"I go among the trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle."
and
"And now above and beyond the birds' song, Andy hears a more distant singing, whether of voices or instruments, sounds or words, he cannot tell. It is at first faint, and then stronger, filling the sky and touching the ground, and the birds answer it. He understands presently that he is hearing the light; he is hearing the sun, which now has risen, though from the valley it is not yet visible. The light's music resounds and shines in the air and over the countryside, drawing everything into the infinite, sensed but mysterious pattern of its harmony. From every tree and leaf, grass blade, stone, bird, and beast, it is answered and again answers. The creatures sing back their names. But more than their names. They sing their being. The world sings. The sky sings back. It is one song, the song of the many members of one love, the whole song sung and to be sung, resounding, in each of its moments. And it is light.!
[Photo. Ansel Adams The Tetons and the Snake River (1942) Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.]
* * * *
âThink of the most beautiful person you have ever seen. Think of the exact moment you looked into his or her eyes, and for a fleeting second you were paralyzed: you couldnât take your eyes off that vision. You stared, frozen in time, caught in that beauty. Now imagine that identical beauty radiating from every single thing in the entire universe: every rock, every plant, every animal, every cloud, every person, every object, every mountain, every streamâeven the garbage dumps and broken dreamsâ every single one of them, radiating that beauty. You are quietly frozen by the gentle beauty of everything that arises around you. You are released from grasping, released from time, released from avoidance, released altogether into the eye of Spirit, where you contemplate the unending beauty of the Art that is the entire World.Â
That all-pervading Beauty is not an exercise in creative imagination. It is the actual structure of the universe. That all-pervading Beauty is in truth the very nature of the Kosmos right now. It is not something you have to imagine, because it is the actual structure of perception in all domains. If you remain in the eye of Spirit, every object is an object of radiant Beauty. If the doors of perception are cleansed, the entire Kosmos is your lost and found Beloved, the Original Face of primordial Beauty, forever, and forever, and endlessly forever. And in the face of that stunning Beauty, you will completely swoon into your own death, never to be seen or heard from again, except on those tender nights when the wind gently blows through the hills and the mountains, quietly calling your name.â
âA mark was on him from the day's delight, so that all his life, when April was a thin green and the flavor of rain was on his tongue, an old wound would throb and a nostalgia would fill him for something he could not quite remember.â
â Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, The Yearling
Maria Denise Dessimoz, The Inevitable Anguish of Desire
* * * *
âA thinking mind is not swallowed up by what it comes to know. It reaches out to grasp something related to itself and to its present knowledge (and so knowable in some degree) but also separate from itself and from its present knowledge (not identical with these). In any act of thinking, the mind must reach across this space between known and unknown, linking one to the other but also keeping visible to difference. It is an erotic space.â
â Anne Carson, Eros the Bittersweet
âIn the years ahead, Donald Trump would accuse the entire Democratic Party of being demonic. Tucker Carlson would claim that he had been mauled by a demon in his sleep. Steve Bannon would call Lutheran and Catholic activists who help immigrants demonic. A federal emergency-management official would speak of being teleported to a Waffle House 50 miles away, elaborating that he was not sure whether the transporting forces were âgoodâ or âevil.â J. D. Vance would say of UFOs, âI donât think theyâre aliens. I think theyâre demons.â And the same apostles and prophets whoâd claimed that God had anointed Trump to be president would encourage him to see his war with Iran as a cosmic showdown with a demonic entity known as the Prince of Persia.â
ââ
Excerpt From
âThis couple wanted to cast demons out of Tennessee. They targeted a bookstore across the street.â
On Tuesday, Senator Susan Collins took credit for an alleged âcessation of all non-urgent vehicle stopsâ by ICE. See NYTimes, ICE Ordered to Cease Most Vehicle Stops After Fatal Shootings in Maine and Houston.
Per the Times,
Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a Republican who is running for re-election this year, said in a statement on Tuesday that the shooting in Biddeford raised important questions, and that she had urged Markwayne Mullin, the Homeland Security secretary, to âcease all non-urgent vehicle stops.
