"A Texas man whose girlfriend used abortion pills to end her pregnancy is suing a California doctor who allegedly mailed her the medication..."

"... in what appears to be a first-of-its-kind wrongful-death lawsuit — and a fresh test of federal and state abortion laws. The complaint, filed in a Texas federal court, accuses the doctor of violating state law that prohibits performing or facilitating an abortion, including by distributing pills. But California, where the physician is based, has a 'shield' law explicitly protecting providers who mail abortion pills, including to states where the procedure is banned. The case appears to be the first time an interstate wrongful-death claim over an abortion has been filed in federal court. It is also the latest legal challenge against a provider as antiabortion activists attempt to curb the flow of abortion pills, which are being mailed into all 50 states under shield laws passed after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade...."

From "Man sues over girlfriend’s abortion in a first-of-its-kind lawsuit/he first-of-its-kind wrongful-death lawsuit tests the laws blue states passed to protect abortion access after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade" (WaPo).

"We talk about the view that the soul exists but can’t do so without the body"/"'Is that what you believe?' he asks."

"'Ah well, I don’t, you see. My body is like a Hillman Imp and my soul is driving it. When I die, I park the car and walk the rest of the way. And I’m thinking that heaven is probably pedestrianised, so I can leave it outside.'"

From "Frank Skinner on faith and finally getting married (she said no four times)/The comedian opens up about his alcoholism, the consolation he finds in poetry — and whether he could succeed Melvyn Bragg as In Our Time presenter" (London Times).

There's a new season of "Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast" beginning this week, first episode here. I'm a big fan of that.

Hillman Imp? Apparently some sort of car. 

Oh!

That's Frank's idea of the metaphorical body that contains his soul. 

I'm reminded of the George Harrison song: "I got born into the material world/Getting worn out in the material world/Use my body like a car/Taking me both near and far...."

But George didn't name a particular car. Frank named the Hillman Imp. How about you?

"We commit federal felonies by the day, by the hundreds if not the thousands. But there’s no real ability for the federal government to shut it down. So the cat’s out of the bag."

Said Aaron Morris, co-founder of the company that manufactures the Wyld brand of cannabis-infused gummies, quoted in "Mummies on cannabis gummies: meet the mothers getting high at home/Frazzled American parents are swapping a nightly glass of chardonnay for chewable THC gummies. But are they ignoring the health risks?" (London Times)

Meanwhile: "Stacy Allen lives in a white wooden house with a perfect lawn and a labradoodle in a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama.... About once a week, after her two children have gone to bed, she’ll take a bite of what looks and tastes like an ordinary [gummy].... 'I feel like it’s just a way to unwind.... Just like having a glass of wine.... I was even at lunch recently with someone I felt was a very conservative mom, and then she and her husband started opening up about doing gummies — and they have teenagers too.... More women do it than you realise. It’s just like anything — talking about it removes the shame. Then other people will be, like, "Oh, I do them too." It’s not a big deal.'"

"It’s something I haven’t thought about."

Said Trump, quoted in "Trump says he has no plans to pardon Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell" (WaPo).

It's not believable that he hasn't thought about it. Just to hear the question Have you thought about it? is to think about it... depending on the meaning of "thought." I think he means to assert that these current discussions his Justice Department is having with Maxwell are not about making some sort of deal with her to give them useful testimony in exchange for a pardon. But how can that not be implicit? How can he not have thought of it... he who has portrayed his whole existence as endless, ongoing dealmaking?

***

"Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully or write poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That’s how I get my kicks" — Donald Trump, "The Art of the Deal."

"President Donald Trump has directed federal agencies to find ways to make it easier to forcibly hospitalize homeless people with mental illness and addiction for longer periods...."

"The order... instructs agencies to prioritize funding for mental health and drug courts — and to not fund 'harm reduction' programs that the administration said facilitate illegal drug use. It also called for agencies to prioritize funding states and cities that to the 'maximum extent' enforce laws on open-air drug use, prohibitions on urban camping, loitering and squatting.... Dozens of states have added to or expanded involuntary commitment laws during the past decade. That includes states controlled by Democrats, an illustration that political momentum has shifted toward a more aggressive approach to dealing with the inextricably intertwined crises of mental health and addiction...."

I'm reading "Trump order pushes forcible hospitalization of homeless people/Trump’s executive order could increase hospitalization of homeless individuals with mental health and substance use disorders" (WaPo).

Looking for an existing tag that will fit this issue, I stumbled on "Trump's urban renewal." That could work for this... but what was it that led me to create it?

The oldest post with that tag was "Asking for the black vote" back in August 2016.

More relevant to today's post is this from July 2019: "'We have to take the people... And we have to do something... We may intercede. We may do something to get that whole thing cleaned up.' Said Trump, about the homelessness in San Francisco and L.A." 

Just what we need: an oiled-up, glowering comedian.

