Religious Conflict — And Magic June 13, 2024June 12, 2024 A moving account: The Day My Old Church Canceled Me Was a Very Sad Day. A really thoughtful conversation on Gaza: this Ezra Klein podcast. . . . I wanted to know what it’s like to watch these protests from Israel. What are Israelis seeing? What do they make of them? Ari Shavit is an Israeli journalist and the author of “My Promised Land,” the best book I’ve read about Israeli identity and history. “Israelis are seeing a different war than the one that Americans see,” he tells me. This is a conversation about trying to push divergent perspectives into relationship with each other: On the protests, on Israel, on Gaza, on Benjamin Netanyahu, on what it means to take societal trauma and fear seriously, on Jewish values, and more. A BONUS: Exchanging Contact Info If you and a new acquaintance want to share contact info — and your iPhones are both up to date (even if they’re old), just touch the two together and tap the Share button that will appear. It’s magic!
BTC, DJT, And A Money-Back Guarantee June 12, 2024June 11, 2024 CRAPTO Crypto Just Got Exponentially More Dangerous: Meet Fairshake. Quoth the craven: “Evermore.” MORE CRAPTO The People Who Bought Stock in Trump’s Truth Social Are Very Angry. But not at Trump. BONUS My friend Marc Fest’s one-hour communications training costs $450 and comes with a money-back guarantee. Want to up your game? Or that of a non-profit you support? Or a start-up you’ve invested in? Want to give your recently-graduated child or grandkid a leg up as he or she enters the real world? Check it out.
Is This A Great Country Or What? June 11, 2024June 10, 2024 GREAT BOOK Bill Maher’s new book is terrific. What This Comedian Said Will Shock You. (That’s the title.) Everyone on the left and the right will find much in it to like. Those of us who feel we’re in the sensible center will feel affirmed. CAUTION The stock market is awfully high. Price/earnings ratios are at record levels. If you’re invested on margin, you shouldn’t be. if you’ll be needing to cash out some of your holdings in the next year or two, it may be wiser to sell now and put that cash into Treasuries. “Timing the market” — getting out when you think it’s going to fall and back in when you think it’s going to rise — is not a long-term formula for success. But neither is taking more risk than you can afford. NEWS FLASH The twice-impeached convicted felon Republicans are running for President — an adjudicated rapist who has been found liable for hundreds of millions of dollars in civil penalties and now awaits trial in three much more serious criminal cases — who cheated to get into college and cheated to get out of the draft, cheated on his wives, cheats at golf, cheated on his taxes, cheated contractors, cheated with his charity and stiffed creditors of the four companies he put into bankruptcy — “the undisputed world champion of destroying things,” as Tucker Carlson put it, whom dozens of his own former top staffers consider dangerously unfit for the job — met with his probation officer yesterday. Is this a great country or what?
A Must-Read Speech That Would Have Been Given Even In The Rain June 10, 2024June 9, 2024 GOP 2.0: A Republican minute worth sharing widely. Why they do what they do. Two minutes with Pete Buttigieg. Finally, if you haven’t already, take 5 minutes to read President Biden’s D-Day commemoration. It will make you proud. Had Trump’s conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election succeeded, would he even have shown up at this event? Maybe — if the weather was good. But he surely could never have given this speech. WHEELTUG BONUS Still kicking.
