Happy Birthday Harvey…you made it to 81…congratulations!…I’m not far behind…in three months…Thanksgiving is just around the corner…it’s early this year…we’re going back to California to have Thanksgiving with my sister and her family…we had planned it before Ray died…it’s all the more of utmost importance that we’re together again… and ideal under the circumstances that Henry and Allegra are coming too…we have planned going to Napa for a wine tasting trip like we did four years ago…it was such fun…and we want to recreate that fun…it was such a lovely time, the day before Thanksgiving…and of course, Thanksgiving was great…looking forward to Thanksgiving week, just 9 days from today…time does fly, doesn’t it?…2024 will be here in 7 weeks…what a revelation!…

it seems we are in for a year of turmoil…with the 2024 election one year away…and recent developments have made me scared of the outcome…as I read in Thom Hartmann’s article: “— If Trump gets a second term, be worried. And if a bunch of third-party candidates like Joe Manchin & Jill Stein jump with the goal of eroding the Democratic vote, be really worried… Trump has now declared that if he’s elected he’ll end democracy in America in the first week after he’s inaugurated by invoking the Insurrection Act and sending the military into the streets to put down protests and impose martial law. Next, he says, he will begin the mass arrests of people who have offended him, from President Biden to activists like me and you. And this week his chances of getting elected got a big boost. In Florida in 2000, Ralph Nader on the Green Party’s ticket got 97,488 votes, while George W. Bush “won” Florida by 537 votes. It strains credulity to assert that the majority of Nader’s voters would have either voted for Bush or not voted at all, which is why when David Cobb ran for president on the Green Party ticket in 2004, he explicitly told people in swing states not to vote for him but to cast their ballots for John Kerry instead. Jill Stein had no such moral compunction with her Green Party candidacy in 2016: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin provided Trump’s margin of victory in the Electoral College over Hillary Clinton, and, in each of those states, Stein pulled more votes than Trump’s margin. In Michigan she got 51,463 votes and Trump won by 10,704; in Pennsylvania she won 49,678 versus Trump’s margin of 46,765; and in Wisconsin Stein carried 31,006 votes but Trump only won by 22,177. In other words, had liberals not voted for Ralph Nader in Florida in 2000, Al Gore would have become president and we never would have been lied into two unnecessary and illegal wars; had people in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin not voted for Jill Stein in 2016, Hillary Clinton would have become president and America would have been spared the trauma of 500,000 unnecessary Covid deaths and the ongoing assault to our democracy. This is apparently not lost on sour-grapes Jill Stein, by the way; she just announced she’s going to take another shot at helping get Donald Trump elected. Like Joe Manchin, her greed, vanity, and cynicism apparently know no bounds.

— Speaker Mike Johnson wants to end your right to birth control and, by the way, Ohio Republicans claim they’re going to ignore the state’s constitution and prosecute doctors and women who get abortions. When MAGA Mike was interviewed on Fox “News,” he feigned ignorance about his own legislative votes and the bill he sponsored to outlaw birth control pills and IUDs. That’s how dishonest this guy is. Last July the House held a vote on a bill that would have put into law a woman’s right to use birth control pills and devices that are “FDA approved”: Johnson voted against it. He also co-sponsored the Life at Conception Act (HR 431), a so-called “personhood” bill, that would outlaw birth control pills and IUDs as well as in-vitro fertilization (IVF). Slippery Mike also refuses to reveal to Congress anything about his personal finances: he’s using a loophole that only requires members of the House to reveal “interest bearing” accounts, which is the case for most checking and savings accounts. Mike, however, found a bank that offers a checking account that does not pay interest, so we’ll never find out who’s financing him or how much money he has. Along those same lines of Republicans defying the spirit of the law, GOP members of the Ohio legislature say they’re going to introduce legislation stripping from the state courts the ability to enforce the new constitutional amendment codifying the right to abortion. They claim the ballot measure only passed because of “foreign billionaires” (presumably a shot at their favorite boogeyman George Soros, aka “the International Jew”) and therefore they can ignore the will of Ohio’s voters. This is going to get interesting, and hopefully it will help Democrats flip Ohio back to Blue. Finally, Mike Johnson is in Paris today speaking to a conference of international rightwingers headlined by a man convicted of hate speech. As usual, they’re branding this fascist meeting with the word “freedom.” <sigh>

— Will the Senate Judiciary Committee ever vote on issuing subpoenas to billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow and conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo? Thursday, Committee Chairman Dick Durban tried to hold a vote on Sheldon Whitehouse’s call for the two billionaires to testify before the Senate about their years of grooming Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, and possibly others. Furious, Republicans on the committee submitted 88 amendments to the motion, effectively killing the subpoena and leading Durban to adjourn the meeting. Those Republicans — in case you’re represented by one and would like to let them know your opinion — are Josh Hawley (MO), John Kennedy (LA), Marsha Blackburn (TN), Mike Lee (UT), Lindsey Graham (SC), Chuck Grassley (IA), Ted Cruz (TX), Tom Cotton (AR), Thom Tillis (NC), and John Cornyn (TX). Democrats include: Dick Durbin (IL), Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), Amy Klobuchar (MN), Chris Coons (DE), Richard Blumenthal (CT), Mazie Hirono (HI), Cory Booker (NJ), Alex Padilla (CA), Jon Ossoff (GA), Peter Welch (VT), and Laphonza Butler (CA).