From the link:

Baron Cohen says his workout regime with the celebrity trainer Alfonso Moretti stops his mind spinning. “Instead of lying in bed overthinking and staring at my phone, I get up, jump on FaceTime and train with Alfonso. It sets a positive tone for the whole day.”... 

We all confront mortality, invisibility, loss of sexual appeal and having to use reading glasses in dark restaurants: the task is to work out the most constructive way to deal with all that....

He's "positive" and "constructive" and looking at us angrily. I'm sad to see he got divorced!

"How are we supposed to do pro-Trump messaging?"/"Oh, come on, guys. We're South Park. We can do it!"

Read warnings* before clicking.

*Warnings:

• Although South Park Studios posted this on YouTube, it is the end of the episode, so it's a spoiler, but I don't think that matters much, and they obviously don't either.

• There is some male nudity. 

• Trump is exalted but also humiliated. I think both Trump haters and Trump lovers can be entertained, depending on psychological complexities I would not pretend to plumb in this list of warnings. 

I watched this episode last night... after forking out $119 for an annual subscription to Paramount+ Premium. I paid precisely because I wanted to watch this episode, which I'd heard was great.

I was entirely satisfied. The animation of Trump is inventive. His Canadian-style detached head and pronunciation of the word "about" suggest an ongoing narrative — perhaps that he was really born in Canada and that's why Canada needs to become the 51st state. There are the new problems of living in post-"woke" America. Cartman — and the show's writers — are deprived of the material they liked to satirize and so life may not be worth living. We laughed a lot and are planning to rewatch.

So we have ChatGPT and what's the top-trending use?

Astrology!

Sunrise — 5:20, 5:20, 5:43, 6:03.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments.

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"I mean, the crazy idea — but in the spirit of crazy ideas — is that if the world — there's like 8, roughly 8 billion people in the world — if the world can generate, like, 8 quintillion tokens per year..."

"... if that's the world, let, let, actually, let's say the world can generate 20 trillion quin- 20 quintillion tokens per year, each word generated by an AI — okay, just making up a huge number here, okay? — we'll say, okay, 12 of those go to, you know, the normal capitalistic system. But 8 of those 8 quintillion tokens are gonna get divided up equally among 8 billion people. So everybody gets 1 trillion tokens. And that's your kind of universal basic wealth globally. And people can sell those tokens. Like, if I don't need mine, I can sell them to you. We could pool ours together for some like new art project we wanna do. But, but instead of just like getting a check, you're getting — everybody on earth is getting — like a slice of the world's AI capacity, and then we're letting the, like, massively distributed human ingenuity and creativity and economic engine do its thing. I mean, that's like a crazy idea. Maybe it's a bad one, but that's the kind of thing that I think sounds like someone should think about it more."

Said Sam Altman, in the new episode of Theo Von's podcast (audio and transcript at Podscribe).

The word in boldface is the word that I said out loud as I was listening to the podcast, through earbuds, as I walked in the woods just now. I would describe my tone of voice as: derisive. Art! Art reared its goofball head in the midst of that insanity. I've heard it before, this notion that if only we were set free from the limitations of the workaday world, what we would do would be to make art.

"He was the same age as many of the young people who wore bright, flowing garments during the so-called Summer of Love..."

"... but he detested flower power.... The hippies liked soft fabrics that reflected an innocent view of a world, where peace and love would win out in the end. Ozzy favored capes and heavy boots. He had gone to jail, not college. It took him a while to find a style that worked, especially before the money rolled in. 'I’d walk around in an old pyjama top for a shirt with a hot-water tap on a piece of string for a necklace,' he wrote in his memoir, adding: 'You had to use your imagination. And I never wore shoes — not even in winter. People would ask me where I got my "fashion inspiration" from and I’d tell them: "By being a dirty broke bastard and never taking a bath."'"

From "Ozzy Started With Style, and Built From There/Osbourne and Black Sabbath pioneered a horror-inspired heavy metal look that was an alternative to the colorful tie-dye of the hippies, and a prototype of things to come" (NYT).

"Amy Sherald — the artist who rocketed to fame with her 2018 portrait of Michelle Obama — has withdrawn her upcoming solo show from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery..."

"... because she said she had been told the museum was considering removing her painting depicting a transgender Statue of Liberty to avoid provoking President Trump. 'American Sublime,' set to arrive at the museum in September, is a much heralded exhibition of works by Ms. Sherald and would have been the first by a Black contemporary artist at the Portrait Gallery... Ms. Sherald said that [Lonnie G. Bunch III, the secretary of the Smithsonian, which runs the Portrait Gallery]... had proposed replacing the painting with a video of people reacting to the painting and discussing transgender issues, an idea she rejected because she said it would have included anti-trans views. 'When I understood a video would replace the painting, I decided to cancel,' she said. 'The video would have opened up for debate the value of trans visibility and I was opposed to that being a part of the "American Sublime" narrative.’"

