Suck-ers!

Why I’m a fan of the Oxford comma.

@allenmichie.bsky.social on the fine clarinetist Harry Skoler’s album "Echoes" -- the recording honors jazz tradition while slipping gracefully into a modern, oblique swing. artsfuse.org/330549/jazz-...

Each month, our arts critics — music, book, theater, dance, television, film, and visual arts — fire off a few brief reviews. Among the July contributors: @allenmichie.bsky.social, @pkeough1.bsky.social, Ralph Locke, Jonathan Blumhofer, and Mark Hänser. artsfuse.org/330859/july-...?

There’s still time for the US to beat Belgium if only Mike Pence has enough courage to do the right thing!

@allenmichie.bsky.social on new jazz vocal albums: April Varner, a rising star in this new generation of female jazz singers, pays homage to Ella Fitzgerald; John Pizzarellii’s recording is an early entry in the long list of tributes for #tonybennett’s 100th birthday. artsfuse.org/326720/jazz-...

A trail of destruction. Imagine their reaction if Obama had done even one of these things.

From 2013:

Donald Trump inheriting a situation that was suboptimal but honestly fine, deciding to personally intervene, and making everything significantly worse at great taxpayer expense is a perfect synopsis of every single thing he has done as president both times.

Wow. Iran gets sanctions relief, the release of frozen funds, the ability to export oil, and a $300 billion reconstruction fund. The U.S. gets a reiteration of the vague promise Iran won’t develop a nuke. Hard to imagine a more thorough capitulation.

The weekly newsletter -- Resist the algorithm! Support The Arts Fuse's Spring Appeal. artsfuse.substack.com/p/it-takes-a...

As a reminder, Pulte is the guy who goes through the mortgages of Trump’s enemies, looking for mistakes, which he then uses as a basis to refer them for criminal prosecution. See, e.g.: Letitia James

The Arts Fuse continues to grow – and our million + readers across the world are the reason why. Your support helps us pay our writers, expand our coverage, and keep independent arts criticism and cultural commentary available without a paywall. artsfuse.org/329015/sprin...

"[Biden] has one ability I don't have: he sleeps... He has an ability to fall asleep while on camera... You'll never see me sleeping in front of a camera." -- Trump, 2024

Trump's latest budget is the culmination of 40 years of increasing social control in America. Remember that over half of defense spending flows to private contractors, like the drone manufacturers Trump's sons are now major investors in. All of this is absurd.

Today's winner of the Internet. Congratulations!

Meanwhile, the typical American will pay a federal income tax rate of 14.5% This is what a rigged system looks like. [Via @itep.org]

Happy Easter from your President of the United States.

500 more White House ballrooms. 4 years of a fully funded National Institutes of Health. 2 million Kash Patel trips to Milan by private jet. 16.2 years of IRS funding, at pre-Trump levels. 40 percent of Greenland, if it were for sale. 2,666 Melania sequels. 16.9 TSA budgets. 2 Warner Bros.

How is it that Terry Gross is able to tell absolutely EVERY guest, “Welcome back to Fresh Air”? At some point, don’t the laws of physics have to kick in?

What's the difference between Iran and Vietnam? Trump had a plan to get out of Vietnam.

1. CONSUMERS paid most of Trump's tariffs, which the Supreme Court ruled were illegal. But CORPORATIONS will receive the refunds. Will they pass that cash back to consumers? Or pocket the money? We asked them. 🧵 popular.info/p/consumers-...

The circle of life, Donald Trump style: —attack Iran, spiking global oil prices —> —Iran gets support from Russia to target American forces —> —US unsanctions Russian oil to cut oil prices —> —Russia uses oil revenues to support Iran in targeting US forces. #genius (From a friend)

Just a little reminder as you read the headlines about Trump honoring the “brave American patriots” etc. he is sending off to possibly get killed.

@allenmichie.bsky.social enthuses that the Django Festival Allstars's album "Evolution" is a major statement from master musicians building on a strong tradition and taking it forward into our own generation with passion and elegance. artsfuse.org/324849/album...

Note the date. Were they lying then, or lying now?

Just remember what this is all for…. Distracting from the Epstein files

Seems to be the pattern…

Name them shame them

If Jeff Bezos could afford to spend $75 million on the Melania movie & $500 million for a yacht to sail off to his $55 million wedding to give his wife a $5 million ring, please don't tell me he needed to fire one-third of the Washington Post staff. Democracy dies in oligarchy.

again we do not really do a good job of explaining how wealthy people like Jeff Bezos are his net worth is $253.2 billion. so he could take one million dollars, and just light it on fire and then do it again tomorrow and again the day after that and then do it every day for 693 years and 8 months

While there have always been dubious pardons for political cronies, “unprecedented” doesn’t begin to describe how Donald Trump has corrupted the power of presidential forgiveness.

$00.00. -- The amount Trump paid in income tax in 15 of the last 20 years, according to leaked IRS documents $10,000,000,000. -- amount for which Trump is suing the IRS for leaking the above

AOC: "How rich is it that she is saying showing up to the scene of a protest with a legally owned weapon should be grounds for a person's death, execution at the hands of the state, by the same party and administration that praises Kyle Rittenhouse."

What's happening in Minnesota is one reason the Reconstruction Amendments banned insurrectionists from holding office. Unfortunately, the originalists on the Supreme Court interpreted the plain language of the amendment to mean its opposite.

If I have this right, conservatives believe everyone should own a gun, there should be no licensing or other requirements for gun ownership, everyone should carry their guns everywhere to make everyone safer, *and* law enforcement officers are free to murder you for possessing a gun in public.

Enjoy your Thursday, courtesy of AI.

I think often of the time a bunch of murder victims’ families showed Trump treasured photos of their loved ones and he signed them

From our moral guardian of the Clinton years: "Hope Santa (swim trunks donned), reindeer and sleigh successfully made it southward. Yuletide hugs, Ken." -- Ken Starr, in 2016 email to Epstein

This man is our current ambassador to Turkey.

These are the kind of things that make the trumps relatable to the working class

If the Biden administration had sent federal agents to do a law enforcement operation 10X milder in a white suburban neighborhood in order to apprehend a serial pedophile and violent domestic abuser who happened to be a white Christian pastor, the MAGA crew would have reduced the country to rubble.