“2024” book jacket
There’s a new book out entitled “2024,” It is written by 3 co-authors who appeared on CNN to shill for this new book. The book is subtitled: “How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America.” The authors are Josh Dawsey of the Wall Street Journal, Tyler Pager of the New York Times, and Isaac Arnsdorf, Senior Washington Post Reporter.
On CNN the trio played an exclusive audio recording of Trump reciting the details of a conversation he had with Vladimir Putin. Knowing DJT, you can not believe what he says. It is also true that I can only type so fast, so my transcription of the audio piece, while substantially correct, is slightly truncated. I’m sure you’ll hear this amazing piece of audio soon elsewhere, but let me synopsize it for you.
Trump: “I had a very strong conversation with President Putin and he understood. And I won’t go into the great details of the conversation because nobody has to hear it, but did they fear me? I suspect they did. I told him, ‘If you go into Ukraine I’m gonna’ bomb the shit out of Moscow. I’m telling you: I have no choice.’ So he goes like, ‘I don’t believe you. He said ‘No way.’ I said ‘Way.’ And then he goes like, ‘I don’t believe you.’ I said the same thing to Xi Jinping. If you go into Taiwan I’m gonna’ bomb the shit out of Beijing.’ And he didn’t believe me either. I think they believed me 10% and that’s all you need. They thought I was just crazy enough that I might do it.”
Another part of the tape dealt with Trump’s solicitation of huge political contributions to his campaign. Trump mentioned a donor who gave him $25 million. The audio tape went this way: “He was worth 4 or 5 billion. Most of its—half of it in cash. And he wants to have lunch and hand over a million. I said, ‘You’re much richer than that. You’re worth 5 or 6 billion. I’m not having lunch. You’ve got to make it 25 million.’ And he said ‘Oh, that sounds like a lot.” The tape continued, “He gave me 25 million. It’s crazy.”
True or false? Bragging or embarrassing himself (and our country?)
A snippet of the televised Cabinet meeting of July 8, Tuesday was played. A female reporter asked Trump who had okayed the pausing of the delivery of munitions to Ukraine, (which occurred recently.)The President did not like the question. He said, very sarcastically, “Why don’t you tell me.”
Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense.
Trump did not hand off the military question to his Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who was seated to his immediate left.
The discussion of the experts onscreen went on to say that Hegseth may have “okayed” the stopping of aid to Ukraine without properly notifying Trump that he was doing so. Pretty easy to believe of a guy who included the Editor of the “Atlantic” on a highly classified military discussion of bombing Yemen and faced no further repercussions. But, then, being a talking head on Fox News is not the best preparation for heading up the military of the United States. Incompetent people may do incompetent or poorly thought out things.
This audio tape was played on CNN on Tuesday, January 8th, about 6 p.m. I would anticipate that Trump’s people will deny it was authentic audio and then attack the reporters (as is their custom). Some further discussion of Putin and Trump occurred involving Rahm Emanuel, former Mayor of Chicago, former Ambassador to Japan, and current CNN Global and Foreign Affairs Commentator.
Rahm Emanuel, former Obama advisor, Chicago Mayor, and Ambassador to Japan.
Emanuel offered the opinion that Putin has “bet the farm” on his invasion of Ukraine. The experts agreed that Trump has misjudged Putin, who does not, as Trump previously thought, desire closer relations with the West. Putin’s true aim is to return Russia to its previous Glory Days, not to ally it with the wicked West. The talking heads felt that DJT might be changing his opinion on a future chummy relationship with Russia, saying, “We got a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin.” (So much for bringing the Ukrainian War to a halt in 24 hours.)
Emanuel’s take on our current relationship with China is that the most dangerous threat is not an invasion of Taiwan, but a take-over of the Philippines, saying, “The real challenge is the South China Seas and the Philippines.”
The three authors of the book said that Trump spoke to them for the book. In March, they approached Joe Biden, who agreed to speak with them, but did not follow through. The story, as related by Tyler Pager, was that he had asked Biden’s aides for months to speak to him. Finally, Pager got Biden’s direct cell phone number and phoned him directly. Biden answered and, said Pager, “He seemed open to talking to us.”
However, when the trio called back to set up a time to speak, the number had been disconnected. Pager also related some fairly critical phone conversations with Biden aides, who admonished him about contacting their boss.
It will be interesting to see if there is any coverage of the clip that reveals our current leader as a loose cannon, threatening WWIII, strong-arming rich donors for bigger contributions, and generally behaving in the boorish manner we have seen on the national and international stage. (Makes you proud to be an American—right?)
The very last bit of business that the CNN report addressed was Jimmy Carter’s funeral, where the film clip showed Obama speaking with Trump as they sat with the other living presidents and with Vice President Harris (who seemed annoyed that Obama was being civil to DJT in the row behind her.) The trio says the conversation was of Trump inviting Obama to play golf at one of his clubs.
Perhaps the title shouldn’t mention the multiplex, since one of the three movies I’m going to address is already streaming on HBO Max. (“Sinners” directed by Ryan Coogler).
To put this in perspective, three films that I’ve taken in since fleeing the heat (and floods) of Austin are “Sinners” (now streaming), “28 Years Later,” and “F-1.” The release dates were, respectively, April 18th, June 20th and June 27th. I’m still planning on taking in the “Jurassic Park” reboot, although initial word from the front is not totally encouraging.
So, which of these three was my favorite and why?
RANKING
#1) I’d have to give the nod to Danny Boyle’s “28 Years Later.” For one thing, it got by on a budget of $60 million (versus”F-1’s” alleged $200 or $300 million). For another, as critic Brett Arnold wrote and with which I agree, the movie has “tender reflections on mortality and misguided exceptionalism, and even the hint of those ideas make ’28 Years Later’ a more thoughtful movie than you’re likely to find at the multiplex this time of year.” This third in a planned five-movie series highlighting the journey of Spike (Alfie Williams) from adolescence to adulthood in a world blighted by a mysterious plague has a lot of meat on its cinematic bones. I fear for Spike by film’s series end, as he is going to fall under the influence of Jack O’Connell’s minions from here on out. The story arc for his emotional development with that lot as his companions on the mainland: not bright. The film was very well-done, with great settings, excellent acting from Jodie Comer as Mom Isla and Ralph Fiennes as the eccentric Dr. Kelsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson as father Jamie.
#2) For me, “Sinners,” the Michael B. Jordan-starring (“Black Panther”) Ryan Coogler film came in second for interesting intellectual content, as I watched the story about Smoke and Stack, the extremely well-dressed pair that return to their Southern roots and end up holed up in a fight to the death against vampire hordes, led by Jack O’Connell as Remmick. It was interesting that Jack O’Connell, who got his big break-through in the Angelina-Jolie directed film “Unbreakable” in 2014, appears in both “28 Years Later” and “Sinners.” It is O’Connell as Jimmy, at the end of “28 Years Later” who is shaping up to be a big influence on Spike’s development as a human being in future Boyle films. I found the concept of “Sinners” more original than most of Hollywood’s offerings. I couldn’t help but think, at film’s end, that the trapped Blacks about to become prey for the white vampires might have bettered their lot in life if they had agreed to convert to the dark side and become immortal as vampires, feeding on their white adversaries. Given the history of this country in terms of race relations, what have they got to lose? With every Trump 2.0 edict it seems that the color of one’s skin is, more and more, the criteria as to whether U.S. citizens have a right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and whether or not we believe that “all men are created equal.” (Tell that to the innocent Latinos being rounded up and sent to hell-holes in El Salvador or to Alcatraz Alley without much thought for due process or habeas corpus.) Why not give in to the idea of living forever, with the catch being that, during the “forever” part, the besieged group of Black citizens is going to have to feed on their oppressors. That gets a bit bloody It also might become relatively monotonous and boring after, say, a couple of lifetimes.
#3) So why is “F-1” only ranking as third on this abbreviated list of recent releases of 2025, when it has already snagged $293,388,533 worldwide since its June 27th release, far out-pacing the $144 million that “Sinners” has racked up and the $126 million that “28 Years Later” has earned since June 20th? Perhaps simply citing Karl Moore-Forbes (“Forbes), who called it “one-dimensional and lacking in depth” or using Coleman Spilde’s (“Salon”) adjectives of “safe, defanged, neutered, fearful tame moviemaking,” calling it “completely sexless” might give a rough idea of some of the objections from the critical horde. Most critics have liked it.
