He’s a sexual abuser of whole countries. Attack them, throw them down the stairs, pick them up, buy a pretty dress and prop them up, kick them against, slap them, threaten to kill them, hand them money and pretty baubles, more kicks to the face. The cycle goes on because the source is the same.

Will see if Pam Bondi can generate any allies through the kind of unique “mea culpa” that claims to uphold moral limits to how corrupt she’s willing to go - and obviously not being able to lie, dissemble and cover up quite enough to please her mob boss.

Nice escape reading of the newest translation of Beowulf - reading it for my book group, now in year 17 of monthly meetings. Book goes best when read out loud.

We attended a multi-denominational candlelight vigil last night for Minneapolis. At one point during the music and speeches it dawned upon me. This is Our Nazi Moment. We are now where Germany was in 1933-34. There is no more imagining. This fight, this reclaim of our basic rights, is real.

Amazing, but not surprising, that among all the boot-licking, ass-kissing cabinet members, not a single one of them has the guts to stand up and say what they all know, that’s he’s a deranged, blithering maniac and that it’s time to invoke the 25th Amendment.

Lessons from the recent political news. When you are shit-brained incompetent and crooked, it catches up with you.

Here’s a good Republican campaign strategy: demolish the East Wing to build a privately funded banquet hall, cancel SNAP benefits, shutdown government, raise ACA rates on 24 m. Americans, reduce airplane schedules on eve of holiday season, pretend tariffs are not taxes, terrorize citizens via ICE.

Would be great to see 200-300 officers stand up in defiance today, refuse the bait, walk out of the proceedings and resign their posts in protest at this effort to promote a personal military arm for Trump’s fascist mobilization. This meeting is a moment in our history, a crucial one.

Comedians today are the German Jews of 1933-34.

Is Rachel Maddow really the best we can do? Tonight, as usual, she rambles on unedited like a grade school teacher confusing hope with analysis on how the resistance is so powerful and he’s just reduced to a pitiful figure. The naïveté is embarrassing. We need more substance.

Trump/Miller/ICE are going to try to provoke a civil war out of LA. They want martial law crackdown; watch them escalate, blame, lash out. Thick narcissism, writ political.

Given the Democrats’ lame overall response to the steady creep of GOP fascism, the strongest bulwark against a complete authoritarian takeover might just be the inbred incompetence of Trump’s closest advisors and Cabinet secretaries.

True love: an early birthday present.

Rational questioning of the right-wing attack on Social Security, arguably the country’s most effective redistributive system, needs to confront a fact. Their attempt to destroy SS is b/c the system works so well. Their cruelty prevents them from tolerating a government system that does good.

Dems need to learn to fight. Don’t obey. Resist, delay, drag it out, sue, file motions, make them explain, make them work for their pathetic little bullying tactics, vote no on everything, refuse to cooperate. Make noise. Make it hard for them. Don’t comply easily.

If Congressional Dems - both House & Senate - have any guts (still TBD), they will stage a mass walk out Tuesday night when the Orange monster walks on to give his SOTU.

Sunset in Phoenix

Editor at major national publication just sent me instructions and word count for a potential cover study on golf handicaps: “Shoot for a 1,000.”

Anyone else watching this SNL 50th? I was hoping for old stuff retrospectives. This is awful.

Welcome to New England. 7” of snow capped with a coating of rain that is freezing it into a solid crust.

40 years ago published a detailed account in “Dusseldorfer Debatte” about alliance of violence & , fascism in “American Football.” Could reprise/update text tonight thanks to Trump & Musk being part of Super Bowl. Except I won’t be watching. Urge you to do the same.

Nearly 1,000 people turned up at a Connecticut meeting to hear our Senator Chris Murphy denounce what’s happening in DC and fill us with hope about progressive strategies to overcome it.

Hope your day was more productive than mine. At least I pulled off a rare (for me) Friday trifecta. Finished the WSJ Friday & Saturday crosswords plus the Friday NYT.

One thing I’ve learned by binge watching film noir lately. YouTube’s The Detective is no Eddie Muller.

Is it too much to ask why mainstream media accord front page headlines and free air to everything Musk says, like the latest defunding efforts? Don’t they know they are contributing to the complete corruption of public space? Valorizing fame and wealth cripples democracy.

Just finished Sinclair Lewis’ “It Can’t Happen Here” and “ Arrowsmith,” now half way through “Main Street” and cannot fathom how he could have (or should have) won a Nobel Prize for Literature.

The cats seem to know what’s happening: it can happen here, and has.

NyJets opening drive, 99 yards, team has never looked better, only to miss PAT. Still, a great start.

Looks like NCAA/CFP should have gone with the top 8 after all and saved us the farce of the 1st football playoff round. College kids (even the athletes) needed the week for finals tests, anyway.

Calling all BlueSky golf nuts. Anyone have a good photo of the stone wall lining 14th at St.Andrews-Old Course. Or Muirfield 9th?

Did not think it possible, but based on recent traffic, Elon has turned his dying forum into even more of a hangout for hooker bots.

Another airport, another book to read.

Finally realized, the issue with TroyAikman’s commentary on MNF is that he’s taking to fellow football pros, not a general audience. He gets lost in analytical details that are of no help to everyday viewers.

Time to write an account of how extreme right-wing fascism uses the state to destroy state power - and along the way celebrates, embraces bitcoin/crypto as viable free-flowing speculative currencies.

Who is going to wake up Merrick Garland on the morning of Jan. 20, 2025, and remind him his term is over so he can stop not doing his job for the last 4 years? What a sad abdication of responsibility he represents.

Unwatchable NYGiants game at 1 PM presents possibility instead of: 1) afternoon golf; 2) removing invasive Burning Bush in yard; 3) editing latest manuscript; 4) doing NYT Sunday XWord; 5) removing another 1,000 photos from my phone. Grateful for the options.

Raced to board at MSP and got halted at gate with a little ceremony.

What’s with all the cat photos here? There’s nothing to learn from these guys.

Study group trove proving very instructive for local politics - and wider public intelligence.

As today’s NYT crossword would say, “Nothing But Blue Skies.”

Places like this site make me feel more hopeful than I did a few days ago.

Time to rewrite international order into a whole new international disorder

Hoping that reading and writing will help make a difference.

Welcome to a more inclusive world.