Donald Trump Archives - Page 11 of 55

Sunday Stealing: most important

West Side Story

1. What is most important to you?

Holding the door open for someone. I mean that literally, sure, but I also mean it metaphorically. In the law of the conservation of energy, it “can neither be created nor destroyed – only converted from one form of energy to another.” So if the door is already open, it doesn’t require additional energy to keep it open and let others in.

2. Your best trait.

I observe. Then I do stuff to make a situation better, or more often, less bad.

3. A movie that makes you happy.

I haven’t watched it in a very long time, but Young Frankenstein (1974). “Pardon me, boy, is this the Transylvania station?”

4. Something that excites you.

Music excites me because, shockingly often, I play something that I had listened to dozens of times yet I hear something new. Then there are the bits that almost always excite me.

5. Something that worries you.

As a librarian, it’s the proliferation of false information that is becoming less discernable, from AI-generated photos to other deep fakes.

6. Actions you admire.

There are a lot. I’ll pick this fact: The Tony Awards & Carnegie Mellon University Present The 2024 Excellence In Theatre Education Award To CJay Philip Of Baltimore, daughter of my buddy Nell Stokes of Albany.

Annus mirabilis

7. What year has been your best so far?

Maybe in 2023, when I went to France and Las Vegas. Perhaps in 2019, when I quit my job; I mean, retired.

8. Who do you trust?

A few people I met in 1958, 1968, and 1971. There are others.

9. A Song from Your Childhood.

Here are the end credits for the movie West Side Story (1961). When I was a kid and heard that bit at about 4:30, it made me weep. And it still does.

10. What you wore today?

I wear essentially the same thing every day, a shirt, and pants, usually black or navy blue. A hat or cap, depending on the season. Even this past Sunday, when the choir wore T-shirts, I wore a long-sleeved T-shirt underneath to cover my arms, which has splotchiness from vitiligo.

11. A book you are currently reading

The Undertow: Scenes From A Slow Civil War by Jeff Sharlet. After I heard him and others speak in Albany one evening in November 2023, he and I had breakfast the next morning.

12. What do you want less of?

Stupid social media stuff posing as “news.” On CBS Mornings this month, one of their Talk Of The Table segments was of a woman on a social media platform ranting that she would NOT be returning her shopping cart to a collection area because she thought someone would go to her car and snatch her children. My thought: so she doesn’t bring it back. So what? Why should I care and why is CBS spending three minutes on a non-story?

Orange you wondering?

13. A question that needs to be asked.

Is the presumptive Republican candidate for President unhinged? At a rally this month in Las Vegas, he talked about being aboard a hypothetical electric-powered boat. “He posits that the battery would be so heavy that it would cause the craft to sink, and he relates his purported conversation with a knowledgeable mariner about this scenario.”

“I say, ‘What would happen if the boat sank from its weight, and you’re in the boat, and you have this tremendously powerful battery, and the battery’s now underwater, and there’s a shark that’s approximately 10 yards over there?’

“By the way, a lot of shark attacks lately, do you notice that? Lot of sharks. I watched some guys justifying it today: ‘Well they weren’t really that angry, they bit off the young lady’s leg because of the fact that they were not hungry but they misunderstood who she was.’ These people are crazy. He said, ‘There’s no problem with sharks, they just didn’t really understand a young woman swimming.’ No, really got decimated, and other people, too, a lot of shark attacks.

“So I said, ‘There’s a shark 10 yards away from the boat, 10 yards, or here. Do I get electrocuted if the boat is sinking, water goes over the battery, the boat is sinking? Do I stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted, or do I jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted?’ Because I will tell you, he didn’t know the answer.

“He said, ‘You know, nobody’s ever asked me that question.’ I said, ‘I think it’s a good question. I think there’s a lot of electric current coming through that water.’ But you know what I’d do if there was a shark or you get electrocuted? I’ll take electrocution every single time. I’m not getting near the shark. So we’re going to end that, we’re going to end it for boats, we’re going to end it for trucks.”

WHAT? And he’s told a variation on this story before.

