Random & Interesting Facts

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“I have never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.”

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1975 Chevrolet Caprice Classic Convertible

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"Vessels of the Alchemical Sun" by artist Marie Alexander

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“If more politicians knew poetry, and more poets knew politics, I am convinced the world would be a little better place in which to live.”

—John F. Kennedy

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KKK intimidation at a Miami voting center in 1939.

This image captures a moment from 1939, when voter intimidation in the United States was still widespread, particularly in the South. The individual in the photograph, dressed in the attire associated with the Ku Klux Klan, is using presence alone as a weapon. The message was unmistakable: voting could bring consequences. Such intimidation tactics targeted Black Americans, immigrants, Catholics, Jewish citizens, and anyone the Klan viewed as a threat to their vision of social order.

During this period, the Klan often appeared near polling places, marches, courthouses, and public offices. Their goal was to suppress participation by instilling fear — and fear did the work silently. Even without direct violence, the sight of a hood or a noose was enough to deter many from casting a ballot. Voter suppression took many forms during the Jim Crow era, from poll taxes and literacy tests to outright terror. Scenes like this were not isolated events but part of a broader system designed to maintain racial and political control.

Yet despite this climate, countless Americans still found ways to vote, organize, and push back. Their courage helped lay the foundation for the later civil rights victories that would challenge these tactics head-on.

The Klan conducted so-called “night rides” around election seasons — caravans of robed members driving through neighborhoods to frighten residents before they reached the polls.

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November 12, 2025 (Wednesday)

By Heather Cox Richardson

(on Facebook)

It turns out Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and House Democrats were right to call it the “Epstein Shutdown” for the last several weeks on social media and in interviews. As Marc Elias of Democracy Docket put it today, while it was clear what the Democrats wanted from the shutdown—lower costs for healthcare insurance premiums, affordability, and for Trump to stop breaking the law—it was never clear what the Republicans wanted. They seemed simply to be doing as Trump demanded.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) kept House members from conducting any business at all. The House last voted on September 19, gathering in Washington, D.C., again only after the Senate on Monday passed a measure to reopen the government. The hiatus gave Johnson an excuse not to swear in Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ), whose voters elected her on September 23. Grijalva had promised to be the 218th and final vote on a discharge petition that would force the House to vote on a measure that would require the Department of Justice to release files relating to the government investigation into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Elias notes that he, like many of us, considered as plausible the idea that the government shutdown was a way to keep the Epstein files under wraps, but there were other plausible theories as well. Maybe Trump and his cronies wanted to gut the federal workforce. Maybe they wanted to undermine the Affordable Care Act. Maybe Trump simply wanted to run the country without the interference of Congress.

Today put the Epstein files firmly in the center of the story.

The House got down to business this morning after a 54-day break to work on the Senate measure to reopen the government. Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform immediately released three emails from a cache of more than 23,000 documents the committee received recently from the Epstein estate. The first email was one Epstein sent to his associate Ghislaine Maxwell on April 2, 2011. It referred to a story in which the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes solved a case by noting that a dog didn’t bark at a crime scene because it knew the perpetrator. The reference has come to mean an expected action or piece of evidence whose absence proves guilt.

Epstein wrote: “i want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump. [VICTIM] spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned. police chief. etc. im 75% there.” Maxwell replied: “I have been thinking about that…”

The second email the Democrats released was from January 2019, from Epstein to Trump biographer Michael Wolff. In it, Epstein said of Trump: “of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop[.]”

In a third email thread 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.”

As legal analyst Asha Rangappa noted, this exchange suggests that Epstein would have leverage over Trump if Trump tried to say he had not been at Epstein’s house or on his plane, in other words, that Trump was there and Epstein had receipts.

After the Democrats released these three emails, Johnson called the release “[a]nother publicity stunt by the Democrats” and claimed: “They’re trying to mislead people.” Committee chair James Comer (R-KY) issued a statement accusing the Democrats of “cherry-picking documents and politicizing information.” The committee then released an additional 20,000 pages of documents received from the Epstein estate.

