Mostly Monday Reads: SAVE Shennanigans

Posted: July 27, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: #FARTUS, #MAGAnomics, #We are so Fucked, 2026 FIFA, 2026 SCOTUS Decisions, Republican politics, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , | 7 Comments

“It’s incredible watching Donald The Prophet profiting.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The headlines today are full of failed policies. Orange Caligula hasn’t quite found a distraction to take the voters’ minds off everything he’s done this term. We have a failed war and an economy choked by inflation. His main focus is on rigging the election and disenfranchising minority voters and women. He’s been after Senator John Thune to get his SAVE Act passed. However, the more people know about it, the less they like it. So, it’s time to start lighting up your Congressional Critters’ phones.

This is the headline from Politico‘s  Jordain Carney. “Trump tells Thune to keep Senate in session to pass SAVE America Act. The president also again urged the Senate GOP leader to nix the filibuster.” Republicans are always keen on the filibuster until it’s used against them.

President Donald Trump ramped up pressure Monday on Majority Leader John Thune, telling him to keep the Senate in session until a GOP election bill passes.

“John Thune should not allow the United States Senate to ‘leave town’ until it passes The Save America Act or, far better still, TERMINATES THE FILIBUSTER, where Republicans can then quickly pass everything they ever dreamed of,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Monday.

Democrats, he added, will nix the filibuster themselves when they regain power “and can’t believe how lucky they got with this Senate leadership. Remember, stupidity always brings LOSING & DEATH!”

Trump’s Truth Social post comes after he urged supporters last week to call Thune about the SAVE America Act, then said Friday that he wanted Senate Republicans to adopt a blueprint for a $95 billion party-line spending bill, which would include some election-related funding, before they leave town for the August recess as planned on Aug. 6.

Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said over the weekend that they believed the Senate should stay in town until the election bill is passed. Lee has previously called for the Senate to stay in session through prior recesses to pass the SAVE America Act but has not forced the issue on the floor.

Despite Trump’s pressure campaign, the elections bill doesn’t have the votes to pass the Senate and there isn’t enough support within the Senate Republican conference for nixing the filibuster, which requires 60 votes for most legislation to advance.

When Trump says he has a dream, it’s basically to ensure Black Americans can’t get to the polls. There’s no better time than this midterm to turn out and punch that voting machine selection with your middle finger. This analysis at The Hill has part of the explanation why Republican Senators can’t find their spines to buck the MAGA agenda. Alexander Bolten has the lede.

Senate conservatives, led by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), are calling on Senate Majority Leader John Thune 

(R-S.D.) to cancel the August recess so they can debate the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act, a sweeping election reform bill that President Trump has made his No. 1 legislative priority.

Lee warned in a social media post to Thune last week that he would “object to any effort to put the Senate into recess in August — at least until such time as the Senate has passed the SAVE America Act” and requested a roll call vote to adjourn the Senate for five weeks over most of August and early September.

Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.), who’s up for reelection in November, said she would prefer to stay in Washington in August instead of returning to her home state for an extended period to meet with constituents.

“I didn’t come to the United States Senate because I needed something to do. I’m serving because there are things we need to get done for the American People. The Senate needs to stay in session until we can get the SAVE America Act to the floor and passed,” Moody posted on X.

Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), another Trump ally, said he’s ready to cancel the five-week recess to debate the SAVE America Act, which has already failed several times on the Senate floor.

“I’m all for it. We don’t need a recess. Let’s pass the Save America Act. It’s more important than taking a break, taking a recess,” Banks told Fox News.

“I’m back in Indiana for the weekend, I head back to Washington tomorrow. I’ve heard from people everywhere I go, from the diner this morning to the grocery store, ‘Pass the SAVE America Act.’ We have to get it done,” he said.

The Senate has already spent several weeks of floor time debating the SAVE America Act, which would require people to show documented proof of citizenship when registering to vote and show photo identification when voting, and it would restrict mail-in ballots.

Down here in the yahoo state, we have Senator Kennedy to go all Hee-Haw on us. Samuel Chamberlin has this headline (deep breath) from the New York Post. “GOP Sen. John Kennedy warns John Thune is ‘being too cautious’ as Trump agenda hangs in the balance.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) needs to get to work on passing the rest of President Trump’s agenda with fewer than 100 days to go before the midterm elections, a key member of the GOP’s rank-and-file warned Sunday.

“Look, I mean no disrespect. I love John Thune. He’s my leader. He’s got a big brain. He’s better looking than me, but I think he’s just being too cautious,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told CBS News’ “Face The Nation,” adding that the majority leader “wants to spend the rest of our time talking with [Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer about shutting down government, and the Graham Platner wing of the [Democratic] party is, his party, is not going to let Schumer agree with us.

“They already want to give Schumer a bathrobe, a Popsicle, and an early bedtime, and have him retire. I don’t think Chuck can agree with us,” Kennedy predicted. “I think he’s going to shut down government.”

“We need to put the, the House budget resolution on the floor,” Kennedy told host Margaret Brennan. “It’s the only chance we have to get money to defense, the farmers, and to take another crack at the SAVE Act. We need to add Iran to the [Lindsey] Graham Russian sanctions bill and vote on it. We need to put the cryptocurrency market structure bill on the floor and vote on it.”