If true, we should be grateful that Susan Collins finally found the courage to speak to the Secretary of Homeland Security to urge that ICE cease its reckless tactics that have resulted in multiple deaths of innocent Americans.
But imagine if Susan Collins had intervened with DHS after Renee Good was killed on January 17, 2026.
Or if she had intervened with DHS after Alex Pretti was killed on January 24, 2026
Or if she had intervened with DHS after ICE killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo on July 7, 2026.
Why did it take the killing of a Maine resident to stir Susan Collins to action? Could it be that she doesnât care who gets killed by ICE, but cares only that thousands of furious Maine residents protested outside her offices, calling for her ouster?
If so, there is a lesson in that for all of us. Susan Collins has felt safe and snug in her fairy-tale story of a Republican Senator who occasionally votes against her party, only when her party will win regardless of how she votes. She has become smug, complacent, and disdainful of the people of Maine, believing that they cannot see past her ruse of begging for cover from the GOP whenever she faces a tough vote.
Indeed, her penny-dreadful melodrama with DHS on Tuesday, in which she is the heroine who finally convinces a rogue agency to stand down, is a transparent story that the people of Maine are not buying. The most likely scenario is that Collins begged for political cover, and Trump granted her request, not because he cares about Susan Collins, but because she has saved him time and time again.
The people of Maine see Susan Collins for who she is. They know her. They know she is personally responsible for Brett Kavanaughâs seat on the Supreme Court, where he suggested that ICE could stop people based on âhow an individual looks, what language they speak, where they live, or the kind of work they do.â See Stanford Center for Racial Justice, The Supreme Courtâs Shadow Docket Signaling and the Racial Politics of Immigration Enforcement.
ICE eagerly embraced Kavanaughâs suggestion to use racial profiling to effectuate its mass deportation policy, which is why ICE agents felt empowered to stop and gun down an innocent man in Maine who appeared to be Hispanic, whose only crime was driving to work. See DemLabs, ICE kills Maine resident: Hold Susan Collins accountable for âKavanaugh Stopsâ.
Tuesdayâs lesson is that Susan Collins responds to a motivated electorate and protesters at her door. Letâs keep that in mind as she is asked to vote to confirm Todd Blanche as Attorney General.
Trump drops the claim that the US will collect 20% toll in the Strait of Hormuz, and Iran immediately adopts the idea for itself.
Trump irresponsibly suggested that the US would impose a 20% toll on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. See The New Republic Trump Pulls Abrupt 180 on Strait of Hormuz After Iran Humiliates Him.
The suggestion was both illegal and stupid. Trump walked back the suggestion after hearing from âkings and emirs and all of the people that we all know and we all love.â But it was too late. The damage was done. Having suggested that collecting tolls from ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz is permissible, Iran embraced the idea with great enthusiasm.
Per the New Republic,
Iranâs Foreign Minister . . . answered Trump with a message on X: âPOTUS is absolutely right. Whoever provides secure and safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz should be compensated for this service. Iran has always been the GUARDIAN of the Strait and will remain so FOREVER. 20% is, of course, too much. We will be fair.
Oh, great! Just what we needed! Trumpâs inability to end his war against Iran and prevent that country from controlling the Strait of Hormuz has already cost the American consumer $56 billion in increased gasoline prices. See US Joint Economic Committee, Americans Have Now Paid $56.4 Billion More for Gas Since Start of Iran War.
Per the Joint Economic Committee,
As President Trump declares that the war with Iran has resumed, the Joint Economic Committee - Minority issued new data today that shows the extent to which the Presidentâs war has driven up gas costs in all 50 states. Since the war began on February 28, Americans have paid a total of $56.4 billion more, or $477 more per household, on the gas they need to commute to work, run errands, pick up their kids, and live their daily lives.
Note that the article in the Joint Economic Committee includes a state-by-state measure of the dollar increase in gasoline costs since the start of Trumpâs war against Iran in late February. As noted in the report, the ânational average is $3.87 per gallon, which is about 30 percent higher than before the start of the warâ.
