unraveling

30.Nov.2025

Mike Simpson, apologist for an autocrat

Our congressman, Mike Simpson, didn't spend any of his time off in recent months having public meetings with constituents. Even here in ruby-red Idaho, there are too many unhappy people for that to be fun. On Monday before Thanksgiving, he did show up for a ribbon-cutting ceremony of some sort. Allen Thayer's report of that in the Idaho Falls Post Register did not bother mentioning what had its ribbon cut, but focused instead on what passes for Simpson's day job these days.

Simpson downplays criticism of Trump by Dems encapsulates his facile dismissal as just partisan politics with that two-word dangle. Never mind the accusation of "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH" for six veterans in Congress who reminded the country of the rule of law and its requirements for the military.

“I’m concerned that the Democrats put out a tape [sic] like that,” Simpson said. “And they couldn’t identify any specific orders that they were talking about.”

Ok, can we get an answer to the follow-up question now that there is a specific order we're talking about? The pre-reveal shimmy shimmy:

“I think that [message from his colleagues] just is misleading, and it is unfortunate that former people in the military, the CIA, those senators [sic] were all from that realm would be so blatant as to put out a video that way,” Simpson said. “And Trump didn’t call for their death or anything else.”

Thayer quotes the formal response from the Department of Defense, which was less risible, but still missing the point, on purpose:

“All servicemembers are reminded that they have a legal obligation under the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice) to obey lawful orders and that orders are presumed to be lawful,” the statement said. “A servicemember’s personal philosophy does not justify or excuse the disobedience of an otherwise lawful order.”

Right, right, we got that, but we're not talking about lawful orders, nor the presumption of normality that's been beaten to death in year I of trump II. Simpson believes criticism from the Democrats are overblown.

“I think people are making a big deal of it when I think it was horrendous what the Democratic senators did,” Simpson said.

"Horrendous," really? Give the congressman a golf clap for not signing on to Pete Hegseth's statement for "our warriors," branding the messengers as the "Seditious Six," and their statement about the rule of law as despicable [nope], reckless [nope], and false [and nope].

“I don’t want to comment on that until I know more about it,” Simpson said. Too busy with this here ribbon-cutting, you know? No comment about shooting alleged "drug boats" and their sailors out of international waters, nor federalized National Guard troops deployed in Washington D.C. (almost 5 years too late for the actual insurrection), L.A., Chicago, Portland, Memphis.

But Simpson did have some comments about the big guy's mental acuity. First of all, he's "certain the 25th Amendment won’t be invoked against Trump in 2026," a possibly reckless bet. But can we change the subject somehow? “I could see it invoked in 2026 if Joe Biden had run again and won,” Simpson said. We can imagine Simpson voting "aye" with the rest of the GOP caucus. Incredibly (and why isn't Simpson in the Cabinet already?):

“But Trump is on top of his game,” Simpson said. “There are times I agree with him, times I disagree with him just like anybody else in the world. But he’s doing the job he was elected to do.”

Trump’s frequent social media posts attacking others also doesn’t trouble Simpson.

“That’s how he operates,” Simpson said. “Anybody that knows Trump knows that’s how he operates, so that doesn’t bother me.”

A week ago yesterday, the Post-Register ran a guest opinion from Fremont Co. farmer-lawyer Douglas Siddoway, Profiles in cowardice, after Simpson had "employed every tool at his disposal to evade having to say or do anything that remotely touched on Donald Trump’s relationship with the sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein," and then went with the flow when the tide went out. Emphasis added:

"One of the challenges of being an elected Republican in the MAGA age is having to explain to an increasingly skeptical constituency how your principles and beliefs can turn on a dime depending on the whims of an unstable and increasingly delusional president."

This graf gave me déjà vu:

"I would know. I’ve written Simpson many times over the years about Trump’s seemliness, narcissism and corruption (much of it based on my having lived in New York when Trump first began groveling for notoriety), only to be favored with AI-generated pap about how the congressman appreciates hearing from constituents like me, how he carefully considers the content of each email he receives and how our representative democracy only works when citizens are willing to be involved in their government."

The AI-generated part is new, anyway? I've got a collection of boilerplate staff-generated replies on whatever topic of the day I took the trouble write about, before I stopped taking the trouble, tired of waiting for a genuine interaction. After noting Idaho's US senators have also shown cowardly fealty to the autocrat lumpenfuror, something for his Christmas list:

"I hope Idaho’s federal representatives take a different tack and acknowledge, before it’s too late, that their unquestioning fealty to Donald Trump was misplaced, that the unitary executive theory of the presidency is bogus, and that, going forward, they will work to restore the legislative branch to its rightful position in the constitutional panoply."

If only there were a Santa Claus. (Whoops, spoiler alert!)

Black Friday, 2025

Let's talk about the illegal order to murder

YouTube's teaser stack had the promising Stephen Miller LOSES CONTROL On Fox As Screaming Fit Ends In On Air Collapse! but the commentary from The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson seemed a bit plodding. I want to believe the authoritarian "operation is cracking, the message is failing, and even the guy who writes the script can't pretend that everything isn't collapsing," but I don't know.

I do know that when Jesse Watters introduced his made-for-TV guest, Miller smiling so hard his lips came apart gave another layer of skin-crawling creepy to it. Watters' big softball teed him up: "What should happen to the 'Seditious Six'?"

Miller snapped to serious, to say they should be "held accountable for a seditious conspiracy against the United States of America." Which is to say that the six members of Congress and their little video stating the fact that the Constitution obligates service members to disobey illegal orders—FOLLOW THE LAW, you know—was fascist bait swallowed, hook, line and sinker.

"This is completely open and shut, straightforward," Miller declared fatuously, with conclusory indignation. (But he chipped in Leni Riefenstahl props for the "carefully written, carefully produced, slickly edited video." Took notes, apparently.)

Then the completely open and shut big lie, claiming said video was "telling them to disobey orders," skipping the essential word illegal. This while even Fox News was flashing the supposedly seditious video's text, on the split screen. ILLEGAL ORDERS. Milller emphasizes "LIFE AND DEATH POWER." Yes, let's talk about the killing.

"THE ARMED FORCES. LAUNCHES. LIFE-TAKING MISSIONS."

What Rick Wilson said: "They're breaking the law, and they're furious anyone noticed." IDK about "furious"; Miller's rage always seems darkly performative. We'll wait until he's in the dock for his catalog of crimes before we gauge "fury."

The legal reminder from Senators Slotkin, Kelly, and Representatives Crow, Deluzio, Goodlander, and Houlahan did not cite any particular order as illegal, but the Washington Post Thanksgiving blockbuster describes the top of the list: Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all. My emphasis added:

"The longer the U.S. surveillance aircraft followed the boat, the more confident intelligence analysts watching from command centers became that the 11 people on board were ferrying drugs.

"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a spoken directive, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation. “The order was to kill everybody,” one of them said.