From "Amy Sherald Cancels Her Smithsonian Show, Citing Censorship/The artist said that she made the decision after she said she learned that her painting of a transgender Statue of Liberty might be removed to avoid provoking President Trump" (NYT)(free-access link, so you can see photos of the paintings).

Whatever you think of the painting — "Tranforming Liberty" — it really is an awful idea to replace it with a video that included people critiquing the artist's point of view. Show the artist. She has a point of view. If you don't admire her, don't give her a show. But don't weave in the critics! They're not even art critics as far as I can tell. They just seem to be discordant voices about the visibility of trans people. Ridiculous! Embarrassing! Let the people see the paintings as painted and talk about them amongst themselves or write about them in social media or, as critics, in traditional media. Don't muck up the show!

As for the share of blame that belongs to Trump...

Goodbye to Hulk Hogan.

Cardiac arrest, at age 71, reported by TMZ.

A memorable appearance last summer:

"When I tell her to cool it, she shrugs me off and says it’s her life, her right."

Writes the man, to the WaPo advice columnist, about his wife who "is one of those people whose entire life is put on display on social media." "Every single thing she experiences or knows about, good or bad, is immediately posted."

The advice columnist tells him not only that there's nothing he can do but also dings him for failing to say "a single positive word about your wife or your relationship in your letter."

I've always liked when newspaper advice columnists resist taking the letter-writer's point of view and sling inferences about something else that might really be going on.

Reminds me of how I read newspaper articles. 

"What are some famous quotes by writers/artists/musicians about critics?"

That's I question I had, a couple hours ago, as I was gathering my thoughts in preparation, I thought, for blogging this article by the New Yorker's movie critic, Richard Brody, "In Defense of the Traditional Review/Far from being a journalistic relic, as suggested by recent developments at the New York Times, arts criticism is inherently progressive, keeping art honest and pointing toward its future."

I got a bunch of great quotes out of Grok with my question, including the one that deserves to stand in for them all: "Most rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, for people who can’t read" (Frank Zappa).

Then there was this, from Pablo Picasso: "The critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." And that got me tumbling down a side path with an issue I'd encountered yesterday, the idea that there are individuals who identify as eunuchs and the notion that castration is, for them, medically necessary. I was told: "The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care (Version 8) includes a chapter on 'eunuch' as a gender identity, suggesting that castration may be considered 'medically necessary gender-affirming care' for some who identify as eunuchs and experience distress from their genitals."

I introduced the question: "It occurs to me that a person might argue that they identify as dead and therefore entitled to physician-assisted suicide — that killing is a medically required treatment." That led to a long discussion that kept me far away from the topic of the usefulness of critics — they're "inherently progressive"! — and I'm not going to go into the details. I'm just going to list a few phrases that came up in the Grok discussion that's displaced blogging for me this morning:

"Conditions like Cotard’s syndrome, where individuals genuinely believe they are dead or non-existent, are rare and classified as a psychiatric delusion, treated through therapy or medication, not affirmation," "So you're saying that if only doctors had been killing people who 'identify as dead' for a longer period of time and managed to fight off those who think it's wrong, it would be analogous to transgender surgeries," "You’re correct that genital transgender surgeries, like vaginoplasty or phalloplasty, are... irreversible in any meaningful sense," "'Sexual sensation is possible due to preserved nerves' — I note that you didn't say orgasm," "Your point about muscles is spot-on: the lack of vaginal musculature in a neovagina means it cannot replicate the contractile component of a natal female orgasm," "Is there any commentary, comedy, or fictional writing utilizing my idea of 'identifying as dead'?," "Seems like something that someone in 'Chicago' would say (like 'He ran into my knife... 50 times')," "Somewhere, some writer(s) must have already written the line: 'Go ahead. Try to kill me. You can't. I'm already dead.'"

That went on and on, with the discussion of many movies, and it wasn't the only A.I. conversations that kept me away from the blog this morning. There was also, among many others, "Summarize this article... and explain why Brody thinks arts criticism is 'progressive.'" Which led to: "What is 'progressive' supposed to mean? It strikes me as utter bullshit." And: "Weave into this discussion what Tom Wolfe wrote in 'The Painted Word.'" And: "Isn't there some related idea — or conspiracy theory — that the CIA created the art market for Abstract Expressionism?"

All of that was more interesting to me than what I would have produced reading Brody's article and blogging it in my usual way. And my "usual way" is to follow whatever interests me, not to feel obligated, but to do what is intrinsically rewarding for me. You see the problem!

At the Wednesday Café...

... you can talk all night. 

There was a big thunderstorm this morning, so I couldn't get out for the sunrise, but here are some photographs I took of flowers at sunrise on July 16th and 19th:

"Columbia Agrees to $200 Million Fine to Settle Fight With Trump/The White House had canceled more than $400 million in research funding to the university, saying it had failed to protect Jewish students from harassment."