They’re SERIOUS June 9, 2024June 17, 2024 Everyone knows about Project 2025 — or should. It’s the 920-page plan for reshaping America as a white Christian nationalist authoritarian state, or something close to it. But how many of us, until this weekend’s reporting in the Washington Post, knew about Russ Vought’s “post-Constitutional” plan for Trump’s second term? Vought is, among other things, policy director for the 2024 Republican platform. (In 2020, the Republicans didn’t bother to have a platform. In 2016, all Trump touched was the part about defending Ukraine. The only thing in the entire platform that mattered to him was weakening Ukraine. What a coincidence that it was also the only thing in the platform that mattered to Putin.) The Post reports: A battle-tested D.C. bureaucrat and self-described Christian nationalist is drawing up detailed plans for a sweeping expansion of presidential power in a second Trump administration. Russ Vought, who served as the former president’s budget chief, calls his political strategy for razing long-standing guardrails “radical constitutionalism.” He has helped craft proposals for Donald Trump to deploy the military to quash civil unrest, seize more control over the Justice Department and assert the power to withhold congressional appropriations — and that’s just on Trump’s first day back in office. Vought, 48, is poised to steer this agenda from an influential perch in the White House, potentially as Trump’s chief of staff, according to some people involved in discussions about a second term. . . . Vought aims to harness what he calls the “woke and weaponized” bureaucracy that stymied the former president by stocking federal agencies with hardcore disciples who would wage culture wars on abortion and immigration. . . . Some of Vought’s recommendations, such as bucking the Justice Department’s tradition of political independence, have long percolated in the conservative movement. But he is taking a harder line — and seeking to empower a presidential nominee who has openly vowed “retribution,” alarming some fellow conservatives who recall fighting against big government alongside Vought long before Trump’s election. . . . Vought’s long career as a staffer in Congress and at federal agencies has made him an asset to Project 2025, an initiative led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, to lay the groundwork for a second Trump term. Vought wrote the chapter on the executive office of the president in Project 2025’s 920-page blueprint, and he is developing its playbook for the first 180 days, according to the people involved in the effort. . . . Vought supports prosecuting officials who investigated [Trump] and his allies. “It can’t just be hearings,” he told right-wing activist Charlie Kirk on his podcast. “It has to be investigations, an army of investigators that lead to firm convictions.” . . . “No institution set up within its first two years [has] had the impact of [Vought’s] organization,” [currently imprisoned Stephen K.] Bannon said. “We’re going to rip and shred the federal government apart, and if you don’t like it, you can lump it.” Worth reading in full. They really mean it. To help, click here. To help and attend what promises to be an amazing show in New York June 28 — here. (Straight allies welcome!) Note: After taxes, Thomas netted considerably less from his employer (we, the people) than from his extremely wealthy friends.
Sex! Porn! June 6, 2024 As sexual athletes go, I’m unlikely to make the team. I don’t even like porn.* That said — maybe it’s my libertarian streak — I think consenting adults should be free to do whatever they want. Most Democrats agree. Not Republicans: Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered. That’s no fringe Republican view, either. It’s lifted straight from Project 2025, the 920-page plan to hit the ground running when Trump returns to office. We Dems need to publicize that, because: . . . Americans visit porn sites at astronomical rates. . . . Pornhub, Xvideos, and XNXX had higher traffic rank scores in the U.S. than all the nonpornographic sites except for Amazon and Yahoo . . . [and] they tend to stick around once there. Plus: 80% of the traffic is from men — who skew Republican. Are they really okay with losing ready access to porn? We need to let Trump-leaning men know that just as women will be losing their rights — do NOT miss this brutal 30 second spot — so will men be losing their right to porn. Internet providers that dare to provide it will be “shuttered.” So none will. At least that’s the plan. And if you don’t think it could happen, because it would be so unpopular, I point you to their vow to repeal Roe. Few thought that would happen either, because it was so unpopular. And then there’s sex itself. Actual sex. Democrats need to find some way to reach an important voting bloc: men who like to have sex without condoms. Which I’m guessing is a lot of them. To get into the mood, watch this 30-second spot. Wonderful, no? But it doesn’t pinpoint my target audience in the way I have in mind, so I’ve written a third one. It could work just as well on the radio. It never gets explicit, so it’s arguably kid-safe (unless they ask you to explain it to them). It goes like this: HE: Aw, c’mon! [we don’t yet know what he’s talking about – maybe all we ever see is a darkened bedroom] SHE: No, you’ve got to wear one or we’re not doing this. HE: C’mon, babe! You know it’s better! SHE: No kidding. But it’s 2025. Everything’s different. I can’t afford to have a baby right now – and you can’t afford child support for the next 20 years. That’s the 20-second spot. Here’s the full 30: HE: Aw, c’mon! SHE: No, you’ve got to wear one or we’re not doing this. HE: C’mon, babe! You know it’s better. SHE: No kidding. But it’s 2025. Everything’s different. HE: [plaintive moan] SHE: I can’t afford to have a baby right now – and you can’t afford child support for the next 20 years. HE: [plaintive moan] SHE: I +told+ you not to vote macho. HE: But they were coming to take away our guns!!! SHE: Oh, don’t be ridiculous. What do you think? Can we reach this overlooked voting bloc? Guys! Listen up! *For more on my sexual exploits, click here and here. But you will be disappointed.
