Tag: Donald Trump

June rambling: the rich get richer

it’s cruelty, plain and simple

How the rich get richer: Evade taxation, grease trillion-dollar tax breaks, jack interest rates, then seize depressed assets

Air Traffic Control and Med Spas: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Edmund White, pioneer of gay literature, dies at 85

Loretta Swit, Maj. Margaret Houlihan of TV’s ‘MAS*H,’ Dies at 87

Frederick Forsyth, Author of ‘The Day of the Jackal,’ Dies at 86

Valerie Mahaffey, Actress on ‘Northern Exposure,’ ‘Desperate Housewives’ and ‘Young Sheldon,’ Dies at 71. I loved her on The Powers That Be.

Alf Claussen, Emmy-Winning Composer for ‘The Simpsons,’ Dies at 84

Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern  on Crisis, Kindness, and Change; interview with Katie Couric; she was also on CBS Sunday Morning

The Hidden History of the Nazi U-Boats That Prowled the Gulf Coast

Ben Franklin’s Project

10 States With the Most Expensive Toll Roads

Ursa Incommodus

Lin-Manuel Miranda teaches us some of the slang terms used on Broadway.

Don Glut, Sheldon Mayer to Receive 2025 Bill Finger AWARD

Andy Huggins, king of the one-liners. A comedian older than I am…

The Curious Case of the Pygmy Nuthatch

Pocket Watch From Lake Michigan’s Deadliest Shipwreck Returned After 165 Years

500 days since Mark Evanier broke his ankle (I LOVE the picker-upper)

Follow the rule of adjective order!

How to eat a burrito

Now I Know: Can a Flying Potato Read This Email? and The Ancient Roman Pee Tax and The Great Bread Squeezing Crime Spree of the Late 1990s and Why a Boy Brought a Microwave to School

Bunny boiler

It’s Time to Admit the US Constitution Has Failed

Hegseth Lays Out a Case for Troop Deployments in ‘Any Jurisdiction in the Country’ cf. Hitler’s Enabling Act, the ‘Law for Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich.’ From the Atlantic: Hitler Used a Bogus Crisis of ‘Public Order’ to Make Himself Dictator. “The first paragraph [of the decree] suspended civil liberties, providing Hitler the means to suppress political opposition in advance of the upcoming elections on March 5 [1933]. The second paragraph gave Hitler the power to trample states’ rights: ‘If any state fails to take the necessary measures to restore public safety and order, the Reich government may temporarily take over the powers of the highest state authority.'”

Gabbard is considering ways to revamp FOTUS’s intelligence briefing. One idea is to make the briefing, which, according to his schedule, he has been taking less often than his predecessors, into a video that resembles Fox News.

Shiny new AI contradicts EPA chief’s do-nothing climate change stance

RFK Jr. Ousts All of CDC’s Vaccine Advisors. “Citing studies that don’t exist is NOT an ‘error.’ It is lying.”

The gutting of medical research. There are nearly 2,500 NIH grants that have ended or been delayed.

‘Completely Unworkable’: Sculpture Experts Say $34 Million Statue Garden Has Major Problems.

Kennedy Center hopes coupons will fix the toxic takeover

Borowitz satire: Travel Ban Unnecessary After Rest of World Shows Zero Interest in Coming to S***hole Country

Big, Ugly Bill

From my Congressman, Paul Tonko:

The GOP’s so-called “big, beautiful bill” is a historic transfer of wealth from the poorest Americans to the richest — providing $4.5 trillion in tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations while slashing essential services and raising costs for those who can least afford them.

Independent researchers at the University of Pennsylvania estimate that the GOP budget will cost the poorest households more than $1,000 per year, even as the wealthiest 0.1% reap an annual windfall of more than $389,000.

And according to the independent, nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) most recent projections, their plan would strip health insurance from 16 million Americans while adding $2.4 trillion to the deficit. This isn’t “fiscal responsibility” — it’s cruelty, plain and simple.

John Green

John explains how $20 per person per year has helped save 91 million human lives since 2000.