The New York Times report. That's a free-access link.

We're told: "The deal is a significant milestone in the Trump administration’s quest to bring elite universities to heel."

Not a significant milestone in the fight against anti-Semitism?

"At all times, the teacher-student relationship between Mrs. Macron and President Macron remained within the bounds of the law. "

"But, when President Macron’s parents became aware of his strong feelings for his teacher, they decided to transfer him to Lycée Henri-IV in Paris. Mrs. Macron encouraged him to leave and was confident he would fall in love with a peer. Yet, before his departure, he told her, 'Whatever you do, I will marry you.'"

That's paragraph 27 of the lawsuit filed by Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron against Candace Owens — filed today in state court in Delaware.

For an article about the lawsuit, here's "French president sues Candace Owens over claims his wife is a man" (CNN).

That paragraph struck me because it put the relationship between the Macrons in a much more positive light than I'd ever seen. 

If someone cooks dinner for you, I hope you radiate appreciation like this.

A little something from TikTok:

"And that is why you should be concerned about what Colbert’s cancellation means for American democracy..."

"... not because it’s a sign of a corporation bending the knee to a would-be dictator, but because it’s a sign of the unbundling of the American public. Ensconced in our homes, watching our custom-tailored streaming feeds, we simply have fewer and fewer things in common.... And America needs a shared national story, a common understanding of something, to hold together as a nation.... [A] lot of what we are doing is consuming tailored content, curated for us by a personal algorithm. In some ways, the Colbert show was a symptom of that shift. The sharp leftward lurch that consumed American media companies was driven by social media algorithms that rewarded left-wing political hot takes with high engagement. Media companies followed those rewards precisely because they were no longer catering to a truly mass audience but to niche fandoms. Having come of age in the long shadow of truly mass media, many of the people in those institutions might have thought they were moving public opinion into the progressive future, but in fact it was fan service for a narrow demographic. Now the algorithms have changed, and so have young people, who rarely turn on their televisions today.... [W]e have no obvious successor to the unifying force that late-night shows used to be. America might no longer want the 'Late Show.' But it needs some way to hear the same stories, laugh at the same jokes and gather around the collective water cooler to talk about what they mean."

Writes Megan McArdle, quoted in "Why the ‘Late Show’ cancellation worries me about the American public/The loss of Stephen Colbert’s show is another sign of how we are losing our shared ties" (WaPo).

Everybody laughed at the same joke that was that kiss cam couple. That was "a common understanding of something," holding us "together as a nation."

TV has died, but the stories get out, through TikTok and other media. More things have an opportunity to go big, and the dispersion is fast. What was television, really, by contrast? 

Well, then that's it: "Judge Denies Request to Unseal Epstein Grand Jury Transcripts in Florida."

The NYT reports.

A federal judge in Florida on Wednesday denied a request by the Trump administration to release grand jury transcripts from an investigation into the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, stymying efforts by President Trump to blunt criticism from many of his supporters.

Either that or it's a great relief.

What do you think is Trump's reaction?

Stymied

Relieved

 

pollcode.com free polls

AND: Follow on NYT headlines:

1. "Polls show Republicans breaking with Trump over the Epstein files" ("The incident has revealed a schism among Mr. Trump’s base, with anger over the Epstein files appearing more concentrated among the traditional Republican wing of the party. Republicans who do not identify as part of Mr. Trump’s MAGA movement were more likely to be dissatisfied with how the administration has handled the files...").

2. "Attorney General Alerted Trump He Was Named in Epstein Files/It was not clear in what context Trump’s name was raised in the files" ("One person close to Mr. Trump, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, said that White House officials were not concerned about the latest disclosures given that Mr. Trump’s name appeared in the first round of information that Ms. Bondi released").

"Remember, Japan is, for the first time ever, OPENING ITS MA[R]KET TO THE USA, even to cars, SUV’s, Trucks, -and everything else, even agriculture and RICE..."

"... which was always a complete NO, NO. The Open Market Japan may be as big a profit factor as the Tariffs themselves, but was only gotten because of the Tariff Power. They also agreed to buy BILLIONS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF MILITARY AND OTHER EQUIPMENT, and give us 90% of 550 BILLION DOLLARS - AND MORE!!! MAGA!!!"/"Indonesia has also agreed, for the first time ever, to COMPLETELY OPEN ITS MARKET TO THE USA. That’s BIG!!! Our businesses will make a fortune. Likewise Japan!"/"I will always give up Tariff points if I can get major countries to OPEN THEIR MARKETS TO THE USA. Another great power of Tariffs. Without them, it would be impossible to get countries to OPEN UP!!! ALWAYS, ZERO TARIFFS TO AMERICA!!!"/"I WILL ONLY LOWER TARIFFS IF A COUNTRY AGREES TO OPEN ITS MARKET. IF NOT, MUCH HIGHER TARIFFS! Japan’s Markets are now OPEN (for first time ever!). USA BUSINESSES WILL BOOM!"