— Tommy Tuberville really is Trump’s useful idiot, performing Trump’s retribution against a military he believes confounded his coup and preparing the groundwork for his takeover in 2025. I’ve been saying this here and on my radio/TV show for months now: Tuberville was the only senator in Trump’s quarters in the DC Trump Hotel the night before January 6th and apparently deeply involved in planning the coup. Now he’s gutting the top levels of our military because, I believe, they refused to go along with Trump’s desire to have them shoot at protestors during the George Floyd protests and refused to seize voting machines the night of the 2020 election. For a while nobody with any sort of profile was willing to argue his motives were that sleazy and anti-American, but now former Clinton advisor Sidney Blumenthal has penned an op-ed in The Guardian  essentially endorsing that view. Tuberville and his fellow travelers in the GOP Putin Caucus are doing everything they can to destroy this nation and our democratic systems and anybody with eyes can see it. When will the mainstream media catch on?”…the op-ed in The Guardian by Sidney Bluemethal: “Tommy Tuberville is not acting: he really is Trump’s useful idiot: Tuberville is performing Trump’s retribution against a military he believes confounded his coup – and is preparing the groundwork for his takeover in 2025: Tommy Tuberville plays the fool with such conviction that he makes it difficult to imagine a motive behind his idiocy. He is really, truly, actually not acting. In ordinary times others might qualify as the stupidest member of the Senate, but none have matched his performance at a moment of profound and precarious international crisis. Tuberville’s freeze on promotions of general staff officers unless the federal government denies reproductive health services – abortions – to women in the military has significantly disrupted readiness, upended the chain of command and otherwise endangered national security. Of 852 general and flag officers, he has placed 387 holds so far. By the end of the year, 90% of generals and admirals will be out of position. The chief of naval operations, Admiral Lisa Franchetti, says it will take two or three years to fix. One hundred and twenty officers are now being forced to perform two jobs.

When General Eric Smith, the commandant of the Marine Corps, who was performing several jobs at once, suffered a heart attack, Tuberville cavalierly dismissed any responsibility. “Come on, give me a break. This guy is going to work 18-20 hours a day no matter what. That’s what we do. I did that for years,” he said.

Tuberville was a football coach before he was elected the senator from Alabama. Denigrating the marine commandant, Tuberville suggested that coaching a game was as hard as running the Marine Corps. “Coach” is his identity. “Email Coach” reads the contact information on his Senate website.

Donald Trump first gave Tuberville his seal of approval in Tuberville’s fight against the former attorney general Jeff Sessions. Trump had fired Sessions for recusing himself instead of suppressing the justice department investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Sessions attempted a comeback in 2020, running for his old Senate seat from Alabama; Tuberville, with Trump’s support, won the GOP nomination. The Coach had no qualifications for public service other than fame as Coach: he just happened to be the lucky dummy in one of Trump’s grudge matches.

By freezing military appointments, Tuberville keeps the cameras focused on himself as he struts up and down the field. He is not up for re-election until 2026, but since he has placed his hold on military officers his campaign contributions have rocketed from a negligible amount at the beginning of this year to nearly half a million dollars by July. His hold has turned into his sweet spot for a Trumpian grift. Every day is game day.

But Tuberville’s gain is more than the military’s defeat; it is the Republican party’s loss, at both ends of Tuberville’s play. He is wilfully and enthusiastically hammering national security while inflaming the abortion issue. Since the Dobbs decision Republicans have been desperately seeking to escape the political consequences of their decades-long crusade culminating in the supreme court decision overturning Roe v Wade. Tuberville has contrived a unique formula to wage the culture war by undermining the military, or, more likely, had that formula engineered for him.

Idiots can still be useful idiots. There are larger purposes involved in his scam kulturkampf. His subversion of the military is not just collateral damage. It is not the unintended consequence, but the overriding motive. His abortion ban is both context and pretext. Tuberville has opened Trump’s strategy for a second term to replace the professional class of officers pledged to the constitution with a collection of flunkies who will salute his command, legal or not. Tuberville is a blunt instrument, but, however crude, he is the available tool.

The Heritage Foundation – which has produced a blueprint for a Trump second term, the 2025 Transition Project, which includes firing the entire federal civil service and replacing it with Trump loyalists, and invoking the Insurrection Act on day one of Trump II to deploy the military against political dissidents – has evidently been behind Tuberville’s attack on the military. It circulated a letter of several far-right ex-military figures to Senate leaders demanding that they “Support Senator Tuberville’s Fight Against Woke Military”, which they denounced for “advancing the leftwing social agenda”.

Heritage published an article by one of its fellows claiming that Tuberville is the “one man” standing in the way of a dastardly conspiracy led by Biden: “Replacing the officer class of police and military ranks with politicized ideologues who will bend to a transformative dogma is a strategy that has worked in places like the Soviet Union, Cuba and Venezuela … Tuberville, thus, is stopping the promotion of woke apparatchiks.” Like Trump, the Heritage cadres project their own scheme on to their enemies.

