My library has a small exhibit about James Baldwin. One quote from Baldwin stood out to me:

The greatest danger is “when the loveless come to power.”

That is the perfect description of what is happening now in the United States of America.

Since everyone is up in arms about it, I would like to go on the record that I did not donate to Trump’s inauguration. And I find it ever more distasteful to learn of those that did.

For a long time one of the activities we’ve done during supper (as a family and now as just a couple, since the kiddos are off at college) is to watch the “news” with Late Night with Seth Meyers or Stephen Colbert’s opening monologue.

Since the election, however, we’ve bascally stopped. It’s simply too depressing.

My suggesion to Mr. Meyers is to have a weekly bit where Bernie Sanders won the election and do a fake news segment about that. Each week I’d like to hear some funny quips about what upset President Sanders and how the right (and, frankly, most of the Dems) are fighting his administration’s good ideas. Soup!

I have never been so wrong about anything than the way I told my family and all my friends to not be so anxious about the election, Harris was going to win. Both of my children were eligible to vote in this election and I was (and am) proud they both did vote, but wow was I wrong.

I was wrong about:

• Presidential outcome
• Outcome of Congress
• Popular vote

I’m going to be doing a lot of reflecting on what I didn’t see.

The LA Times and The Washington Post have both chosen to decline to endorse a candidate for president. At this time of the election cycle? In this political climate? At this time of need? Localized entirely around billionaires? Our media will be our downfall, indeed.

Thanks to early voting in NYC, we just voted. Please, please don’t let this be the last election.

Adams indicted today. Giuliani disbarred in D.C. today. When is the last time NYC has had a good mayor?

I would like to propose an amendment that allows Tim Walz, once he’s elected to be vice president, to also be my governor and mayor because Hochul and Adams are both terrible at it.

Now that Harris is going to be the Dem nominee, I think she should pick Gretchen Whitmer. She is the best choice and so that ticket would be a hell of a contrast to the GOP.

I am willing to bet a lot of this “Joe Biden must drop out” nonsense if because of this: IRS reports collecting $1 billion from rich households’ back taxes.

The IRS reported Wednesday that it has collected $1 billion in taxes and penalties owed by hundreds of wealthy households who accumulated past-due tax debts for years while IRS enforcement dwindled.

“The tax bill wasn’t even in dispute — the taxes were clearly owed by these people,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a call with reporters. “But we didn’t have the people or the resources. … It takes time and staffing to work through these cases.” Get a curated selection of 10 of our best stories in your inbox every weekend.

The tax agency, boosted by $60 billion in additional funding from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, has hired hundreds of skilled accountants over the past year and a half after years of shrinking staffing.

Is Biden old? Yes. Really old? Yes. But Biden has been far better than I expected and he’s doing the job (gaffes and all). Should we have a younger person in there? Assuming as qualified, 100%. But it’s Joe. Dems need to push the DNC to embrace the younger folks rather than fight them.

The problem, I assume, is the youngs want it all to be better and that costs money which means higher taxes (for the rich). The rich do not want that. At all.

I’d love to see a Harris/AOC ticket. Or Whitmer/AOC ticket. I hope one day to be able to vote for AOC for president. By the way, it’s a damn shame the Dems aren’t not 100% backing her impeachment movement against Thomas and Alito.

Supreme Court essentially killing regulation is bad, NY Times saying Biden should resign because of one bad debate while saying nothing about Trump and his convictions is insane, and Martin Mull was great on VEEP.

Kathy Hochul’s decision to “pause” congestion pricing in NYC is cowardly, disingenuous, and wrong.

It reminds me of the decision Michael Bloomberg (of whom I am no fan) made banning smoking in bars and restaurants. The critics all came out saying it would hurt those businesses. Of course, the opposite happened.

It’s the same with congestion pricing: It won’t harm business, it will ultimately help them. A lot. There are many examples of that kind of article if you look around.

It’s extra frustrating as we see more and more European cities ban cars to simply wonderful results.

I would bet money the people who influenced Hochul don’t even come into the city.