Home

14. The best idea you’ve had this week.

I decided NOT to go on a trip next weekend. I’ll be able to see a barbershop quartet this Friday at my church, then to visit with a friend I’ve only known since 1958 on Sunday or Monday.

15. How are you creative?

I was at a choir party this week, and I apparently know the bass vocal to Good Night, Sweetheart by The Spaniels.

Orange is the new orange

people aren’t feeling it

He’s guilty, guilty, guilty! Lock him up! Orange is the new orange!

Having gotten that out of my system, why do I still believe that djt, who turns 78 today, will be President on January 20th, 2025, his conviction on 34 counts in a Manhattan courthouse notwithstanding?

It’s not just his Svengali-like pull he has over his MAGA supporters. Or his uncanny ability to try to delegitimize any transaction that doesn’t go his way. Before the 2016 election, he claimed that the system was rigged. (The League of Women Voters believes the system that year WAS rigged in favor of voter suppression.)

Of course, he made the same claim before and after the 2020 vote. Already, his followers feel Biden can’t win in 2024 unless the fix is in.

But this is de rigeur for djt. Why should the Manhattan trial be any different? He and several conservative news media members and lawmakers “on the right have spread false and misleading claims about the Manhattan case.” It bothers me greatly, as it undermines democracy, but it’s his script.

I’m more appalled by the vast majority of the Republican party that has become his sycophants, On January 7, 2021, most of them derided the attack on the Capitol as an assault on American democracy. Now, too many are, “Well, maybe it wasn’t SO bad.”

Cf. 1974/2024

I compare this with 1974, a mere half-century ago. Richard Nixon had been re-elected with a huge majority only two years earlier. Yet when it became clear that Nixon was deeply involved in Watergate, the Republican Party of Barry Goldwater and many others told RMN that it was time for him to go. The party believed more in the rule of law than they did in holding the presidency.

The Republicans of 2024, with far too few exceptions, have become apologists for a corrupt, vulgar, and potentially fascist presidency to maintain power. It’s disappointing and astonishing, but not surprising how morally bankrupt people like Nikki Haley and William Barr, both of whom served in djt’s Cabinet and have since pointed out the flaws of their former boss are nevertheless going to support him in the general election.

A Boston Globe opinion piece notes: “The fact that Trump’s running mate decision has morphed into a perverse version of his former reality show — call it ‘The Authoritarian’s Apprentice’ — is cause for alarm. If Trump wins and then becomes unable to serve for some reason (death, incapacitation, incarceration, whatever it may be), the winner of that race will ascend to the highest office in the land. It was bad enough when the criteria to hold such a consequential position was whether or not the candidate hailed from a swing state. Now, the test seems to be who can swing a sledgehammer at democracy as hard as Trump can.”

Pardon?

I was intrigued by Sen. Mitt Romney’s declaration that President Joe Biden should have pardoned djt. “Romney, who was the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, [said] that if he had been President, he would’ve pardoned Trump after a federal grand jury indicted him in connection with attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.”

“‘You may disagree with this, but had I been President Biden, when the Justice Department brought on indictments, I would have immediately pardoned him,’ Romney said. ‘Why? Well, because it makes me, President Biden, the big guy and the person I pardoned a little guy.'”

Likewise, per Newsmax, “former Democrat presidential primary candidate Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., is calling on New York Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul to pardon presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump ‘for the good of the country.’

“‘Donald Trump is a serial liar, cheater, and philanderer, a six-time declarer of corporate bankruptcy, an instigator of insurrection, and a convicted felon who thrives on portraying himself as a victim,’ Phillips wrote on X. ‘@GovKathyHochul should pardon him for the good of the country.'”

In a normal universe, I might be inclined to embrace this. In 1974 President Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon after he left the White House. If the Senate had convicted djt after his second impeachment, the pardon might be on the table. But they chose not to because he was no longer in office. Like a corroded penny, djt is back. A pardon would only “prove” to djt and his sycophants that the prosecutions were “political.”

My fear

Seven months ago, I thought Biden was vulnerable to defeat. Many people believe the United States is in a recession. It doesn’t matter that we’re not, and most people cannot define one.