“F-1”
I am not in complete agreement with Coleman Spilde or Karl Moore-Forbes, but I agree that “F-1” missed opportunities that might have made it a better film. It seemed so intent on pushing what one critic referred to as “a promotional synergy machine” that deeper thoughts or more nuanced concepts or discussions of important societal issues are shoved aside. Some have said that the female characters are one-dimensional and not fleshed out (true). The most damning sentence that stood out to me as having some truth in it, but not being totally representative of the movie in totality was this: “If a movie can’t be made without sacrificing its heart—or, for that matter, ever having one in the first place—it’s not worth making at all.” I did not feel that negatively about the shallowness of the plot. The race scenes were too engaging and, after all, it’s Brad Pitt.
While agreeing that “Ford vs. Ferrari” was a “better” movie about racing, for me, because it built up the human element motr and allowed for some humor to develop, I liked “F-1,” too, and most audiences will, too. This one shows us, thanks to great cinematography from Claudio Mirando, what it must be like to be behind the wheel of a Formula-1 racing car going 200 miles an hour. (The actors did at least 180 during their stints behind the wheel. Cruise and Pitt were to have been the original leads for the Christian Slater/Matt Damon “Ford vs. Ferrari” racing movie, until Cruise passed because his character (Shelby, played by Matt Damon) didn’t get enough time behind the wheel. No CGI—or not as much as nowadays—and race after race after race. Not only do we see Silverstone (the 77th British Grand Prix), the Spanish Grand Prix, Japan’s Suzuka Japanese Grand Prix, Abu Dhabi, Hungary, the Italian Grand Prix in Monza, the Autodromo Mexican Grand Prix in Mexico City, but we also see the Belgian Grand Prix, the Zandvort Dutch Grand Prix, the Las Vegas Grand Prix and probably a few others that I’m unintentionally omitting. The 17+ settings are colorful and exciting and I understood about as much about F-1 racing after as I did before, which was next to nothing. We learn that Plan C means Combat and there is a lot of emphasis on F-1 racing being a team sport, not an individual one. One critic pointed out the need to kill somebody off in such a dangerous sport. I can’t argue with that. I think the objection was that this was a film without a climax.
MUSIC
I was impressed with the Hans Zimmer score and the placement of wonderful songs in the film, like the opening of “Whole Lotta’ Love” or Queen’s “We Will Rock You.” “F-1” marks the 13th collaboration between Hans Zimmer and Producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Other songs include“I’m just as bad as I used to be” by Chris Stapleton and a song at film’s end, “Driver,” written by Ed Sheeran. No musical note has been left unsung. The effect worked. Securing the rights to the songs, alone, must have cost a fortune. This is the 15th Brad Pitt film to make over $100 million domestically.
THE “COOL” FACTOR
Brad Pitt
Lately, I’ve noticed a lot of articles in papers like the “New York Times” and the “Washington Post” about what makes someone “cool.” There has been a severe shortage of cool ever since Steve McQueen’s classic films like “The Cincinnati Kid” (1965), “Bullitt” (1968) and “The Getaway” (1972.)There have been some attempts at reviving cool in the intervening 60 years, but McQueen crafted an entire career around the cool image. He pretty much owned it, despite such cool contenders as Paul Newman, Robert Redford, and Sean Connery back in the day.
Pitt has resurrected McQueen’s mastery of cool. He managed to do so in this film without a single sex scene of any significance. That, in itself, is noteworthy.
Pitt’s wardrobe and carefully layered neckwear , his monosyllabic answers to the questions from the press all play into this image. Even the questions play to the real-life regrets that might haunt Sonny, the character, and Brad Pitt the man.
Sonny’s devotion to driving as the be-all and end-all in life is impractical, but hopelessly romantic. Sonny lives in a van. [ I couldn’t help but wonder if the van was “down by the river.” [If so, thank God it wasn’t the Guadalupe River in Texas.]
Sonny chooses to drive when his previous accident at the Spanish Grand Prix should disqualify him from Formula-1 competition for fear of blindness and paralysis. Sonny says, romantically if not practically, “If the last thing I do is drive that car, I will take that life 1,000 times.” He also shares, “Sometimes, there’s this moment in the car where everything goes peaceful. No one can touch me. In that moment, I’m flying.”
So, the scripted cool guy who is loyal to his friends to a fault and doesn’t care about the money (“dumb, sentimental broke losers” is one description) has been carefully crafted by Director/Writer Joseph Kosinsky (“Top Gun: Maverick”) and his team. Kosinsky and co-writer Ehren Kruger reflect in Pitt all the things that the typical American male would like to be. It’s projection, plain and simple. The same projection that caused naive voters projecting their own desires for money and pretty women onto a candidate who, in real life, was a malignant narcissist, an unsuccessful businessman, a convicted felon and very possibly unhinged. “Perception is reality.”
DEEPER THEMES?
Besides wondering how Damson Idris ended up with the plum role of Joshua Pearce, playing opposite Brad Pitt’s old white guy, I share the regret of many that the rivalry between the young Black protégé and the seasoned old professional isn’t a platform for exploring issues more significant and substantial than such superficial issues as old age versus youth. At a time in America when Black Lives Matter is on the ropes as an organization and DEI is being relentlessly pursued and eliminated, wouldn’t this have been the perfect opportunity to explore the U.S.’s long simmering racial past? Apparently not, because it’s totally brushed aside in favor of semi-humorous jibes at how race team owner Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) is giving “second chances to the elderly.” Jazzy lines like “Hope is not a strategy” and descriptions of Pitt as handsome and as “punk rock for the brand” have to suffice, replacing any real Black/White subplot. It’s the safe way out of discussing any of the real problems in American society, especially in these days of ICE and anti-immigrant white supremacist ideologues.
CONCLUSION
“F-1 poster
The acting in “F-1” is good. Javier Bardem simulates excitement at Sonny’s wins convincingly, which, given Bardem’s Oscar for “No Country For Old Men,” probably isn’t much of a stretch. Shea Whigham (“Boardwalk Empire”), who seems to be in everything, has the opening speaking part opposite Pitt. Kerry Condon (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) is well cast as the love interest, although one chaste kiss is about all we get on that front. Kim Bodnia (“The Bridge”) as crew chief Kaspar is fine. Only Damson Idris and Samson Kayo as Cash, his cousin, fell short, for me. We are told how great a driver Idris is repeatedly; it would have been best to show rather than tell. It was also interesting to learn that the actress portraying Damson Idris’ Mom (Sarah Niles) is only 4 years older than Idris.
Pitt won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor (for his role in Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 film “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood”). He was nominated for his acting in “Twelve Monkeys” in 1995 and was nominated again, in 2008, 2011 and 2015 [2008 (“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” as an actor), 2011 (“Moneyball”) and 2015 (“The Big Short”).]His Plan B movies are even more impressive, including an Oscar as the producer of 2013’s “Twelve Years A Slave.” He earned $30 million for his role in “F-1,” a career high and sponsorship and brand deals garnered $40 million towards a budget variously described as $200 million or (some say) $300 million.
For a 62-year-old kid born in Shawnee, Oklahoma, who grew up in Missouri and attended Kickapoo High School, Brad Pitt has, by any career measure, been successful. He has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award. Films in which he has appeared in have grossed over $9 billion worldwide.
It is best seen on the IMAX screen. Just suspend your desire for deeper themes or more romance and enjoy the racing sequences.
Damola Adamolekun, CEO of Red Lobster at age 36.
Just returned from dining at the Red Lobster. I want the Red Lobster to come back as a business—I really do. (For one thing, I have stock.) I’ve recently seen the ads featuring a tall, good-looking young Black gentleman, Damola Adamolekun, their new CEO. He is the youngest CEO in Red Lobster history at age 36 and came from P.F. Chang’s and Goldman Sachs. Perhaps you’ve seen him doing a nationally televised ad for Red Lobster? One article I consulted said that Damola has “a proven record of transformation.”
Damola reminded me of Brad Pitt’s co-star (Damson Idris) in the movie “F-1” that we had just seen (more about the movie later.)
Good luck with that transformation, Damola. I have some suggestions.
I now have intense sympathy for any animal that has to forage for its food—squirrels come to mind. I ordered the crab special, which advertised a pound of crab legs for $31, plus crispy potatoes (I asked if they were French fries; they were not) and one side dish. I selected broccoli as my side dish. The 3 or 4 small pieces of potato that were swimming in the butter on the plate were not any kind of potato I’ve had anywhere else. I actually never got to eat one, so I cannot comment on how they tasted.