A lot of people (all smarter than me) are very perplexed by the Apple lawsuitt brought forth by the U.S. DOJ. I wonder if this office shutting down is the answer to this and many other confusing statements by members of Congress when it comes to technology.

We do love our children so part 293845. So many of our elected leaders are monsters.

Our media willl be our downfall, part sigh. Nice work by CJR.

Idiocracy is coming on fast.

We are led by the best and the brightest, aren’t we?

How many GOPers are wearing their assault rifle pins still?

If you had asked me at any point in my life up until this week, “Would attempting to illegally invalidate a federal election result in prison time?” I would have said yes.

I would have been wrong. The answer is, mostly, bygones.

People: Can we have a single-payer healthcare system?
Government: Can’t afford it.
People: Fully funded schools?
Government: Can’t afford it.
People: More trains so people don’t have to own cars?
Government: Can’t afford it.
People: What can we afford?
Government: Best we can do is war.

America’s priorities are something else.

Some Houston school libraries will become disciplinary spaces

and

Cost of building a super-size Alabama prison rises to more than $1 billion

The media will be our downfall part infinity.

As little as I have loved Republicans the past few years, coinciding with the rise of our own little autocrat, at least Donald Trump knows how to dress. I can’t imagine that even he would demean his office or his country by dressing down, as is now the “code” for senators. Clothes might not make the man or woman, but they do tell us a great deal about them.

Yeah, fuck those actions. It’s what you are wearing. The fact we* are talking about Fetterman’s dress means we aren’t paying attention (or don’t care) about what is going on. “Call me old fashioned,” says the old white lady. I’ll do you one better. You are a problem.

*We being our media.

We do love our children so.

I have no good feelings for Mitch McConnell. At all. On any level. That being said, when he froze up and then regained a bit of lucidity, his assistant asked reporters, “Any more questions?” 1) That’s incredibly callous, bordering on eldercare abuse and 2) How was the very next question not, “Are you going to call an ambulance, you fucking monster?”

McConnell not doing something while he is clearly declining really represents America at the moment.

We do love our children so, part 6,291.

The United States’ answer to “why can’t we?”

The Clean Water Act is now a problem?

Too few of us seem to care the entire GOP is a bunch of grifting hypocrites. But I do. And I hope you do, too.

Re: SVB. All I know is they better not bail out those damn kids getting educations.

New GOP plan for retirement: keep working.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told NBC News one day after Biden’s speech to Congress “We want to strengthen Social Security by ending a lot of those government checks to people staying at home rather than going to work.”

My brain hurts.

The Age of No Consequences:

Meta reinstated former President Donald Trump’s social accounts on Wednesday following a two-year suspension over his role in praising the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Meta President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg wrote in a blog post that the former president will face “heightened penalties” if he continues to break the social media giant’s content rules.

Now that this is becoming a regular occurrence, I wonder if I have any classified documents in my home!

A lawyer for Pence, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, found the documents during a search of the former vice president’s Carmel, Ind., home, according to letters to the National Archives. Gregory F. Jacob, a designated representative for Pence’s vice presidential records, said the FBI collected documents from the Pence home on Jan. 19.

More power to them!

I’m starting to come around to loving this guy.

The latest revelation about Santos’s seemingly never-ending list of lies that was reported by Politico on Friday centered around an old Wikipedia user biography that appears to belong to him and that claims he appeared in the Disney channel show Hannah Montana alongside Miley Cyrus.

I know, I know. I complain on this blog (likely to a void… hello, no one!), but I try to get it out of my system so I don’t explode.

Anyway, in Edition 53,721 of Our Media Will Be Our Downfall is this article about how the new White House person is ineffective.

The more I think about it, the more rage-filled I become. I never, ever read anything like this when Angry Potato, Meal Interrupted, Blonde Mouth were doing the job. Never.

It’s clear now the right isn’t interested in causing problems which only it can solve with its own take on the situation, it’s purely going cause problems and have the solution be them literally stopping themselves from causing the problems. It’s like protection money but for the whole country. When this scaled up, when does the rest of the world just decide to have nothing to do with the United States?

The American Taliban are still here.