For months, the leaders of the Senate of both parties allowed Tuberville to stand on the rule that gives every senator the right to put a hold on an appointment. They tolerated Tuberville’s stupidity in order not to alter the sacrosanct rule, an anachronism that makes every senator a king. Behind the scenes, they importuned him to relent. Some Republicans suggested that if he lifted his hold on the entire military officer corps, they wouldn’t care if he chewed on a smaller bone. Perhaps he might put a hold on Derek Chollet, the highly competent and experienced counselor in the state department, who has been nominated to be the under-secretary of defense for policy, or maybe other worthy appointees. Their broader cynicism fell before his dim-witted cynicism. No dice.

Coach is not team friendly. He is not clubbable in the most exclusive club in the country. Tuberville was unembarrassed when a group of military spouses, the Secure Families Initiative, blasted his “political showmanship” and urged him to stop using “military families as leverage”. He was unashamed when veterans’ groups pointed out that he had failed to donate his Senate salary to veterans’ charities as he had promised. He did not care when the Veterans of Foreign Wars begged him to stop. He was indifferent when the secretaries of the army, navy and air force asked him to end his blockade. “Just another example of woke propaganda,” Tuberville tweeted.

The former CIA director Michael Hayden, a retired air force general, tweeted in response to a question about whether Tuberville should be removed from the armed services committee: “How about the human race?” Tuberville, in faux alarm, called the sarcastic remark a “politically motivated assassination” and reported Hayden to the Capitol police – a good basis for another fundraising plea to the yahoos. Hayden replied: “I was surprised to wake up this morning and discover that many Maganuts had lost their minds over my suggestion that ‘Coach’ Tuberville not be considered a member of the human race. I stand by that view. I’m wishing you all a nice day even the intransigent Tommy Tuberville.”

Finally, on 1 November, several Republican senators, all veterans, vented their wrath in an extraordinary display of exasperation. They blew away Tuberville’s excuse that he wasn’t damaging readiness as “ridiculous”.

“We are going to look back at this episode and just be stunned at what a national-security suicide mission this became,” said Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska. “I do not respect men who do not honor their word,” said Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa.

The Senate rule may now be amended. With the approval of the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, Senator Jack Reed, the chairman of the armed services committee, has introduced a bill to allow a vote on military nominations in batches without unanimous consent. The Reed bill would pass if nine Republicans joined the Democrats.

Tuberville remains unyielding despite the equivalent of his blackball from the club. His communications director, Steven Stafford, a longtime Republican operative, sent an email to anti-abortion groups to mobilize them, so “that any Republican who votes for this will be primaried. In my view, if enough mushy middle Republicans come out in opposition, then this is over. But they only need nine squishes. And they will get there if we don’t act.”

The email violated Senate ethics rules prohibiting “official resources” for being used for campaign purposes. Republican senators were enraged at the threat. “I have some words and they’re not polite so I’m not going to say them,” said Senator Ernst. The chairman of the Republican Senate Campaign Committee, Senator Steve Daines of Montana, issued a statement calling for Stafford’s “termination”.

Tuberville instinctively reacted with abject cowardice. “That was not me,” he said, blaming his staffer. “He did a ‘no no.’ It wasn’t my statement. I totally disagree with that. We’re teammates here.” He wanted back in the good graces of the club. Stafford was compelled to make a Soviet purge-trial like confession: “It is not the opinion of Coach, it was not on behalf of Coach.” Coach left his wounded behind. Think Ted Lasso as moronic and malignant.

Tuberville’s stupidity is both vain and in vain. By his damage to others he invariably damages himself. He projects his stupidity through blind arrogance and compounds it through pride in his presumption of superior knowledge. “Our government wasn’t set up for one group to have all three branches of government – wasn’t set up that way,” Tuberville has said. “You know, the House, the Senate and the executive.”

Defending his hold on military promotions, Tuberville treated an interview on CNN in July as a teaching opportunity. “I’m totally against anything to do with racism,” he began, before instantly going off the rails. “But the thing about being a white nationalist is just a cover word, for the Democrats, now, where they can use it, to try to make people mad across the country. Identity politics. I’m totally against that. But I’m for the American people. I’m for military.” When the interviewer told him that white nationalists believe in white supremacy, he replied, “Well, that’s some people’s opinion … My opinion of a white nationalist, if somebody wants to call them a white nationalist, to me, is an American … Well, that’s just a name that it’s been given.” When the interviewer raised “real concerns about extremism”, Tuberville answered: “So, if you’re going to do away with most white people in this country, out of the military, we got huge problems.”

In his stupidity, Tuberville confuses his ignorance with ingenuity. He is scornful when challenged. His stupidity may appear to be a brand of fanaticism, but that would mistake his mule-like stubbornness for a leap of faith. On his mission from God, Coach thinks he is the highest authority. His smugness protects against doubt. Nobody can fool the fool who fools himself. He plays three-card monte tricking himself that wrecking the military is owning the libs. His malice is a defense mechanism. The greater the outrage against him, the greater his certainty, if not celebrity and fundraising. Coach wants to be seen as the hero. The greater his apparent futility, the more he believes he is a giant among men. He is fourth and goal, calling the play for a touchdown. Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war!