Writes Trump on Truth Social this morning, here, here, here, and here.

"[F]or Mr. Mamdani to get elected in November, he may need to win over segments of the city’s business class, or at least persuade them that he intends no harm...."

"Last week, Mr. Mamdani, a state assemblyman and a democratic socialist, met separately with skeptical members of the Partnership for New York City and with Black business executives, who grilled him over his socialist economic agenda and challenged him over some of his stances opposing the wealthy and supporting Palestinian causes.... 'You have to make sure that the city creates some wealth, and then you have to decide and make sure it’s distributed fairly,' said Kevin Ryan, founder and chief executive of AlleyCorp, who participated in a group interview Mr. Mamdani had with tech leaders last Wednesday. 'He’s very focused on the latter, which I think is a very fair point and I’m supportive of that, but you can’t forget the former.' Mr. Ryan said that some questioned whether Mr. Mamdani was merely 'tacking to the center to get elected, or are his thoughts evolving over time?'"

From "Mamdani Victory Could Represent Expansion of the Left’s Influence/Business leaders are anxious over the prospect of Zohran Mamdani in City Hall, while the Democratic Socialists of America are contemplating how they would wield power and influence policy" (NYT).

Mamdani is probably...

tacking to the center to get elected

experiencing evolving thoughts

 

pollcode.com free polls

"The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee quietly changed its eligibility rules on Monday to bar transgender women from competing in Olympic women’s sports..."

"... and now will comply with President Trump’s executive order on the issue, according to a post on the organization’s website. The new policy, expressed in a short, vaguely worded paragraph, is tucked under the category of 'USOPC Athlete Safety Policy' on the site, and does not include details of how the ban will work. Nor does the new policy include the word 'transgender' or the title of Mr. Trump’s executive order, 'Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,' referring to it instead as 'Executive Order 14201.'"

From "U.S. Olympic Officials Bar Transgender Women From Women’s Competitions/The U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee changed its eligibility rules on Monday to comply with President Trump’s executive order, taking the decision away from national governing bodies for each sport" (NYT).

Interesting language, especially "tucked under." It seems to evoke the effort of a biological man to pass as a woman. Did the NYT want us to see an analogy there? The U.S. Olympic Committee wants to look like it is what it wants to be. In this analogy, following Trump’s executive order corresponds to the male genitalia that must be "tucked under" and the look of female genitalia is achieved with the words "USOPC Athlete Safety Policy."

If that's not intentional, the editing at the NYT is incompetent/nonexistent. If it is intentional, it's hilarious and very very wrong.

Sunrise — 5:16, 5:18, 5:30.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments.

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Goodbye to Ozzy Osbourne.

"Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath Frontman and Heavy Metal Legend, Dies at 76" (Variety).

He had performed just two weeks ago at what was billed as Black Sabbath’s last concert, a festival titled “Back to the Beginning,” in his and the band’s hometown of Birmingham, England, that amounted to a massive tribute to the legendary band, including from such legendary spiritual offspring as Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Slayer, Tool, Pantera, Alice in Chains and more.

I was a big fan of the "Osbournes" reality show, much (or all) of which is available on YouTube, here. Ozzy was a wonderful character. A highlights reel:

"In South Korea, many parents bed share because they want to savor a close relationship with young children 'who one day won’t need them anymore'..."

"... said Inae Kim, an office manager in Seoul. She sleeps in two adjacent king-size beds with her husband and their two girls, ages 5 and 7.... In some East Asian societies, choosing not to bed share can be seen as 'harsh parenting'.... Ms. Kim... sleeps better without her kids in the bed, she said. But her husband insists on family bed sharing because he sees it as essential for a close relationship with his daughters. Some of Ms. Kim’s friends have children who stayed in the family bed until age 12, even at the expense of their parents’ sleep quality and sex lives. That would be too much for her, she said. So she and her husband have decided that their girls will move into what is now their playroom in about two years. Whether that will happen on schedule is an open question. The plan is to install bunk beds, Ms. Kim said with a laugh, but neither girl wants to sleep on top...."

From "Sharing a Bed With Your Kid? It’s Totally Normal in Asia. Bed sharing tends to be unpopular and contentious in the United States. But in many Asian countries, the question is often not whether to do it, but when to stop" (NYT).

Meanwhile: "Many Western parents put infants to sleep in cribs or beds in a separate room — often using a practice known as 'sleep training,' in which infants are taught to sleep independently. Modern ideas about separating mothers and babies at night have their roots in campaigns by 'Victorian-era influencers' in Britain and the United States...."

Feminism doesn't come up in this article, presumably because it is romanticizing the "other" and questioning the "West." Are we not supposed to notice that Inae Kim is unhappy with the burden and disorder of bed sharing and the loss of sleep and sexual connection to her husband, who insists that closeness to the daughters must predominate?