I’ve been taking weight loss drugs that give you no appetite. I can’t eat a dozen shrimp. 2 lobsters, and a bunch of other stuff at one sitting. I can eat 4 shrimp—maybe—and possibly 1 lobster tail. My advice would be to package some meals with smaller amounts for those of us now unable to eat like we used to eat. (*Consult the NYT for articles on how this weight loss craze has changed the “business lunch.”)
Damson Idris, of “F-1”
I thought crab legs, with all the attendant hassle to dig them out of their shells, might be a good choice for me. In other words, I expected this to be a smaller-than-their-average amount of food.
Damson Idris, co-star of “F-1,” another handsome young man on the way up. (Review of film to follow later).
SUGGESTIONS:
1) Advertise that there are small half-sized plates. The local Biaggi’s Italian restaurant has a smaller/cheaper half-plate option.
2) Make it possible for the customer to NOT have to wear plastic gloves and go to work for an hour digging tiny amounts of shredded crab meat from unforgiving shells. You could pierce the shells, but the crab would not come out. (“Come out! Come out! Wherever you are!”)I empathized with squirrels who bury their nuts against the harshness of winter and then spend hours digging fruitlessly, trying to find the hidden food.
3) Get a better tool to crack open the shells, or do it for the customer before serving the entree. With the handy-dandy tool I was given to extract the crab from the crab leg, I now could produce a shell with a needle-sized hole in it. No crab meat emerged. The contents of the shell were still very secure within the hard tube.
4) Make sure that the customer knows, going in, that all of the butter and LOTS of garlic will be dumped atop the plate, unless you specify otherwise.
OBSERVATIONS
I just want to warn anyone who selected this entrée for perfectly, good reasons, as I had: GOOD LUCK. Not only will you end up completely covered with garlic bits and butter, you won’t be rewarded with enough crab meat to adequately feed that squirrel.
My spouse warned me that the crab legs would be messy. I offered up my rationale for selecting the crab legs (my lower appetite), instead of his choice (the Admiral’s Feast). I hate to admit it, but he was right. The crab—no matter what the “deal” currently is—was a bad choice on SOOOO many levels!
In “the old days,” (which means before Red Lobster went bankrupt and DJT 2.0 set about bankrupting us in every other area of life), I would have ordered the meal that consists of fried shrimp, a lobster, and crab. That meal is pushing $50 now and I’m just not that hungry any more. So, I selected the crab legs, knowing it would be less bountiful. That was just fine by sixty-pounds lighter me.
I ordered the crab with garlic butter. I did not know that the “new way” to serve a Red Lobster customer garlic butter was to dump it atop the already-messy crab legs. You don’t get it on the side in a little container (like the old days) unless you specifically ask for it on the side. It would be best to warn Old Time Red Lobster patrons of this fact before they are presented with a large heap of oily crab legs, literally drowning in bits of garlic. (I don’t really like garlic that much; I generally ask my daughter-in-law to not put the garlic in my green beans, because I like a hint of the flavor, but I don’t eat it by the spoonful. But spoonfuls of this aromatic stuff had definitely been used on top of the crab legs.)
Red Lobster flyer.
Even though they gave me plastic gloves (I’m not kidding; actual plastic gloves), this greasy thankless crab-removal task is a job nobody needs nor wants. What happened to the idea of slicing the crab shell open in the kitchen before the customer has to start wearing surgical gloves to retrieve their meal?
When the plate first appeared with massive amounts of garlic garnishing it, our waitress stopped to check on us. I was really sorry to be “that customer” but I told her that, actually, I had not anticipated the giant greasy load of garlic pieces.
“I don’t even like garlic much,” I mumbled.
I feel very bad to EVER send anything back. It’s not in my nature. I cringe just writing this, but I could not just sit there staring at the plate, so I answered honestly. I give high marks to the waitress’s efforts to please an ignorant customer who ordered without complete knowledge of the “new” Red Lobster.
She was great about it. She took the plate with the untouched pound of crab legs and the pound and a half of garlic and butter and the very few pieces of potato that were buried beneath this mess in a greasy liquid butter to the kitchen. The crab legs were returned without the butter and the garlic (also without the potatoes).
If I ever dine there again, (1) I will not order the crab legs and (2) I will definitely ask that the garlic butter of olden days be put on the side, like it used to be. I can’t even finish 1/2 of the 6-pack of chicken nuggets from Chik’ Fil A these days. Damola, maybe consider the smaller plate option with a smaller price if you order less?
I wonder how many times and how many other unsuspecting customers have been burned by this New Way of Doing Things at Red Lobster? Maybe Red Lobster needs to write the advice about the dipping sauce on the actual menu next to the entrée description. The need to re-do my plate was certainly wasteful. For that I apologize.
So now starts the fun part: trying to get the crab out of the shell.
Forget it.
The broccoli was good. I ate most of it while waiting for the return of the garlic-less crab legs. No idea what happened to the “crispy potatoes.” I can guarantee you that they weren’t very “crispy” after marinating in a pound of butter and garlic; then they disappeared. I honestly did not care by that point. I needed to go wash my hands, one of three trips to the women’s rest room necessitated by the overly greasy presentation.
RED LOBSTER REST ROOM
Let’s leave the booth in the bar for a moment and travel to the nearby women’s bathroom in Davenport, Iowa. After the ordeal of foraging for 2 to 3 ounces of crab meat like a famished squirrel, I needed to wash my hands. Repeatedly.
So let me warn prospective patrons about the two (2) stalls in the women’s rest room in the Red Lobster location in Davenport, Iowa. (I was recently locked in the rest room of the Main Street Pizza in Buda, Texas for almost half an hour, calling on my phone for someone to come pry the stuck door open, so bear with me if I sound skittish about being locked in the rest room stall in the women’s rest room of the Red Lobster in Davenport, Iowa.)
Stall #1, the handicapped stall, has a lock that no longer functions. The bar that slides back-and-forth only slides back-and-forth on the wrong side (outside) of the metal thing that you are supposed to slide the bar into. Good luck in trying to hold the door closed with your hand while seated during your time in the stall! (Ahem).
On my second hand-washing trip, a portly woman with a cane tried to lock the door to Stall #1–the one that needs a handyman to come and fix it. She tried to “fix” it by slamming the door repeatedly. That didn’t work, but, as a result, I got stuck in the Stall #2 where the door had (previously) operated just fine.
Stall #2, the stall closest to the entry door, DID have a lock that worked. This was good news. [Since the gizmo given me to free the 3 oz. of crab meat from the shell didn’t work I lost faith in all of the implements provided by the establishment for specific purposes.]
The door to Stall #2 DID work, but wait: Just try to exit Stall #2 after unlocking it. The door only opened 8 inches. It reminded me of my red Prius (the FireBird) after a teenaged driver slammed into us in Okmulgee, Oklahoma on our November 3rd drive to Texas. The side impact crash totaled the car. The door on my car’s passenger’s side only opened about eight inches. My husband had to come around from the driver’s side and pull with all of his force to open the door to allow me to exit. (And then we twist tied the car together and drove 6 hours to Austin, Texas, with no headlights).
The Firebird, post crash.
This Red Lobster door to Stall #2 in the women’s rest room opened almost the same amount, but I had no male companion in the ladies’ rest room to help pry it open. I wonder if the large woman with the cane, in attempting to lock her side of Stall #1, did damage to MY door?
Fortunately, following my Ozempic/Mounjuaro months, I am much smaller (60 lbs.). I was able—just barely—to slip through the very narrow opening and return to the booth to struggle with securing food. [Hungry squirrel returns to the field to forage.]
Finally, I decided to discontinue wrestling with the crab legs. That battle was lost. The bill was close to $100 (2 people, no alcoholic beverages). I figure my 3 oz. of shredded crab probably cost about $20 an ounce. I was still hungry when I left.
Warning to prospective crab leg customers: be sure to ask for whatever kind of butter you select on the side.
[If you’re female, good luck in the rest room!]
Camp Mystic, Texas.
In the wake of the Texas flash flood catastrophe that has, so far, claimed 68 lives, with over 41 still missing, 27 of them (originally) young girls at a campsite (Camp Mystic) along the Guadalupe River, this seems like a good time to mention how the current GOP administration is taking care of Americans facing weather disasters. Helicopters in Texas are searching for survivors even now, according to the U.S. Coast Guard Liaison to the city of Kerrville, a Texas location which was hard hit. The Cajun Navy (unofficial) is helping try to locate and hopefully rescue survivors. The U.S. Coast Guard is assisting in the search. Army Corps of Engineers and Border Patrol are involved, according to Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
Director of Homeland Security Kristi Noem
Kristi Noem
Kristi Noem, former Governor of South Dakota, is now the United States Secretary of Homeland Security—(also known as the woman who shot her own dog dead.) She was seen on CNN, stylishly attired, saying,”When President Trump took office, he said he wanted to update this ancient system. We can do all we can to fix these kinds of things.” In other words, she offered nothing substantial to reassure residents of any state that things will improve over time, and the facts suggest that they will get worse—much, much worse.