Wait wait wait. You can arrest people who attack the capital the day it happens?! That’s unpossible!

Kevin 15 it is then.

If McCarthy does end up as speaker, he really needs to be called Kevin “(number of times it took to vote him in)” Tries. So, you know, Kevin Thirty Tries. The only exception should be if the number ends in a seven in which case he would Kevin Forty-Seven.

GOP will get behind Trump indictment just so they don’t have to consider him anymore.

I told friends and neighbors there’d be no red wave and while I’m glad that was indeed the case, I am still so bummed out for Stacey Abrams. She’s the real deal and would have been a great help to Georgia. And I’m not even religious but I can’t help but be offended that GA voters made the Warnock/Walker race so close that it has to resort to a run off. Religious folks picked Walker over a man who has dedicated his adult life to the church? That’s really something.

Also, I’m very proud of my daughter for voting and I am glad to see young folks using their right to vote.

Our media will be our downfall. In case that link goes away, here’s a screenshot

Nine rings were gifted to the Race of Men, who above all else desire power.

If the Dems put as much effort into getting things done (hell, even trying) as they do asking me for money, we might not be in such dire straights.

I’m still getting emails from James Carville! WTF, Dems?

This feel like a 70% appropriate punishment for punching out the teeth of a flight attendant. I would have added in: You no longer get to fly in the United States. And, before the 3-year probation begins, you have to pass a college-level biology class with a perfect grade.

I think it’s high time we remove United from the name of our country. We’re so far from united at this point the name just looks silly.

Suggested name: Disparate States of North America. Motto: But we all hate Ted Cruz, so we have that going for us.

My son turned on C-Span and watched UN ambassadors plea for peace. While he was watching, a graphic appeared on TV stating Russia had begun the attack. One can’t help but wonder if World War III is starting. And I’m not sure which side half of our country is on.

America is a cruel, cruel country.

The proposed MCPS policy says families that do not qualify for federal free and reduced-price meal programs but have a lunch debt of more than $35 would get “alternative meals” — usually a sandwich rather than a hot meal — until the debt is paid.

But we do love our children so.

🍔👩🏾‍🦱🖕 USDA announces free lunch for all of next school year (2021-2022). Yay! Wait a minute… We could have done this all along but chose not to? Death cult is gonna death cult. #politics

I said to my wife tonight, “The only woman I’d leave you for is Jen Psaki.” And she said, “Yeah, that’s fine.” I married, and would leave, the right woman.

👴🗒📰 I watched President Biden’s press conference today and I have never been more embarrassed watching our national press than I was today.

Our national press writes about whatever the GOP wants to make the main issue of the day. What a joke.

Is 550,000 a lot?

Congratulations to Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland. The best time to have her in this position was a long time ago, but the second best time was now. I’m so glad it happened. #Politics

💉👩🏻👍🏻 I got my first vaccination today. It was run so efficiently I was out of there in under 25 min (with the 15 min reaction wait included). Well done folks!

👩🏻‍🦰💪❤️ My word is Jen Psaki awesome. Awesome isn’t even the right word. She’s a true professional and I honestly can’t think of any other press secretary as good as she is. Or one who even comes close. I am most impressed with her ability to not say “You are full of you know what and you know it.”

It was years ago when McCain picked, somehow, Palin to be his running mate I began to hear the phrase “lame stream media.” While Palin (and her ilk) didn’t mean it the same way, our main stream media is lame as hell.

Take The New York Times. They suck. I’ll leave it at that… but boy do they suck.

We sure do love our children so. (Narrator: They do not love their children so.)

Is 450,000 a lot?

GOP lawmakers seek to end mask mandate, public health emergency. Looks like there’ll be cheap land in Wisconsin soon.

🇺🇸🏴‍☠️🇺🇸 The start of a civil war doesn’t get a date until history looks back on it. I’m guessing it’ll be around Jan 6, 2021, though.

🖕🖕🖕 No Republican is dumping Trump because they’ve suddenly found a conscience. He’s dead weight, so they’re cutting him loose. They still think like him. He’s lied, they’ve lied.