Before leaving for its August recess last week, the House of Representatives passed a stopgap measure that would fund the government until Dec. 4. Some Senate Republicans, including Kennedy, want to tack the Trump-endorsed SAVE America Act, which would require Americans to show proof of citizenship before registering to vote and provide photo identification before casting a ballot, onto the budget resolution.

Currently, a shutdown is set to begin at 11:59 p.m. ET Sept. 30.

It’s amazing how people with perfectly good educations and seemingly functional minds can go all bat shit crazy when they get themselves elected/appointed to anything within the Beltway. I’ve been around here long enough to remember when Foghorn Leghorn was a member of the Democratic Party. He switched parties in August 2007.

Meanwhile, we’ve finally uncovered a bit more truthiness from our human cost in Trump’s war against Fishing Boats. (Psst, have you sent the FBI to your sons, Orange Caligula, if you really want a successful coke bust? This is from the Washington Post.  “Deadly U.S. boat strikes have failed to curb cocaine supply, Pentagon and DEA officials say. The president says Operation Southern Spear has virtually ended drug trafficking by sea. Pentagon and DEA analysts have concluded otherwise.”

The Trump administration’s deadly military strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats have not reduced the amount of cocaine entering the United States, but they’re prompting criminal organizations to develop new strategies and tactics and undermining traditional investigative methods, according to a previously unreported assessment by the Drug Enforcement Administration, a closed-door congressional briefing and interviews with current and former U.S. and foreign officials.

In a recent assessment reviewed by The Washington Post, DEA analysts found the strikes had failed to affect the supply or price of cocaine in the United States and had led traffickers to diversify beyond go-fast boats and to avoid international waters, opting instead for larger boats and hemming close to coastlines, where U.S. forces are less likely to open fire. In a closed-door briefing last month, Pentagon officials told lawmakers the strikes in international waters off South and Central America had not reduced its purity.

Traffickers are also relying more on aircraft, which take off from clandestine airstrips along the Colombian-Venezuelan border and head east to Guyana and Suriname to avoid U.S. forces, according to the DEA assessment.

“When you squeeze the balloon on one side, it always expands on the other side,” one DEA official told The Post. “They always find the weak spots and exploit them.” The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

Meanwhile, giant corporations are getting rich at what they do best. As usual, they’re cutting costs by denying their workers a living wage, so those workers must rely on public assistance. This strategy is one of America’s worst legacies.  This is from Popular Information. Judd Legum has the story.

American taxpayers are spending billions every year providing Medicaid benefits to hundreds of thousands of employees of Amazon and Walmart, a new analysis by Popular Information reveals.

Amazon and Walmart are two of the largest and most profitable companies in the country — collectively generating $100 billion in profits in 2025 — but many of their employees still qualify for Medicaid because their take-home pay hovers around (or below) the poverty line.

As taxpayers keep their workers afloat, the wealth of the two companies’ largest shareholders is increasing exponentially. The Walton family, the largest shareholders of Walmart, saw their collective wealth increase from $238 billion in 2021 to $513 billion at the end of 2025. Meanwhile, Amazon founder and current executive chairman Jeff Bezos saw his net worth increase from $187 billion to $255 billion over roughly the same time period.

Popular Information calculated the public subsidy to Amazon and Walmart by cross-referencing several publicly available data sources. Last week, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report examining the top 25 employers of Medicaid enrollees in six states: Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, and Rhode Island. This provided state-level Medicaid enrollment for Amazon and Walmart workers in all six states, with the exception of Amazon in Maine.

Popular Information compared these figures to the total number of employees working for Walmart and Amazon in each state, sourced from company disclosures, to establish an average Medicaid enrollment rate for each company. The average Medicaid enrollment rate was then used to establish an estimated Medicaid enrollment for employees of each company in the remaining states.

Finally, the estimated number of employees receiving Medicaid in each state was multiplied by that state’s average annual cost of a non-elderly, non-disabled Medicaid enrollee, as published by the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC).https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/26/us-heat-wave-dome-weather

Using this methodology, Popular Information estimates that, nationwide, over 156,000 Walmart employees are enrolled in Medicaid at an annual cost to taxpayers of approximately $1.04 billion.

Of course, you can read more at the links. The weather all over the country continues to break records and be miserable. I hope you’re managing to avoid the worst of it. I’ve developed a keen fashion sense that includes cotton under shirts and cut-off jeans, accentuated by bare feet. I can’t make iced tea fast enough, nor can I keep the animals’ water bowls filled with water and a few ice cubes. This article from The Guardian shows the widespread phenomenon. JJ and I are under a “heatwave dome.” BB sent me her forecast, which really is wild.  “Super El Niño Could Combine With Rare Atlantic Niña: See MA Impacts.”

What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?