These empty words came from the administration that just dramatically cut major aid to weather forecasting agencies and to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which Trump wants to put entirely under his own presidential control, so that he can “play favorites” in sending aid to states hit by weather disasters. Trump has said he wants to completely eliminate FEMA by the beginning of next year’s hurricane season.
Tropical Storm Chantal is the third major storm of the hurricane season. It is strengthening off the coast of South Carolina right now. It may well be another weather crisis that will hit within 24 hours of the Texas Guadalupe River tragedy. Will Kristi Noem’s agency be prepared? Will she have the right outfit for the inevitable destruction that Chantal might cause? Her previous pose, outside the prison in El Salvador, featured a backdrop of shackled prisoners. Reminded me of Robert Palmer’s videos for “Addicted to Love” and “Simply Irresistible,” (only with a less well-attired backdrop). Will someone steal Noem’s purse while she is on camera, her favorite place to be?
Robert Palmer girls in “Addicted to Love.”
Official Warnings
It might be a flood, a tornado, a hurricane, an earthquake, a derecho or a fire. (Or, today, in Illinois, warnings about dust storms that remind of the Dust Bowl Days.) In Texas, at hours that survivors describe as two to four in the morning, river levels rose from a foot to heights that reached thirty-four feet… a virtual wall of water that swept away everything in its path. Survivors described individuals being swept 6 to 12 miles downstream and—if they were lucky—holding on to trees, bushes and telephone poles to survive.
At 6:16 a.m., the City of Kerrville’s Police Department posted on its Facebook page its first warning about the weather, noting that it’s a “life threatening event” and “anyone near the Guadalupe River needs to move to higher ground now.” Kerr County Sheriff posted on its Facebook page for the first time about the flooding at 6:32 a.m.
At 7:22 a.m., the City Hall of Kerrville posted on Facebook: “Much needed rain swept through Kerrville overnight, but the downside is the severe weather may impact many of today’s scheduled July 4th events. Citizens are encouraged to exercise caution when driving and avoid low water crossings. Kerrville Police and Fire Department personnel are currently assessing emergency needs.” At 7:33 a.m. it posted about road closures due to flooding. At 8:32 a.m. it posted: “If you live along the Guadalupe River, please move to higher ground immediately.”
Speaking on Friday, Lt. Gov. Patrick (the very Lt. Governor whose own staff sued him in a famed whistleblower suit) said there were 14 helicopters, 12 drones, nine rescue teams as well as “swimmers in the water rescuing adults and children out of trees.” He said there were 400 to 500 people on the ground helping with the rescue effort. The numbers of the dead—many of them unidentified—rise hourly.
First-Person Accounts
Interior of Camp Mystic, the 100-year-old Christian camp hit by the flash flooding along the Guadalupe River in Texas.
Caroline and Juliana, daughters of Representative August Pfluger of Texas, were safely evacuated from Camp Mystic. Unfortunately, twenty-seven other female campers are still missing. Carl Jeter of Spring Branch, Texas, rescued a woman from a tree near his house. He talked with the woman, who had been camping above Ingram, Texas. Ingram to Hunt is currently, on 7/6 at 3:30 p.m., being evacuated, as it is near a bend of the Guadalupe River and a wall of water may be coming. Residents of Hunt, Texas, are being urged to get to higher ground and there are non-stop traffic jams.
The four individuals woke up, got in the car, and tried to drive out, but it was too late. The woman and her three companions climbed through the sun roof of their car and into the flood waters. She went through 4 dams and through Sydney Baker Road in town. She saw cars going by and screamed for help as she was swept possibly 20 miles in the raging flood waters. She summoned the strength to grab a tree and climb up, spending 4 hours treading water in the Guadalupe River. She had lost contact with her 3 companions. She is now hospitalized.
Trump’s Budget’s Effect on Future Disasters
Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, which could more accurately be described as the Big Bad Bill, has caused FEMA to lose 25% of its full-time staff, reducing its trained staffers ready to deploy to disasters from 6,588 to 1,952. Twenty-five % of its full time staff, about 2,000 people have been let go or resigned since January. The Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June through November, could produce up to 19 storms and 5 major hurricanes, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This is above the annual average of 14 named storms, which NOAA official say is a result of higher ocean temperatures and lower trade winds. FEMA last year passed $64 billion to states and local governments for disaster relief, cleanup and recovery. Is that likely to continue? Officials are worried that it will not.
Officials now also worry that they won’t receive notification of impending climate catastrophes because Trump’s Big Bad Budget cut 20% of NOAA’s staff. More than a dozen NWS forecast offices along the hurricane-prone Gulf of Mexico are understaffed. The release of weather balloons has been suspended or reduced at sites across the U.S. The Hurricane Hunter unit, which flies planes into storms to collect critical data for hurricane monitoring, lost 2 flight directors and one electronic engineer due to cuts. Its ability to fly 24/7 missions is jeopardized. Retired NWS meteorologist James Franklin said (of the weather service), “They can move the desk chairs on the Titanic but they just don’t have enough bodies to do the job they are supposed to do.”
Acting FEMA administrator Cameron Hamilton testified before Congress in May, saying that he did not believe that it was “in the best interests of the American people to eliminate FEMA.” He was fired by Trump the next day. He has been replaced by another typical Trump appointee—someone with no emergency management experience who is a painter, novelist and ex-Marine. The #2 in command of FEMA, MaryAnn Tierney, quit as the agency’s #2 expert last month. She said, in her resignation letter, “The agency is failing its moral and statutory obligations to the American public.” She added, “Everyone has a line and I have reached mine.”
The current inexperienced novelist-turned-FEMA director, David Richardson, warned that the federal government is no longer going to cover 75% of disaster relief and recovery costs, but only 50%. Hurricane Helene (North Carolina) last year cost $53 billion. FEMA has provided $656 million in emergency aid for North Carolina, but future payouts are in doubt, causing Governor Josh Stein to raise the alarm in the legislature. To scrap FEMA with no careful thought and no good planning—a hallmark of Trump administration moves like DOGE—is described as “frightening” by residents of Florida who suffer buffeting from hurricanes with great frequency.
Senator Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Alex Padilla (D-CA) introduced the FEMA Independence Act to make FEMA a cabinet-level agency which would remove it from Kristi Noem’s purview. The way Trump prefers, the federal government will distribute less disaster aid and funding will come directly from the President’s office. This means that DJT will play favorites and politicize aid to devastated states—something that sounds exactly like a dictator in an authoritarian state. Tillis announced recently that he would not vote for Trump’s Big Bad Bill and would not seek re-election, saying he could not vote for the Medicaid cuts, among other horrors in the bill. Trump immediately exulted.
Thom Tillis (R, S.C.)
Is this GOP administration looking out for your welfare in the best way possible? Do you feel reassured that the government will be there to help your state, if your state has a climate catastrophe?
Mid-terms are coming. Vote them out!
Hurricanes, floods, and wildfires will leave your town in ruins—and there’ll be no help coming. Just ask North Carolina. Recently Trump’s old Press Secretary, now Governor of Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee, called to ask for help for her storm-damaged state. Guess how responsive this administration would be to a blue state?
WHEN YOUR MEDICARE IS GONE Can’t prove you worked enough hours? Say goodbye to coverage. Missed the paperwork? No backpay. Live in a blue state? Tough luck. The goal, according to a NY Times analysis, is to make the paperwork so difficult that it is nearly impossible to claim aid, even when it the applicant needs it and deserves it. “Death by a thousand paper cuts.” WHEN YOUR MEDICARE, MEDICAID, & VETERANS CARE DISAPPEAR Work requirements kick seniors off Medicaid. Blue states lose funding for expanded coverage. Gender-affirming care banned—even for veterans who served this country. Retroactive coverage is eliminated—so if you got sick before paperwork cleared, too bad.
WHEN YOU CAN’T AFFORD A DOCTOR Your local hospital shuts down because funding dries up. You get in line—and find out your service doesn’t exist anymore.