Those were hardly better. In a 2015 email, Epstein gave tips on stories about Trump and girls to then–New York Times financial reporter Landon Thomas Jr. When others asked Thomas for stories, Epstein wrote: “Have them ask my houseman about donad [sic] almost walking through the door leaving his nose print on the glass as young women were swimming in the pool and he was so focused he walked straight into the door.” In another email, Epstein offered "photso [sic] of donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen,” and Thomas urged: “I am serious man—for the good of the nation why not try to get some of this out there.”

But a story revealing this information did not appear in the New York Times before the 2016 presidential election or afterward.

In one 2018 email referring to Trump’s payment of hush money to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, Epstein wrote: “i know how dirty donald is.”

Despite how explosive these documents were, they do not appear to be the end of the story. They came from the Epstein estate, but the files from the FBI investigation into Trump have not yet been released. Whatever is still outstanding appears to be even worse than what we have seen, as evidenced by Trump’s frantic attempts to stop the discharge petition.

With the House back at work, Johnson had little choice but to swear in Grijalva. The ceremony was scheduled for 4:00.

In the hours before that deadline, the president tried to get one of the four Republican representatives who had signed the discharge petition to remove their signature. He appeared to focus on Nancy Mace (R-SC), with whom he tried to connect by phone, and Lauren Boebert (R-CO), whom he invited to meet with him in the White House Situation Room, which is equipped to prevent recording. CNN reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and FBI director Kash Patel joined Trump and Boebert at the meeting.

When asked about the meeting, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters: “Doesn’t that show the level of transparency when we are willing to sit down with members of Congress and address their concerns?” For his part, Trump took to social media to call the released documents an attempt by Democrats to bring up the “Jeffrey Epstein Hoax” to deflect from “how badly they’ve done on the Shutdown, and so many other subjects.” He urged “any Republicans involved” to be “focused only on opening up our Country, and fixing the massive damage caused by the Democrats!”

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.

Faith Wardwell and Meredith Lee Hill of Politico reported this evening that senior Republicans believe as many as 100 Republicans will support the bill when it comes to the floor. Many of them are facing constituents who voted for Trump in the belief that he would release the Epstein files as he promised and who are angry that the administration appears to be covering them up in the service of rich elites. Others likely recognize that they do not want to be seen as participating in that coverup, especially with the threat of even worse material waiting to drop.

If the House passes the bill, it will go to the Senate and, if the Senate passes it, to Trump for his signature. If he vetoes it, Congress has the option to override his veto.

In the past, Trump has managed to avoid accountability for his actions by using lawsuits to delay while whipping up his supporters to take his side against what he called “witch hunts” or “hoaxes.” Republican lawmakers went along in part because they didn’t want to alienate his base.

Now, though, a significant portion of MAGA has broken with him, his popularity is low—a new Associated Press–NORC poll has his approval rating at 33%— and last week’s elections showed his coalition is abandoning him. It is not clear that Republican senators will defend him, especially since his erratic behavior—like bulldozing the East Wing of the White House—appears to be increasing.

As Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY), who backed the House discharge petition, told CNN: "This vote is going to be on your record for longer than Trump is going to be president. And what are you going to do in 2028 and 2030 when you're in a debate…and they say, ‘How can we trust you? You covered up for a pedophile back in 2025.’”

Midday today, as new revelations from the Epstein documents were hitting social media every few minutes, Representative Swalwell posted: “This is the beginning of the end.”

Tonight the House passed the Senate’s continuing resolution to fund the government, ending the longest government shutdown in U.S. history: 43 days. The vote was 222–209, with all but two Republicans voting in favor and all but six Democrats voting against it, saying they would not support a continuing resolution that did not extend the premium tax credits for healthcare insurance purchased on the Affordable Care Act markets. Republicans neglected to extend those credits in their budget reconciliation bill of July—the one they call the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”—and without them, millions of Americans will be unable to afford healthcare coverage, and premiums will skyrocket for millions more.

The measure funds the government through January 30, 2026; overturns the layoffs of federal employees administration officials made during the shutdown and guarantees workers’ pay; and appropriates money to pay for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits through September 2026, taking them out of Trump’s hands as a pressure point in January.

Failing to get an extension of the healthcare premium tax credits into the continuing resolution, House Democrats filed a discharge petition to force the House to vote on a measure that would extend the credits for three years. “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.”