Truthout

Bill Will Lead to 51,000 Preventable Deaths Each Year and Would Limit Investigations Into Abuse, Neglect of Disabled People. Annual cuts to Medicaid would average $70 billion, roughly the same amount the wealthy will save in tax cuts.

MUSIC

Symphony No. 5 by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Arthur Hamilton, “Cry Me a River” Songwriter, Dies at 98; Cry Me A River – Julie London

Green Fields Of France – Dropkick Murphys.

Handel’s Op. 6

In My Room – Julien Neel

You Won’t Dig My Grave -Josh Ritter

Love – OK Go

K-Chuck Radio: The Musical Legacy of Terry Knight and the Pack

Everybody Wants To Rule The World – Tears for Fears

Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra by John Williams

Have A Nice Day– World Order

Good Lovin’ – the Olympics

Coverville 1536: Covering Our Tracks Back To June 1985

Whistle While You Work from the  live-action remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

For Your Eyes Only – Sheena Easton

The Scott Joplin Problem

Billboard Presents 24 Hours with “Weird Al” Yankovic

Hamilton Original Broadway Cast: Where Are They Now?

American Seditionist Day is coming!

a fourth term?

Congress has introduced legislation to make June 14 a holiday honoring FOTUS. I so agree. June 14 should be American Seditionist Day!

Think about it. He ran for president in 2016 and won despite having less than a majority vote. His second impeachment came after the insurrection he fomented on January 6, 2021.  This occurred after he lost the 2020 election, a fact he continues to deny.  In its infinite wisdom, the Senate failed to convict because he was no longer in office, and they saw no point.

In light of the January 6 committee reports and various indictments against him, he did the only thing he could: he ran for President AGAIN, won the Republican nomination easily, and was elected with a plurality, not majority, of the vote, in 2024. He was convicted in one trial but would serve no consequential punishment because, by then, he was President-elect. 

I came across a Substack article, Comparing Trump and Hitler’s Tactics During Their First Weeks in Office, by  Rabbi Jonathan Kligler. “Both pretended to be populists in order to stir the passions of their base. Both were considered to be buffoons by those that saw through their lies, but both were woefully underestimated by their opponents….  Once in power, both immediately took dramatic action to consolidate their power with complete disdain for democratic rules and norms.

“Both had previously attempted violent overthrows of their democratically-elected governments… When those violent attempts failed to secure power, both plotted to secure their power through legal means, the better to enact a bloodless coup d’etat.

If at first…

“Upon securing power, Hitler and Trump each claimed overwhelming electoral mandates to transform their governments, despite neither having won a majority of the vote. They both immediately moved to purge their governments of anyone they considered insufficiently loyal. They weaponized their judiciaries and law enforcement agencies to terrorize and punish their opponents.

“They took advantage of paralyzed and supine legislatures to usurp power…” Indeed. He’s inspired people in Congress to go after, even threaten impeachment, of  “activist” judges, who are merely putting on the Constitutional brakes on spending freezes that Congress – Article I Congress – usually fails to do. 

“On his first day in office, Trump granted clemency to every person charged or convicted for their role in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, calling them patriots.” He has suggested offering the perpetrators compensation.

And now, FOTUS says: “I’ll tell you, I have had more people ask me to have a third term, which in a way is a fourth term because the other election, the 2020 election, was totally rigged. So it’s actually sort of a fourth term in a certain way. I just don’t want the credit for the second because [former President Joe] Biden was so bad, he did such a bad job, and I think that’s one of the reasons that I’m popular, if you want to know the truth.”

What he is telegraphing is that he has no intention of ceding power on January 20, 2029, and may find a backdoor way of staying around. 

He is a consequential President, wrecking international trade markets, debasing the US around the world, and shredding the social safety net.

So, FOTUS is president again, despite his many crimes, a remarkable political feat that deserves recognition. Happy American Seditionist Day is coming! In honor of the holiday, I shall heretofore refer to him as the Seditionist! 

May rambling: To Secure These Rights

Charles Strouse

To Secure These Rights: The Report of the President’s Committee on Civil Rights. HARRY S. TRUMAN, The White House, December 5, 1946.

