Author: A.T.

Who has time for all this stuff?  Stop the world, I want to get off!

(Next week: some great current Broadway shows for your consideration.)

That said, I offer these items in case you do have time.

There will be no quiz:

> Heather Cox Richardson reflects on the bills President Biden signed yesterday.  She writes so calmly and clearly — in the old days, all but a few on both sides of the aisle would, at least in the main, be nodding approval.  Worth sharing.

> Pete Buttigieg fans may enjoy this profile.  How far we’ve come since Frank Kameny, Barbara Gittings, and eight others picketed the White House nearly 60 years ago.  The courage that must have taken!  Republican legislators fought equality every step of the way; but by now many have come to value their LGBT family members, colleagues, neighbors, and friends.

> Liz Cheney argues that the Court should rule swiftly on Trump’s immunity claim.

They never should have accepted the case in the first place, if you ask me; but having done so, should have heard it immediately.  Even f they had to work on a Saturday.  Clearly, having just argued the case, both sides were fully prepared.  Why the delay — other than to serve Trump?

“Contempt of court” seems rightly to have morphed into “contempt for the Court” in the wake of ethics revelations and the willful way Trump’s appointees seem to have lied to win confirmation.

> Paul London explains why high interest rates may not be the best way to fight inflation, now that it’s down to just slightly above the Fed’s 2% target.  He has a better way.

> Yesterday’s sermon against Christian Nationalism struck me as worthy of an amen! — so I’m posting it again.

Have a great weekend.

On Wednesdays, Judge Merchan turns his attention to other matters; so yesterday I went to church instead (as it were).

First in North Carolina, then in Texas:

This fire-and-brimstone preacher calls Trump’s Bible disgusting — 3 minutes.

I have to say I find his fervor a little scary.

Calm and pitch perfect, by contrast: this sermon against Christian Nationalism. 

It begins with the “top reasons beer is better than religion.”

That seemed to engage the crowd.

And then he just lays it all out so beautifully.

“Christian Nationalists are more committed to the love of power than to the power of love.”

Watch the first few minutes; then share far and wide.

CHRB

Allen B.: “In your review of past recommendations, you left out CHRB.”

→ As mentioned here, I’m holding it for its $2.125 annual yield (12+% at the current $17.25) and in hopes it will be redeemed at $25 in 2026 as promised — about a 26% annual return unless something goes wrong.  I’m betting that it won’t.

> Aid to Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, and Taiwan passed, to be swiftly signed into law.  Terribly late, but monumentally important.

It’s worth saying again:

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Hurray for Speaker Mike Johnson.

Normally, nothing gets done in an election year.  But maybe the next thing we can see is passage of the bipartisan immigration bill that would solve the border crisis.  It was going to pass until Trump told his team not to, so the crisis would remain his best campaign issue.  Speaker Johnson is on a roll.  Improbably, he could go down in history as the man who broke the gridlock . . . continuing to work with next year’s likely speaker, Hakeem Jeffries, to put country ahead of party or cult.  Imagine: Congress the way the Founders envisioned it.

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> The Trump trial was revealing.  The National Enquirer turns out to have been deeply in bed with Trump all along, eagerly headlining fake news, while suppressing some real stuff.

Will Ted Cruz sue the Enquirer and Trump for libel, now that its former publisher has testified they smeared him with “reckless disregard for the truth” and, arguably, with “malice” (as a public figure must prove to win damages).

Meanwhile, let’s say the jury convicts Trump weeks from now, as it may; how about this? Biden offers to commute his sentence — IF Trump agrees to stop stalling and allow the other cases to go to trial.

I know that’s not realistic.  But it’s fun to think about.

> OPRT was up 40%, presumably on news that a couple of strong new outside directors have been added to the board, and perhaps better-than-expected financial news.  As I suggested in December, there’s a path to a triple or a tentuple from here — but only with money you can truly afford to lose.  HYMC was up 10% — 67% in the past month and a half since last suggested.

May every day be as good.

Not quite 90 seconds, yet speaks volumes.

I love this Frank Bruni column.

Don’t miss it.

And hurray for Speaker Mike Johnson.

Normally, nothing gets done in an election year.  But maybe the next thing we can see is passage of the bipartisan immigration bill that would solve the border crisis.  It was going to pass until Trump told his team not to, so the crisis would remain his best campaign issue.  Speaker Johnson is on a roll.  Improbably, he could go down in history as the man who broke the gridlock . . . continuing to work with next year’s likely speaker, Hakeem Jeffries, to put country ahead of party or cult.  Imagine: Congress the way the Founders envisioned it.

Have a great week.

SUCCESS!

Long time readers know I’m a big fan of Success Academy charter schools.  I laid the case out here, for example.

Success accepts students from tough New York City neighborhoods — by lottery.  No aptitude tests or interviews required.

They demand serious commitment from parents — most parents welcome the chance to help their kids succeed — and they produce phenomenal results, matching or exceeding those of the wealthiest school districts in the state.

The first Success Academy started with 165 students.

Today, there are 53 throughout the city with more than 20,000 students.

This quick video gives you a sense of what’s possible.

I love teachers and I love unions; but the teachers union has fought Success every step of the way . . . just as, during COVID, they put teachers’ interests ahead of students’.