Trumpâs war against Iran is going about as badly as it can, with Trump affirmatively suggesting strategies for Iran to increase its control over the Strait of Hormuz. Remember when it seemed that Trump could do anything he wanted and get away with it? Not anymore. The veil has been lifted. He is a buffoon. A dangerous buffoon, but a buffoon nonetheless.
More Trump corruption.
Trumpâs monetization of the Office of the Presidency is obsceneâand is an issue that is turning many independents and some Republicans against him. See YouGov.com, Most Americans say Donald Trump is using his office for personal gain. (âMany also have concerns about Trumpâs personal behavior. 60% of Americans say Trump is using his office for personal gain and only 27% say he isnât.â)
On Tuesday, the NYTimes reported that a South Korean company facing an investigation by the US Department of Commerce made a $2 million payment to Trump in 2025. See NYTimes, Trump Paid $2 Million by South Korean Company Facing Trade Investigation.
Per the Times:
The lead investor in a South Korean aluminum company that has challenged Commerce Department penalties on certain exports from South Korea to the United States made a $2 million payment last year to President Trumpâs holding company. [¶]
[Trumpâs disclosure] document offered only a cryptic explanation for the payment, stating that it was part of a âletter of intentâ and a ânonrefundable development fee.â In statements to The New York Times, the company and the Trump family said the payment relates to a still-unannounced golf course project.
Trumpâs sons claim that the familyâs business dealings with the South Korean aluminum company had nothing to do with US government investigations into the company. As Yogi Berra never said, âThatâs too coincidental to be a coincidence.â
The NY Times article also reported that
Mr. Trumpâs holding company collected [$125 million] last year directly from foreign sources in several countries, including Britain, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Oman, the Philippines, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Turkey, Vietnam and the United Arab Emirates.
As Trump pads his pockets with âpaymentsâ from foreign countries that look like exactly like bribes, Speaker Mike Johnson is planning a third budget bill that will cut Medicare and Medicaid to pay for Trumpâs ill-begotten war against Iran. See Politico, House Republicans to huddle with CBO chief amid reconciliation talks.
Per Policito,
The huddle comes as Speaker Mike Johnson and fellow GOP leaders are gathering with House Budget Committee Republicans at Camp David to plot a strategy to convince skeptical deficit hawks to greenlight a filibuster-skirting reconciliation bill, paid for largely with cuts to so-called fraud in Medicare, Medicaid, and other social programs.
Republican leadership has lost its mind. At a time when tens of millions of Americans are struggling under increased costs directly attributable to Trump, cutting Medicare, Medicaid and other social programs is a very bad idea (for Republicans).
We canât count on Republicans to defeat themselves, but they are doing everything they can to help the 2026 midterms be a wave election of historic proportions.
Concluding Thoughts
Trump will be taking to the airwaves on Thursday to make wild claims about the 2020 and 2026 elections. Do not panic, no matter what he says. Trump is living on the edge of reality, issuing threats (like the 20% Hormuz toll) that are laughable and beyond his meager attention span to accomplish.
Yes, Trump is dangerous because he knows he is losing. He will try anything and everything to prevent Democrats from taking control of Congress. But he is on a historic losing streak in the courts, and his support in Congress among Republicans is unenthusiastic. He lost the battle over the weaponization fund, his immunity agreement with the IRS was eviscerated by Judge Williams, and his favorability ratings are really, really low.
If Trump says something stupid on Thursday evening (and there is a 100% chance he will), the net effect will be to weaken him further. He does not have superpowers. He can say whatever he wants, but he must still execute and deliver on his threats in the face of a hostile judiciary and motivated electorate.
The one thing Trump cannot overcome is a wave election. And a wave of historic proportions is swelling in the distance, gaining momentum and size with each new outrage. The fact that Trump has scheduled a speech for Thursday is a sign of desperation. So, approach it as such, and do not surrender to alarm and panic. Wait for the political and judicial backlash before assessing whether anything Trump says will survive a 24-hour news cycle.
In August 1870 a U.S. exploring expedition headed out from Montana toward the Yellowstone River into land the U.S. government had recognized as belonging to different Indigenous tribes.