"A missile screamed off the Trinidad coast, striking the vessel and igniting a blaze from bow to stern. For minutes, commanders watched the boat burning on a live drone feed. As the smoke cleared, they got a jolt: Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck....

"Some current and former U.S. officials and law-of-war experts have said that the Pentagon’s lethal campaign—which has killed more than 80 people to date—is unlawful and may expose those most directly involved to future prosecution.

"The alleged traffickers pose no imminent threat of attack against the United States and are not, as the Trump administration has tried to argue, in an “armed conflict” with the U.S., these officials and experts say. Because there is no legitimate war between the two sides, killing any of the men in the boats “amounts to murder,” said Todd Huntley, a former military lawyer who advised Special Operations forces for seven years at the height of the U.S. counterterrorism campaign.

"Even if the U.S. were at war with the traffickers, an order to kill all the boat’s occupants if they were no longer able to fight “would in essence be an order to show no quarter, which would be a war crime,” said Huntley, now director of the national security law program at Georgetown Law."

Professor David Adler confirms that the video message from the military veterans and members of Congress, "at a time when Trump has been ordering the military to perform illegal acts, is firmly grounded in law and history," providing the details of the law and history. And our current events:

In public statements, White House aides have lied about the content of the video. Lawmakers did not, contrary to Stephen Miller, call “for insurrection.” They did not, contrary to Karoline Levitt, White House press secretary, urge members of the military to disobey “lawful orders.” Pete Hegseth has also condemned and written falsely about the content of the video. To be crystal clear, lawmakers reminded service members that they “can refuse illegal orders; you must refuse illegal orders.” This essential message, as Andrew McCarthy, a legal analyst for Fox News, and a columnist for the conservative magazine, National Review, rightly stated, “Disobeying an unlawful order is required”...

"Trump’s invidious outburst toward lawmakers who reminded members of the military what their oath and the law require, reflects the character of a president who has no interest in either mechanism for defending the Constitution. The first step in restoring a constitutional presidency lies in fulfillment of the executive’s Article II duty to “faithfully” execute the laws, the framers’ principal rationale for inventing the presidency..."

Thanksgiving, 2025

The drumbeat of civil war

Our steeped in violence fake news and right-wing propaganda network, Fox News, has coughed up too many recruits for trumpish minions, prominently including the SecDef fellow (for whom "Defense" was too namby-pamby), and the DC prosecutor who has yet to have much success prosecuting anything.

Jeanine Pirro was at the mic today to declare "These Guardsmen and all who are here to protect the District are the line that separates a civilized society from a barbaric one." She also said "and though it seems we have been here before—under President Trump—make no mistake—and the Attorney General—it will be confronted, condemned and prosecuted to the full extent of the law..." It's a bit garbly, but you know, "law and order."

The theme is framed as dystopian fantasy in which military deployments to various cities that have triggered Biff's animus—Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, Memphis—have drawn a circle around the barbarians.

But yes, we can still remember when we were "here" before, when Trump the First exposed the boundary. On January 6, 2021, the murderous insurrection he and his team had deliberately incited was the most shocking thing to happen in our nation's capital for more than two centuries, this time from his domestic terrorist supporters imagining they were "the militia," rather than the invading military of a hostile nation. Josh Marshall sums up the Zeitgeist succinctly:

"No one should lose sight of the fact that the Guard was only in DC as part of an extended political messaging stunt. The shooter is guilty for the attacks/carnage. Donald Trump is responsible for them. This is the collateral damage of Trump abusing his powers as President."

I'm not sure exactly what "traditional terrorism" is anymore, but Marcy Wheeler and Marshall discuss under her repost of his note on Bluesky:

Marshall: "With DC shooter now identified as an Afghan national [rather than] the antifa secret agent White House hoped for[, it's] a good time to remember the Trump admin has gutted domestic anti-terrorism capacity and reassigned many to finding grandmothers to arrest at immigration hearings."

Wheeler: "It may be premature to treat this as traditional terrorism. It sounds like this guy was one of the people everyone involved in Afghanistan said should be protected, bc going back would be a death sentence.

"Also note his aptitudes would come from Special Forces/CIA."

I don't know if she's a grandmother, but the story about Elaine Miles, a somewhat famous actress and enrolled citizen of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, having her tribal ID challenged by ICE seems like the Thanksgiving Day topper.

25.Nov.25

The gang that couldn't shoot straight

Michael Weiss, in a podcast conversation with Timothy Snyder: Oligarchs and Diplomats. It's 52½ minutes to watch the whole thing. Jumping to the chase 16 minutes in (Snyder):

There's this notion that "Russia big, Russia strong, Russia always wins the war. And that background assumption, that unspoken axiom, seems to be still quite functional in the western media, and you see that in story after story of how Russia is advancing... the [so-called] "peace plan" is dominantly of Russia authorship, and it begins from this assumption.

"Because if you don't have that assumption, then the text on its face is ridiculous. Like the idea, for example, that Ukraine would just give up the Donbass region that it controls and where it has set up defences.

"It depends on the 'master assumption' that Russia's just going to take it anyway, so why shouldn't you give it up? The only way that Russia is winning the war is that it controls these 'atmospherics'."

Seeing the plan for Ukraine's surrender and capitulation as a "peace plan" requires the assumption that Russia is going to win anyway, "and therefore by giving a bunch of stuff to Russia, we might be doing something reasonable." That's his "tee up" for Weiss to talk about where it came from, and what's in it. Weiss notes that Axios ("and I don't say this disparagingly") "is quite close to the White House," and "Barack Ravid is quite close to Steve Witkoff, and to Jared Kushner," and they break the story that negotiations are happening! "With a guy named Kirill Dmitriev who is head of the Russian Sovereign Wealth Fund." Seconded to go out as a plenipoteniary to the west, to tell them what Russia wants (but without genunine decision-making capacity). 20 minutes or so in, Weiss:

"So Dmitriev and Steve Witkoff and Kushner apparently presented this plan with the authorship of the plan so nakedly Russian..." A colleague of Weiss "saw a version of this plan... six months ago. And he saw it from a Russian intelligence officer, okay? ... "This is, as Marco Rubio just told senators and then denied telling them, although he absolutely told them this, this is not a peace plan. This is not a serious bit of diplomacy. This is a, quote, Russian wish list.

"You can tell it does not bear the hallmarks of any kind of professional interention from the Russian side, such as the SVR, the security services, or diplomats of the foreign ministreis like Sergey Lavrov, because there are basic schoolboy howlers in it. They refer to the START-1 treaty for instance, they refer to things that have no bearing in reality, even if you're trying to put forward a Russian case.

"And then there are things in here that are very, very alarming for the Ukrainians... Ukraine must forfeit all of Donetsk to Russia... one of the most fortified places in Ukraine.... so it's territorial concessions.