Mostly Monday Reads: Chaos Information

Posted: June 22, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: #We are so Fucked, MAGA Chaos, Republican Chaos, Trump Chaos | Tags: , , , , , , | 6 Comments

“Saboteurs be damned! The Situation Room is locked and loaded to eliminate the threat of the Green Newest Scam.” @repeat1968, John Buss

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Well, I have the perfect read and lede to reinforce my repetitive sub-headings for my post. Burgess Evertt of Semaphor quotes outgoing Senator John Cornyn in his latest. Either everyone reads me, or we all finally notice the trend. “‘The president seems to revel in chaos’: Cornyn goes his own way.” Ya think?

A few days after losing his Senate runoff, John Cornyn did something unusual for him: He used his leverage against his own party.

The Texas Republican was frustrated by a nearly year-long delay in getting his state reimbursed by the Trump administration for more than $10 billion in border security spending that Congress had already approved. Cornyn had something valuable to withhold as lawmakers prepared to take up President Donald Trump’s $70 billion immigration spending bill.

“Basically, I told Senator Barrasso and Senator [John] Thune: ‘There’s a price for my vote, and it is to get the administration to release the money,’” Cornyn told Semafor in a recent interview in his hideaway office on the Capitol’s third floor. “Next thing I got is a call from [White House budget director] Russ Vought, and Russ said, ‘we’ll put a notice of funding.’”

Cornyn added a reminder that, with more than six months left in office and a sophisticated understanding of the Senate, he’s positioned to play more hardball if he has to: “That’s one example I think of what you can do when you have some cards to play.”

The four-term incumbent is already setting some conditions on his critical undecided vote for Trump’s attorney general pick, Todd Blanche. Cornyn has returned to the candor he displayed for years in the Senate halls, offering withering assessments of Trump’s Iran deal and legislative strategy — a pattern he might continue on Wednesday, when the president visits GOP senators in person.

See? We basically have to vote them out of office to act in the interests of the country and the people they serve. To continue that train of thought, a reference to my soon-to-be-gone senator was also put into the analysis

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., also ousted by Trump in May, told Semafor that he and Cornyn are “like-minded in the sense that we’re both not returning, and that gives a certain focus. And he’s conveyed he’s got no illusions about the president.

“But you know,” Cassidy added, “it’s not like we sit around in a smoke-filled room, plotting the strategy.”

It just amazes me that Trump manages to get his way as long as they hold office and positions. Then, they suddenly rotate to the right thing.

What does it take to act like an actual American leader these days? This headline at VOX got me thinking, also. “The MAGA stars freaked out by their own movement. The right’s leading lights are looking for anyone to blame for the right’s growing extremism — except themselves.” This analysis is written by Zach Beauchamp.

It’s a real-life version of the famous sketch on Tim Robinson’s show I Think You Should Leave, where a hot-dog-shaped car crashes into a storefront and a man in a hot dog suit says, “We’re all trying to find the guy who did this.”

The “hot dog men” — and yes, they’re almost all men — are easy to mock. But their growing ranks point to something serious: that right-wing political machine is spinning out of control in ways that even some of its most aggressive and radical voices recognize as dangerous. And as the right searches for new leadership before Trump himself fades into history, nobody on their side has shown any proven ability to contain or redirect its worst impulses.

In the absence of post-Trump leaders both willing and able to address the real problems, the future of the right — and, thus, in some sense, America — is dangerously unclear.

If that’s the metaphor, then the reality on the ground is even more bizarre.

Shapiro, Rufo, and Rogan are three of the most important figures of the modern right. That they’ve all started sounding like comedy “hot dog men” of late suggests the right has a genuine problem on its hands.

Indeed, there are plenty of other examples.

Mark Levin, the Fox News and talk radio provocateur with Trump’s ear, unironically complains about “podcasters” who are “not about informing or educating,” but rather profiting off being “crazier” than their competitors. Rod Dreher, a right-wing writer who has long promoted a famously racist anti-immigration novel, has been expressing deep concern about rising bigotry on the young right. And even Dinesh D’Souza — a commentator who has spent literally decades spreading increasingly toxic, racially tinged conspiracies — is now warning that right-wing racism may prompt “mass desertions of blacks, Latinos and other minorities from the GOP.”

All of these men openly helped build the right-wing political culture that got us here. Now they’re all trying, desperately, to find the guy who did this.

The examples provided make for a long read, but a good set of evidence for the hypothesis. This article comes with all the details on all the nasty stuff that fed the MAGA tourists and the Elephants at the Republican Zoo. You have to pay a bit to read this, but you will come away with a deeper understanding of the people we ignored for way too long. The conspiracy theorists and provocateurs are reaping what they sowed. I especially liked the story of Candice Owens, who always seemed like an over-the-top Con Artist and turn-coat.

You can also read more on the infighting via MSNOW’s Mychael Schnell.” ‘It’s awkward for everybody’: Inside the Trump-Thune relationship. The president and the majority leader are increasingly finding themselves in standoffs.” Trump is still doing a lot of damage, however, so I wonder if this is actually affecting any real change. Is minimal change doing anything?

On June 4, as Senate Republicans finally began debating their immigration enforcement bill, President Donald Trump called Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., with a demand: Attach the SAVE America Act to the legislation.

During the call — according to a source familiar with the conversation — Thune told Trump there wasn’t enough support for the hardline voting bill. But, as a concession to the president, he said Republicans would try again.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., drafted an amendment exactly as Trump requested. And Republicans put it on the floor for a vote.