---

Before the 2020 election, even though he was not yet elected to the Senate, Tuberville plotted the rejection of electoral college certification of the results. “You’ll see what’s coming,” he said. “You’ve been reading about it in the House. We’re going to have to do it in the Senate.”

On January 6, as the mob rampaged through the Capitol, approaching the Senate chamber, Tuberville, sworn in as a senator three days before, played a sycophantic Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern bit role. Trump phoned Tuberville. At first, he misdialed Senator Mike Lee of Utah, who handed Tuberville his phone. Tuberville informed Trump that the Secret Service had just evacuated Mike Pence, who Trump was pressuring to reject certification. “They’ve taken the vice-president out,” Tuberville told Trump. “They want me to get off the phone, I gotta go.” Later, Tuberville had lapses of memory of the time of the call and what Trump said to him. “I don’t remember, because they were dragging me. They had me by the arm.” Tuberville was one of eight Republican senators to vote against certification.

One obscure aspect of Trump’s coup was his foiled attempt to place his loyalists within the CIA and the Pentagon. He was resisted by the CIA director Gina Haspel, the secretary of defense Mark Esper and chairman of the joint chiefs, General Mark Milley. Trump had come into the presidency thinking of the senior military as “my generals”, a personal palace guard, but one by one he forced them out. “A bunch of dopes and babies,” he called them. “Some of the dumbest people I’ve ever met in my life,” he said. He has been especially hostile to former chairman of the joint chiefs, Milley, who resisted Trump’s idea to bomb Iran after he lost the election to foster a crisis before the electoral college vote on January 6. “If you do this, you’re gonna have a fucking war,” Milley told him.

Milley believed that Trump might stage a coup, a “Reichstag” moment to precipitate the suspension of the constitution, and he told the congressional leadership about the military: “Our loyalty is to the US constitution.” After January 6, Trump felt “my generals” had betrayed him. Where was his Mike Flynn?

When Milley’s thwarting of Trump’s secret plan to strike Iran was exposed in an article by Susan Glasser in the New Yorker in July 2021, Trump was furious. He had brought the memo he had ordered Milley to produce to his Bedminster club along with other national security documents. Agitated by the revelation, he waved the papers before some supporters at his New Jersey property, saying of Milley and the military “these are bad, sick people”. He falsely claimed that it was Milley who was pushing him to attack Iran. “This was him. They presented me this – this is off the record but – they presented me this. This was him. This was the defense department and him … This was done by the military and given to me.” This incident at Bedminster now figures in the federal indictment of Trump for mishandling classified documents.

At his retirement on 29 September, Milley pointed said: “We don’t take an oath to a king or a queen or to a tyrant or a dictator. And we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We don’t take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we’re willing to die to protect it.” Trump responded by trashing him as a “Woke train wreck,” whose treason was “so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”

Now, Tuberville is performing Trump’s early retribution against a military that he believes confounded his coup and preparing the groundwork for his takeover in 2025, which will include replacing the nation’s top military command with his lackeys to impose the Insurrection Act against opponents – “my generals”, at last. It doesn’t matter whether Tuberville fully understands the play. He just has to run his pattern. ( This article was amended on 8 November 2023. Donald Trump waved the Iran memo at his Bedminster club in New Jersey, not Mar-a-Lago as an earlier version said. ).”

from Thom Hartmann: — Could the Swifties be the tipping point for Democrats in 2024? Taylor Swift called on her followers on Instagram to go to vote.org and register for the upcoming elections: over 40,000 did so. Both Jack Kennedy and Bill Clinton were particularly good at getting celebrities to support their candidacies, as was Obama during his re-election in 2012. Hopefully Swift is the leading edge of a vanguard of famous people with large followings who will bring new and young voters into the election next year.”

is it Saturday?…were the banks closed yesterday, Friday, in “celebration” of Veterans Day?…but whatever we do, we must not let trump near the White House…it will be a sorry, DISASTROUS!!!…for our Country and our Democracy…and all of our lives…

it is Saturday…and instead of going to see The Holdovers, I instead took dinner to Elissa who is feeling badly after a rough week of just feeling lousy…she mistakenly went to a dinner party in town, ubered in…to find that the dinner party was not Friday but today, Saturday…she ubered home…and feeling not so great did not go to the dinner party…with regrets…that’s when we all ( the Sandwich Club ) sprang into action…Elissa feeling so bad she cancelled our Sandwich night, next Thursday…but we all reserved the right to host it at either Pam’s or Susan’s ( she had the first one – BLTs )…and Elissa can just be a guest…if she’s feeling better…but anyway, I told Elissa I would do anything!…anything!…she wished for Ben and Irv’s chicken matzoh ball soup…and a turkey special… I’m always up for a lean corned beef special…and for buying their soup…buy 3 get one free…quarts for $10.00 and with the free one…it comes up $7.50 each…but a separate $3.00 for the 3 matzoh balls…dinner was delicious..and we happened upon the Rob Reiner directed documentary…Albert Brooks: Defending My Life…it’s wonderful, funny, witty…and don’t miss it…on HBO…his real name is Albert Einstein…believe it or not…his father was a comedian who had a heart attack and died at a Friars Club roast of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez…the first woman…he did his bid, sat back down and died…I don’t remember seeing that one…his Dad’s name was Harry Einstein…directed by Rob Reiner…long time friend of Brooks, from school…it is the best…

found a dime and a quarter….