A New York Times article, A ‘Laundry List’ or a ‘Feel’: Biden and Trump’s Clashing Appeals to Black Voters epitomizes the tension, and not just among that demographic. Biden “methodically ticked through more than a dozen accomplishments, executive orders, appointments, investments, and economic statistics.” djt says “African Americans are getting slaughtered.”

“Ashley Etienne, who worked on the 2020 Biden campaign… worried that the Biden campaign had yet to translate how the president’s agenda has actually improved the lives of most Black voters. ‘What is the message beyond a laundry list of accomplishments?’ If people aren’t feeling it in your lives, you can say it all day — it doesn’t penetrate.'”

“‘It’s a feel,’ said Ja’Ron Smith, one of the highest-ranking Black officials in the Trump White House, in explaining the former president’s appeal to Black voters. ‘They know what it’s like to live under a Trump economy rather than a Biden economy.'”

And there are plenty of similar articles. “Because of recency bias — a tendency to focus on recent events instead of past ones — people typically feel their current problems most sharply. And they tend to have a warmer recall of past experiences, which can lead to a sense of nostalgia. Like past presidents, Mr. Trump has enjoyed a higher approval rating of his time in office in retrospect.”

A clip from 1994 of Robert Reich is shown here as part of a larger conversation. djt is not the cause of the upheaval in the country; he is merely exploring it.

The only way Biden wins is if enough people are terrified by despotism. “To stop fascism, unite around the old guy.”

May rambling: unchallengeable political power

Florida man?

“Project 2025’s agenda, backed by more than 100 right-wing organizations, is detailed in Mandate for Leadership, a version of which Heritage has written as transition plans for each prospective Republican president since 1981. This year’s version is its most complete and toxic ever as it puts democratic institutions and democratic ideals on the chopping block by threatening civil and human rights, eliminating reproductive rights, infusing the government with Christian values, denying climate change, rounding up and deporting undocumented people, taking over the Justice Department, and intimidating journalists. The Project’s goal? Unadulterated, unchallengeable political power for decades to come.” Also, read Weekly Sift.

The Supreme Court is breaking America’s faith in the law.

There is a connection between seasonal allergies and mental health

The Rise of Mega Studios: How MGM Remade Hollywood 100 Years Ago

Denzel Washington Set for Retrospective at American Black Film Festival

Roger Corman, Giant of Independent Filmmaking, Dies at 98

Jeannie Epper, Legendary ‘Wonder Woman’ and ‘Romancing the Stone’ Stuntwoman, Dies at 83

The beekeeper who saved a baseball game

From MrBeast to Logan Paul: Why Wall Street Is Infatuated With Influencers

Three Whole Onions with Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Hank Green

“Thank you for paying your bill in full three months ago. Now pay us $240 more RIGHT NOW.”

Views of the northern lights from around the US; alas, I missed them

Now I Know: He Eight a Cheeseburger and A Different Type of Buried Treasure and When New York City Moved — All At Once and How To Become a Marvel Hero Without Being Furious About It and When It’s Better Not to Share Where Things are Made

Funner/funnest

Amendment XII

The presumptive Republican Party nominee for President in 2024. I wonder how the 12th Amendment to the Constitution will affect his choice of Vice-President.

The presumed candidates include Sen. Marco Rubio (FL), Sen. Tim Scott (SC), Sen. J.D. Vance (OH), Sen. Mike Lee (UT), Sen. Marsha Blackburn (TN), Gov. Doug Burgum (ND), Gov. Kristi Noem (SD), Rep. Elise Stefanik (NY), Rep. Byron Donalds (FL), Rep. Wesley Hunt (TX), Rep. Michael Waltz (FL), Sen. Tom Cotton (AR), former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson (FL), Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (AR), and Sen. Katie Britt (AL).

Amendment XII reads in part: “The Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves.” The Constitution Center writes: “The Twelfth Amendment cannot be understood outside of the Electoral College, which was set out in the 1787 Constitution as the mechanism by which Americans select their presidents.”

Without getting too much in the weeds, the electors could not vote for both if two Floridians were running for President and Veep from the same party. Most likely, they’d vote for the president, but the Senate could decide the Vice-President. Since djt is now from Florida, I can’t imagine he’d pick Rubio, Donalds, Waltz, or Carson, since the state has 30 electoral votes.