It failed 48-50, with four Republicans joining Democrats in opposition.

Despite one of those stubborn realities in the Senate — math — Trump has continued pressing for the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship and photo identification to vote while sharply restricting mail-in voting.

Trump’s insistence on pursuing a bill that lacks enough support, and his tendency to fault Thune when it fails, has only deepened tensions between the president and the Senate majority leader.

One GOP senator, who requested anonymity to discuss the internal dynamics, said Trump and Thune “have an awkward relationship.”

“It’s awkward for everybody,” the lawmaker said.

Sources stressed that Trump and Thune still maintain a functional working relationship. One person familiar with their interactions said they don’t speak every day, but “when they need to talk, they talk a lot.”

Still, the limited communication is increasingly becoming a problem.

One of the clearest signs of that dynamic came last week, when Trump instructed his director of national intelligence nominee not to show up for a confirmation hearing, prolonging a lapse in U.S. spying authority. That morning, Thune said he hadn’t heard from Trump.

When Thune was asked last Wednesday why Trump had unexpectedly derailed his nominee’s hearing, the South Dakota Republican’s frustration was palpable.

“Good question,” he said.

Part of Trump’s discontent with Thune appears to be rooted in the contrast with Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. While Johnson often advances Trump’s priorities through the simple-majority House, Thune must navigate a Senate where most major legislation requires 60 votes. As a result, Thune frequently finds himself delivering unwelcome news about what can and can’t pass.

“Thune and the speaker obviously have different ways of communicating with Trump, both in style and in substance,” the source familiar with the Trump-Thune dynamic said.

“When it comes to Thune, he doesn’t sugarcoat the truth,” this person added. “He tells the president exactly what he needs to know — the raw and unvarnished truth — even if it isn’t always the answer the president wants to hear.”

This Washington Post analysis (gifted) shows Orange Caligula’s troubles extend to the Supreme Court. “Why Trump has been attacking the Supreme Court, with 3 key rulings ahead. As the court prepares to rule on several of the president’s priorities, tensions are running high — even with his own appointees.

One recounted how Gorsuch became upset when Davis lashed out at Justice Amy Coney Barrett, calling her a “rattled law professor” for siding with the court’s liberals in a pair of rulings against Trump. The other said Davis was angered by Gorsuch’s vote to block Trump’s use of a wartime authority to deport Venezuelans.

The people differed on whether Gorsuch had asked Davis not to come to his clerks’ gathering or he chose not to. Either way, the rift highlighted the growing conflict between Trump, his MAGA allies and the justices, which has burst more fully into public view in recent months.

That turbulence makes for a tense backdrop in the waning days of the Supreme Court’s 2025-26 term, as the justices prepare to rule on three signature Trump initiatives: limiting birthright citizenship, firing the heads of independent agencies and reshaping the Federal Reserve.

Many legal experts believe that the justices have signaled they will rule against Trump on two out of the three, blocking his bid to deny citizenship to those who were born to parents here illegally or lacking permanent residency, as well as his effort to remove a governor of the Fed board.

“It seems like almost 100 years since you’ve had a clash approaching this level between the president and the court,” said Jeffrey L. Fisher, a law professor at Stanford University. “You’d have to go back to the New Deal to have any kind of an analogue.”

During the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to pack the court by expanding it from nine justices to 15after the court struck down key parts of the New Deal. The plan ultimately failed, but not before the court began upholding some policies that Roosevelt championed, possibly in response to his threats to add justices.

Davis, who declined to comment on his relationship with Gorsuch, said in an interview that if the court rules against Trump on birthright citizenship,

“When the Supreme Court gives Chinese birth tourists birthright citizenship, it’s going to destroy its legitimacy with a broad swath of the American public,” Davis said, referring to people who ostensibly travel to the United States to have American children. “They are following politics and vanity projects instead of the law.”

Defenders of birthright citizenship note that the 14th Amendment says that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

In another major case on Trump policies, the court will decide whether the president can remove without cause the heads of roughly two dozen independent agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission, that Congress set up to be insulated from political influence.

In addition, the justices will rule on whether Trump can fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook while a lawsuit over her removal plays out in the courts. A ruling for Trump would give the president far greater control over the powerful central bank.

These rulings, and other major decisions, are likely to come in the next week or so as the justices sprint toward the end of the term in late June or early July.

The disaffection with the Supreme Court among Trump’s allies is notable because the president reshaped the court in his first term with three staunchly conservative appointees, who have delivered major victories for conservatives on abortion, affirmative action, religious rights and more.

This term, the justices have handed the administration a string of wins on the emergency docket, allowing Trump policies on limiting immigration, freezing foreign aid and dismantling the Education Department to move forward for now.

Trump appointed Gorsuch, who did not respond to a request for comment, along with Brett M. Kavanaugh and Barrett.

The wins have not satisfied Trump, who has attacked the court — including his own nominees — in increasingly caustic and personal terms that legal scholars say have little historical precedent; Trump has called the justices “bad,” “stupid,” “weak” and other epithets.