first from Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post: “What Caught My Eye: In case four-times indicted former president Donald Trump’s suck-uppery to Russian President Vladimir Putin and other dictators, MAGA’s “America First” reprise and the GOP’s opposition to measures that make us more competitive against China (e.g., green energy investment) left any doubt, the past few weeks should have convinced you that keeping Republicans in the House majority and putting them back in the White House would endanger national security as much as they would democracy.

The House speaker is willing to do something no other Congress has done: condition aid to Israel (amid an existential war). A sizable share of Republicans are ready to throw Ukraine to the Russia bear, which would hand a defeat to the United States more serious than Vietnam. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) persists in holding up military promotions. (He had the gall to compare the workday of a senior military commander who suffered a heart attack after working two jobs for 18 hours a day to his stint as football coach.) Beyond hollering at him, Republicans appear unwilling to make any rule change to shut him down. And let’s not forget Republicans’ infatuation with shutdowns, which would have our military men and women work without pay.

Having chosen performance politics and white Christian nationalism over responsible governance and fidelity to their oaths, MAGA Republicans and their cult leader mock and threaten the people and institutions responsible for upholding the Constitution and protecting our safety (e.g., disabled veterans, Capitol police, the FBI, court personnel).

Instead of responsible stewardship and respect for the military, they offer insults (“woke,” “losers”). Instead of serious concern for their fellow Americans’ safety, they bait violent extremists with paeans to toxic masculinity. Democracy and ordered liberty will be on the ballot in 2024, but so will defense of the homeland, preservation of critical alliances and maintenance of a 21st-century military.

Democrats would be foolish to ignore their opponents’ dangerous dereliction of the first responsibility of government: ensure the safety and security of Americans. But they must also disavow elements on the far left spouting “colonialism” poppycock about Israel and insisting we distance ourselves from our closest ally in the region. President Biden and the vast majority of Democrats understand that the survival of both Israel and Ukraine are national imperatives for the United States.

Biden needs to reiterate the message. “History has taught us that when terrorists don’t pay a price for their terror, when dictators don’t pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos and death and more destruction,” Biden said in his Oct. 19 Oval Office address. “They keep going. And the cost and the threat to America and the world keep rising.” He and his supporters need to emphasize that there are few people who could steer the United States and our allies through a perilous time for the international community.

Sadly, only one party has a coherent, responsible view of U.S. leadership in the world based on our national interests and values. The GOP, which once boasted it helped defeat the Soviet Union and end the Cold War, now cannot be trusted to lead in a uniquely dangerous and complex international landscape. Every despot, from Putin to Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman, would cheer Trump’s return. Biden cannot let voters ignore this frightful possibility.

Distinguished People of the Week: “Observing Trump pout, hurl insults and lose his temper in a New York courtroom on Monday might be distressing to many Americans who know such behavior would land the average person in contempt of court. But it also signaled the limits Trump faces in his effort to flout justice and pretend the rules don’t apply to him. Moreover, there have been two other recent developments that suggest the rule of law still has a pulse.

First, the center-right group originally called Checks and Balances relaunched this week as the Society for the Rule of Law. “This marks a major nationwide expansion aimed at protecting the Constitution and building a broad-based movement of conservative and center-right legal practitioners, scholars, and law students committed to defending the rule of law from mounting threats,” its news release noted. With prominent figures including George T. Conway III, retired judge J. Michael Luttig, former congresswoman Barbara Comstock (Va.), former acting attorney general Stuart M. Gerson and former Reagan White House lawyer Alan Raul, it will expand its activities to include public education, events “aimed at engaging those in the legal community and law schools in the vital work of supporting and preserving America’s legal institutions from those actively working to undermine them” and a nationwide membership drive.

In an appearance on Morning Joe, Conway explained: “We are absolutely determined to get our message across of the danger of a second term.” The group understands the problem is not solely Trump but the entire MAGA movement he spawned. “What is at stake now goes way beyond … one deranged, deluded, disordered man. … The termites are loose in the basement of the house.” He reiterated, “This goes to the fundamental aspect of what makes America America.” If principled conservatives can provide an alternate affiliation to the hyper-politicized Federalist Society, young lawyers and practitioners alike might come to recognize the necessity of preserving a system that promises no one is above the law and holds attorneys responsible for attempting to subvert democracy.

In other positive news, a California judge last week delivered a blow in defense of the rule of law and potentially a knockout punch to former Trump attorney and coup architect John Eastman. In a state bar proceeding stemming from Eastman’s effort to overthrow the 2020 election, State Bar Court Judge Yvette D. Roland issued a preliminary finding of culpability for multiple ethics violations. This “marks a key moment in the months-long case against Eastman, who could face sanctions as severe as disbarment,” CNN reported.