WHEN YOUR GROCERY BILL DOUBLES Your produce costs more, your gas costs more, and your neighbor just got kicked off food assistance at age 64. RiverBend Food Bank in the Quad Cities is already on record issuing warnings about their concern(s). You’ll have the GOP to thank for not being able to provide food to the needy in the richest country on Earth.
WHEN YOUR PHARMACY, POST OFFICE, OR BANK VANISHES
Demonstrators in Davenport protested both the autocratic behavior of DJT and his ICE raids.
The institutions holding your small town together disappear—and with them, your access to medicine, checks, and mail. During DJT 1.0 there was already an assault on the USPO because of Trump’s appointee to top administrative positions, who had stakes in the private delivery of mail. Good luck on keeping Benjamin Franklin’s legacy to us alive and well. And this doesn’t even factor in the many small businesses that can’t make plans from week to week because of Trump’s on-again/off-again tariff obsession or because they are Latino and can no longer operate their food truck or small business amongst all the chaos that the King of Chaos hath wrought.
WHEN YOU LOSE YOUR JOB You’re fired to make room for a Trump loyalist—and your pension just got slashed while you weren’t looking.
WHEN YOUR DAUGHTER’S SCHOOL TEACHES OBEDIENCE, NOT MATH
A still from Mr. Nobody Against Putin by David Borestein and Pavel Talankin, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Pavel Talankin
Education turns into indoctrination. The path to college narrows. DEI is gone. If she’s not a legacy or male, she’s left behind. Women’s rights, fought for since the 70s, are already disappearing, as access to abortion has been rescinded and now the GOP evangelical supporters will be focusing on eliminating access to the morning after pill. Your job as a female (J.D. Vance and Elon Musk would approve) is to return to the fifties, when a woman’s place was in the kitchen and popping out babies to raise the country’s birth rate. Back to when the “good” jobs were reserved for males only. I remember that era well. No females need apply to join the ranks of professional occupations. It was fine to be a secretary, a hairdresser, a teacher, a nurse, but don’t apply to medical school, law school or engineering school.
WHEN BOOKS DISAPPEAR FROM YOUR LIBRARY (if they haven’t already) The books your kid loves? Gone. History? Whitewashed. And no, it’s not up for debate. If DJT says that it’s the Gulf of America, get with the program. If DJT says he really won the election of 2020, be prepared to say “Yes, Sir” or STFU. Rewrite the insurrection at the Capitol as “warriors”for Trump instead of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.
January 6th: Trump-inspired invasion of the Capitol. All pardoned, with no cogent plan to separate those who had attacked police officers and headed militia organizations.
WHEN BLACKOUTS HIT & THE GRID FAILS Wildfires, rolling blackouts, and air so dirty your kid needs an inhaler. All so fossil fuel execs can cash out faster. Trump is even attempting to bring back coal, which he remembers from his youth. While China is making progress on their emissions, the U.S. is moving backwards, intentionally. Climate change is just a hoax for the GOP. Don’t worry about the steadily increasing incredible heat or the much-higher-than-normal hurricanes and tornadoes. Just agree with your Dear Leader.
WHEN YOUR 401(K) VANISHES Trump’s chaos spooks Wall Street. Your retirement evaporates. No more dream home—just dreams deferred.
Adam Kinzinger.
WHEN YOUR SON IS SENT TO WAR Trump fans the flames abroad, then demands your kid carry the torch. No plan, no diplomacy—just body bags. If the planning and leadership for armed conflict is as slipshod as the recent Yemen SNAFU (that put the Editor of the ‘Atlantic” in the loop) or DOGE, good luck to us all.
WHEN LGBTQ+ KIDS HAVE NOWHERE LEFT TO GO
Your gay nephew? Your trans friend? Denied care, expelled from school, forced into the shadows. Gays and women should “learn their place.” This bill makes “Don’t ask; don’t tell” look absolutely progressive.
WHEN BILLIONAIRES GET TAX CUTS, YOU GET THE BILL They’re redistributing wealth upward—and branding it as patriotism. Meanwhile, you can’t file your taxes without paying TurboTax.
WHEN PARENTS CAN’T AFFORD CHILDCARE OR PRE-K You’re expected to work more while getting less—and pay more for someone else to watch your kids. Universal Pre-K? Gone. Raising smart, independent thinkers isn’t part of their plan. The less critical thinking the GOP is capable of doing, the better. Trump chose the Republican party to be his standard bearer (despite years of contributing to Dems) because he knew they’d be easier to con. And he was right.
WHEN YOUR COMMUNITY CENTER CLOSES & PARKS FALL APART OR ARE SOLD OFF
Elon Musk
No summer rec program. No park repairs. No local arts grants. Small towns and underserved communities will be hollowed out. WHEN THE GOVERNMENT ISN’T WORKING—BECAUSE TRUMP & MUSK FIRED EVERYONE
RFK, Jr.
Experienced public health experts, FEMA coordinators, and environmental scientists—replaced by political loyalists who will say “yes” to anything. Non-medical Health & Human Services leader Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is already sowing distrust of the medical experts. During Congressional hearings it was necessary to explain some of the medical terms to the people in charge, because they have no background in medicine or science. Already debunked theories about ADD and ADHD being caused by vaccines that have saved millions of lives now cause things like the recent measles epidemic that began in Texas. Do you remember the polio vaccine? The Department’s advice and public pronouncements about vaccines (etc.) are so unreliable and off-the-mark that one of the nation’s leading experts in the field, Dr. Michael Osterholm, has formed a group to put out knowledgeable advice to the unsuspecting public. Sowing distrust in public institutions is perfect for a leader who may well be a Russian asset, as it cuts deep. We become the laughingstock of the educated science-based world as we stumble from crisis to crisis led by erroneous and/or prejudiced information distributed by the very agency that should be guiding our medical choices. The experts in those agencies are already resigning in protest and are being recruited by countries who recognize that vaccines have saved millions of lives over the years. So, in addition to dying because of misinformation, we face a brain drain in any scientific area you can name (and it’s already happening.)
It’s not about draining the swamp—it’s about drowning it in sycophancy. DJT’s vulnerability to flattery was recognized by Russia way back in the eighties, and they certainly are getting their money’s worth for their support. (And they don’t even have to stop bombing Ukrainian citizens, but are actually stepping up their attacks. (So much for ending the war in one day!)
WHEN TECH GIANTS RULE—AND YOUR STATE CAN’T STOP THEM Even if your state wants to protect your kids from unregulated AI or TikTok-style data mining—it can’t. Even Margery Taylor Greene, the laughingstock of the bunch for her antics and lack of knowledge admitted she didn’t know about this AI regulation and doesn’t like it. (Comes under the category of “Even a blind pig….”) Trump’s bill hands the future of technology to unaccountable megacorporations. Read the Peter Thiel piece on this blog; consult Substack for more on the topic.
WHEN THERE’S NO ONE LEFT TO WATCH THE POWERFUL
Corporate fraud? Unsafe consumer products? Toxic pollution? Nobody’s checking. Nobody’s stopping it. After all, you can peddle Bibles and gold tennis shoes and Bitcoin (known to be preferred by the criminal element) and perfume and everything else under the sun. There is not one murmur of protest from the GOP in power about this indiscriminate feathering of the Trump nest and this blatant disregard for the emoluments clause of the Constitution, check your conscience at the door!To understand the Emoluments Clause and its implications for Trump, consider the following points:- The Emoluments Clause is found in Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution.
- It prohibits federal officials from receiving gifts or payments from foreign states without congressional consent.
- The clause aims to prevent corruption and foreign influence in U.S. governance.
- Trump faced lawsuits alleging violations due to his business interests receiving payments from foreign entities.
- Next, Trump will be attempting to change the emoluments clause via the courts he has stacked,because, after all, perhaps he can pick up the gift of another free luxury airplane if he just asks.
The powerful will act with impunity—because Trump removed the referees.
WHEN BLUE STATES PAY THE PRICE FOR CARING If your state worked hard to give people healthcare, it now gets less federal funding. Why? Because this bill rewards cruelty and punishes compassion. (See Steven Miller and Tom Holman for examples of cruelty and lack of compassion in living form.)
Trump said it himself: “I have the right to do whatever I want.”
.Joni Ernst
If you live in Iowa, remember that one of your Senators is over 90 and the other one, Joni Ernst’s response, at a town hall meeting that pointed out how many citizens could die because of Medicaid cuts, responded that “Everybody dies” and then traveled to a cemetery to film a sarcastic response that also involved mentioning the Tooth Fairy and looking to God for help. This same female Senator, who served in the Armed Forces, voted to confirm a totally unqualified individual to become Secretary of Defense.