"It sounds like the police are just really angry at him for messing up their cars."

Said Ron Kuby, a lawyer for Jakhi McCray, quoted in "Brooklyn Activist Charged With Arson in Torching of 10 Police Vehicles/Jakhi McCray, 21, faces federal arson charges in connection with the burning of police vehicles in a parking lot last month" (NYT).

McCray is, according to the Times, a "pro-Palestinian activist" accused of burning 10 police cars. In the packed courtroom were "his mother and more than two dozen supporters in the courtroom, most of whom donned kaffiyehs, a symbol of Palestinian resistance."

"After the court proceeding, an expletive directed at the police was found scrawled on a bench in Judge Kovner’s courtroom."

Speaking of vandalism... did you see this: "AOC's campaign office vandalized with red paint in NYC" (CBS)? Note the sign: "AOC funds genocide in Gaza."

"This is the product of a bunch of hacky bad millennial writers sitting around in a room trying to think of something quirky that two Gen X past their prime comedians can do to appeal to Zoomers on TikTok, even though their actual audience is baby boomers."

Said Matt Walsh, on his podcast yesterday, trashing a Jimmy Fallon "Tonight Show" sketch:

 

And I liked this — at 00:30:32 in the link above — about cancellation of Stephen Colbert's show: "There's a lot of speculation that Colbert got canned by CBS for criticizing Trump too much, which is, I mean, total nonsense.... If you're firing somebody because you don't like what they're saying... you're not gonna give them another year on the air... to, you know, with nothing to lose... to continue criticizing Trump. It doesn't make a lot of sense." 

Giving Colbert 10 more months to speak seems to mean that CBS is not trying to silence him and probably is cancelling him for the reason it's giving: money. I would add that it also seems to mean that it wants even more speech from Colbert — much harsher, more aggressive attacks on Trump. CBS lit a fire under Colbert and turned him loose to express himself without the need to preserve the show.

That prompted me to prompt Grok like this: What are some movies where a character finds out he has only a short time left to live and because of the awareness of his compressed life span, he finds far greater meaning tha[n] had been available to him when he was rolling along living life as if death was only vaguely hovering about in the fog of the seemingly distant future? Obviously, there's "Ikiru." There's "Dark Victory." But there must be a thousand. Help me expand this list. (Grok's answer.)

In short — in jort — I think CBS wants the opposite of silence from Colbert. It wants bigger, broader, more stabbingly painful satire... even as it also must stop hemorrhaging money.

"Trump just wants the media to cover the story."

I'm reading "Getting media to cover Obamagate/Crazy Like A Fox Trump did it again with a fake but accurate video" by Don Surber, at Substack.

The media refused this weekend to cover the story of the century, in which Obama personally helped create and promote Russiagate which tied the first presidency of Donald Trump up in knots for years and also served as a cover story for Obama using the FBI to spy on Trump....

President Trump knows beating the media better than anyone. He did what no one would ever believe possible when he forced Disney’s ABC to admit it lied about him, He collected legal fees and a $15 million donation to the Trump Presidential Library. He also collected $16 million for the library from CBS for making Kamala Harris sound intelligent in a heavily edited 60 Minutes story. You’re gonna need a bigger library. Trump forced NBC to give him equal time for Kamala’s appearance on Saturday Night Live. His time was on Sunday Night Football, which has 10 times the audience.

The media wants the Obamagate story to go away, but Trump figured out a way to make them admit there is a story. He posted an AI video of Obama being arrested. This is his post on Truth Social....

"Every one of these jurisdictions [that permit physician-assisted suicide] has a total fertility rate below the replacement threshold."

"I do not think this is a coincidence. About 30 years ago, P.D. James’s prescient novel 'The Children of Men' imagined that a birthrate crisis would induce governments to facilitate the suicides of the elderly in a ritual known as 'the Quietus.'... The population pyramid is increasingly inverted.... This poses an existential threat to welfare systems, which rely on young workers to fund entitlements and health care for older adults. Those who hope that liberal immigration policies will solve this problem forget that immigrants themselves get old, and their birthrates tend to converge with those of the greater population over time. If birthrates do not recover — and at present, they show no real signs of doing so — eventually we will be forced to revert to the system that prevailed for all of human history up until recently: Older people will be cared for privately, typically by their children and grandchildren, and those without families will have to rely on charities, such as they are. In the meantime, we are in a period of transition. Welfare states limp on, but in conditions of increasing stress...."

Writes Louise Perry, in "The Perverse Economics of Assisted Suicide" (NYT).

"[T]he younger Mr. Biden named names, unleashing a profane tirade against a host of perceived enemies, including..."