The ruling means the state bar has rejected Eastman’s scheme to negate Biden’s victory as within the realm of reasonable legal advice. This is consistent with rulings from district courts in California and D.C. that pierced the attorney-client veil between Eastman and Trump because their conduct amounted to probable criminal activity. Multiple experts have testified that Eastman’s theory allowing then-Vice President Mike Pence to throw out electoral votes was absurd and that there was no plausible evidence of fraud.

Eastman is an unindicted co-conspirator in the federal case concerning Jan. 6, 2021, and a defendant in the Georgia state case focusing on, among other things, the phony electors. Certainly, the standard of proof in a criminal trial — beyond a reasonable doubt — is much higher than in a state bar proceeding. But the extensive evidence from legal experts rejecting Eastman’s theory out of hand bodes poorly for him, for any Trump defense based on “advice of counsel” (which must be reasonable advice) and for Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani (who has already been sanctioned by the New York bar). Though Eastman remains adamant about his innocence, the pressure will build to strike a deal with state and federal prosecutors (as co-counsel Kenneth Chesebro did).

These developments highlight two critical aspects in the battle to preserve the rule of law, a key component of our democracy. First, people on the right must take up the cause. Defense of principles such as “equal justice under the law” should not be a partisan effort. Conservatives might be the only ones who can sway still-reachable Republicans to preserve the impartial rule of law and reject the MAGA cult leader eager to use the Justice Department to enact revenge on opponents. And it is only when lawbreakers, especially lawyers, face consequences — be it criminal charges or loss of their license — that we can deter future lawbreaking. Democracy defenders should hope these events signal a rebound for the cornerstone of American democracy.

we have a can kicked down the street looming closer again…within a week the government will not be funded… and yet the House and Senate went home “for the holiday”…Veteran’s Day…November 11th…celebrated today… we hear from Thom Hartmann: “Why Are Republicans Fiddling with Fascism While the Shutdown is Looming?:This begs a bigger question, “Why have Republicans in the House and Senate become so unable or unwilling to do the nation’s business?”:

With a government shutdown looming a week from today, the House of Representatives adjourned yesterday for the weekend after Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson failed to get a successful vote on two essential funding bills.

One, a transportation bill, would have gutted Amtrak, so a few east coast Republicans objected; the other, funding government operations and oversight of banks, went down in flames because it had a draconian anti-abortion provision built into it and Tuesday’s election appears to have spooked the GOP.

Just a week earlier, Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott — who became a near billionaire running a company convicted of the largest ($1.7 billion) Medicare fraud in American history and hails from Ron DeSantis’ home state — endorsed Donald Trump.

These stories are connected, and answer the question: “Why have Republicans in the House and Senate become so unable or unwilling to do the nation’s business?”

It turns out they actually want the chaos they’re creating, the government defaults, the mass shooters, the fights on school boards and city councils, the racist, antisemitic, and homophobic vigilantes. They think it will all work to their advantage: none of this is accidental.

They think it will discourage voters by amplifying American cynicism and discouragement, making it easier for them to take over.

Rick Scott is betting that when Trump becomes president and declares martial law on his first day, as he’s promised to do, morbidly rich people like Scott will be unscathed.

His vast wealth has always insulated him from having to interact shoulder-to-shoulder with the unwashed masses: private jets, exclusive clubs and restaurants, chauffeurs and butlers, a dedicated security detail and gated communities.

The billionaires and CEOs funding the Republicans in Congress who are disrupting our government believe the same thing. They think they’re invincible. They believe the GOP embrace of fascism to replace the democracy that is increasingly rejecting them at the polls will keep them safe.

They’re wrong.

From the time in 1980 when David Koch ran for Vice President on a platform of ending Social Security and Medicare along with gutting all federal support for education, healthcare, and “welfare” programs, “Libertarian” billionaires have worked to end every part of what they call “big government” that may help average working people, the environment, or the poor.  

Reagan won the election that year, but Koch’s worldview prevailed, taking over the GOP.

Over the past 42 years, Reaganomics has moved over 60,000 factories and nearly 20 million good-paying manufacturing jobs overseas.

It’s cut taxes on billionaires to the point they pay an average 3.4% income tax (when they pay anything at all: Trump, taking in billions, paid $750 a year for almost two decades).

Reagan’s policies destroyed the American union movement and stole $51 trillion from working class people, putting almost every penny of it into the money bins of the GOP’s morbidly rich patrons.

Devastating the working class was actually part of the plan: now that the American middle class has gone from over 60% of us down to a mere 43% of us, Republicans are trying to harness the outrage people are feeling and then use it to tear our society apart.

Out of the chaos, they believe they can rebuild a nation on the foundations of hypermasculinity, racism, religious bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, and threats of violence. These are the weapons that every fascist leader in history has relied on, and in every case those leaders — from Mussolini to Hitler to Putin — were first heavily supported by the morbidly rich who thought they could “control the madman.”

Pro tip: you can’t control the madman.