How Civil Rights Were Made—and Remade—By Black Communities In the Jim Crow South

In HR 1, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” passed by the House of Representatives, Sec. 70302: “This section limits the ability of U.S. courts to enforce a citation for contempt for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order. Specifically, if no security was given when the injection or order was issued, the citation of contempt may not be enforced using appropriated funds. This limitation applies to injunctions or orders issued before, on, or after the date of enactment.”

The AKG Museum exhibit honoring the people killed in the shootings at Tops Market in Buffalo, 5-14-2022, including the poem Mourning Until Morning by Jillian Hanesworth

The ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Uncensored Oral History of a Revolution

My Father Prosecuted History’s Crimes. Then He Died in One. He was a Nazi hunter — and was killed in the Lockerbie bombing. What does it mean to seek justice for his death?

Wendy McMahon Resigns as Head of CBS News: “Company and I Do Not Agree on the Path Forward”

This Channel Is Biased
A business owner tested whether customers would pay more for American-made products. The results were ‘sobering.’
Revisiting Biden’s Decline
The Long, Strange Trip of the Titanic Victims Whose Remains Surfaced Hundreds of Miles Away, Weeks After the Ship Sank
And…
Baby Is Healed With the World’s First Personalized Gene-Editing Treatment. The technique used on a 9½-month-old boy with a rare condition has the potential to help people with thousands of other uncommon genetic diseases.
John shares some extremely good news six years into Nerdfighteria’s effort to improve maternal and child health in Sierra Leone.
No One Knows When They Don’t Die
Legendary comic book writer Peter David dies at age 68
James McEachin, Star of ‘Tenafly’ and Perry Mason Telefilms, Dies at 94
George Wendt, the Beer-Loving Norm on ‘Cheers,’ Dies at 77
Discover® is now part of Capital One as of May 18, 2025
June Squibb on Her Nonagenarian Career High
Why Teacher Jamal Roberts is the New American Idol

Autocephality is a fancy word for self-governance. It’s mainly used in the context of Eastern Orthodox Churches that independently govern their spiritual affairs without a higher ecclesiastical authority.

Now I Know: It’s Not Easy Being Clean and Why Purple is the Royal Color and The Secret Code of Central Park’s Lamp Post and It’s Not Easy Driving Green

On and on…

Yes, this is Project 2025 (ft. Liz Dye)

The Greatness Paradox: His notion of national greatness is stuck in the Napoleonic Era, which is causing him to destroy everything that makes America great today.

Harvard Derangement Syndrome

Him & The Press: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

His CFPB kills the data broker rule

When He Was the One Taking Land From Farmers and How His Embrace of Afrikaner “Refugees” Became a Joke in South Africa

She Devoted Her Life to Serving the U.S. Then DOGE Targeted Her. A veteran who returned from Iraq injured and transformed, Joy Marver is now facing a crisis at home.

We’re Experts in Fascism. We’re Leaving the U.S.

Why Eliminating the NEA Would Be a Disaster For Our Country

The New DEI — Discrimination, Exclusion, and Inequity

All Hail Our Rococo President!

Strange Bedfellows and Long Knives, about the secret engine of sweeping political upheavals (like Trumpism) and their inherent fragility

 

“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” -Harry S. Truman, 33rd US president (8 May 1884-26 December 1972)
Heather Cox Richardson, May 23 (in part)

After S.V. Date of HuffPost noted last week that the White House had published fewer than 20% of [his] speeches, the White House has stopped publishing a database of official transcripts of [his] announcements, appearances, and speeches altogether and has taken down those it had published. Instead, it will just post videos. And yet it is publishing just a few of the videos of the president’s term: so far, fewer than 50 videos of the first 120 days of his term, according to Brian Stelter of CNN.