All three of these articles are long reads. I’m not sure if they give me a glimpse of hope, given all the idiots involved, but I do feel the more Trump feels he’s under attack by his own, the more he’ll turn his mind from other things, like the ridiculous crap he’s done at the White House.  I don’t know, though. I am fully aware that I might be wrong on that. It may be just chaos without meaning or impact.

Here are some other things that truly depress me. This is via CNN this morning. “Exclusive: Trump administration plans to use homeland security funds to pressure states into election changes.

The Trump administration is threatening to withhold tens of millions of dollars in federal homeland security funds from states unless they adopt a sweeping set of election changes, according to multiple sources and internal documents obtained by CNN.

The move is part of President Donald Trump’s campaign to root out alleged voter fraud — despite studies showing it’s far rarer than he claims — and exert more federal influence over how elections are run. It comes as multiple states have passed laws that seek to prevent the federal government from interfering with elections.

Under new rules governing several homeland security grant programs, states must take a number of steps, including phasing out certain electronic voting systems and moving to hand-marked paper ballots. They must also run their voter rolls through a controversial Department of Homeland Security citizenship verification database.

If not, states would lose out on some funding from DHS. These grants, expected to total more than $1 billion in the current fiscal year, are one of Washington’s main vehicles for helping state and local governments prevent terrorism, protect infrastructure and prepare for major disasters.

For years, the DHS grants, which states apply for, have required that at least 3% of the funds be spent broadly on election security. But the new guidelines, which CNN obtained and are expected to go out to states later this month, impose a set of mandatory reforms and steep penalties for noncompliance. States that refuse would lose 20% of the grant money — potentially millions of dollars in security funds.

This is more bad news via NPR.  It’s more garbage from SCOTUS. “Supreme Court allows a ruling that ends a tool to protect minority voters in 7 states.” Hansi Lo Wang has the lede.

By declining to take up a lower court ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court has dealt another blow to the Voting Rights Act.

The court announced Monday that it will not review an Arkansas-based lawsuit, leaving in place a 2025 appeals panel ruling that ends a long-used tool for protecting minority voters from discrimination under the landmark law in seven mainly Midwestern states.

That ruling found that in the states covered by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota — private individuals and groups do not have the right to sue to enforce what’s known as Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act, which generally allows voters with a disability or inability to read or write to get help with voting from a person of their choice.

The Supreme Court’s move comes almost two months after its conservative supermajority issued a major ruling that further weakened the Voting Rights Act, setting off a groundswell in redistricting across the country.

When will the press stop calling these people “conservative”? This has nothing to do with conserving anything traditionally Constitutional in this country. Okay, this is all I can handle on Monday. May the week ahead give us more hope.  I’m going to go watch more soccer games and hope for the best.

What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?

Mostly Monday Reads: What Fresh Hell?

Posted: January 6, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: 2025 What Fresh Hell?, Corrupt and Political SCOTUS, democracy is threatened, Republican politics, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

“His nose is already growing!” John (repeat1968) Buss

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Today is the anniversary of the shameful January 6th treason and violence. It may seem quiet today, but the worst is yet to come. Not only is our new FARTUS (Felon, Adjudicated Rapist, and Traitor of the United States with total credit given to JJ) about to take the oath of office, but all these other traitors are about to be granted Presidential Pardons. My only solace is that I may eat King Cake now because today is also 12th night, the official start of the Mardi Gras Season.

These are degenerate times. That has a specific meaning in Buddhism. Lama Yeshe describes it like this. “It has five characteristics: short life spans, scarce means of subsistence, mental afflictions, strong wrong views, and weak sentient beings.” That’s a good enough explanation for me when thinking about what’s been going on lately.

I will rely on the columnists I read today because they make sense.  Our media legacy has failed us.  First up is Amanda Marcotte writing for Salon. I wrote something along these lines on Friday, but Amanda has thought more deeply. “Toxic masculinity links the New Orleans attacker and the Las Vegas bomber. Whether MAGA or ISIS, troubled men are getting sucked in by hateful online propaganda.”

As I noted in passing last week, the striking thing about the life of Shamsud-Din Jabbar is how much it reads like the boilerplate biography of any random Jan. 6 defendant or MAGA-inspired criminal. The 42-year-old who allegedly murdered 15 people at the New Year’s festivities in New Orleans appeared, on paper, to be relatively successful in his career: 8 years in the Army, a degree from Georgia State, and a $125,000 a year job for an accounting firm. But his personal life was a mess. He was thrice divorced in 10 years, and at least two of the divorces were acrimonious and required repeat court interference. His divorce lawyer even fired him. His financial mismanagement meant his healthy salary didn’t go far enough, and he had to be forced to make back payments on child support.

Like so many men facing personal troubles, Jabbar didn’t get the help he needed. Instead, he turned to radicalizing voices online, which led him to believe that he needed to double down on toxic masculinity. It’s a story we hear over and over, from so-called incels who commit mass shootings to Donald Trump fans who attack government buildings to terrorists imbibing ISIS propaganda. Rather than taking responsibility for their personal failures and striving to do better, men of all stripes turn to the internet where they’re greeted by a sea of influencers, ready to tell them that it’s other people — women, people of different races or religions, the “woke mob” — that is to blame. In some cases, as happened here, they go far enough down the rabbit hole that they talk themselves into violence.