By October the men had reached the Yellowstone, where they reported they had âfound abundance of game and trout, hot springs of five or six different kindsâŠbasaltic columns of enormous size,â and a waterfall that must, they wrote, âbe in form, color and surroundings one of the most glorious objects on the American Continent.â On the strength of their widely reprinted reports, the secretary of the interior sent out an official surveying team under geologist Ferdinand V. Hayden. With it went photographer William Henry Jackson and fine artist Thomas Moran.
Banker and railroad baron Jay Cooke had arranged for Moran to join the expedition. In 1871 the popular magazine Scribnerâs Monthly published the surveyorâs report along with Moranâs drawings and a promise that Cookeâs Northern Pacific Railroad would soon lay tracks to enable tourists to see the great natural wonders of the West.
But by 1871, Americans had begun to turn against the railroads, seeing them as big businesses monopolizing American resources at the expense of ordinary Americans. When Hayden called on Congress to pass a law setting the area around Yellowstone aside as a public park, two RepublicansâSenator Samuel Pomeroy of Kansas and Delegate William H. Clagett of Montanaâintroduced bills to protect Yellowstone in a natural state and provide against âwanton destruction of the fish and gameâŠor destruction for the purposes of merchandise or profit.â
The House Committee on Public Lands praised Yellowstone Valleyâs beauty and warned that âpersons are now waiting for the springâŠto enter in and take possession of these remarkable curiosities, to make merchandise of these bountiful specimens, to fence in these rare wonders so as to charge visitors a fee, as is now done at Niagara Falls, for the sight of that which ought to be as free as the air or water.â It warned that âthe vandals who are now waiting to enter into this wonderland will, in a single season, despoil, beyond recovery, these remarkable curiosities which have required all the cunning skill of nature thousands of years to prepare.â
The New York Times got behind the idea that saving Yellowstone for the people was the responsibility of the federal government, saying that if businesses âshould be strictly shut out, it will remain a place which we can proudly show to the benighted European as a proof of what natureâunder a republican form of governmentâcan accomplish in the great West.â
On March 1, 1872, President U.S. Grant, a Republican, signed the bill making Yellowstone a national park.
The impulse to protect natural resources from those who would plunder them for profit expanded 18 years later, when the federal government stepped in to protect Yosemite. In June 1864, Congress had passed and President Abraham Lincoln signed a law giving to the state of California the Yosemite Valley and nearby Mariposa Big Tree Grove âupon the express conditions that the premises shall be held for public use, resort and recreation.â
But by 1890 it was clear that under state management the property had been largely turned over to timber companies, sheep-herding enterprises, and tourist businesses with state contracts. Naturalist John Muir warned in the Century magazine: âAx and plow, hogs and horses, have long been and are still busy in Yosemiteâs gardens and groves. All that is accessible and destructible is rapidly being destroyed.â Congress passed a law making the land around the state property in Yosemite a national park area, and the United States military began to manage the area.
The next year, in March 1891, Congress gave the president power to âset apart and reserveâŠas public reservationsâ land that bore at least some timber, whether or not that timber was of any commercial value. Under this General Revision Act, also known as the Forest Reserve Act, Republican president Benjamin Harrison set aside timberland adjacent to Yellowstone National Park and south of Yosemite National Park. By September 1893, about 17 million acres of land had been put into forest reserves. Those who objected to this policy, according to Century, were âmen [who] wish to get at it and make it earn something for them.â
Presidents of both parties continued to protect American lands, but in the late nineteenth century it was New York Republican politician Theodore Roosevelt who most dramatically expanded the effort to keep western lands from the hands of those who wanted only their timber and minerals.
Roosevelt was concerned that moneygrubbing was eroding the character of the nation, and he believed that western land nurtured the independence and community that he worried was disappearing in the East. During his presidency, which stretched from 1901 to 1909, Roosevelt protected 141 million acres of forest and established five new national parks.