A presidential administration traditionally publishes the president’s words promptly to establish a record. The White House, in contrast, says removing the transcripts will enable people to get a better sense of him by watching his videos. But it’s likely closer to the truth that his appearances since he took office have been erratic, and removing the transcripts will make it harder for people to read his nonsensical rambles.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “The [FOTUS] White House is the most transparent in history,” but of course, it’s objectively not. White House officials have made it impossible to tell who is making decisions at the Department of Government Efficiency, for example, or who gave the order to render migrants to El Salvador. Now the president’s words, too, will be hidden.

MUSIC
Charles Strouse, Tony-winning composer of Annie, Applause, and Bye Bye Birdie, dies at 96. He’s known for such songs as “Tomorrow,” “It’s the Hard Knock Life,” “Put on a Happy Face,” and the ‘All in the Family’ theme song, “Those Were the Days.” He also wrote scores for motion pictures, including The Night They Raided Minsky’s
That’s Trump Derangement! – A Randy Rainbow Song Parody
Pamela Bondi – Marsh Family parody of The One and Only sung by Chesney Hawkes (by Nik Kershaw)

New Day Will Rise  – Yuval Raphael

Rick Derringer, a Zelig-like rocker, the guitarist, singer, and songwriter, dies at 77. Hang On Sloopy – The McCoys. Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo – Rick Derringer. Eat It – Weird Al Yankovic (Rick plays lead guitar; he produced six of Al’s albums)

Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Is In)-The New Edition, featuring Kenny Rogers

Somewhere Over Laredo – Lainey Wilson 

On an American Spiritual  by David R. Holsinger
Leucadia Uncompromised – Peter Sprague
The Firebird suite by Igor Stravinsky

Coverville 1534: Brothers in Arms Album Cover and Devo Cover Story

Look What You Made Me Do (Taylor’s Version)‎ ‎- Taylor Swift ‎ ‎
Don’t You (Forget About Me) – Simple Minds
Rod Stewart and Jeff Beck covering Curtis Mayfield’s People Get Ready
Crazy For You –  Madonna
Harry Truman – Chicago

Lithuania did it right

‘in very bad shape’ or ‘dead’

You may recall the story from Lithuania in late March 2025 about four soldiers, “part of the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division [who] were on a tactical training exercise when they and their vehicle went missing, the Army said.

“Lithuanian, Polish, and U.S. soldiers and rescuers searched through the forests and swamps at the Gen. Silvestras Žukauskas training ground in the town of Pabradė, 6 miles (10 kilometers) west of the border with Belarus. The M88 Hercules armored vehicle was pulled from a peat bog.”

May rambling: We Cannot Remain Silent

When the U.S. Is No Longer the Good Guy

We Cannot Remain Silent: A Statement on the National Moment from Albany Presbytery, PCUSA (May 1, 2025)

Who broke the internet?

Cardinal Robert Prevost Becomes First American Pope, Will Take the Name Leo XIV; he plays Wordle!

David H. Souter, Republican Justice Who Allied With Court’s Liberal Wing, Dies at 85. He left conservatives bitterly disappointed with his migration from right to left, leading to the cry of “no more Souters.” I saw him speak in 2013. “A demand for saving art, keeping music, teaching civics in the schools is not asking for favors. Rather, it is vital for the stability, even the very survival of the United States, which is hampered by a voting citizenry that is grossly unaware about how the government of the country is supposed to work.”

This month, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding! It is a national landmark and world-renowned research center located in the heart of Harlem.

John Green – “Everything Is Tuberculosis” | The Daily Show

The Remote Work Paradox: Higher Engagement, Lower Wellbeing

Pulitzer Prize for a distinguished portfolio of editorial cartoons or other illustrated work (still, animated, or both) characterized by political insight, editorial effectiveness, or public service value: Ann Telnaes of The Washington Post: “For delivering piercing commentary on powerful people and institutions with deftness, creativity – and a fearlessness that led to her departure from the news organization after 17 years. The Cartoonist Who Crushed the Oligarchs: An Interview with Ann Telnaes.

What was food like before the FDA? Formaldehyde, brick dust, lead, and borax once made grocery shopping a minefield.

Measles Cases Top 1,000: A Crisis of Complacency— This situation is an avoidable public health failure
Baloney

How Will We Know When We Have Lost Our Democracy?