"Then there are things like the future of NATO will be decided by this agreement, such that no other countries can join the alliance. Doesn't NATO get a say in who gets to join NATO? So already, they're negotiating above their heads. [It's] not even the Russian government, it's Kirill Dmitriev and a strip mall developer from the Bronx who's close to Donald Trump, and Donald Trump's son-in-law, who's already doing all kinds of shady side action with the Gulf states to get a deal in Gaza.

"These guys are deciding they're going to around the heads of major European allies who are in NATO and go ahead and tell them that by the way, the alliance is now determined in perpetuity to be exactly this number of members...."

The two or three hundred $billion in frozen Russian assets in Europe will be unlocked, "but the United States gets 50%, so it's like a kickback to Donald Trump and his cronies? And oh by the way, the EU must spend $200 billion of its own money for reconstruction" of cities that were destroyed by Russia.

Actual negotiations in Geneva are currently, appropriately, shredding the "plan," that the US (some in the US) claimed was "ours," making us look incredibly stupid, and incredibly cuckolded. Thanks to a Russian oligarch, and a strip-mall developer, and Jared Kushner.

All that's before the conversation is steered to "the criminology of the US." "What does this tell us about American process and about American factions and about where and why Dmitriev is finding a sympathetic hearing and partners inside the White House or around the White House?

Donald Trump "is clearly very desperate to make a deal with Russia on terms that are favorable to Russia." But the "hard reality of it is that the Russians aren't necessarily as fond of Trump as he is of them."

And the cloud of suppurating actors are the vilest creatures of the swamp, working side deals in crypto, oil, arranged murder and genocide... It's not "America First," let alone greatness. It's the deepest, and foulest corruption the US has ever known.

24.Nov.2025

More about the surrender plan

Heather Cox Richardson's latest daily leads with the swirl of intrigue and bumbling missteps in Russia's plan for "peace" in the country it has been attacking for more than a decade now. How much more embarrassing could it get? Even Mitch McConnell is speaking truth to power:

“Putin has spent the entire year trying to play President Trump for a fool. Rewarding Russian butchery would be disastrous to America’s interests.”

It's not that who wrote the plan is of the essence; the fact that the participants can't come right out and tell the truth directly is the bigger story. With the link brought into HCR's text:

"Erin Banco and Gram Slattery of Reuters reported that the proposal had come out of a meeting in Miami between Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Dmitriev, who leads one of Russia’s largest sovereign wealth funds. They reported that senior officials in the State Department and on the National Security Council were not briefed about the plan."

Also, nobody from Ukraine was briefed about the plan. Which they're supposed to agree to before Thursday's turkey dinner gets cold? Noted earlier, Kirill Dmitriev is "an ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin who is under U.S. sanctions," and the likely plan leaker.

"This morning, Bill Kristol of The Bulwark reported rumors that Vice President J.D. Vance was “key to US embrace of Russia plan on Ukraine, Rubio (and even Trump) out of the loop.” He posted that relations between Vance and Rubio are “awful” and that Rubio did, in fact, tell the senators what they said he did.

"Yaroslav Trofimov, chief foreign affairs correspondent of the Wall Street Journal, posted: “Foreign nations now have to deal with rival factions of the U.S. government who keep major policy initiatives secret from each other and some of which work with foreign powers as the succession battle for 2028 begins, is how one diplomat put it.”

Boiled down into a (5-day old) headline, Leaked U.S.-Russia Ukraine peace plan raises concerns about information warfare campaign. And "suspicions about the motives behind the disclosure and the credibility of sources involved in the negotiations."

"The timing and framing of the leaks appear designed to benefit the Witkoff-Dmitriev partnership, according to sources familiar with the matter. Notably, former President Trump reportedly complained about Putin to Saudi Arabia's crown prince the same day the stories broke, suggesting the White House may not be fully aligned with the reported negotiations.

"Intelligence analysts characterize the reports as classic disinformation, pointing to several red flags: the authors' backgrounds and sudden shift in journalistic focus, connections to Witkoff, the systematic timing of publications, and the illogical nature of truly secret negotiations being openly discussed. "If the Kremlin had the opportunity to conduct real secret negotiations, that would be their dream—a dream that Dmitriev wouldn't be commenting on," one analyst noted."

And for completeness, Timothy Snyder's "notes from a bizarre moment of diplomatic history": Russian Unreality and American Weakness. After making the argument, he analyzes the language of the (demonstrably) Russian proposal point by point.

"It is not that we -- America -- are trying to sell out Ukraine. American public opinion is favorable to Ukraine. Republican voters support Ukraine. A majority in Congress supports Ukraine. It is rather that a few Russians and a few Americans have the ability to define as a “peace plan” what is essentially the furtherance of personal economic interests combined with a strengthening of Russia’s capacity for warfighting and a weakening of Ukraine’s. Along the way, it contradicts every major principle of international law and furthers a world dominated by China and its Russian ally....

"It looks a lot like [...] Russians are seeking to bribe Americans to allow Russia to win a war it would otherwise lose."

23.Nov.2025

The Russian plan for Ukraine's surrender

The so-called US-backed peace proposal for Ukraine is floating in the news cycle like a cigar in a punchbowl. It's undisputed that it was cooked up without bothering to consult Ukraine. And whoever wrote it, they came up with a pretty good go at "everything the Russians wanted from their invasion for Christmas."

Did Russia write it, and somebody in our state department translate it? Or is it really something that came from the US? Heads they win, tails we lose. Either way, it's a sleazy business deal that rewards the invaders, and guarantees that Russia will go again when it feels like it.

"Russia to be re-integrated into the global economy," and re-invited to the G8? And gets to keep the territory they've seized and then some? With "full amnesty" for the invasion and their war crimes?!

Good luck finding a recent squeak about the war or his supposed support for Ukraine from Idaho Senator Jim Risch, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Two months ago, he was part of a group that proposed sending frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, lost in the shutdown fiasco.

Former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul sums it up pretty well in his op-ed headline, as seen on The Kyiv Independent: Putin’s plan for Ukrainian surrender does not serve American national interests. (It also won't get Biff the Noble he wants so bad.)

"This Putin plan does not serve American national interests. The sooner Trump and his team amend it or abandon it, the better it will be for U.S. security and prosperity....

"[R]eporting suggests that the head of Russia’s government investment fund, Kirill Dmitriev, drafted this latest proposal in close cooperation with Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff.

"Dmitriev then reportedly leaked the plan to the American press to tie Trump’s hands. (If Trump’s administration had any spine at all in dealing with the Kremlin, Washington should insist that Dmitriev’s decision to jam Trump and his team disqualifies him from participating in any future negotiations.)"

Update: Tonight's PBS News Weekend segment with Nick Schifrin covered the authorship fiasco in capsule. Not covered, but on my mind: I'm thinking is that Putin is in a hurry, because with the Epstein files verging on being public, the leverage he's had over Trump is about to evaporate.