More powerfully, he used the 1906 Antiquities Act, which Congress had passed to stop the looting and sale of Indigenous objects and sites, to protect land. The Antiquities Act allowed presidents to protect areas of historic, cultural, or scientific interest. Before the law was a year old, Roosevelt had created four national monuments: Devils Tower in Wyoming, El Morro in New Mexico, and Montezuma Castle and Petrified Forest in Arizona.
In 1908, Roosevelt used the Antiquities Act to protect the Grand Canyon.
Since then, presidents of both parties have protected American lands. President Jimmy Carter rivaled Rooseveltâs protection of land when he protected more than 100 million acres in Alaska from oil development. Carterâs secretary of the interior, Cecil D. Andrus, saw himself as a practical man trying to balance the needs of business and environmental needs but seemed to think business interests had become too powerful: âThe domination of the department by mining, oil, timber, grazing and other interests is over.â
In fact, the fight over the public lands was not ending; it was entering a new phase. Since the 1980s, Republicans have pushed to reopen public lands to resource development, maintaining even today that Democrats have hampered oil production although under President Joe Biden it reached an all-time high.
President Donald Trump pushed to return public lands to private hands during his first term. On April 26, 2017, Trump signed an executive orderâExecutive Order 13792âdirecting his secretary of the interior, Ryan Zinke, to review designations of 22 national monuments greater than 100,000 acres, made since 1996. He then ordered the largest national monument reduction in U.S. history, slashing the size of Utahâs Bears Ears National Monument by 85%âa goal of uranium-mining interestsâand that of Utahâs Grand StaircaseâEscalante National Monument by about half, favoring coal interests.
âNo one better values the splendor of Utah more than you do,â Trump told cheering supporters. âAnd no one knows better how to use it.â
In March 2021, shortly after he took office, President Biden announced a new initiative to protect 30% of U.S. land, fresh water, and oceans areas by 2030, a plan popularly known as 30 by 30. Also in March 2021, Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts urged opponents of land protection to push back against the Antiquities Act, saying the broad protection of lands presidents have established under it is an abuse of power.
In October 2021, President Biden restored Bears Ears and Grand StaircaseâEscalante to their original size. âTodayâs announcement is not just about national monuments,â Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of New Mexicoâs Laguna Pueblo, said at the ceremony. âItâs about this administration centering the voices of Indigenous people and affirming the shared stewardship of this landscape with tribal nations.â
In 2022, nearly 312 million people visited the countryâs national parks and monuments, supporting 378,400 jobs and spending $23.9 billion in communities within 60 miles of a park. This amounted to a $50.3 billion benefit to the nationâs economy.
But Project 2025, the blueprint for the second Trump presidency, called for significant increases in drilling for oil and gas and removing land from federal protection and opening it to private development. As Roberts urged, Project 2025 promised to seek a Supreme Court ruling that would permit it to reduce the size of national monuments, saying a second Trump administration âmust seek repeal of the Antiquities Act of 1906.â
Shortly after retaking office, Trump declared a ânational energy emergency,â and yesterday he signed two proclamations. One will shrink Bears Ears National Monument by 91%, and the other will shrink Grand StaircaseâEscalante National Monument by about 90%âeven more than the reductions of his first term. Together, they remove nearly three million acres (1.2 million hectares) from monument protection.
In his newsletter, outdoor writer Wes Siler suggests that Trumpâs proclamations are an effort âto trigger a case that will allow the far-right justices heâs appointed to the Supreme Court to massively reduce the scope of the Antiquities Act, or eliminate it altogether.â
In the clouds. Know Your Clouds. 1967. :: Internet Archive
* * * *
âAfter a time I found that I could almost listen to the silence,
which had a dimension all of its own.
I started to attend to its strange and beautiful texture,
which of course, it was impossible to express in words.
I discovered that I felt at home and alive in the silence,
which compelled me to enter my interior world and around there.
Without the distraction of constant conversation,
the words on the page began to speak directly to my inner self.