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"Hats and Beards" (oil) by Martel Chapman

The title is based on an Eric Dolphy tune as a tribute to Thelonious Monk

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This striking poster from 1984, titled "The Trickle Down Theory," is a powerful piece of political art. It visualizes a strong critique of supply-side economics, where tax cuts for the wealthy are meant to stimulate the economy and eventually benefit everyone.

The image, depicting a well-dressed man urinating on a homeless person next to a luxury car, became an iconic symbol of the debate around this economic policy. Critics at the time argued that the theory did not work as intended, and instead contributed to a growing divide between the rich and the poor, especially during a period when homelessness was on the rise.

This poster perfectly captures the social and economic tensions of the 1980s and continues to be a relevant commentary on wealth inequality today. (Credit: Times Gone By)

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Linda Evans watched her husband drive away with another woman and the world watched her pretend it never happened.

It was 1979. She’d spent eight years married to John Derek, the Hollywood actor-turned-director she adored. She’d helped him find funding for his projects, typed his scripts, and believed in his career even when no one else did. Then, during the filming of Fantasies in Greece, John met a 16-year-old aspiring actress named Mary Cathleen Collins — later known to the world as Bo Derek. By the time they came home, Linda’s marriage was over. “I thought my life had ended,” she said. “I didn’t know how to breathe without him.”

The tabloids devoured it. Bo became a sex symbol overnight. John married her the moment she turned 18. Evans, meanwhile, vanished. For months, she refused interviews, took long drives into the desert, and let herself grieve in silence. “I had to die as one person,” she said, “to be reborn as another.”

Two years later, that rebirth came with a phone call. Producer Aaron Spelling wanted her for a new show called Dynasty. Evans nearly said no, she didn’t want to play a trophy wife again. But when she walked on set in her first white gown as Krystle Carrington, something in her shifted. She wasn’t chasing love anymore; she was commanding it. The show exploded into global obsession. The same press that once called her “the woman left behind” now called her “television royalty.”

Still, the ghosts lingered. Every episode of Dynasty with its betrayals, affairs, and power games — mirrored the storm she’d lived through. “People thought I was acting,” she said later. “I was exorcising.”

When John Derek died in 1998, Evans sent Bo a letter of condolence. “I told her I hoped she was happy,” she revealed years later. “I meant it.” That forgiveness shocked Hollywood more than the scandal ever had.

Linda Evans went from Hollywood’s humiliated wife to its quiet survivor.

She proved that the most powerful revenge isn’t a headline or a comeback but it’s peace so radiant even your past can’t cast a shadow on it.

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Ernest Hemingway once wrote: The hardest lesson I have had to learn as an adult is the relentless need to keep going, no matter how broken I feel inside.

This truth is raw, unfiltered, and painfully universal. Life doesn’t stop when we are exhausted, when our hearts are shattered, or when our spirits feel threadbare. It keeps moving—unyielding, indifferent—demanding that we keep pace. There is no pause button for grief, no intermission for healing, no moment where the world gently steps aside and allows us to mend. Life expects us to carry our burdens in silence, to push forward despite the weight of all we carry inside.

The cruelest part? No one really prepares us for this. As children, we are fed stories of resilience wrapped in neat, hopeful endings—tales where pain has purpose and every storm clears to reveal a bright horizon. But adulthood strips away those comforting illusions. It teaches us that survival is rarely poetic. More often than not, it’s about showing up when you’d rather disappear, smiling through pain no one sees, and carrying on despite feeling like you're unraveling from the inside out.

And yet, somehow, we persevere. That’s the quiet miracle of being human. Even when life is relentless, even when hope feels distant, we keep moving. We stumble, we break, we fall to our knees—but we get up. And in doing so, we uncover a strength we never knew we had. We learn to comfort ourselves in the ways we wish others would. We become the voice of reassurance we once searched for. Slowly, we realize that resilience isn’t always about grand acts of bravery; sometimes, it’s just a whisper—“Keep going.”

Yes, it’s exhausting. Yes, it’s unfair. And yes, there are days when the weight of it all feels unbearable. But every small step forward is proof that we haven’t given up. That we are still fighting, still holding on, still refusing to let the darkness consume us. That quiet defiance—choosing to exist, to try, to hope—is the bravest thing we can do.