21.Nov.2025

Cliff-hanger

George Washington is fresh in mind right now, one episode away from the conclusion of The American Revolution that we've been watching this week. There hasn't been any mention of him hanging anybody, yet, but Benedict Arnold's betrayal awaits in tonight's episode, so stay tuned. Or cut to the chase on Wikipedia to see that British Major John André was caught carrying papers exposing the plot to surrender West Point and "was hanged" in 1780. Arnold escaped and became a brigadier general in the British Army, eventually died a natural death at the age of 60.

I don't imagine our current WWE-flavored president has the time or attention for 12 hours of Ken Burns filmmaking, but he was out with bang bang bang exclamation points and wuh wuh wuh question marks after news hit him that U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ), and Representatives Jason Crow (D-CO-6), Chris Deluzio (D-PA-17), Maggie Goodlander (D-NH-2), and Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA-6) put out a punchy, minute and a half video reminding members of the military that YOU CAN REFUSE TO OBEY ILLEGAL ORDERS. In fact, the oath to the Constitution requires that you MUST refuse to obey unlawful orders. See here:

We want to speak directly to members of the Military and the Intelligence Community. The American people need you to stand up for our laws and our Constitution. Don’t give up the ship.

[image or embed]

— Senator Elissa Slotkin (@slotkin.senate.gov) November 18, 2025 at 6:31 AM

Not to put too fine a point on it, "The threats to our Constitution aren't just coming from abroad, but from right here at home." Our increasingly demented president has said "I have the right to do anything I wanna do. I’m the President of the United States." Never mind that oath he took to protect and defend the Constitution.

On his personal, anti-social medium, Don John vomited up SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS, and followed up with punishable by DEATH! with a "retruth" (from P78, with a Nazi-adjacent symbol for its avatar) saying "HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!" The White House press secretary and Stephen "Wormtongue" Miller both derided the members of Congress in statemens that omitted the key word UNLAWFUL, deliberately missing the point.

Former US Attorney and current law professor Joyce Vance boils it down: Sorry, George Washington Would Not Have Hanged Them. It's time to have that awkward family conversation at Thanksgiving across the political divide:

"Every American should understand both this news and what it means: That the president of the United States, who has killed people abroad, is now asserting the desire to see elected representatives in this country killed, that the president who stood alongside the Saudi crown prince who suborned the murder of Jamal Khashoggi defended the murderer, not the victim."

Yesterday, the six members of Congress followed up with a joint statement that's short enough for someone to read to +rump.

“What’s most telling is that the President considers it punishable by death for us to restate the law. Our servicemembers should know that we have their backs as they fulfill their oath to the Constitution and obligation to follow only lawful orders. It is not only the right thing to do, but also our duty.

“But this isn’t about any one of us. This isn’t about politics. This is about who we are as Americans. Every American must unite and condemn the President’s calls for our murder and political violence. This is a time for moral clarity.

“In these moments, fear is contagious, but so is courage. We will continue to lead and will not be intimidated."

As Jeff Tiedrich put it (minus the jolly vulgarity): "the only reason for Donny to get bent out of shape over the military being told that they have a duty to refuse illegal orders is because he intends to issue illegal orders."

Daniel W. Drezner's "Drezner's World" blog post, So How Is the Illegal War Going? has been simmering in my mind since I bookmarked it early this week, and now it's time to read it. "The Trump administration keeps killing people in the Caribbean in the hopes of... what, exactly?" There's a disturbing pattern, one that reminds me Stephen Miller's blustering.

"...in which the legal justification for a presidential action rests primarily on Donald Trump’s simply asserting something is true without any factual foundation. In the above example, it was the president declaring a national emergency over trade deficits, when no such emergency exists."

And now the declared War on Drugs "emergency," that doesn't come under the the War Powers Act (because Stephen Miller and +rump say so), that gives Stephen Miller the power to declare anyone a "terrorist" and subject to state killing.

Update:
Greg Sargent addresses the underlying question: Is Trump Giving Illegal Orders? Dems Just Blew That Question Wide Open. Not that you needed a spoiler alert but the red-letter super-dek says SIGNS POINT TO YES. "From the boat bombings to deportations to prosecutions, the evidence mounts." And Speaker Johnson's shocked, shocked indignation at the very suggestion is pathetic. "[T]he GOP’s wholesale abdication of oversight is itself facilitating the issuing of potentially unlawful commands under cover of darkness."

13.Nov.2025

How 'bout them emails?

Joyce Vance and I had the same thought for the headline today. Opening her Civil Discourse blog, my emphasis added, and, ah, adult content warning?

"Before he was elected in 2016, Donald Trump bragged about grabbing women by the pu**y and barging into rooms of partially dressed young pageant contestants. A jury concluded he assaulted E. Jean Carroll in a dressing room. So nothing that’s in the Epstein emails is a surprise. It’s confirmation."

Now imagine how hard Gmax's replacement, Pam Bondi, and all the guys in the White House are working on Republican members of the House Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Nancy Mace to stop supporting the House resolution to release all the Epstein files. Gmax herself is serving a prison sentence, "with benefits," after former +rump criminal defense lawyer Todd Blanche got a little confused about who he's supposed to be serving now that he's Deputy Attorney General. [Spoiler alert: The Constitution of the United States of America.]

Her transfer to a minimum security facility is unheard of for a convicted sex offender just beginning to serve a sentence in federal prison. Maxwell is reportedly preparing a petition requesting a pardon or commutation of her sentence. In a report, House Oversight Dems wrote, “Reports from prison staff also suggest Maxwell has received ‘concierge-style treatment’ at her new minimum-security prison camp, receiving customized meals and VIP treatment for her guests. Maxwell should be ineligible for incarceration at a minimum-security prison camp because she is a convicted sex offender.”

Is too close to half the country's immoral fascination with the grifting con man and aspiring dictator finally going to founder on the shoals of amply documented sexual abuse and perversion? Stay tuned!

"As bad as the emails released today are, there is more. The FBI’s investigative files have not been released. The Trump White House is still doing everything it can to prevent their release. People like Kash Patel, who called for their release, and Donald Trump, who promised it during the campaign, have gone mum. Draw your own conclusion. The Epstein shutdown is over, and now we’re on a track to learn the truth. Transparency means releasing the files. Not conducting interviews with someone who wants a pardon or selectively releasing only the documents that do you the least damage."

Heather Cox Richardson has a wider political view to augment Vance's legal focus. The ten year old quote from +rump biographer Michael Wolff is chilling:

In a third email thread [released by Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform] from December 2015, after Trump had declared his candidacy for the 2016 presidential election, Wolff told Epstein that CNN would ask Trump about his relationship with Epstein. Epstein asked what Wolff thought Trump should answer. Wolff wrote: “I think you should let him hang himself. If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house,… [y]ou can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you, or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt.”