But djt won’t make a selection until shortly before the RNC convention. It makes all of those potential selections better surrogates.

I think, at this moment, it could be Stefanik or Sarah Huck, though Scott grovels well, and Burgam has a lot of money. Frank S. Robinson sarcastically (I think) suggests a Trump-Trump ticket.

Writer’s Institute

From the New York State Writer’s Institute:

“You think it will never happen to you, that it cannot happen to you,

that you are the only person in the world to whom none of these things will ever happen,

and then, one by one, they all begin to happen to you, in the same way they happen to everyone else.”

– Paul Auster (1947-2024), from Winter Journal (2012)

Music

Beethoven 9 -BBC Proms 2012 and Chicago Symphony Orchestra in honor of its premiere 250 years ago. Locks of Beethoven’s Hair Offer New Clues to the Mystery of His Deafness

Century Rolls: I. First Movement (excerpt) – John Adams

Sleep by Eric Whitacre

Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross – I Know | Challengers (Original Score)

Favorite Songs By Favorite Artists: Eagles and INXS and Red Hot Chili Peppers

K-Chuck Radio: The sweet sounds of The Executives

I Turn My Camera On – Spoon

Audra McDonald sings I Could Have Danced All Night from My Fair Lady

Ali Farka Touré – Ali Aoudy

Catch The Wind – MonaLisa Twins

Grand March from The Queen of Sheba by Charles Gounod

Thom Yorke – Suspirium

Duane Eddy, Twangy Guitar Hero of Early Rock, Dies at 86; Rebel-‘Rouser

Matadjem Yinmixan · Tinariwen

TRON suite -Wendy Carlos

Like A Prayer – Madonna

Peter Sprague Plays Dry Cleaner from Des Moines featuring Sinne Eeg

Bombino – Tar Hani (My Love)

Thou shalt not plagiarize Blotto

I would have served on the djt jury

volunteers of America

One of the things I do with some regularity is to try to put myself in others’ shoes. I concluded that I believe I would have served on the djt jury if I had lived in New York County (Manhattan). In spite of my… antipathy for the man, I think I could have looked at the facts in this particular case.

And I am specifying the “hush money” case, not the election interference case or the overthrow of the government case, about which I just can’t shake the overwhelming evidence that I’ve seen and heard.

Maybe it’s because I watched a LOT of lawyer shows growing up. They included Perry Mason, of course, but also The Defenders with E.G. Marshall and a pre-Brady Bunch Robert Reed (I have the first season on DVD); Judd For The Defense, starring a post-Donna Reed Show Carl Betz ; and The Bold Ones: The Lawyers with Burl Ives, Joseph Campanella, and James Farentino.

In fact, I watch so much of them that, for a good while, I thought I would become a lawyer until I didn’t.

Often, I imagine how I would respond to certain circumstances. In the 1980s, there was high-profile murder case, the details I’ve largely forgotten. A lawyer who came into FantaCo regularly was attending the trial daily, and he was convinced the person would surely be convicted of second-degree murder. All I knew was from television and newspaper reporting, but I became convinced that the alleged perpetrator would be found guilty of the lesser charge of first-degree manslaughter. Much to the shock of the attorney, it was precisely how the trial was decided.

Picking the jury

After watching about how they chose a jury in this case, I realized that, if I had lived in Manhattan, I could have been questioned in voir dire, somewhat differently than I experienced in 2014. I’d get to indicate my disdain for almost all of his policies – with him listening, which seems like that could be enjoyable – but that I would promise to treat his case fairly.

Ultimately, though, I would have served because it’s important. Yes, I would have to weigh the appeal of civic duty with time considerations: The trial is expected to last six to eight weeks.

Personal safety, I suppose, would also have been a concern. CNN, among others, essentially outed some jurors. “Juror five is a young Black woman who teaches English in a public charter school system. She has a Master’s degree in education, is not married and doesn’t have any kids.” When her friends and relatives note she’s largely unavailable for a couple of months, they will surely figure it out.

American values

The Weekly Sift guy called trial by jury as defending American values. Trial by jury is fundamental to the American ethic. He notes: “The central mission of a rising authoritarian movement is to destroy public trust in any institution that can stand in its way.”