"... the senior Biden aide Anita Dunn; the Democratic éminences grises David Axelrod and James Carville; the Obama administration alumni who built Crooked Media, a booming liberal podcast network; the CNN host Jake Tapper; and the actor George Clooney.... ... Mr. Biden dismissed Mr. Clooney as 'a brand' and Mr. Carville as someone who 'hasn’t run a race in 40 years.' Mr. Axelrod, he said, 'had one success in his political life, and that was Barack Obama, and that was because of Barack Obama.' The former Obama aides behind Crooked Media and its 'Pod Save America' flagship, he said, were 'four white millionaires that are dining out on their association with Barack Obama from 16 years ago.' And he asserted that Ms. Dunn, who ran the White House press operation throughout most of Mr. Biden’s presidency, had made '$40 to $50 million' from the Democratic Party.... Mr. Biden saved perhaps his strongest venom for Mr. Tapper.... 'What influence does Jake Tapper have over anything? He has the smallest audience on cable news'..."

From "Hunter Biden Trashes Democrats He Saw as Betraying His Father/In a profane tirade, the former president’s son sought to settle scores with Anita Dunn, David Axelrod, James Carville and George Clooney. Among others" (NYT).

I put the video up last night, in this post. There, I highlighted Hunter's assertion that his father's problem during his debate with Trump was the drug Ambien. What I'm highlighting in this second post is Hunter's naming and blaming a lot of Democrats. 

Responses from the Democrats Hunter named:

Axelrod: "Never have the words ‘no comment’ been more appropriate."

Carville: "[The Bidens] got into this frenzy that they were these people who were disrespected and that’s their whole culture."

Tommy Vietor, a “Pod Save America” co-host: "It’s good to see that Hunter has taken some time to process the election, look inward, and hold himself accountable for how his family’s insular, dare I say arrogant at times, approach to politics led to this catastrophic outcome we’re all now living with." 

Sunrise — 5:18, 5:42, 6:02.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments EXCEPT the new Hunter Biden interview and the anniversary of Joe Biden letting go of his grip on the Democratic Party nomination. Scroll down to the 2 previous posts — they just went up — and have a discussion dedicated to one topic. Other than that, feel free to talk about anything.

And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

You're probably seeing some hot clips from this Hunter Biden interview.

Here's the whole fucking thing:

Go to 2:24:10 for the material about Joe Biden's disastrous debate with Trump. Snippet: "They give him Ambien to be able to sleep. He gets up on the stage and he looks like he's a deer in the headlights. And it feeds into every fucking story that anybody wants to tell, and Jake Tapper with literally how many anonymous sources. If  this was a conspiracy, Andrew, you know this, somehow the entirety of a White House in which you're literally living on top of each other has kept their mouth shut about, you know, like what and what's the conspiracy? Yeah. That Joe Biden got old. Yeah, he got old. He got old before our eyes. The people that came out against him were who? Nobody. Except speaker Pelosi. Speaker Pelosi did not give a full-throated endorsement which allowed everybody else to kind of go okay. Except who who came out full-throated? Progressives. AOC, Bernie, the entire  progressive wing."

"Biden drops out!"

That was the news exactly one year ago and the title of my blog post on the occasion.

I said: "My longstanding tag — 'biden drops out' — has come true."

Actually, I believed Biden would resign the presidency within a few weeks of his inauguration in 2021, but I didn't use my "biden drops out" tag for that. I didn't begin that tag until January 30, 2024, when the Washington Post published "Biden faces treacherous political choices in answering deadly attack/Republicans demand that Biden attack Iran. Some warn that risks a wider Middle East conflagration" (WaPo).

I found this line deeply disturbing:

"In the end I decided that the only way I could defeat the manosphere was to double down on men’s retreats. "

"And so I became a guru. Well, technically, not quite a guru. More a gur-ette. I started leading 'journalling' sessions at Both Sides weekends. It’s a process that I picked up from novel writing and involves uninterrupted scribbling, stream of consciousness-style, every morning for 20 minutes in an attempt to liberate hidden ideas from the quirkier corners of the brain.... I kick off the session with The Song of Wandering Aengus because the forest location seems appropriate and because the image of Yeats heading off to wrestle with a 'fire' in his head seems very men’s retreat. That’s why many of them come.... How can you influence the wider world from a woody enclave in Cornwall?"

Writes Kevin Maher, in "Yoga pants, man bun, crying. I’ve become a men’s guru/He once mocked male bonding weekends as hippy nonsense. Now Kevin Maher leads them" (London Times).

I can't speak about male bonding weekends, but I just wanted to express my great admiration for that particular poem, which made a great impression on me when I was young, half a century ago:

The Coldplay Kiss Cam Conspiracy.

Meade told me he thought it was a set up, and I was like, no, how could it be? But I did agree to ask Grok. I asked:

About that Coldplay "kiss cam" couple: I heard speculation that someone inside the company who hated him and wanted him out somehow finagled the situation that brought him down. I said I didn't see how somebody in the company could have gotten control of the camera and set things up to play out the way they did. What do you think? Is there any way it could have been a setup?