Whatever happened to Jeffrey Epstein, anyway? Anyway,

"Trump’s efforts to get someone to take their name off the discharge petition failed. Johnson swore in Grijalva at 4:00, as scheduled, and she immediately signed it. Now the petition needs to “ripen” for seven legislative days. Then Johnson has two legislative days to schedule a vote on a measure to require the Department of Justice to release the Epstein files it holds."

Are we finally to the point of "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?" and the Nixon tapes? Opinion polls show the scant half of the MAGAfied electorate that punched his STAY OUT OF JAIL FREE CARD may be down to just a third. (In a poll done before the barrage of Epstein.)

The government has "reopened," and we'll find out the balance of competence and sabotage as we wait to see how long it takes for SNAP benefits and air traffic control and myriad other functions to be rebooted after the longest shutdown in US history.

The premium tax credit for healthcare insurance purchased on the Affordable Care Act markets is possibly dead before arrival, even though House Democrats want to hold the Republicans' feet to the fire.

“There are only two ways this fight will end,” Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told his colleagues. “Either Republicans finally decide to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits this year. Or the American people will throw Republicans out of their jobs next year and end the speakership of Donald J. Trump once and for all.”

12.Nov.2025

Taking for granted

Earth was given as a garden, the transitive story goes, compressing the origin of life (diagrammed on a chalkboard with "here, a miracle occurs"), and its reticulating co-evolution into "all this," our Original Gift. In the vast realms of our ignorance, we have learned so much, including some of the deepest chemical secrets of reproducing algorithms that underlie our being. Along the way, we made up a lot of explanations, too, to help us overcome trauma, and to assuage our guilt for being a part of unnecessary suffering. Some things came out of the blue: deadly storms far more powerful than us, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, space debris.

We imagined a Supreme Being able to spare us. Our own Original Sin to explain why bad things are happening to us, deftly blamed on a snake, and Eve, rather than the man (later, men) in charge of decision making, corrupted by persuasion. A Great flood as vengeance for our ongoing sinfulness. Perhaps a real-world nuée ardente, a "burning cloud," glowing red in the dark inspired the idea of Hell, long before the one out of the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée on Martinique that prompted the descriptive name in French.

James B. Greenberg got me thinking this morning, with his latest essay, The Logic of Denial: Climate Change and the Preservation of Meaning. "How culture, faith, and fossil capital converged to turn scientific evidence into moral resistance."

"Never before has a civilization known so much about the forces undoing it—or worked so hard to deny them. How is it that, despite all the scientific data and even the evidence of our own experience, so many people continue to believe that climate change is a hoax?

"The simple answer is that fossil-fuel money turned denial into an industry. For decades, public-relations firms have flooded the media with carefully crafted doubt, transforming an empirical question into a cultural battle. Climate change has become less about carbon molecules than about identity, loyalty, and belonging."

With opponents defeated or otherwise rendered second-rate (except for that pesky China on the rise), the Sole Superpower of a nation devolves into antihero leadership, feeding the insatiable lust for power, gold (still? Incredibly), retribution. Bizarro hailed by a chorus of sycophants, and supposed Christians with the omnipotent explanation of God working in mysterious ways, no matter how obvious the con has been from the get-go, in a Ponzi scheme of government "of the people, for the people, and by the people," putrefying back into oligarchy. How many chances will we have to get it so absolutely wrong?

"Our understanding of reality—and even what we count as evidence—is shaped by cultural logics that organize experience, emotion, and belief. These logics give coherence to our lives, but they can also make us blind to facts that threaten them."

In his Facebook post of the essay, Dr. Greenberg added this "current events" note, about what we're hearing about the the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference, happening in Brazil right now.

"U.S. media coverage of COP30 is heavy on symbolism—focusing on federal absence, political drama, and the familiar activist-versus-government storyline—while framing climate change largely in economic or strategic terms. I’ve written this essay because much of the U.S. media has gone soft on the climate story itself. Coverage has thinned just as the crisis has deepened, trading hard questions for safe narratives and turning politics into spectacle. By downplaying accountability and treating America’s climate retreat as a passing headline, the press sustains a deeper cultural denial—the instinct to preserve meaning by looking away from the scale of what we’ve unleashed. This essay is my attempt to confront that logic head-on.

8.Nov.2025

Sundowning midday

photos of Trump sleeping through yesterday's Oval Office event via Andrew Harnik of Getty

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) November 7, 2025 at 9:38 AM

"An intergalactic freak show"

That's the capsule summary from folksy Senator John Kennedy (R-LA), after a closed-door Republican conference meeting yesterday. “What we have here is an intergalactic freak show.” As seen in Heather Cox Richardson's Nov. 7, 2025 Letter from an American, after she spelled out the competing "policy" proposals from the president, and Democrats in Congress.

Trump's plan is to end the filibuster, and Senate Republicans aren't falling in line behind him, for a change. As HCR points out, the filibuster "serves [Republican's] ideology of slashing the government. Democrats want to pass legislation that changes society, while Republicans want to stop such legislation." Never mind that the excrement dump of the current administration has done a heck of a job of slashing the government without the Congress doing next to nothing to stand in the way.

"The filibuster also protects Republican senators from having to take painful votes on the hot-button cultural issues important to the Republican base but hated by the general public: things like abortion bans, for example. The filibuster means they can trust the Democrats to stop such measures before Republican senators have to go on record as either for them or against them....

"Today, speaking during a meeting at the White House with Hungary’s authoritarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, Trump demanded again that Republicans end the filibuster. He tried to assuage Republican concerns that if they nuke the filibuster, Democrats in power in the future would use a simple majority to pass whatever legislation they wish. Trump said there was no need to worry about future Democratic control because by getting rid of the filibuster, Republicans could pass legislation that would guarantee they would “never lose the midterms and we will never lose a general election” again."

The increasingly unpopular, demented madman in the Oval Office has a plan to end democracy once and for all. The Independent (UK) reported that "As Orbán looked on admiringly, Trump also claimed that “only a foolish person” would be against eviscerating the last shred of power available to the minority party in Washington because the current Democratic minority is made up of “crazed people.”

"Compromise" is not in our dictator's aart of the deal. The Senate Democrats' offer to end the government shutdown in exchange for a one-year extension of the expiring premium tax credits, and setting up a bipartisan committee to figure out how to fix the tax credits next year—you know, the "mid-terms"—was rejected out of hand.

"Republicans rejected the offer outright. Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) called it a “nonstarter” that “doesn’t even get close, and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called it “political terrorism.” The rejection put the Republicans in the awkward position of rejecting the reopening of the government because they are determined to kill a measure that is popular with three-quarters of the American people."

Lindsey Graham, you may remember, is also the fellow whose long-shot bid for the presidency fizzled 10 years ago, and said "If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed... and we will deserve it." (It certainly seems to have come true for him, personally.) And quite a number of other since-proven observations in 2015 and 2016. "A wrecking ball for the future of the Republican party," "offensive," "an absolute, utter disaster," "a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot." Yes, all that.