When He’s Reich, He’s Reich. June 4, 2024June 4, 2024 Here is Trump loving the great men and women of the FBI . . . and making the case that someone facing felony charges shouldn’t be allowed to run. (Watch the first 2 minutes.) When he’s right, he’s right. (If you were born in Canada and moved here two weeks later, you can’t be president; but if you’re a twice-impeached convicted felon and adjudicated rapist facing at least three more major criminal trials, that’s fine.) This new book asks: what does Trump really have in common with Hitler? The buffoonery, chaos and word salad speeches may be more calculated than they appear. “I would like people to become more aware of how incredibly consciously Trump is going about doing what he’s doing, how incredibly cunning and devious he’s been. People should absolutely not underestimate this guy.” You’ve doubtless tired of my reminding you, but for years Trump kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside. The parallels in their rhetoric are striking. So how does a Jewish man like our friend Carl fall into line with the white Christian Nationalists (and others, of course) in supporting Trump? In response to yesterday’s “fact check” post, he emailed me: Another quick fact check: Trump had the border almost closed to migrants then along came Biden and his supporters who reversed everything and let in 10 million unvetted scum. The three things I note about his email are: He made no reference to the “facts” checked in that post. If Trump’s egregious untruths bother him — if honesty or integrity or accuracy matter to Carl in any way — you would not know it from his response. Of the 10 million immigrants he references*, almost none are “scum.” Or vermin, for that matter. Some German Jews were doubtless the Madoffs and Leopolds and Loebs of their time** — but to tar millions this way, as Carl does about those crossing the southern border and Hitler did about Jews and others? After much work, bi-partisan legislation that would have solved the border crisis was crafted and ready to be signed into law, but Trump torpedoed it. He is now the cause of the crisis. He keeps it roiling to fuel his campaign. He allows the crisis to continue. Carl doesn’t care. He blames Biden. In case you can help, click here. If you want to help by attending the DNC’s 25th annual LGBT Leadership Council “gala” (straight allies, welcome!), click here. * Adding to our population by less than 1% a year. ** Just as some Mafiosi and Irish gangsters were mixed in among millions of wonderful Italian and Irish immigrants.
Will Truth — Or “Alternative Facts” — Win The Day? June 3, 2024June 3, 2024 Start with a minute of fortune-telling fun with Jimmy Kimmel. And then this quick fact check: Trump’s post-conviction monologue filled with false claims. Trump repeated his familiar claim that, while Manhattan prosecutors have been focusing on him, New York City has been experiencing record-high violent crime. He said this time that “you have violent crime all over this city at levels that nobody’s ever seen before.” Facts First: Trump’s claim is not even close to true. Violent crime in New York City has plummeted since the early 1990s*. New York City recorded 391 murders in 2023, down about 83% from the 2,262 in 1990; 1,455 rapes in 2023, down about 53% from the 3,126 in 1990; and 16,910 robberies in 2023, down about 83% from the 100,280 in 1990. It goes on from there. Not all negative Trump coverage springs from the left, either. The hush-money story was a project of the Wall Street Journal. It’s nice when the truth comes out and/or justice is done! Last week’s verdict, of course; but smaller stuff, too. E.g.: Publisher of ‘2000 Mules’ apologizes to Georgia man falsely accused of ballot fraud. BONUS WheelTug at Aviation Net Zero (3 minutes). Still kicking. *When Trump was bankrupting the Plaza Hotel and demanding death for the (innocent) Central Park Five.
Finally. May 31, 2024May 30, 2024 Wait til you hear Carl’s reaction to the verdict. But I’ll save that. We still have to win — and hold the Senate and take back the House — so consider joining the President and First Lady, and some amazing too-soon-to-announce performers, at this event in New York June 28. It’s being produced by Bruce Cohen, who’s produced the Oscars (and won one himself), so it should be a good night. Straight allies hugely welcome.
Two Thoughtful Columns / Two Minutes With Betty White May 30, 2024May 29, 2024 Tom Friedman: How We’ve Lost Our Moorings as a Society. I started to excerpt the first few paragraphs but couldn’t figure out where to stop. It’s worth reading in full. The analogy to mangroves, so resonant. Dana Milbank: In closing, Trump’s Team Takes the Jurors for Idiots. We’ll soon see whether it worked. BONUS The Attempted Robbery of Rose Nylund How great was Betty White?