If you’ve been silent, speak up and vote the GOP out in the mid-terms, before they destroy our democracy and the trust of the citizens in nearly every once-trustworthy institution (if that hasn’t already happened). Even Elon Musk, the Godfather of DOGE, recognized what a terrible bill Trump’s bill was and how much it will add to our national debt. The Republican party was afraid to go after Medicare to fund tax cuts for the richest Americans, so they went after Medicaid and the poor instead, all the while hiding behind the patiotic notion of expelling illegal aliens (primarily Latinos). While they promised to focus on the most dangerous criminal element, the records show that many of the “illegal aliens” are not criminal elements at all. Remember: those in this country illegally who have been working picking our crops, cleaning our houses, working at our slaughtering houses, have paid into Social Security but can never derive any benefits from the money they paid in. Just as there was no pre-planning or selectivity when all of the January 6th rioters were turned loose (some straight from prison), there has been no true careful planning of the campaign to deport illegal aliens. The entire game plan has been to “blame Biden” at every turn, even though much of the “blaming” is lying. There is never any accountability for a malignant narcissist who would stack every government organization with only Trump loyalists to the point that we have become a kakistrocracy (look it up).
Donald J. Trump cut-out
“The story begins in March 1986, when Soviet ambassador Yuri Dubinin and his daughter Natalia walked into Trump Tower and requested a meeting with Donald Trump.
Natalia told Politico years later that their mission was to “hook” the assumed billionaire, and “Trump melted at once.”
This was the beginning of the KGB’s recruitment of Donald Trump.
The story as it’s told here and on our website is composed of interviews with Soviet / Russian nationals and former KGB agents, reports by reputable sources, and Donald Trump’s own book.
In the mid-1980s, as sympathy for the Soviet Union was waning, KGB head Vladimir Alexandrovich Kryuchkov began exploring new strategies for the intelligence agency to recruit assets abroad.
Primarily, agents were directed to use flattery on potential assets and rely more heavily on “material incentives,” i.e. money, to bring them on board.
Most importantly, they were told to focus on U.S. targets of value – like Donald Trump – who may be able to “actively influence” foreign policy in favor of the Soviet Union.
In The Art of the Deal, Trump writes that he sat next to Yuri Dubinin at a luncheon in 1986 (some time after the Trump Tower meeting).
There, Dubinin completed the first stage in KGB recruitment, offering Trump a “material incentive” he couldn’t refuse.
The incentive, according to Trump’s own book: “a large luxury hotel, across the street from the Kremlin, in partnership with the Soviet government.”
But first, Dubinin would need Trump to meet with some of his associates in Moscow, the second stage of recruitment.
On the Fourth of July, 1987, Donald and Ivana Trump checked into the Intourist hotel in Moscow, a facility allegedly operated and surveilled by the KGB, across the street from the Kremlin.
As far as Trump knew, the purpose of this trip – which was paid for by the Soviet government – was to meet with officials from the country’s tourist agency. But the agents he met with weren’t interested in tourism.
The conversation centered on deals with the Politburo, the highest committee within the Kremlin, and how Trump might be of assistance to the KGB.
The operatives fed Trump common KGB talking points and went to great lengths in their efforts to flatter him. They knew from their intel that he was psychologically vulnerable and that flattery was his weak spot.
The KGB used this to their advantage and pretended to be “immensely impressed” by him, according to one former agent. They told him “it’s people like him who could change the world.”
They even went as far as to suggest that he could become president someday.”
Continue reading and get all source links at https://trumpfile.substack.com
Zohran Mamdani, a thirty-three-year-old left-wing state assemblyman from Queens, on Tuesday night, seemingly defeated the better-known Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary for Mayor of New York City. That doesn’t mean that Cuomo can’t run as an Independent in the actual election against the scandal-plagued incumbent (Eric Adams); only time will tell. Most of Mamdani’s opponents were more established and better known. Mamdani was born October 18, 1991. Take note.
Mamdani’s campaign said it knocked on a million and a half doors across the city—not unprecedented in the annals of municipal politics but probably essential for an unknown. The candidate himself appeared in every conceivable media venue, from the TikTok series “Subway Takes” to “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” earning him the sobriquet “Nonstop Mamdani.” In the mid-June heat, Mamdani walked the length of Manhattan, from Inwood to the Battery. He beat Andrew Cuomo, the former governor, in the first round of ranked-choice voting by about seven percentage points. In campaign buttons and other merch visible across the five boroughs, it was a landslide. Mamdani’s win makes him the first Muslim candidate to be selected as the Democratic candidate for Mayor; he is dubbed a Democratic Socialist.
Mamdani’s central issue of affordability in the city got it right, especially with voters under forty-five. His easy smile and ubiquity fueled a steady rise in the polls. His campaign’s essential theme was that life in New York doesn’t have to be so hard. His campaign platform includes support for free city buses, public child care, city-owned grocery stores, a rent freeze on rent-stabilized units, and building affordable social housing units. He is a critic of Israel.
So far, the experiments in explicitly left-wing governance—as opposed to the principled back-benching of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—have gone badly for the Democratic Party. Mamdani’s proposal of a rent freeze proved popular in the campaign, but Bill de Blasio froze the rent in NYC three times. It has not made New York housing much cheaper. Other ideas like the establishment of five city-run grocery stores seem either a little fanciful or politically difficult, like tax hikes.
During the campaign, Mamdani sometimes appeared a little more flexible than his socialist image. Mamdani has been interested in ideas about how to build more housing, ideas that have germinated in the abundance movement and in attempting to cut red tape for small businesses.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.
On another Progressive front, in Chicago, Brandon Johnson’s year and a half as mayor has been semi- disastrous, measured both by the city’s mounting budget crisis and his own plummeting popularity. Chesa Boudin as the avowedly progressive district attorney in San Francisco ended with his removal by voter referendum. That contributed to backlash against Silicone Valley tech that helped power Trump’s victory in the 2024 election. So stay tuned for what this unexpected victory might mean if it leads to Mamdani’s election. Michelle Wu, the young Boston mayor and Elizabeth Warren’s former protégé, has been a more successful model of governance by the left.
Even if Mamdani’s victory was built on hustle in local politics, it also carries an unmistakable message for his beleaguered national party: BE NEW. The Baby Boomers are (finally) giving way to the younger generation. For the first time, Millennials born between 1981 and 1996 comprised 21.81% of the nation’s population.
Generation Z (1997-2012) stood at 20.81%.
Baby Boomers (1946-1964) stood at 19.6% and are dropping like flies.
Generation X born between 1965 and 1980 stand at 19.27%. Only the Silent Generation (1928-1945) and Alpha (2013-2023) stand at only 4.48% and 13.85%, respectively, with the children born during WWII or earlier rapidly losing members, and the present lower birth rate reflected in Alpha.
The younger generation would like to see some reasonable, middle-of-the-road newbies elected. They’d like to see the “passing of the torch” that Joe Biden promised (but did not willingly deliver.) So, BE NEW is the message that the Democratic party should embrace, since so many of its leaders and leadership resemble television’s Crypt Keeper. Watching Chuck Schumer (age 75) talk about drafting a letter of protest against Trump’s many illegal moves, or Dick Durbin (Nov. 21, 1944) pontificating about same, does not inspire confidence. Both sides need some new blood, but the Democrats seem to need it the most.
Vice President J.D. Vance.
The GOP already has the eyeliner-wearing J.D. Vance warming up in the bull-pen. Unless you want 4 more years of marching backwards and telling women to STFU, stay in the kitchen, and procreate, be afraid. Be very afraid.
During the long and often difficult years since Obama’s election, the Party’s past three Presidential nominees have been Obama’s Secretary of State, Obama’s Vice-President, and Obama’s Vice-President’s Vice-President. Joe Biden’s precipitous decline defined last year’s election. Biden’s disastrous debate performance may threaten to define the Party for a generation. This past spring, Democrats in the House lost a vote they might have won, for passage of a budget-reconciliation bill, except too many Democratic congressman died and couldn’t be replaced in time to vote. For those decrying the idea of dying in office, like San Francisco representative Diane Feinstein, even the indomitable Nancy Pelosi looked her age after she tumbled downstairs while overseas, breaking her hip.