Specifically, the movement tells us:

We can’t trust historians to recount the story of American racism, or librarians to make sound decisions about books that discuss either race or sex. So we have to push back against ignorance.
We can’t trust our secretaries of state and local election officials to count votes. This is why I was a poll watcher in the past and should do so more often going forward.

Interestingly, I haven’t been called for jury duty in a decade. Only recently, I discovered I could volunteer to be included in the jury pool in the state of New York if I can understand and communicate in English, am a citizen of the US, am over 18, haven’t been a juror in state federal court in the last six years, and a couple of other factors. Frankly, I think it’s a little weird.

Do I want to volunteer? Maybe, after I check some items off my Must Do list.

April rambling: history on the road

The King of Canned Italian Food

**Used with permission. https://scarecrow.bar/comics/december-2-2021/ and https://www.instagram.com/scarecrowbar**

History on the Road: After decades of reading, writing, and teaching about the American past, Ed Ayers sets out to see how that past is remembered in the places where it happened.

American Visions: The United States, 1800-1860. There’s more to every story, and the making of America is no exception. Visions for a more perfect union—often originating from the margins of society—continue to shape our nation in profound ways. These original voices are resurfaced in the book American Visions and brought to life through short films, original sources, and visits to the places where history unfolded.

The Deadliest Infectious Disease of All Time | Crash Course Lecture (Tuberculosis)

Will the World Central Kitchen attack change anything?

What Updates to OMB’s Race/Ethnicity Standards Mean for the Census Bureau. They included Using a Combined Race/Ethnicity Question and a New “Middle Eastern or North African” Category

Food Delivery Apps: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Today in book banning

djt: Stock Plummets (Literally) ft. Liz Dye and revealing his true abortion position: Lying to win elections and his mental health diagnosis was confirmed by a forensic psychiatrist. A Weekend Show Special

How a small change to U.S. quarters is part of a big trend in logo design. A subtle change on the front of the 2022 U.S. quarters mimics a shift in the design of corporate logos.

Basque has no known linguistic relatives.

Pop culture

The film fans who refuse to surrender to streaming: ‘One day you’ll barter bread for our DVDs’

TV Ratings: Men’s NCAA Basketball Final Falls Short of Women’s Title Game for First Time

Broadway Openings Crowd Theaters As Hopefuls Aim for Tony Nominations

Joe Flaherty, ‘SCTV’ and ‘Freaks and Geeks’ Actor, Dies at 82

Irwin and Fran (2013) | Full Documentary about comedian Irwin Corey and his wife of 70 years, Fran (Berman)

The King of Canned Italian Food, Chef Hector Boyardee, née Boiardi, and his spaghetti recipe

Carolyn by Mark Evanier

The tyranny of the algorithm: why every coffee shop looks the same

Now I Know

The Million Pound Cough and The Case of the Missing Space Tomatoes and The $0 Baseball Player With the Priceless Contract and The Birds That Didn’t Want to be Tracked and The Speeding Ticket That Sent a Judge to Jail and The King of the Solar Eclipse and But What Did Delaware?

MUSIC

Peter Sprague Plays Playground of the Gods featuring Rebecca Jade

English drummer Gerry Conway (1947-2024)

Mickey Guyton – Black Like Me

Come In From The Cold – Joni Mitchell

Coverville 1482: The Nick Lowe Cover Story II and 1483: The Richard Thompson Cover Story II

Linda Martell: Bad Case of the Blues

Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto

Brittney Spencer: I Got Time

Favorite Songs By Favorite Artists: Modern English

Rhiannon Giddens: Don’t Let It Trouble Your Mind

K-Chuck Radio: Pass it on the left-hand side…

Franz von Suppe’s Poet and Peasant Overture

Ann Peebles: I Can’t Stand The Rain

Weird Al Yankovic: Polkas, Parodies, and the Power of Satire

Billie Eilish, Pearl Jam, and Nicki Minaj are among a group of 200 artists who penned an open letter to tech and digital music companies, expressing their concerns over the use of AI in music

Beyoncé fans say songs missing from Cowboy Carter vinyl and CDs