They were no long expressing ideas
that were simply interesting intellectually,
but were talking directly to my own yearning and perplexity.â
Karen Armstrong
(via paynehollow)
In a fully functional organism, an emotion has a very short life span. It is like a momentary ripple or wave on the surface of your Being. When you are not in your body, however, an emotion can survive inside you for days or weeks, or join with other emotions of a similar frequency that have merged and become the pain-body, a parasite that can live inside you for years, feed on your energy, lead to physical illness, and make your life miserable.
Eckhart Tolle (via lazyyogi)
Reports indicate Trump will deliver a speech about election âinterferenceâ in 2020. Letâs remember the Big Lie and what it means.
The claim that Trump won the 2020 election is a Big Lie.
A Big Lie changes reality. To believe it, people must disbelieve their senses, distrust their fellow citizens, and live in a world of faith.
A Big Lie undoes a society, since it divides citizens into believers and unbelievers.
A Big Lie destroys democracy, since people who are convinced that nothing is true but the utterances of their leader ignore voting and its results.
A Big Lie can never be told just by one person. Trump is the originator of this Big Lie, but it could never have flourished without his allies on Capitol Hill.
There is a cure for the Big Lie. Our elected representatives should tell the truth, without dissimulation, about the results of the 2020 election.
Politicians who do not tell the simple truth about the 2020 election â that Biden won and Trump lost â perpetuate the Big Lie, further an alternative reality, support conspiracy theories, weaken democracy, and foment violence far worse than that of January 6, 2021.
Everything Trump Does From Here On Will Backfire, As We Watch Him Visibly Fall Apart--
A Dialogue With A Friend Who Dreads What's Coming In His Speech Thursday
[Hi Lance. I have the worst feeling of dread this week. I honestly feel that the speech that is supposed to happen Thursday is going to be declaring an emergency to control the elections. I've certainly done my part to get out and protest and make phone calls, but here we are. I know our country is much larger than European countries, but when I see them out in the hundreds of thousands protesting, I wonder why we don't have that same kind of effect, even when we have 8 million people protesting. First, I think "No Kings" on a sign doesn't really convey the message. Second, these protests need to be happening in DC. Third, how do you really get a solid message across when every day there are new horrors to address? Talk about flooding the zone. The only thing I hope is that if he does pull this s*** out of his hat, that's when all hell finally breaks loose. I know you are not living here and you have a good finger on the pulse, but I swear, it's like a powder keg ready to blow. People are fed up... some of us since 2015!
What are your thoughts on this?]
My Reply
[First thing, sometimes it helps to have a good cry. You've earned it, we all have, and sometimes we just need to get it all out.
I saw the news coverage of the club fire in Bangkok this morning and it broke me. We have loved ones there, our former homestay students. We were blessed to visit with them eight years ago and fell in love with Thailand, and of course we love our extended family there.
We all get tied up in knots lately, either feeling paralyzed with fear, worry, doubt, and as you said, dread. I deal with it by forcing myself to identify with those who are suffering, and seeing their faces in my mind.
The families of those shot by ICE. The people in ICE concentration camps. The American soldiers on bases being killed, the Ukrainians, the Russian boys being wasted by Putin and his insane eliminationist war. The list of the victimized just grows, and it makes me bleed inside. I remind myself that they all matter, and that they deserve justice. Also that there is always going to be a point in time where they grow tired of being victims and are compelled to take unified actions to resist.
Yeah, I'm stressed out sometimes. But I put myself in their places and realize that I can do a lot more about these injustices than most of them can. I don't have all the answers. I'm not a credentialed expert on anything really. All I have is my voice and I'm determined to use it.
Pretty much every topic I write about is just a pretext to make a subjective intervention, for the purpose of strengthening ourselves for what is ahead. The one thing which is my main talent is having a bit of foresight gained through my experiences, the ability to see ahead what could happen, and I try to prepare people for the moment when it does so they can think about what might be the best course of action.
If we are looking for signs of hope I always tell people that it is right there in the mirror staring back at us. People are much better than they think they are, more able to handle both the truth and greater levels of responsibility than they want to believe. In a crisis they can do great things which they previously thought impossible.