Just imagine what'll happen if we elect him. Twice! Oh wait, you don't have to imagine, we're here. And while his weaponized DOJ fights against having to provide food aid to 42 million Americans, (and Mike Johhnson keeps the House shuttered to protect the Epstein files), the big man is off to Mar-a-Lago for the weeekend.

7.Nov.2025

Playing War with a crooked deck

I recommend (and provide a gift link to) Tom Nichols on The Atlantic: A Confederacy of Toddlers. He starts with the high opinion Hannah Arendt had for our country, after she fled Europe during WWII, "lauding a people who approached political life with an adult sensibility and a reserve of self-control." That's no longer operational.

"The United States is now a nation run by public servants who behave no better than internet trolls, deflecting criticism with crassness and obscenity. The White House press secretary answers a question from a member of the free press—a serious question about who planned a meeting between the American and Russian presidents—by saying, “Your mom did.” The secretary of defense cancels DEI and other policies by saying, “We are done with that shit.” The vice president calls an interlocutor on social media a “dipshit.” The president of the United States, during mass protests against his policies, responds by posting an AI-generated video of himself flying a jet fighter over his fellow citizens and dumping feces on their heads."

"These are not the actions of mature adults. They are examples of crude people displaying their incompetence as they flail about in jobs—including the presidency—for which they are not qualified."

Karoline Leavitt's playground retort about "your mom" sticks in my mind because my mom, gone more than 30 years ago now, has long been my benchmark for proper, moral behavior. When writing for publication I've often considered how would this look to mom? And because, of course, it was rude, unserious, and deeply unbecoming behavior for someone in a position that should be very serious. When our current president is in the company of leading criminals such as "the late Silvio Berlusconi in Italy, and the now-imprisoned former leaders Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines and Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil," and a question about "who planned a meeting between the American and Russian presidents" is blown off without answer, we are deep in a noisome and lawless swamp.

Two weeks ago, Idaho's Sen. Jim Risch, chair of the the Foreign Relations Committee said he'd been "briefed" on the extra-judicial killing of Venezuelans (and maybe some Colombians for good measure), and that he "feel[s] comfortable with where we are." No plan to have an oversight hearing. At that point, Pete Hegseth's "Department of War" had struck nine vessels, and killed more than 30 people. We're now up to 16 admitted attacks and at least 66 dead. With no Congressional authorization of force, no public evidence, no due process of any sort. Earlier this week, Risch said:

"The administration has kept me, other members fully advised. (I'm) fully satisfied with what they're doing. They've got good legal justification for what they're doing. The president really ought to be congratulated for saving the lives of young American people."

It seems that there's a "secret legal opinion" for the strikes, which I'm sure is every bit as cogent as the Dick Cheney-era torture memos. It runs 40 pages, so there's that. Virginia Senator Tim Kaine noted its "logical fallacies."

"There is nothing in there about the rationale for Venezuela strikes, so it's a very elaborate legal rationale for why you can strike a boat in international waters."

Imagine how we'd feel if China acted on that "rationale." Yesterday, on the same day that a pair of US B-52 bombers flew over the Caribbean along the coast of Venezuela, the Senate voted 51-49 to let the president and his war fighters keep doing whatever. Only two Republican senators, Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski, voted no. The rest of the Republicans are a lot more sanguine than the people they supposedly represent:

"Research by YouGov also found that 74 percent of people in the US believe that the president should not be able to carry out military strikes abroad without congressional approval, in line with the requirements of the US Constitution."

"Judge" Jeanine bad taste sammy slammy

Thanks to the +rump-era swampy DOJ, and former Fox News host and FoT Jeanine Pirro, we have to reconsider the old saw that "a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich." The sandwich ran free! After the GJ would not indict it or its hurler on a felony charge, Pirro's team tried to pin a misdemeanor on them, but a trial jury laughed that out of court, too.

It's pretty good comedic material ("inspir[ing] street art in Washington and memes and tributes online"), but in a dark context, as government goonery in major cities has become run of the mill. They're working to meet Stephen Miller's quota for cruelty on insufficiently white "christian" nationalist citizenry. Even below quota, there is a lot of cruelty going around. And ok, a few laughs.

[Sabrina Shroff, a lawyer for Mr. Dunn] showed a photo of the sandwich intact on the ground and in a wrapper after Mr. Dunn threw it, challenging the agent who had testified on Tuesday that the hoagie had “exploded” on his chest. She reminded jurors of “gag gifts” Mr. Lairmore received from colleagues, which included a “felony footlong” badge he kept on his lunchbox after the incident.

“If someone assaulted you, someone offended you, would you keep a memento of that assault?” she said. “Would you stick it on your daily lunchbox and carry it around with you?”

And would you go into federal court and lie about what happened? He apparently would do that.

6.Nov.2025

The Hardest Job in the World

The now toothless goad of a "library due date" (the Boise Public Library! eliminated its fines years ago) encouraged me to finish John Dickerson's 2020 book by that title, with the red letter dek: The American Presidency. It's a wonderful work of history, only somewhat contaminated by the first election and term of Donald J. Trump. The book came out in early 2020, which means it was written in 2019 and earlier, without the benefit of the bloody denouement of Trump I, the Covid-19 pandemic, George Floyd, the highest of the +rumpian high crimes ("until then"), and the first two impeachments that flowed from those crimes.

In the relentless and accelerating news cycle, it was a step out, step back, deep look, period piece, a potentially timeless classic, and almost instantly out of date. (But, history.) I spent the last two months chipping away at it, slower at the end because it was such a good read, I didn't want to be done with it. Along the way, I'd snapped page images to remind me of profound insights, and did not take notes, so those swirl into the great soup of faded epiphanies. While it's still fresh in mind, I'll provide you one sample from the final chapter, "Conclusions."

He prefaced anecdotes about the flawed men (all men, huh) deemed "great" with "While keeping a way eye on founder worship." Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and one lesser-know fellow, Gouverneur Morris, who it says there has been called the "Penman of the Constitution." (I have questions about his quirky given name, but acknowledge that "Gouv" makes him easy to search up on the web.) In Madison's words (which Dickerson quotes), Morris showed "a candid surrender of his opinions when the lights of discussion satisfied him that they had been too hastily formed, and a readiness to aid in making the best of measures in which he had been overruled." He did, still, stand up for his firmly held positions, and this country would have been greater, sooner, had we heeded his opinion on the enormity of the second of America's Original Sins, slavery. Dickerson's note 34, quoted from the "Madison Debates":

"The admission of slaves into the representation, when fairly explained, comes to this,—that the inhabitant of Georgia and South Carolina who goes to the coast of Africa, and, in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity, tears away from his fellow creatures from their dearest connexions, and damns them to the most cruel bondage, shall have more votes in a government instituted for protection of the rights of mankind, than the citizens of Pennsylvania or New Jersey, who views with a laudable horror so nefarious a practice."