Thankfully, no one but the bomber was badly hurt in the Las Vegas suicide bombing that happened the same night as the Bourbon St. attack, but the parallels between Jabbar and Matthew Livelsberger aren’t hard to spot. Like Jabbar, Livelsberger was a troubled man who picked a highly symbolic location, blowing up a Cybertruck in front of a Trump hotel. Both men had checkered romantic histories, and Livelsberger appears to have told multiple people he feared he suffered from PTSD. Like Jabbar, Livelsberger seems to have acted on a belief that he was going out like a hero, standing up for his far-right ideology and using his death to call on fellow MAGA believers to commit acts of terrorism.

“Try peaceful means first, but be prepared to fight to get the Dems out of the fed government and military by any means necessary,” he wrote in his final manifesto. He declared the U.S. is “terminally ill and headed toward collapse,” complained that people don’t believe “[m]asculinity is good and men must be leaders” and made tired Twitter jokes calling Vice President Kamala Harris a “DEI candidate” and President Joe Biden “Weekend at Bernie’s.” He concluded, “Rally around the Trump, Musk, Kennedy, and ride this wave to the highest hegemony for all Americans!”

Livelsberger defensively insisted the bombing “was not a terrorist attack.” This sentiment is belied not just by the violence of the act itself and his calls for MAGA men to use violence because “a hard reset must occur for our country.”

It’s the 12th night, which means the members of Skull and Bones Krewes get up early to remind us of our mortality.

When Cis men fall apart, they can’t just go silently into the night, get help, or do something productive. They have to injure or kill innocents while killing themselves. They destroy more than their own lives. They have to leave some formal Mansplaining document that lets us know why it’s all our fault. These are generally misogynistic, at the very least.  Most of them spew more bullshit and bile than the waste from slaughterhouses.

John Pavlovitz wrote this on December 12th in his Substack, The Beautiful Mess. “America Chose the Monster.”

To have cast a vote for him with all that we have seen is to declare war on decency, on equality, on any semblance of forthrightness or goodness. It is to double-down on the bigotry which was dismissed as hyperbole during his campaign but which has already been ratified hundredfold as he assembles his Cabinet picks and broadcasts his agenda.

To witness his absolute disregard for the Constitution, his violent allergic reaction to facts, his complete lack of empathy and to not condemn it all becomes an indictment of one’s own heart. It becomes an act of aggression against humanity.

The are truths that are self-evident in the light of these days:

A viable healthcare alternative is not coming.
Taxes for the middle class are not coming down.
Project 2025 is going to be implemented.
Mexico is still not paying for the wall.
Immigrants are going to being persecuted.
Protections for those with special needs are evaporating.
The poor are getting thrown to the lions.
Public schools are being thrown under the bus.
The elderly are being left to fend for themselves.
The environment is being willfully set on fire.
The economy is going to be compromised.
The whole system is being intentionally blown-up.
The rule of Law in our Government is being trod upon.

Aside from the smallest percentage of the wealthiest in this nation, no one is going to be healthier, safer, or more financially secure.

This is a nonpartisan tragedy.

We all do impulsive things when we are terrified, when it’s dark and we’re convinced there’s a monster under the bed. But eventually the light comes on and we have reality at our disposal and we get to choose to see things as they are. I can’t fathom those presently determined to stay in the dark, to pretend they’re not seeing what they’re seeing—when what they’re seeing is a danger to them too.

It’s morning here in America, friends. The brilliant light of day is illuminating every dark corner and exposing every unsavory decision from the night before.

For a myriad of reasons, America chose the monster. It chose the hatred, the fear, the nihilism, the separation. The question of why is too sprawling and nebulous to answer.

And with the coming of this Monster comes more monsters. Former Capitol Police Officer Michael Fanone reminds us about the kind of people that will be put back on the street when the mass pardon of traitors begins.  This is from HuffPo. “Cowards, Liars And Jan. 6: Former Officer Michael Fanone Speaks Out As Trump’s Return Looms.

“I don’t believe we live in a democracy anymore,” says Michael Fanone, who was nearly killed by Trump supporters four years ago.”
“There’s no doubt in my mind that he got away with inciting an insurrection as well as defrauding the American people and attempting to subvert democracy,” Fanone told HuffPost during a phone interview just ahead of the fourth anniversary of the Capitol riot.

“I don’t believe we live in a democracy anymore,” Fanone said. “I believe democracy in this country is dead, and it died when the Supreme Court granted the president of the United States immunity for official acts and then failed to define what the fuck official acts are.”

The Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. United States in July found that as long as something could be shaded as an “official” act, prosecution was off the table.

The ruling obliterated key parts of the criminal indictment brought against Trump in the Jan. 6 case by then-special counsel Jack Smith. And Trump’s victory in November means he’ll likely never face federal charges.

Shortly after the presidential election, Smith dismissed the case without prejudice ― meaning it could theoretically come back to life one day ― but Fanone’s faith in the justice system is already shattered. He called Attorney General Merrick Garland an “absolute coward.”