Fritz Thyssen, the steel baron who was one of Germany’s richest industrialists in the 1930s, wrote a book about how he made the same bet American billionaires and Republican politicians are making today: he thought he could ride a tiger that would make him richer and it would never turn and devour him.

His book I Paid Hitler (my book-collecting father gave me a copy 51 years ago for my 21st birthday) — which lays out how he personally convinced Hindenberg to make Hitler Chancellor and raised the Nazi Party’s first 3 million Reichsmarks so they could win their first national election — reads like a modern-day tragedy.

At first, Thyssen got along with Hitler, even believed he was influencing the man, but when he began to object to some of the Nazi leader’s worse excesses he had to flee the country with his family to avoid being murdered.

Fascists play for keeps.

Just ask the families of the four police officers killed by Trump’s January 6th rioters. Or the mourning parents of over 1,000 children Trump stole at the southern border and then trafficked into a “Christian” adoption scam and are still missing.

Once they acquire power, fascists rarely relinquish it, regardless of how many people must die, how many lives are destroyed. When they fail to hold onto power, as Hitler did when he was arrested in the 1920s and Trump did in 2020, they fight like hell to regain it. And once they succeed, their commitment to revenge makes them ten times more deadly.

Speaker Mike Johnson and his House Republicans are making the same bet as the morbidly rich men who own them. They naively believe that fascist leaders like Trump actually care about “unborn children,” budget deficits, and Drag Queen Story Hour.

In fact, all America’s morbidly rich who fund the GOP care about is power and the obscene wealth that is protected by it. Everything else is chum they toss into the water to bring along the lowest-common-denominator voters. And once Trump seizes total power, he’ll turn on them, too.

Nonetheless, American billionaires are still funding and thus growing this fascist movement within the GOP, just like Fritz Thyssen did back in the day.

Pushing conspiracy theories. Casting minorities (gender, race, religion) and politicians as actual evil. Passing laws that increasingly narrow our democracy until one day there will only be one party governing this country and that party will be wholly beholden to them.

Can they pull it off? Can they create a righwing movement so powerful it will lock the Democratic Party out of national power forever? Will their stooges on the Supreme Court help them block future Democrats from the White House with more corrupt endorsements of political bribery, gerrymandering, and voter purges?

Or will the beast they’re empowering turn on them, like it did on Fritz Thyssen when he had to flee his homeland to avoid the brutal fate so many of his wealthy peers suffered?

Outlawing actual (as opposed to purely symbolic and impotent) opposition took a few months in Chile when Pinochet took over; it took about two years in Germany; arguably four or five years in Russia. If Trump, DeSantis, or somebody like them becomes president next year, it could happen very quickly. They even have a plan for it, called Project 2025 according to the Washington Post.

It can happen here. And the morbidly rich are not going to save us.

Next year’s election will determine the fate and future of what’s left of our democracy, so badly battered by bought-off and corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court and in Congress: this cancer that started with Reagan and was put on steroids by Trump’s racist “birther” claims about Obama in 2008 has now fully metastasized across American society.

As long as our rightwing billionaires can keep their billions in dark-money “donations” relatively quiet and minimize outrage over their practice of nakedly purchasing elections, of carpet-bombing American homes with lie-filled television advertising, of turning the algorithmic social media screws to fill our nation with hate, the path we’re following won’t change.

That will take an overwhelming number of us waking up and becoming politically active.

And we’re going to have to get it done soon, while it’s still legal to write, protest, and vote. Because if Trump or someone like him is elected, all those rights will quickly vanish.

Thank you for reading The Hartmann Report. This post is public so feel free to share it.”…