Of course, the Republicans conveniently try to downplay their own fossils, like 92-year-old Chuck Grassley, currently the oldest Senator serving. Who can forget Mitch McConnell (Feb. 20, 1942) freezing in the Capitol halls and falling. (The mighty, how they have fallen.) Republicans had several Senators who overstayed their welcome, including John Stennis (R, MI), who served over 41 years and Orrin Hatch (R, Utah) who served from 1977 until 2019.
Trump is seventy-nine years old and has been President twice. He and his party can’t run as the outsiders forever. Democrats: be new.
Did the United States just poke a stick into the wasps’ nest? Is Trump telling the truth (for a change) when he tells us from the White House that our strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities had “totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program, or are we going to have to buckle up for an extremely bumpy future ride?
There are conflicting opinions on whether or not the damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities from our bunker buster bombs has been substantial. Some reports (i.e., DJT) say we have totally obliterated the Iranian nuclear program. Some of the assessment of damage post-bombing has been described as being more cosmetic. And, too, there is the very relevant question of whether or not the Iranians moved the uranium before the bombs fell.
Although Iran’s foreign minister said the US had crossed a “very big red line,” other Iranian leaders downplayed the strikes’ impact. Manan Raeisi, a lawmaker representing the city of Qom, near Fordow, said the damage from the attack was “quite superficial. (Consider the source). A CNN analysis of imagery collected before the US strikes suggests that Iran had taken steps to reinforce the entrances to the tunnels believed to lead into the underground facility. This was, no doubt, done in anticipation of a coming strike. That imagery showed dirt piled up in front of at least two of the six entrances. The Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear sites sustained varying degrees of damage. Satellite imagery and reports indicate significant damage to the above-ground structures and potential damage to underground facilities at Natanz.
While Iran can likely rebuild its nuclear program, it will be a difficult and time-consuming process, potentially vulnerable to further sabotage or attacks. While some U.S. officials (i.e. the Prevaricator-in-Chief, Donald J. Trump) initially claimed the program was completely obliterated, independent experts and satellite imagery suggest a more nuanced picture. There are indications that there was only partial damage to critical infrastructure of nuclear facilities like Fordow.
So, just like a little kid poking a stick in the wasps’ nest, keep your eyes peeled for some very angry wasps coming for the United States. And do you think they’ll be as mad as hell about that stick? By the way, our fearless leader let loose with a “WTF” fully articulated on national television. He seemed very frustrated by the hostility between Israel and Iran. Go figure. Maybe Trump should take up reading (which sources say he does not do) and read up on this ancient rivalry that goes back to the very beginning of the formation of the country of Israel on May 14, 1948, when DJT was 2 years old.
Stealth bombers carried bunker buster bombs (six 30,000 bunker busters) and dropped then on Iran when President Trump authorized this military strike without consulting Congress.
Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, framed the risks this way: “While we all agree that Iran must not have a nuclear weapon, Trump abandoned diplomatic efforts to achieve that goal and instead chose to unnecessarily endanger American lives, further threaten our armed forces in the region and risk pulling America into another long conflict in the Middle East. The U.S. intelligence community has repeatedly assessed that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. There was more time for diplomacy to work.”
There are 40,000 U.S. troops in or near Iran. Has Trump thought about what happens to them now, or is this another ham-handed poorly-thought-out DOGE-style move?
It’s too soon to know the answer to that question, but we must hope and pray that the scientists and military minds left in Iran are not (still) capable of taking enriched uranium and building a bomb. At 9:25 a.m., from Tehran on CNN, an Iranian official described a populace that was previously quite fed up with its reigning administration, but, like all countries under attack, this action may change the Iranian public’s mind.
The quote from Senator Chris Van Hollen and the illustration are courtesy of the New York Times.
BEE GONE cover
The United States has had 47 Presidents. To the best of my memory, we have never had one who thrives on chaos and seeks to create it. Now we have one who is a divider, not a uniter. One late night host dubbed Donald J. Trump the King of Chaos.
Trump’s admiration for strong men (Russian, Turkish, North Korean) seems to know no bounds. His decisions ever since Trump 2.0 seem to be marching orders straight from Moscow. Nearly every one of the decisions from tariffs to ham-handed ICE deportation raids have been lauded on Russian state TV. Almost none of them have enhanced our standing in the world or made us more stable in any way.
I covered some of Trump’s rallies in 2016. I had covered every presidential caucus run in Iowa since 2000, but Trump’s rallies were the end of that, for me. It no longer felt safe. Crowds were encouraged to display hostility towards the Press, which is one of the first things a would-be dictator will attempt to do. Transparency, which the fourth estate provides via journalists staying on top of the story, is one of democracy’s safeguards. There are documented instances, at Trump rallies, when he would urge the crowd to turn against the press present. After the incident in Butler, Pennsylvania, press was singled out for abuse.
I came home from a Trump rally at the Davenport (Iowa) fairgrounds in the election of 2016 and announced that I was going back to reviewing movies. I was threatened only because I wore a Press badge.
Why?
“This isn’t fun any more,” I told my spouse.
It was not long after this that the Democrats moved their first-in-the-nation caucus voting to South Carolina, anyway, which meant Iowa would be All Republican, All the Time. That made the caucuses much less meaningful (and definitely less fun).
A New Political Era?
According to New Yorker writer Wallace-Wells, the recent Minneapolis assassination of one elected official, and the attempted assassination of another, confirm the arrival of a new political era, in which the expectation and the fear of political violence are endemic.
But is this threat of violence really new? I would submit that the expectation and the fear of political violence are, indeed, endemic, but this is not a “new era.” It’s more prevalent, perhaps, but it has been around seemingly forever.
For me, the fear of violence at a political rally, after sixteen years of attending them routinely without incident, was driven home in 2016 during the campaign for Trump 1.0. That was nearly ten years ago. The encouragement of such bad behavior started with Donald J. Trump—a man known for plenty of bad behavior of his own.
Gabby Giffords
There have been incidents involving violence or threats of violence at political gatherings before. On January 8, 2011, United States Representative Gabby Giffords and 18 others were shot during a constituent meeting held in a supermarket parking lot in Casas Adobes, Arizona, in the Tucson metropolitan area.
Six people were killed, including federal District Court Chief Judge John Roll; Gabe Zimmerman, one of Giffords’s staffers; and a nine-year-old girl, Christina-Taylor Green. Giffords was holding a meeting called “Congress on Your Corner” in the parking lot of a Safeway store when Jared Lee Loughner drew a pistol and shot her through the head at point-blank range before proceeding to fire on others.
I’ve recently written about the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy. Certainly we all remember presidential assassinations going all the way back to Abraham Lincoln. Such political violence peaked, in my lifetime, in 1968, following JFK’s death in Texas on November 22, 1963. But it is most definitely true that political strife can turn deadly.
Trump’s effect on rising tension is to throw more lighter fluid on the fire. Not only does he not try to calm political turmoil. Instead, he seems to thrive on chaos, something that has been a hallmark of other autocratic dictators.
MINNESOTA MURDERER
Vance Boelter
The man suspected of killing a Minnesota lawmaker and wounding another was taken into custody after a two-day search. Vance Boelter was arrested Sunday evening, June 17, after two days on the loose following the shooting of former Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark. The couple were killed in their Brooklyn Park home early Saturday, June 16, 2025, in that northern Minneapolis suburbs. Sen. John Hoffman, also a Democrat, and his wife, Yvette, were injured at their Champlin home, about 9 miles away. Only good police work kept the tragedy from becoming much worse.
THE TRUMP EFFECT
The job of the Minnesota police could not have been helped by the fact that the past decade has seen the rise of an unstable environment around politics and law enforcement—one that arguably worsened on January 6th. On that date, MAGA faithful stormed the Capitol and Donald Trump celebrated the vigilantes who attacked the Capitol police force as “warriors.” Later, Trump pardoned the miscreants doing time for their decision to take the law into their own hands. There was little apparent thought or selectivity given to the pardons, which can also be said of ICE raids, immigrants deported, and DOGE targets. It’s always a poorly-thought-out and poorly executed slipshod undertaking, another hallmark of Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0. We have become a kakistocracy.
Benjamin Wallace-Wells, dubbed the Minnesota shootings a dangerous trend in the June 17th “New Yorker,” specifically cited the impersonating of law enforcement officers. Said Wallace-Wells, “A new political era has arrived, in which the expectation and the fear of political violence are endemic.”