“Listen, people say I’m naive or I don’t know how these things work, but I was a cop for 20 years. Not only was I a cop, I was a cop in Washington, D.C. Our prosecutors were federal prosecutors. I worked with the [Department of Justice] every single day for 20 years. I know exactly how that institution and organization works. The decision not to pursue an investigation into Trump was all political,” Fanone said. “The investigation should have been launched on Jan. 7, 2021.”

Fanone was Trump-friendly before the J6 Insurrection and voted for him in 2016.

Senator John Thune from South Dakota is the new bad guy in charge of the Senate.   We’re already getting some idea of how bad it’s going to be since he appears to be whipping the caucus for the gross number of idiots Trump wants in his cabinet.  This is from The Hill. “Thune says it’s unclear whether all Trump Cabinet picks will be confirmed.”  Some of the most worrying of them have to deal with National Security.

John Thune on Trump possibly pardoning J6 insurrectionists who assaulted police officers: "That's ultimately gonna be a decision that President Trump is gonna have to make. What I'm focused on is the future."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-01-05T15:37:25.150Z

Thune joined NBC News’s “Meet the Press” for an interview that aired Sunday, as he took the lead of the upper chamber at the start of the 119th Congress.

“What I’ve promised them is a fair process,” Thune said of Trump’s picks. “And so, these nominees are going to go through a committee where they’re going to have to answer questions. There will be some hard questions posed.”

Thune highlighted the desire to provide Trump with the Cabinet he wants but noted that the Senate has a role to “advise and consent,” particularly regarding his national security choices.

“We have a lot of our senators who take that role very seriously,” he said. “And so, we will make sure that these nominees have a process, a fair process, in which they have an opportunity to make their cases not only to the members of the committee and ultimately to the full Senate but also to the American people.”

Thune wouldn’t confirm whether he would vote for or against any of Trump’s nominees, including some particularly controversial choices like Kash Patel to lead the FBI, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii) for director of national intelligence and Pete Hegseth for Department of Defense.

Thune said he’s met with some of Trump’s nominees, and there are “some” that he has been “really, really impressed” by.

This bit popped up over the weekend and is disturbing.  This was reported by CBS. “Thune has privately told Trump that Hegseth has the votes to be confirmed as Defense Secretary, sources say.” Thune has so many toxic male issues combined with a lack of experience and knowledge of the job that anyone connected to the military has spoken out against him.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has privately told President-elect Donald Trump that he believes Pete Hegseth will have the votes to be confirmed as Secretary of Defense, according to three sources.

When asked for comment, a spokesman for Thune would only tell CBS News, “Two things we don’t discuss publicly: Whip counts and private conversations with the president.”

The new Senate Majority Leader in an interview with “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” promised a fair process but expressed more caution.

“I think these are nominees who are new enough, they’ve been going around and conducting their meetings, which I think, frankly, have gone very well, but they still have to make their case in front of the committee. And, you know, we don’t know all the information about some of these nominees.”

Hegseth’s confirmation hearing is scheduled for Jan. 14, according to Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker.

Just so you know, future FBI Director Kash Patel is still making the rounds in the Senate Building. “Kash Patel Believes the FBI Planned Jan. 6th. His embrace of this wild conspiracy theory should disqualify him from leading the bureau.” This is from The Bulwark.

“WHAT WAS THE FBI DOING PLANNING January 6th for a year?”

Kash Patel, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as FBI director, asked that question during a November 25, 2022 episode of his Kash’s Corner podcast for the Epoch Times. It was no slip of the tongue. As the title of that episode suggested—“What Did the FBI Know Before Jan. 6?”—Patel spent considerable time trying to cast the FBI as a villain responsible for January 6th. Patel noted that FBI Director Christopher Wray had “testified that the FBI never instigated or helped the January 6th protesters commit crimes.” But citing a report that the FBI had confidential human sources in the crowd, Patel asserted: “Okay, well, that was in planning for at least a year.”

Our review of Patel’s public appearances over the past four years reveals that he has repeatedly insinuated or argued that the FBI used its confidential human sources or employees to instigate the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol and entrap Trump’s supporters. Patel has claimed (as in the podcast episode above) that what he calls the “FBI’s Confidential Human Source Corruption Coverup Network” was somehow involved with January 6th. That is not only an insult to the memory of that day; it should be disqualifying for him to helm the bureau.

During the September 30, 2022 episode of Kash’s Corner, for instance, Patel said: “The question that has to be answered is, when did the FBI put those guys in, and where? And did those confidential human sources engage people who are not going to conduct criminal activity and convince them to do so?” Patel claimed that “is the definition of entrapment, which is illegal, and you can’t charge someone who’s been entrapped.” And he wondered who “was running this confidential human source network” and reporting it to FBI Director Chris Wray.

Patel added he would “venture a guess” that “once we see the documentation from January 6th, you will see the FBI’s confidential human source corruption coverup network on blast.” And he accused the FBI of inserting these human sources “into these matters.” Patel asked rhetorically: “Why? Why would you say January 6th? Because they wanted a political target, a political prosecution, not one based on law and fact.”

The man who could lead Trump’s FBI has failed to substantiate these wild accusations, which are contradicted by other evidence and by common sense. Regardless, he has frequently advanced this conspiracy theory, using his background as a former federal prosecutor and public defender—key credentials used to buttress his nomination—to provide it with a veneer of credibility.