Is he still, you know, president?

How in the world has Trump not been impeached again? Also, at this point, I also have no idea why our constitution has the 25th amendment. Did the folks who wrote and ratified that amendment have someone worse in mind?

Looks like I’ve just become a fan of someone I’ve not heard of until right now.

Some advisers close to President-elect Joe Biden are frustrated over a Glamour magazine interview in which incoming White House deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon referred to Republicans on Capitol Hill as “f*ckers.”

Go, Jen O’Malley Dillon!

Only one side doing this.

Only one side doing this.

I love it when a tweet sums up my feelings. The right still controls the narrative.

This person might be the worst possible choice for Secretary of Transportation. I’m not saying Biden is going to pick Rahm… But if he does… He couldn’t pick a worse person. Rahm is a terrible person in every meaning of the word.

The DCCC doesn’t move to the left, they are going to find themselves in a bind come election time.

NYC didn’t celebrate this much when Obama won either time. This is really something. There was an inflated sense of dread earlier this week and this win really deflated it. Whew!

If Biden wins this election and Dems don’t immediately take steps to: Abolish the electoral college, make voter registration automatic at 18, and move to grant DC and Puerto Rico statehood, then we know this will happen again.

We can’t make people vote, but we certainly have to make it far easier to do so. How else? Extended voting times (one 18 hour period… what?!), mail-in ballots, restore voting rights for those convicted of crimes, a new holiday: Election Day.

Elections are important and we should want everyone to participate. The only ones who don’t want this are the ones who benefit from fewer people voting.

Apple Engineer Novall Khan feels spiritually related to AOC. Both super smart women trying to make the better world. I bet they do make it better, too.

Trump got the nuclear football guy sick? Trump has gotten more military personnel sick than, I imagine, any terrorist could have hoped to do themselves.

While two old white men argued last night… Greenland’s ice sheet got smaller and smaller.

Nothing, on any level, will ever get better in the United States until the United States adopts a single-payer health care system. Everything revolves around that.

📰 Woodward had recordings since February and we’re only hearing about them now?!

I keep seeing headlines that read (I’m paraphrasing) Biden campaign brings in $300 million (Clinton brought in $150 million in same time frame)

The fact this kind of money is needed to win anything is depressing¹ because I imagine there are many folks out there with fantastic, live-changing ideas will never be able to raise that kind of money.

📰 Every single newspaper should be calling for Trump to resign¹. Who is controlling Biden? “People that you’ve never heard of, people that are in the dark shadows.”

This is the talk of a person unfit for office. Everyone knows it, but no one is saying it. As soon as one big newspaper prints it, others will follow.

🍔🍟☠️ I wonder how many died as a result of not listening to health experts? Do the people responsible for this feel any guilt? Haha, just kidding. They have no feelings other than rage and hate.

🏫👩🏾‍🦱📓 Reopening in-person teaching in grade schools now is premature. There is no vaccine and there aren’t enough treatments of symptoms. I’m fully aware of the hardships parents face and I understand young children could see some social developments hindered.

Nevertheless, opening schools in facilities that were, even in the best of times, merely adequate, will show us the devastation of this virus. To be clear, it’s not just the facilities that are the issue. Young children will not be able to not closely interact with one another. And it’s not their fault. Young children should run and play and hug... so we have to step in until science figures this out.

If NYC teachers go on strike, I will support their decision. My children were fortunate to have some completely wonderful people as their teachers (and one child still does). Stay strong teachers, I love you.

Even with a vaccine (which is still only a maybe), 2021 will be another lost year.

This is such bullshit. The school system is only reversing her suspension because it makes them look bad, not because they truly believe they were wrong about it in the first place. The student in question should demand it stay on there. It’s a sign of making good trouble. And, by the way, good for her!

The olds are scared. Lower it to 16, I say.

Is 150,000 a lot?

🖕 Those playing a game know to protect their own and sacrifice the pawns first. The amount of fuck and you can’t be combined fast enough for these puckered anuses.