We Have To Deal with Presidential Power

“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear. “-Harry S. Truman, 33rd US president (8 May 1884-1972)

FOTUS family crypto firm raises concerns over potential conflicts of interest. Crypto landscape is like a ‘Walking Dead, post-apocalyptic anarchy. Tell Congress: Ban Government Officials From Issuing Cryptocurrencies

The firing of the Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, is the latest move in the upheaval of U.S. cultural institutions.

MAGA news network OAN to take over venerable government-funded outlet, Voice of America

Bill Gates says Elon Musk is ‘killing the world’s poorest children’

The battle is here: GOP health care cuts and tax giveaways to the rich

What Happens to Hollywood When the U.S. Is No Longer the Good Guy? For decades, the studios have churned out movies that celebrated truth, justice, and the American way. Now, as FOTUS attacks allies, tears down democratic institutions, and cozies up to dictators, U.S. exceptionalism is a hard sell onscreen.

100% Tariff on Movies: 8 Key Questions the Industry Is Now Pondering and Dreading

PBS President Says Executive Order to End Funding Is “Blatantly Unlawful”

New Oklahoma Curriculum Requires Students To Learn 2020 Election Fraud Conspiracies

Sherman Tanks have no use for Elon Musk

Plus

Anne Frank: The Exhibition: Opened on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, 2025, to mark the 80th commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz. It has been extended until October 31, 2025. It’s at the Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY (between 5th and 6th Avenues).

EFF How to Fix the Internet Podcast Episode: Digital Autonomy for Bodily Autonomy

Little Bosses Everywhere review: Pyramid schemes are as American as apple pie.

The Diabolical World of Phone Scams

Family-Vlogger Documentary Trend Magnifies a Serious Societal Problem

A scientist was urged not to take a risky cosmic image. He didn’t listen.

Ruth Buzzi, the Lady With the Handbag on ‘Laugh-In,’ Dies at 88

Monty Python’s Life of Brian. It’s hilarious, but is it in any way accurate? Answered for us by classicist Honor Cargill-Martin

Pentasyllabic is a word that both means and is five syllables long.

Do The Spike Thing — The Defiant Director on Reuniting With Denzel, Bad Money and Resisting

Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery

Why the Laugh Track Won’t Die

Why the U.S. Government Really Wants Some People To Take Vacations and The Phone Calls That Cost €220 Million a Minute (for Life) and How Jibberish Beat a Prison Sentence and The Rain of Fish

MUSIC

Never Let Me Go – Andy Bey; Smooth Sailing -Andy & The Bey Sisters; In Memoriam: Andy Bey, 1939-2025

Jill Sobule, “I Kissed A Girl” and “Supermodel” Singer, Dies at 66. Singer Vance Gilbert wrote on Facebook (May 3): “Backstage, Jill and I bonded with the idea of someday doing an album of the saddest songs we could think of. When we were last hanging out, the list looked like this: Ballad Of The Sad Young Men; Sweet Bitter Love; Do What You Gotta Do; Train Off The Track.

“While we were waiting to go on, I’d play one of these songs, and Jill and I would cry, and then try to put on some kind of game face while laughing for the set. Just last year, I had signed with a new agency, Black Oak Artists, and Jill and I shared an agent, and there were plans for sending us out together to do shows.
“Tomorrow really is never guaranteed. I will forever feel the loss of not having that future time together.”

Incompetent! – A Randy Rainbow Song Parody

Ablassen by Gottfried Reiche

From -Bon Iver

Coverville 1532: The Foreigner Cover Story II and 1533: Tribute to Mike Peters and Captain & Tennille Cover Story

Never Enough – Turnstile

Here – Pavement

Who is Broken Peach?

offa me -davido feat victoria monet

Gentle On My Mind – The Band Perry

Yesterday Was Just The Beginning Of My Life – Mark Williams

Star Wars – The Throne Room and End Title

Husky – Jimmie Nicol, a Beatle for two weeks

 

Ramblin' with Roger
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