As far as Trump's Thursday night upcoming nationally televised projectile vomit episode, they aren't letting on yet what it's about as far as I know. It will be some new form of recycled insanity meant to throw raw meat to the stupidest of his supporters, and to feed his Fox propaganda network shills some new Stephen Miller talking points. I think it will be a brainsalad of something on Iran to talk up the markets, mashed up with a pile of Fourth Reich law and order horseshit. He might include some new announcement on the Save Act again because he is so desperate, and maybe he'll even try to impose it with an executive order.
Whatever Trump does at this point will backfire, you can be sure of it. He is fueling the opposition to himself now, like a drunken club fighter who is in the boxing ring with a Judo black belt who knows how to use his opponent's strength and body weight against him. Every lunge he makes can be turned against him and he'll wind up on the ground.
The Chinese have an expression for what happens to men like him who abuse their power. They lose "The Mandate Of Heaven." Which means that the person is at odds with the universe itself and is therefore self-doomed.
I start with that, the idea that there is a limit to the tyrants power. Trump is reaching his. Every insane action is a desperation attempt to counteract his own increasing failure, the exposure of his "monumental" impotence. His public audiences are sparse and scattered, the same faces of paid attendees looking at their watches. All of his staged events are fiascos. His renovations, ie: his monuments to himself, are either being blocked or falling apart, because everything he builds is cheap shit, all glitz, veneer, and fake glamor like his bordello-style Casinos and golf clubs. Everywhere he goes he is booed, shunned, ridiculed, and most of the world's leaders disrespect him to his face. His approval ratings are subterranean.
He's got nothing but the threat of violence, persecution, and prosecution. In a way, he is our best recruiter, doing more to get people off of their couches than anyone...except of course for J.D. Vance, who is still busy getting off on his.
I think the big nationwide protests have become a tired tactic. Also, if we do them in DC that is running into a buzzsaw because they will call it an insurrection, and they are massively overdeployed there on security with the National Guard, so it's a kamikaze mission and will not draw many people. Otherwise they are becoming routine, and at this stage I think we need a total organizing focus on our political campaign activity and financial backing for the midterm election mobilization, directed at boosting our candidates and denouncing the GOP opposition's policies, with more of a programmatic approach.
The spontaneous demos are what will move the needle far more in these circumstances, like the big crowd assembled in front of Susan Collins's office in Maine in response to the last shooting. They also catch the Nazi counter-protesters by surprise and it's harder for them to disrupt us and provoke incidents. There was nothing staged about the Maine demos, and the mood was one of barely controlled fury. If you saw the coverage, that is the kind of energy we need, not people out for a day at the parade and taking selfies to share on Instagram.
I think Collins is finished, now that her OrangenfĂŒhrer is sending his rent-a-goons out on the streets of Maine to murder her constituents. In general I see us running the table in November, if he doesn't pull off some Reichstag Fire first. If he tries anything like that then he'll really bury himself.
So, I too get frantic, scared, depressed, just like you. I remind myself to breathe and step back, and look at the big picture, look at history, and remember that every man like him, every movement like his, destroys itself in the end. The question is how much damage will they do, how many will suffer, how we can help them become whole again, and how we go about reconstruction. (With a capital "R")
Don't worry so much about "what to do." We'll think of what to do as various situations unfold, and we will not be alone in doing it. Never allow ourselves to be wedded to a single tactic, we have to be flexible and ready to shift on a dime. But ultimately, the leadership responsibility will be in the hands of the younger people rising from the ranks who believe there is a future worth fighting for.
Young people make their own rules, they bring energy, enthusiasm, they innovate, and we will be seeing them swing into new forms of action when the bloodbath reaches them and their loved ones. Youth in general, with exceptions, won't risk everything, neither their lives or career plans, over issues like climate or their college debt. They will however when their best friends are shot in the face with rubber bullets or real ones.
Trump is like the Japanese fleet that hit Pearl Harbor, he is "awakening a sleeping giant." We need to internalize this in order to overcome the fear, panic, and despair.
At a certain point, people will realize that their fears of getting in trouble are nothing compared to what they'll be going through if they don't make personal decisions that now is the time to get into some "good trouble."