“These kids have got to get back to school,” Parson told Cox. “They’re at the lowest risk possible. And if they do get COVID-19, which they will — and they will when they go to school — they’re not going to the hospitals. They’re not going to have to sit in doctor’s offices. They’re going to go home and they’re going to get over it.”

Either Republicans leaders don’t understand the science or they don’t give shit. Ha, just kidding. They know the science¹. They just know if they say what their constituents want to hear, everyone will be happy. Some will die, of course, but… (see footnote).

🖕 A designer played a part in this. Boils my blood and reminds me of a zine by my close personal friend, Mike¹.

[Ron DeSantis is responsible for a lot of death.] (https://news.trust.org/item/20200716143306-y6l4u) And I here I thought Rick Scott was a fuckup.¹

☠️☠️☠️ Fuck the death penalty.

👱🏼‍♀️🏫☠️ If school districts insist on opening without an honest-to-goodness plan in mind that centers around the health of everyone (teachers, paraprofessional, staff, and students), then the entire country’s teachers’ union should go on strike.

What the hell is the point of a union if it can’t, if nothing else, protect you from unsafe working conditions?

Schools are NOT babysitters.

If people wear masks, we’ll be able to make it long enough to deal with the virus. If people quit Facebook, we’ll be able to make it long enough to deal with what’s happened to our democracy.

My daughter is supposed to start college in the fall (2020). All the schools are talking about going back into session (that is, having students back in campus) but I honestly don’t see how it’s going to happen. Same for all schools (not just college).

No vaccine, no in-person learning.* It’s really that simple.

*Shhh… don’t get me started on this distance-learning. It’s more like distance-assignments. I don’t blame the teachers. This virus-caused distribution is just another thing we plop onto the plate of underpaid and over-burdened people.

Turns out 2016 was the most important election.

Dear Satan, how can I be more evil? (Satan whispers in ear.) OK, I’ll do it!

Wouldn’t it be something if hospitals were as prepared to help us as police departments were to beat the shit out of us?

Also look at the military equipment the police have! Who the fuck are they anticipating to come across? If you think the police are here for you and me, I don’t know what to tell you. They are protecting the rich. And we’re paying for it. Medicare for all? Fuck off. Tanks for police? Yep.

I don’t get it. Landlords are going to kick people out because they can’t pay rent only to leave these apartments empty? Who the hell do they think is going to be able to move in?

We’re going to go from “Teachers should be paid $1 million a day!” to “Tax revenues are down, so the teachers have to go. What else can be done?”

The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

Barbershops are open in Georgia, but elections are cancelled. We really are governed by the worst people.

When Biden beat Bernie in several primaries a few weeks ago:

And now this.

Boy, can’t wait to vote for this guy.

The election is in jeopardy.

🏨💸💰 I read this tweet about overnight hospitals stays and for the love of Mr Peterson could everyone stop using the word free?

Nothing is free! The people of these countries paid taxes for these services. They pre-paid! There may be low-to-no-cost at the point of service, but they did pay.

Why folks in the U.S. aren’t up in arms about paying taxes AND paying outrageous medical fees is beyond me. If you add up U.S. taxes and medical costs, it’s far higher than the taxes in these other countries.

☠️🔫📇 When I came across this tweet of a New Zealander giving up his gun I immediately thought “I can’t imagine this ever ever ever happening in America.” But, after thinking about it some (and doing a little searching to confirm it), I knew I was wrong. Look at this guy destroying his gun. In fact, he did it before that New Zealander turned his in.

The second amendment is not needed today and so I’m all for the collection of everyone’s guns. You see, if you feel you need a gun, you should have to apply for a license. That license has to be renewed like any driver’s license. In order to get the license you’ll need prove that you know how to use and care for it and have a place to store it safely. And, of course, you’ll need to pass a background check and psychological screening. Oh, that will have to happen each and every time it comes up for renewal. Finally, all your neighbors within a certain radius would be informed that you have a gun and what kind it is. If you license expires and the gun isn’t turned in, the authorities come to claim it.

Or we can continue to let children be shot dead.

🧓🏨🤦‍♂️ Who could have expected this turn of events? Sigh. She didn’t even wait until she got the nod.