An extensive amount of documentation is provided in the article.  It’s not a fun read.

ProPublica has published another astounding piece of journalism.  This is long and shocking.  It gets to the heart of Trump’s rabid base. Again, this is the heart of Toxic Masculinity.  “The Militia and the MoleOutraged by the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, a wilderness survival trainer spent years undercover climbing the ranks of right-wing militias. He didn’t tell police or the FBI. He didn’t tell family or friends. The one person he told was a ProPublica reporter.”

So I pored over his files, tens of thousands of them. They included dozens of hours of conversations he secretly recorded and years of private militia chatlogs and videos. I was able to authenticate those through other sources, in and out of the movement. I also talked to dozens of people, from Williams’ friends to other members of his militias. I dug into his tumultuous past and discovered records online he hadn’t pointed me to that supported his account.

The files give a unique window, at once expansive and intimate, into one of the most consequential and volatile social movements of our time. Williams penetrated a new generation of paramilitary leaders, which included doctors, career cops and government attorneys. Sometimes they were frightening, sometimes bumbling, always heavily armed. It was a world where a man would propose assassinating politicians, only to spark a debate about logistics.

Federal prosecutors have convicted more than 1,000 people for their role in Jan. 6. Key militia captains were sent to prison for a decade or more. But that did not quash the allure that militias hold for a broad swath of Americans.

Now President-elect Donald Trump has promised to pardon Jan. 6 rioters when he returns to the White House. Experts warn that such a move could trigger a renaissance for militant extremists, sending them an unprecedented message of protection and support — and making it all the more urgent to understand them.

(Unless otherwise noted, none of the militia members mentioned in this story responded to requests for comment.)

Williams is part of a larger cold war, radical vs. radical, that’s stayed mostly in the shadows. A left-wing activist told me he personally knows about 30 people who’ve gone undercover in militias or white supremacist groups. They did not coordinate with law enforcement, instead taking the surveillance of one of the most intractable features of American politics into their own hands.

Skeptical of authorities, militias have sought to reshape the country through armed action. Williams sought to do it through betrayals and lies, which sat with him uneasily. “I couldn’t have been as successful at this if I wasn’t one of them in some respects,” he once told me. “I couldn’t have done it so long unless they recognized something in me.”

The last thing I want to post about is the Washington Post.  The newspaper is hemorrhaging reporters, and Pulitzer Prize-Winning Political Cartoonist Ann Telnaes quit because Bezos axed her submission.  The raw sketch is featured on the right. It’s also begun layoffs. This happens when greedy Tech Bros take over things they know nothing about.  This is from Oliver Darcy’s Status. “Paper Cuts. The Washington Post is expected to lay off dozens of staffers this week, Status has learned.”

Layoffs are expected to rock The Washington Post this week, according to people familiar with the matter.

The layoffs are slated to hit the Jeff Bezos-owned and Will Lewis-led newspaper’s business division, I’m told. One person familiar with the matter said that the cuts will be deep, impacting many dozens of employees.

The layoffs will surely deplete morale further inside the beleaguered newspaper, which has suffered a talent exodus over the last several weeks. As I reported earlier, star reporter Josh Dawsey will exit The Post for a job at The Wall Street Journal. His departure comes on the heels of other top staffers fleeing, including Matea Gold, Ashley Parker, Michael Scherer, Charles Lane, Tyler Pager, and Amanda Katz.

A spokesperson for The Post didn’t have an immediate comment. But The Post has been in poor financial shape in recent years, a fact that management has not hidden from employees. Those financial problems were exacerbated when Bezos blocked The Post’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris ahead of the November election, a move that led to more than 250,000 readers canceling their subscriptions.

I’ve been a bit on the gratuitous Buddhism-sharing thing today, which I try not to overdo, but this quote from Chamtral Rinpoche hit me hard last night.

The biggest threat to our world are not human beings per se. The biggest threat is each individual person’s level of greed. One extremely greedy person can harm our world more than a million people who practice contentment.

Drinking salt water will never quench your thirst. The more you drink, the thirstier you will become. Likewise, greed will never bring you satisfaction, as it will cause an endless pursuit of material wealth to the detriment of our world and all of the beings who inhabit it.

Always remember that the greedier you are, the more you and others will suffer, and the poorer you will become inside. But the more contentment that you have, the more you and others will benefit, and the richer you will become inside.

We will have to cultivate inner peace to get through all of this.  I’ve already cut down on my TV News viewing.  I have a mature meditation practice (since the 1970s), so I have that.  Of course, the furbabies and the Zoom calls from the Granddaughters put a smile on my face.  I’m just trying to stay in the moment.  I hope you can find a way to cope with this all. I’ve been listening to a lot of modern classic piano. This piece by Lambert comes from an album called  “Sweet Apocalypse.” It’s beautiful and relaxing, and the name is appropriate for the times; it was recorded in 2017 during this first stint of anguish.

Talk to me about how you’re coping with this blast of kleptocracy, kakistocracy, and idiocracy?

What’s on your reading and blogging list?