Part Three of the book, six of the 31 chapters before the Conclusion, is "The Way We Live Now," "now" being the "then" of 2019. It bounces between the alternatives that faced us. "Winning Above All," "Resolve to Be Honest," "Character Counts," "It's My Party," "The Uncertain Never Trumper," and finally, "Donald Trump's America." Ugh.

The Conclusion strives to tie everything we (should) have learned into a how-to recipe, applying theory of management to the task, complete with an alphabetized list of "key presidential attributes," each of them equivocated with what can go wrong. Adaptability, Ambition (a lot could go wrong), Constitutional Character (ha ha), Courage, Curiosity, Decisiveness, Empathy (whoops), Historical Perspective, Honesty (a clean miss), Leadership, Management, Political Feel, Prioritization, Restraint (missed another), Rhetorical Flair (be still my heart), Temperament, Theater, Vision. For example:

Theater: "Like George Washington seated at the head of the Constitutional Convention, a president provides a model of behavior that inspires and leads, but a president who is too addicted to the show and the adulation and roar of the crowds bends his actions so as to inspire public adulation and thus serves himself instead of the country."

Five years on, we see the Serve Yourself, second-chance presidency used the advice to do the opposite of everything. The Presidency may well be the Hardest Job in the World to do well; +rump's approach—just one rule: Think of Yourself, First—makes it look easy-peasy to do in the worst way imaginable.

5.Nov.2025

Bucks County lawman gets the boot

While I was still thinking about what an amazing surname for a politician "McGovern" is (how did I never notice that before?), this rolled in from Bucks County, where the Bucks County Beacon assumes everyone knows where they are, it seems. (I looked it up to see the SE corner of Pennsylvania. Or as The Daily Kos put it more directly, "a suburb of Philadelphia.")

In "Elections, Opinion, Top 5," Editor-in-Chief Cyril Mychalejko reports that Bucks County’s ICE-Loving, MAGA Sheriff Fred Harran Got What He Deserved: A Pink Slip From Voters on Election Night. The paired photos encapsulate yesterday's "Blue Wave vs. good old boys" election day.

Unprecedented voter turnout for an off-year election, and a 10% margin for the youngster. Wrap your head around a "33-year-old top law man" replacing a fellow "with over four decades of law enforcement experience." And the TikTok capture of outgoing Sheriff Fred Harran telling a MAGA radio guy how all-in he was with the Stephen Miller pogrom.

"Don't get lost in the facts"

Kind of Mis-speaker Mike Johnson's signature tactic, you know? That and the smirk that creeps over his face when he's reciting his biggest lies. While maintaining his studied ignorance about everything he doesn't want to talk about, a pedophile protection program by keeping the House from having anything other than pro forma sessions, and keeping Adelita Grijalva from being sworn in as the Representative for AZ-7 that she was elected to in late September, he found time for "Fox News Sunday," to say this:

"Remember, don't get lost in the facts... We have a clean, simple CR, a Continuing Resolution, no partisan gimmicks, tricks at all, it's 24 pages in length, it would keep everything going. The president is bending over backwards to take care of the American people, and it's the Democrats who are, quite literally, using the people as leverage..."

There's a FACT CHECK from Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) helpfully reposted in the comments there.

"In July he took $186 billion worth of food assistance from SNAP (the largest cut ever) and gave it to billionaires and greedy CEOs. These guys don't give a shit. They've never gone hungry. The don't even buy their own groceries. What a bunch of frauds."

And this, from McGovern on BlueSky, after yesterday's biggest loser "troothed" that he planned to defy the court's instruction to maintain SNAP funding with contingency funds already allocated:

Trump just admitted that he’s weaponizing hunger—defying a court order & starving more than 40 million Americans (including 16 million CHILDREN) for sadistic political leverage. This guy is sick in the head.

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— Representative Jim McGovern (@repmcgovern.bsky.social) November 4, 2025 at 5:20 PM

Addendum: the full Public Notice treatment: Mike Johnson's lies keep getting lost in the facts.

"Johnson and Thune, who became legislative “leaders” at Trump’s sufferance and remain in their jobs only so long as they serve as his stooges, have proven themselves utterly unable to effectively negotiate with Democrats (perhaps because at Trump’s direction they refuse to). And Johnson has compounded what is becoming a full-blown disaster for his party by appointing himself to make the case for Republicans’ politically irrational, and increasingly amoral, course of conduct."

4.Nov.2025

$Billions more in Trump crime family Pay to Play

Writing from Floodedwithshitostan (now illustrated with King Donald "flying" an F-35 with a payload of shit), I'm thinking that cluster munitions might be a better metaphor. There are so many daily scandals we have to pick our way through, you never know what's going to blow up next. Or maybe chaff is what we need to discuss, counterintelligence that distracts from the depth and breadth of swampy scandals we swim in.

But then every once in a while, the spotlight lands on something exceptional. Today's item is that 60 Minutes interview, which I'd dismissed before even watching the edited for broadcast version, noting the irony-is-dead moment where 60 Minutes Edits Donald Trump Telling Them 60 Minutes Should Edit Donald Trump Talking About How 60 Minutes Paid Him For Editing Kamala Harris, when in fact CBS paid the president a bribe, to make sure that Skydance could buy CBS' owner Paramount.

But that's not the headline. The headline is in the first of "two more questions" O'Donnell wanted to add on at the end, questions without pre-approval. The big man still has enough cognitive to smell a trap, but he walked into what was sprung with just one question. The word salad that he spews is as inpenetrable as that AI F35 payload, but you can eventually parse it out. Bold face added to this excerpt of the full transcript from CBS News (which I saved as a PDF, because I don't expect the cuckolded network to leave it intact).

NORAH O'DONNELL: Okay. Okay. Two more questions--

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: That means they'll treat me more fairly if I do-- I want to get-- It's very nice, yeah. Now is good. Okay. Uh, oh. These might be the ones I didn't want. I don't know. Okay, go ahead.

NORAH O'DONNELL: Is everybody ready? This is a question about pardons. The Trump family is now perhaps more associated with cryptocurrency than real estate. You and your son-- your sons, Don Jr. and Eric, have formed World Liberty Financial with the Witkoff family.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Right.

NORAH O'DONNELL: Helping to make your family millions of dollars. It's in that context that I do wanna ask you about crypto's richest man, a billionaire known as C.Z. He pled guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money laundering laws.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Right.

NORAH O'DONNELL: Looked at this, the government at the time said that C.Z. had caused "significant harm to U.S. national security", essentially by allowing terrorist groups like Hamas to move millions of dollars around. Why did you pardon him?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Okay, are you ready? I don't know who he is. I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that. And I heard it was a Biden witch hunt. And what I wanna do is see crypto, 'cause if we don't do it it's gonna go to China, it's gonna go to-- this is no different to me than AI.