I went to see Killers of the Flower Moon…the first movie I’ve been to for a couple of weeks…out of commission with California and then having Covid again…I feel pretty good, using my father-in-law’s cane…it really helps…I walked over a mile yesterday…then later, met Pam and Jim and Ben and Julia and Henry for trivia at the Cheshire Brewery…do you know what a male duck is called?…do you know what state was named after Queen Elizabeth I?…how about the year Stupid Cupid by Connie Francis came out?…we had a good total but didn’t place in the top three…and we had the chicken sandwich from Haven…Jim had a Caesar Salad with Chicken from the Deli…I love their Caesar and haven’t had it for a while…months ago, the Caesar with Chicken cost around $8.00…with Chicken add $2.00…last night, Caesar with Chicken cost $15.00…without Chicken, $11.00… kind of priced themselves out of my pocket…that’s another story…Killers of the Flower Moon…since I found out that I’m half Indigenous American…I’ve become protective of how our native Americans have been treated… Killers of the Flower Moon, directed by Martin Scorsese, is about Oklahoma and the Osage Indian Nation which found oil on their land…based on a true story of the Osage murders in Oklahoma…from Wikipedia: “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI is a 2017 nonfiction book by American journalist David Grann about the Osage murders. Time magazine listed Killers of the Flower Moon as one of its top ten nonfiction books of 2017: Killers of the Flower Moon is a 2023 American epic Western crime drama film directed by Martin Scorsese from a screenplay he co-wrote with Eric Roth, based on the 2017 non-fiction book of the same name by David Grann. Set in 1920s Oklahoma, it focuses on a series of murders of Osage members and relations in the Osage Nation after oil was being produced on tribal land. Tribal members had retained mineral rights on their reservation, and whites sought to gain their wealth.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Lily Gladstone lead an ensemble cast, that also includes Jesse Plemons, Tantoo Cardinal, John Lithgow and Brendan Fraser. It is the sixth feature film collaboration between Scorsese and DiCaprio, the tenth between Scorsese and De Niro, and the eleventh and final collaboration between Scorsese and composer Robbie Robertson, who died two months before the film’s release; the film is dedicated to Robertson…part of The Plot: “Osage elders somberly bury a ceremonial pipe, mourning their descendants’ assimilation into White American society. Wandering through their Oklahoma reservation, which features the annual “flower moon” phenomenon of fields of blooms, several Osage find oil gushing from the ground. The tribe becomes wealthy, as it retains mineral rights and members share in oil-lease revenues, though law requires white court-appointed guardians to manage the money of full and half-blood members, assuming them “incompetent”…the film references “the 1921 Tulsa race riot, in which white people destroyed a thriving Black community and killed numerous residents, causes further concern amongst the Osage that a similar attack could occur to them.”…which did happen to the Osage…about “The Tulsa race massacre, also known as the Tulsa race riot or the Black Wall Street massacre, was a two-day-long white supremacist terrorist  massacre that took place between May 31 and June 1, 1921, when mobs of white residents, some of whom had been appointed as deputies and armed by city government officials, attacked black residents and destroyed homes and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The event is considered one of the worst incidents of racial violence in American history. The attackers burned and destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the neighborhood—at the time one of the wealthiest black communities in the United States, colloquially known as “Black Wall Street”.”…this has come into the national conscious recently…from Wikipedia: “Three days after the massacre, President Warren G. Harding spoke at the all-black Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. He declared, “Despite the demagogues, the idea of our oneness as Americans has risen superior to every appeal to mere class and group. And so, I wish it might be in this matter of our national problem of races.” Speaking directly about the events in Tulsa, he said, “God grant that, in the soberness, the fairness, and the justice of this country, we never see another spectacle like it.”

There were no convictions for any of the charges related to violence. There were decades of silence about the terror, violence, and losses of this event. The riot was largely omitted from local, state, and national histories: “The Tulsa race riot of 1921 was rarely mentioned in history books, classrooms, or even in private. Black and white people alike grew into middle age, unaware of what had taken place.” It was not recognized in the Tulsa Tribune feature of “Fifteen Years Ago Today” or “Twenty-five Years Ago Today”. A 2017 report detailing the history of the Tulsa Fire Department from 1897 until the date of publication makes no mention of the 1921 massacre.

Several people tried to document the events, gather photographs, and record the names of the dead and injured. Mary E. Jones Parrish, a young black teacher and journalist from Rochester, New York, was hired by the Inter-racial Commission to write an account of the riot. Parrish was a survivor, and she wrote about her experiences, collected other accounts, gathered photographs and compiled “a partial roster of property losses in the African American community”. She published these in Events of the Tulsa Disaster, in 1922. It was the first book to be published about the riot. The first academic account was a master’s thesis written in 1946 by Loren L. Gill, a veteran of World War II, but the thesis did not circulate beyond the University of Tulsa.

In 1971, a small group of survivors gathered for a memorial service at Mount Zion Baptist Church with black and white people in attendance. That same year, the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce decided to commemorate the riot, but when they read the accounts and saw photos gathered by Ed Wheeler, host of a radio history program, detailing the specifics of the riot, they refused to publish them. He then took his information to the two major newspapers in Tulsa, both of which also refused to run his story. His article, “Profile of a Race Riot” was published in Impact Magazine, a publication aimed at black audiences, but most of Tulsa’s white residents never knew about it.

In the early 1970s, along with Henry C. Whitlow, Jr., a history teacher at Booker T. Washington High School, Mozella Franklin Jones helped to desegregate the Tulsa Historical Society by mounting the first major exhibition on the history of African Americans in Tulsa. Jones also created, at the Tulsa Historical Society, the first collection of massacre photographs available to the public. While researching and sharing the history of the riot, Jones collaborated with a white woman named Ruth Sigler Avery, who was also trying to publicize accounts of the riot. The two women, however, encountered pressure, particularly among whites, to keep silent.

The Tulsa Massacre claimed an estimated 150–300 lives; over 800 people were seriously injured, and many more are estimated to have had their lives drastically changed forever. Tulsa Jewish Community helped save African Americans during the riot.”…Killers of the Flower Moon tells that true story of the murders of the Osage by whites wanting to gain their mineral rights and eventually the land…the story that members of the Osage were systematically murdered without impunity…without investigation…I enjoyed the film even though it was disturbing as the story unfolded…made me anxious and angry…the greed of the white oil men willing to kill for it…tying it into big oil and big pharma and big insurance and big corporations doing the same to us today and tying Hartmann and Rubin’s columns we have to listen up and save ourselves…

November 9 was my Mom’s birthday…she would have been 102…rest in peace Mom…