Maybe Prop 40 Does Make Sense Plus: How To Stop Those Texts! October 24, 2026 But first . . . FINALLY: HOW TO STOP THOSE TEXTS! Maybe you already knew this — I wish I had, ages ago — but if you have an iPhone, go to SETTINGS / APPS / MESSAGES. Scroll down to the “Unknown Senders” section and select SCREEN UNKNOWN SENDERS. A few will still slip through (I don’t know why) but most will pile up noiselessly, out of sight. When you go to check your regular messages, you’ll see a bright blue 23 at top right if you have 23 new unwanted texts from desperate candidates facing end-of-month deadlines. You can then (or later) click 23 to see them (click “unknown senders”) and run your eye down the list in case one is from your long-forgotten business partner who’s changed her cell number (so she shows up as “unknown”) saying that — oh, my God! — she just got an unexpected a $3 million windfall and 50% of it belongs to you. This has never happened to me, but I keep looking just in case before I then click EDIT (top left) followed by SELECT MESSAGES followed by SELECT ALL (top right) followed by the trash can (bottom right) and all 23 vanish. It takes just a few seconds once you get used to it; and avoids (in this example) 23 interruptions. Over the course of the year — thousands. Also . . . WHAT ABOUT THAT 13-YEAR-OLD GIRL? Trump’s Cruelty to Abuse Victims Extends Far Beyond Amy Acton. His embrace of the vile smear fits an administration that shields predators and abandons survivors of sexual and domestic violence. The same people who insist on policing public bathrooms to protect little girls from sexual predators are also smearing an actual child rape survivor. This refers, of course, to the JD Vance-endorsed, Trump-endorsed (Carl-endorsed?) Vivek Ramaswamy ad in which the mother who abandoned her 12-year-old daughter nearly 50 years ago claims that her daughter — poised now to be Ohio’s next governor — is lying about the sexual abuse she suffered, from ages 9 through 12, at the hands of the man her mother ran off with so he could escape prosecution. But wait — what about the 13-year-old girl who, according to multiple FBI interviews that came to light via the Epstein files, was allegedly forced to give Trump — who allegedly likes them young, as Epstein allegedly did — oral sex? (But did it badly and made him mad.) The 38,000 references to Trump in the heavily-redacted files thus far released? Nothing to see here. If you’re a star, Trump has explained, “you can get away with anything.” Trump brushes off the two dozen women who’ve accused him of sexual abuse as simply lying. Including E.J. Carroll, who, he claims, he would never have raped because she was “Not My Type” (though when shown a photograph of her, he mistook her for his wife). MAGAns know that Trump couldn’t possibly be lying — or corrupt or cruel — or in league with the murderous centi-billionaire war criminal Vladimir Putin, who is in league with North Korea’s murderous dictator Kim Jong-Un, with whom Trump exchanges love letters — because he is their leader. Their role is to believe and follow, not to question. And yet the evidence of his cruelty to sexual abuse victims is plain to see. And . . . AN ACTION YOU CAN TAKE (FOR FREE) WITHOUT GETTING OUT OF BED It’s not too late to use Swipe Blue. You get it from the app store; it lets you know which of your contacts have not yet voted, and which are in districts where we really need them to turn out. If you choose to, you can contact one or more of them in any way you want. (The app suggests language you can adapt any way you want.) Now is the perfect time to play around with this. It’s illegal to vote twice (I was somehow sent a SECOND absentee ballot several days after mailing in my first but decided not to use it); but with Swipe Blue, you just might be able to inspire a second vote (or two or three) — and, multiplied by the tens or hundreds of thousands of us using the app along with you, that would be huge. And, now, finally . . . WHY PROP 40 — CALIFORNIA’S ONE-TIME WEALTH TAX — MIGHT MAKE SENSE Friday’s post touched on the grotesque inequality that leads to revolution and economic collapse (and invited the wealthiest among us to join the Patriotic Millionaires.) Americans for Tax Fairness notes: Billionaires and big corporations got their tax giveaways. Working families got cuts to health care and food assistance. And yet I’ll admit I thought that the proposed one-time 5% wealth tax on California billionaires, while well-intentioned, was too deeply flawed. Until I read this: Debunking All Myths about Prop 40 If you live in California and haven’t yet voted, it’s worth your time. Thanks for your readership!