While I do not disagree with Wallace-Well’s statement, I do disagree that this is “a new political era.” We’ve been experiencing deaths of political figures in the United States all the way back to the Civil War era (Lincoln, again). What is “new” about the incidents, however, is that now we have a President who seems to revel in mayhem. One of his MAGA followers even posted inappropriate remarks following the Saturday killings, because that is what good MAGA followers do: glorify violence and seize any opportunity to repeat lies that their fearless leader has convinced them of using social media.
THE TRAGEDY
Around 2 A.M. on Saturday morning, operators manning emergency lines in the Minneapolis suburb of Champlin, according to a police report, got a call from someone who said that a masked man had come to their home “and then shot their parents.” When police and medics arrived, they discovered that the victims were a Democratic state senator named John Hoffman, and his wife, Yvette, who were alive, but badly injured.
A sergeant from the nearby city of Brooklyn Park, who had helped respond to the call, asked officers from his jurisdiction to check on the home of the Democratic state legislator Melissa Hortman, who was until recently the state House speaker. According to the Brooklyn Park police chief, Mark Bruley, when the officers arrived, at about 3:35 A.M., they saw a “vehicle that looked exactly like an S.U.V. squad car.” The vehicle was parked in the driveway with its emergency lights on. The front door was open. The officers saw a man dressed like a cop firing into it; he killed Hortman and her husband, Mark. The officers fired at the shooter—since identified as Vance Boelter, a fifty-seven-year-old evangelical Christian and MAGA Trump follower. A website of Boelter’s said that he was an ordained minister.
Boelter had a scattered work history. He had recently been employed by local funeral-service companies and also was trying to launch his security business, but a close friend of his said that his back-and-forth trips to Africa exhausted him, financially, and made steady employment and a steady income difficult. Boelter ran back into the house and escaped for close to 2 days. He was arrested on Sunday evening. He has been charged with federal murder, which carries the death penalty.
Impersonating an Officer
Who Boelter is, and the exact nature of his objectives and perceived grievances, may ultimately be less noteworthy than whom he pretended to be. Boelter’s motives aren’t yet clear, though he possessed what police have suggested may have been a target list of seventy individuals, many of whom are Democratic politicians. Just tonight (June 21st) a young man (25-year-old Trenton Abston) attempted to confront the Mayor of Memphis with a taser. The Mayor lived in a gated community with security, but Abston climbed over a brick wall to reach the Mayor’s door. The Governor of Michigan was also the target of a foiled kidnapping attempt.
A state legislator summoned to his or her door well after midnight may be wary about opening it, but he or she may be less reluctant if the person on the step is uniformed and there’s a cop car parked on the street. As it turns out, Boelter was driving an S.U.V. that he had outfitted for his security business. He made the deliberate decision to leave the emergency lights on.
It was very smart of the real Brooklyn Park police officers to suspect what was happening. Their quick reaction saved lives. At a news conference on Monday, June 16th, authorities in Minnesota revealed that Boelter had visited at least two other homes between Hoffman’s and Hortman’s. No one was home at one, and he seemed to have been scared away at the other.
ICE in Action
The politicization of law enforcement has acquired a new dimension during the immigration crackdowns. The Trump Administration has allowed its agents to disguise their identities or affiliations so that it is often unclear to detainees whose custody they are in, or under what authority. In Boston, in March federal agents arrested Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University graduate student who had co-written a pro-Palestine op-ed in a campus newspaper. The agents were in plain clothes and masked.
Recently the White House deployed seven hundred marines to Los Angeles, purportedly to help quell the protests against immigration raids. Photos spread of them detaining a protester. Catherine Rampell, of the Washington Post, reported last week on an immigration raid targeting a landscaper working outside a boutique home-design business in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Agents showed up in masks and tactical gear and refused to show IDs, warrants or even give the names of any criminals they were supposedly hunting. In the piece, Rampell spoke to the business’s co-owner, Linda Shafiroff. She said, “It could have been like a band of the Proud Boys or something.”
In each of these circumstances, the federal government is asking ordinary people to trust that those wearing uniforms are acting on behalf of the public, while also allowing them to shroud their identity and their mission, and pushing the boundaries of what law enforcement can do. It is hard to imagine a scenario more perfectly engineered for exploitation.
In February, a man wearing an ICE jacket at the Conservative Political Action Conference, outside Washington, D.C., admitted to a podcaster that he had no affiliation with the agency, but said of his jacket, “It’s $29.99 on Amazon. I would recommend buying a small, if you’re my size.”
In Philadelphia, police sought a man who had entered a car-repair shop wearing fake security apparel. He yelled “Immigration!,” which caused some employees to scatter. He then proceeded to tie up a worker and rob the business. By the end of March, the fake-ICE situation had grown sufficiently common in Southern California that the Los Angeles Times ran a feature titled “ICE impersonators and other scammers are on the rise: How to protect yourself.”
Some of these impersonators are scamming for money. Others, especially those harassing migrants, may be expressing solidarity with the President’s political aims. The leaky membrane that Trump has established between law enforcement and his own agenda does a disservice to the officers, many of whom are simply trying to do their jobs. It also makes their work more dangerous. The more lawless the government is, the easier it is for lawless individuals to impersonate officers. Also, the more likely it is that citizens will doubt that the real officers actually represent a legal authority.
This is a recipe for generalized mistrust. For citizens to know who an armed federal agent really is, and what authority he is operating under, should be part of even the most basic commitment to transparency. At a minimum, courts and politicians should pressure government agents to disclose their identities during raids and detentions, and to clarify where their authority begins and ends.
In California’s Central Valley, as immigration raids peaked, school attendance reportedly dropped by twenty-two per cent. Immigrants are frightened to keep appointments, attend church, or show up at work, in some cases, for fear the Steven Miller/Stephen Homan heavy hand of the law will be deployed in the same manner it was in throwing an elected member of Congress, Senator Padilla, to the floor and handcuffing him, because he attempted to ask Homeland Security Chief Kristy Noem a question at a public meeting.
On Saturday, at an anti-Trump No Kings protest in Salt Lake City, Utah, a man reportedly appeared to be crouching behind a wall, while carrying what looked like an AR-15-style rifle. Several armed people whom the police referred to as “peacekeepers” providing security for the protest—though whether this role was official or self-assigned was under investigation—pulled their own weapons and yelled. One fired at the man, managing to disarm him but killing a bystander.
SPILL-OVER EFFECT
Demonstrators in Davenport protested both the autocratic behavior of DJT and his ICE raids.
Sadly, the trickle-down theory that Republicans love, is in play again in the behaviors to which Trump has affixed his seal of approval. It is okay to discriminate against homosexuals, women, transgender individuals and people of color, because that is what attacks on DEI sanction. Anti-Semitism is up while evangelical group support the man who, right now, has put us on the verge of WWIII and unleashed Elon Musk and DOGE on nearly every government institution, ruining them and the careers of the public servants employed there.
Other Examples of Trickle-down Tump Deterioration
I am old enough to remember when air travel was a delight. You actually dressed up to eat your TV-dinner style entrée onboard. Then planes began to be hijacked, 9/11 happened, and now we all dread the TSA steps that bad behavior has doomed us to endure in order to fly at all.
In much the same vein, outdoor concerts were once great fun. Until they weren’t. People who remember the slaughter in Las Vegas at an open air concert think twice. It isn’t even safe to attend a Fourth of July Parade in broad daylight anymore. We learned that after a Fourth of July parade in a Chicago suburb.
Trump is, slowly but surely, undermining trust in elected officials and in government institutions that have functioned well for 250 years, but which are now struggling to function at all. (Some have been eliminated by presidential fiat.)
Trump’s Legacy
Trump’s legacy to America, among many things, is most damaging in regards to undermining good behavior, civility, trust in institutions and our leaders and the press (in addition to non-stop crass commercial capitalization while in (and off of) the Oval Office.)
The emoluments clause of the Constitution (Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8) has been completely disregarded. The Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution is actually two clauses that restrict federal officials, especially the President, from receiving gifts, payments, or other benefits from foreign or domestic sources without Congressional consent. These clauses are designed to prevent corruption and undue influence on government officials by foreign powers or other entities.
Charging supplicants to attend his Mar-A-Lago bash recently and his unabashed greed in asking for a new Air Force One plane during his recent Middle East trip are just the tip of the iceberg. In Trump 1.0 foreign dignitaries knew that they should stay at Trump’s hotel if they wanted to do business with the executive branch. DJT has come out with tennis shoes, Bibles, with bitcoin and cheap gold cell phones, further sullying the office of the President of the United States. Why is Congress allowing this?
“The times, they are a-changing” and, so far, that is not a good thing.