My sons are involved in crypto much more than I-- me. I-- I know very little about it, other than one thing. It's a huge industry. And if we're not gonna be the head of it, China, Japan, or someplace else is. So I am behind it 100%. This man was, in my opinion, from what I was told, this is, you know, a four-month sentence.

But this man was treated really badly by the Biden administration. And he was given a jail term. He's highly respected. He's a very successful guy. They sent him to jail and they really set him up. That's my opinion. I was told about it.

I said, "Eh, it may look bad if I do it. I have to do the right thing." I don't know the man at all. I don't think I ever met him. Maybe I did. Or, you know, somebody shook my hand or something. But I don't think I ever met him. I have no idea who he is. I was told that he was a victim, just like I was and just like many other people, of a vicious, horrible group of people in the Biden administration.

NORAH O'DONNELL: The government had accused him of "significant harm to U.S. national security"--

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: That's the Biden government.

NORAH O'DONNELL: Okay. Allowing U.S. terrorist groups to, you know, essentially move millions of dollars around. He pled guilty to anti-money laundering laws. That was in 2023. Then in 2025 his crypto exchange, Binance, helped facilitate a $2 billion purchase of World Liberty Financial's stablecoin. And then you pardoned C.Z. How do you address the appearance of pay for play?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, here's the thing, I know nothing about it because I'm too busy doing the other--

NORAH O'DONNELL: But he got a pardon--

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I can only tell you that--

NORAH O'DONNELL: He got a pardon--

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Norah, I can only tell you this. My sons are into it. I'm glad they are, because it's probably a great industry, crypto. I think it's good. You know, they're running a business, they're not in government. And they're good-- my one son is a number one bestseller now....

As ever, historian Heather Cox Richardson does a better job than I can of putting it all in context, and spelling out the sorry descent into corruption we're experiencing. That includes Speaker Mike Johnson's increasingly pathetic "Sergeant Schultz" routine, that he knows nothing about anything, while he keeps the House of Representatives on leave for a pedophile protection program.

Not that this is comedy material, but Steven Colbert has the interview clip from 60 Minutes Overtime, with his take, in a Facebook reel.

3.Nov.2025

Illegal orders, high crimes, and corrupting the 2026 election

David Frum's show with Tom Nichols was billed as responding to the question: Would U.S. Generals Obey Illegal Trump Orders? Spoiler alert:

Admirals are already doing it with the murderous attacks in the Caribbean and Pacific. As they point out, it's the top level people who have to say no, stop. The lower level people who are actually launching the drones or pulling the trigger assume the order wouldn't have come down the chain of command if it weren't legal.

But with no adults in the room, no JAG officers, nobody in +rump's presence but toadies, the red line has been crossed, and the violations are accelerating.

Skip the first 8½ minutes or so to get to the headline question, but then it's 24½ minutes in when we get to the nut of what's happening. "The game [but it's not a "game," David] has always been to disrupt the 2026 election." Tom Nichols says "I think that's right." Frum continues:

"Because Trump is doing stuff that is so illegal and exposes him to so much jeopardy, personal jeopardy... take reaching into the till and taking $230 million out and putting it into your own pocket; tearing down the East Wing and putting a collection plate [out] to people who have business before the federal government, says 'who wants to build me a ballroom?'"

+rump can't afford to have a Congress that would hold him accountable for his bottomless corruption.

Time is precious

My inbox is saturated with offers I care little to nothing about. Many of them try to goad my attention, and action, with a deadline. By midnight! Just a few hours left! And so on. Those are the easiest to deep-six. I don't like being rushed, especially under spam circumstances.

One of the big protection racket vendors, McAfee, got me on their mailing list, thanks to being bundled with a new device (and the seller "helpfully" passing along my email address). Their Get limited-time savings! spam caught my eye, but not my fingers today, as I had half a dozen other things to do first. It did get around to it sooner than I might have otherwise, some 3 hours after it arrived. It offered

Huge savings!
Limited-time only.

above a large button-in-box with a price of just $1.24/month (which is to say $14.99 asterisk paid annually terms apply special offer countdown begins when you click). WTF? The banner says "Offer lasts just 5 minutes," which yes, that is certainly a limited time.

Man, that is a stupid pitch. Which they don't want feedback on. The footer says "Make sure you receive our messages. Add info@protect.mcafee.com to your address book. Please do not reply to this email. This email was sent from a notification-only address that cannot accept incoming email."

We extinguish the lamp by the golden door

Toward the end of their 45 minute conversation on his "To the Contrary" vlog, Charlie Sykes read an excerpt from Anne Applebaum's column for The Atlantic, The Beacon of Democracy Goes Dark, and then referred to "the blast radius" of the actions of the current administration.

It's beyond sobering to contemplate how apt that metaphor is. Applebaum's dek: "For nearly 250 years, America promoted freedom and equality abroad, even when it failed to live up to those ideals itself. Not anymore." We're 10 months into uncharted territory, the part of the map left to one's dark imagination under the label, "Here be dragons."

Applebaum's piece is a hell of a read, and I recommend it to you. (The link above is said to be "a gift"; not sure how durable that is, or what strings may be attached.) My highlight from it, starts with her description of when America was greater than it is today:

"Considering how deeply we were divided about so many other things, it’s extraordinary how bipartisan our foreign policy was for so long, and how many energetically bipartisan institutions we built to promote it. Radio Free Europe and Voice of America—and later Radio Free Asia and a clutch of other foreign-language broadcasters—always enjoyed support from Democrats and Republicans, as well as every president from Harry Truman onward. From the time of its founding in 1983, so did the National Endowment for Democracy, which was inspired by Ronald Reagan’s call for new institutions to “foster the infrastructure of democracy—the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities—which allows a people to choose their own way, to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means.” The National Endowment, run by a bipartisan board, makes small grants to groups that monitor elections, promotes free speech, and fights kleptocracy and authoritarian propaganda."

We're no longer fighting it; we've become a kleptocracy. And in the still-expanding blast of "Project 2025," demolishing the White House, partying like it's 1925 and murdering boaters in southern waters, never mind the War Powers Act, because they can't shoot back at us.

"The shift against these historically bipartisan institutions, against the belief that Americans should defend and promote democracy around the world, and against the democratic faith itself is part of something broader. We have a president who regularly attacks judges and journalists, who bullies CEOs into handing over stock in their companies and university presidents into paying meritless fines, who sends military forces into American cities, who is building a new form of interior police, and who raucously encourages the deepening divide between red and blue America. Abroad, Donald Trump appears much happier with dictators than with democratic allies....

"American culture is no longer synonymous with the aspiration to freedom, but with transactionalism and secrecy: the algorithms that mysteriously determine what you see, the money collected by anonymous billionaires, the deals that the American president is making with world leaders that benefit himself and maybe others whose names we don’t know. America was always associated with capitalism, business, and markets, but nowadays there’s no pretense that anyone else will be invited to share the wealth."

Let alone the aspiration to liberty.

raveling

Tom von Alten