There are ways to find win-win solutions; but without a “children’s union” to balance the power of the teachers’ union, those solutions are too infrequently found.

Many Democrats are proponents of education reform.  (Success Academy was founded by and is run by Democrats.)  But our support should be less timid.

On the other hand, when it comes to fighting child poverty, supporting families, and providing health care, Democrats lead the way.

Not to mention women’s rights, climate, gun safety, voting rights, tax fairness, consumer protection, and — crucially this year — democracy itself.

So we urgently need a giant blue wave in November (click here), and on that score there’s reason to:

HOPE!

Are you subscribed to The Hopium Chronicles?

We’re gonna win.

Have a great weekend.

He writes of a “three-state solution.”

For it to happen, he concludes, “it will take leadership transformations in Tehran, Ramallah and Jerusalem (and not Washington).”

Kara Swisher talks with Timothy Ryback (if, like me, you don’t have time to read his book):

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There are a lot of Trump/Hitler comparisons being thrown around these days. So we went to the source, as chronicled by historian Timothy Ryback in his new book Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power. Ryback zooms in on the final six months before Adolf Hitler dissolved the government of the Weimar Republic, revealing that Nazi Germany was not inevitable. Kara and Ryback discuss the Berlin power players that misjudged Hitler’s bankrupt party, and the (not just rhetorical) similarities between the ascendance of Hitler and Donald Trump.

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In his book, Ryback apparently never mentions Trump’s name.  But as you’ll hear, the parallels are . . . chilling.

On a related note, White Rural Rage is “a searing portrait and damning takedown of America’s proudest citizens — who are also the least likely to defend its core principles,” according to its publisher.  

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White rural voters hold the greatest electoral sway of any demographic group in the United States, yet rural communities suffer from poor healthcare access, failing infrastructure, and severe manufacturing and farming job losses. Rural voters believe our nation has betrayed them, and to some degree, they’re right. [The authors] explore why rural Whites have failed to reap the benefits from their outsize political power and why, as a result, they are the most likely group to abandon democratic norms and traditions. Their rage—stoked daily by Republican politicians and the conservative media—now poses an existential threat to the United States.

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If you can help preserve the American experiment — flawed, to be sure, yet still beacon of freedom to the world — click here.

But first . . .

Jim Burt: “When you’re a fake Christian, you hire an AI artist.  Just be sure to tell him to double check the number of fingers.”

Also . . .

NEW YORK WEATHER

Also . . .

POSSIBLE SECOND THOUGHTS

And now!

Paul F. deLespinasse asks: Is It Time to Start Voting AGAINST Candidates?

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. . . Sophisticated voters understand that unless they consider both major party candidates equally bad, they should hold their nose and vote for the one they consider less bad. That’s what I did in 2004 when, as a lifelong Republican, I voted for John Kerry.

Since then I became a Democrat, and Kerry’s impressive work as green energy envoy has lifted his stock in my estimation. But that was how I saw things in 2004.

Even if one candidate seems slightly less bad, voters should remember that every little bit helps.

Many voters, however, cannot bring themselves to vote for the least onerous major party candidate. They support a third-party candidate or don’t vote, even if this increases the danger that the major candidate they like least will win.

Case in point: Former vice president Mike Pence announced that he will not support Donald Trump in 2024. But he also said that he will not vote for Joe Biden.

Despite all this, sophisticated voting apparently has been too painful for many thoughtful voters, exemplified here by Mike Pence.

A simple reform, however, could allow such voters to vote as if they were sophisticated. All that’s needed is legislation allowing voters to cast their votes either for a candidate or against a candidate, with the results for each candidate being the total votes for minus the total votes against.

This is not a partisan proposal. It would allow Mike Pence to cast a vote against Trump without having to vote for Biden. It would equally allow other people to cast a vote against Biden without having to vote for Trump.

Admittedly, it would have the same consequences, but that is exactly my point: Voters would be able to act as if they were sophisticated without actually having to be sophisticated. . . .

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The good professor (your fellow reader!) goes on to cover a few more points (e.g., what to do if both candidates score below zero?), but you get the gist.

It will presumably never happen — but I think it’s brilliant.

The Borowitz Report: Most Innocent People Try to Delay Trials, Experts Say.

What Freedom Will You Lose Next? — 30-second spot running in Arizona.

Lempicka, new on Broadway, is dazzling, funny, powerful — and apt.  Cabaret meets Sunday in the Park with George.  Or something like that.  Fascism, unimaginable at first, has a way of taking hold.

About which, ex-Republican Steve Schmidt makes the urgent case that, no, actually, democracy doesn’t “die in darkness” (though, unlike Schmidt, I love that Washington Post tag line) — It Dies At High Noon.

The good news:  For All His Bombast, Trump Is Plummeting – Financially, Legally and Politically.

And yet Mark Green paints a scenario in his forthcoming Inflection Election where — having lost the popular vote by 3 million in 2016 and 7 million in 2020 — Trump could lose by 10 million in 2024 and still regain power.  And end the American experiment so many fought and died to preserve.

Help with time or treasure, if you can.

UPDATES III

Fred C: What about KLTR?

Frank A: UNIT?

Still holding both.