I'm betting the house on a majority Americans recapturing something which they've lost, but still lives in their historical memory. That is, to finally, at long last, find unity against a greater evil. We had that after 9-11. During WW2. That spirit is still alive, and has been hibernating, but not for long. Let's not squander the most important potential which we have.
I'm certain it is there.
****************
Update--
Now We Know What His Speech Will Be About...It Is More Than It Seems On The Surface--
My Reply to A Comment--
"OK, now we know. He's been obsessed with that (the fake Georgia election theft conspiracy) for six years. It's a pile of crap of course, but what he is really doing is trying to incite an assassination of Raffensberger, Ossoff and Warnock. I have zero hesitation in writing this and posting it publicly.
Who will he cite as the authority on this, Lindsey Graham? Maybe he'll show an AI video of still very much dead Lindsey detailing all of the "hard evidence" which never existed except in Trump's own decomposing brain. I would give my right arm to see the real videos which the FBI took out of his house this week. (Check that, just hear about, not see.)
He will never get away with unseating these Senators. Remember, he is a career criminal who is losing his mind and his enablers are riding the wave. It is just a new terrorist threat and stunt meant to give himself emergency powers to void elections. He's also scared shitless of being impeached, which is why he's targeting Democratic Senators. It is yet another in a long list of diversions from his failures on every front, as we have witnessed his political, physical, and cognitive collapse.
We need to stay focused and organize to deliver a landslide in November which removes all doubt. Don't get played, don't play his game on his terms.
Sen. Susan Collins, who is facing a firestorm of angry Mainers in the middle of her key election year, claims that she got Markwayne Mullin to change the policy: âI spoke with DHS Secretary Mullin last night and urged him to cease all non-urgent vehicle stops in the wake of yesterdayâs deadly Biddeford shooting. I am encouraged that the Dept has agreed to do so.â
⊠âAn impartial investigation into the shooting in Biddeford needs to proceed, as the details surrounding this tragedy are important. It is extremely unfortunate that the agent involved did not have a body-worn camera. In April, measures that I authored in the DHS funding bill became law, including $20 million for expanded use of body-worn cameras, $2 million for de-escalation training, and a 17% increase in the IGâs budget to investigate matters such as this shooting.â
⊠But Tom Homan was on Fox talking like this was just something they were going to do for a few days until things quieted down: âThe officers involved in these shootings are well trained, I wouldnât even call this a bump in the road. This will be a short term review, so ICE feels comfortable.â
If your government is loudly demanding the dissolution of the International Criminal Court, the international court that tries war crimes, well, then the odds are pretty high that your government is committing war crimes.
We havenât talked much about it here but for the last two months Iâve been absolutely obsessed with Widowâs Bay... Widowâs Bay arrived as a fully formed jackalope, so complete and natural in its combination despite its utter strangeness. The magic trick of creator Katie Dippoldâs series, about a mayor named Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys) who [âŠ]
Widowâs Bay arrived as a fully formed jackalope, so complete and natural in its combination despite its utter strangeness. The magic trick of creator Katie Dippoldâs series, about a mayor named Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys) who tries to bring tourism to his totally cursed island community, lies in its hard-to-describe tone. Itâs an effortlessly brilliant comedy with the joke density of a sitcom, but itâs also effective horror, delivering enough legitimate scares to give pause to anyone recommending it to a comedy-loving scaredy-cat. Yet to label the show âhorror-comedyâ is insufficient. The defining Widowâs Bay moments happen where the two genres live in the same breath, each heightening the other â such as the Run card game in the second episode, âLodging,â a simple and ingenious gag whose punch line prompts both a laugh and a thrilling chill down the spine. That laugh/dread carries all the way through to the finale, which lands in a genuinely tragic place: Tom has essentially failed to rid Widowâs Bay of its curse, leaving his son trapped on the island. But as viewers, itâs hard not to feel some delight in knowing we get to return to this hilarious and terrifying island now that Apple has renewed the show for another season. (The writersâ room is set to reassemble shortly.)