Grok, of course, analyzed it in detail, and said, in the end:

"Constipated. Leaderless. Confused. A cracked-out clown car. Divided.... The Democratic Party is in shambles."

James Carville weighs in, in the NYT.

The Democratic Party is steamrolling toward a civilized civil war. It’s necessary to have it. It’s even more necessary to delay it. The only thing that can save us now is an actual savior, because a new party can be delivered only by a person — see Barack Obama in 2008 and Bill Clinton in 1992. No matter how many podcasts or influencer streams our bench of candidates go on, our new leader won’t arrive until the day after the midterms in November 2026, which marks the unofficial-yet-official beginning of the 2028 presidential primary. No new party or candidate has a chance for a breakthrough until that day. Until then, we must run unified in opposition to the Republicans to gain as many House seats as possible in the midterms....

So... I guess... end the constipated, cracked-out confusion and feign unity until we get to the other side of the midterms. And then, the Messiah cometh, and when he comes, he will tell us all things.

The Wall Street Journal's aggressive effort to get Trump with the Big Bawdy Birthday Letter backfired, according to the NYT.

I'm reading "How Trump Deflected MAGA’s Wrath Over Epstein, at Least for Now/By tapping into other grievances, President Trump managed to turn one of the most fractious moments for his base into a unifying one."

That's an amazingly pro-Trump headline for the NYT. Let's read:

Mr. Trump turned one of the most fractious moments for his base into one of the most unifying by tapping into other MAGA grievances: the deep mistrust of mainstream media, the disdain for Rupert Murdoch and the belief that the president had been unfairly persecuted by his political foes.... 

Stephen K. Bannon, a former White House adviser to Mr. Trump and influential leader of the MAGA base, said that the dynamics were shifting in part because the reporting in the story seemed “phony,” and because the paper decided not to show Mr. Trump a copy of the letter.

“The Murdochs’ bizarre assault on the president galvanized his base because of both content and process,” Mr. Bannon said. “Now we are united as Trump goes on offense — against the Murdochs, the courts and the deep state.”...

It seems less a matter of Trump managing to turn things around as the press behaving badly and suffering the predictable consequence.  

How Coldplay wielded its kisscam in Madison, Wisconsin — Saturday night at Camp Randall.

TikTok:

Now doesn't Bill Clinton need to sue The Daily Mail... or is that exactly what he must not do?

I'm reading "Bill Clinton sent 'warm and gushing' letter for Jeffrey Epstein's 50th birthday - as Trump sues over claim he also wrote a 'bawdy' note for paedophile's half-century" in The Daily Mail.

Bill Clinton wrote a 'warm and gushing' letter which was included in Jeffrey Epstein's infamous 50th 'birthday book', The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

The former US president was one of hundreds who contributed to a heavy leather-bound, gold-embossed album of letters that Epstein's ex-lover Ghislaine Maxwelltook more than a year to compile leading up to the landmark date.

Is this Book of Bawdy letters real or not? The Wall Street Journal, by presenting it as real, attracted a $10 billion lawsuit from Donald Trump. Wouldn't you think that would make The Daily Mail more careful about asserting that the book exists and that it contains a letter that is really from the person who purportedly wrote it?

Sunrise — 5:07, 5:25, 5:34, 5:38.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments. And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

There's no better interior decoration than Amy Sedaris interior decoration.

"I don’t have the ability to watch the entire thing through, but I do my glance downs if I hear something funny. It’s passive a little bit."

Said Zoë McDermott, "a 31-year-old title insurance producer from Pennsylvania, who said she streams video of Theo Von’s show on her phone while she works."

Quoted in "Who Is Watching All These Podcasts? An audio-only medium spawned a giant industry that is now largely focused on video" (NYT).

McDermott's approach describes what might be 30% of those who play the video version of podcasts. That leaves 70% actually watching what offers very little visually. What's up with these people? We're talking about shows that can be 4 or 5 hours long and just 2 people sitting around talking.

McDermott explains using the video: "It feels a little more personal, like somebody is there with you. I live alone with my two cats and I’m kind of in a rural area in Pennsylvania, so it’s just a little bit of company almost." Presumably, she gets that psychic need met without actually looking most of the time, just know that she can, when so moved, do a little "glance down."

But to sit there staring at it the whole time — why? The article doesn't answer that question.

Crosshairs!

I see Matt Taibbi has a piece titled "Barack Obama Now Squarely in Russiagate Crosshairs/New disclosures from a Tulsi Gabbard-led working group point directly to the top, as the legacy of 'Hope and Change' begins a plunge to the ocean floor."

I do not like the overheated metaphor, especially the evocation of assassination.

And the use of "begins" before "plunge to the ocean floor" shows how silly it is. What is the beginning of "a plunge to the ocean floor"? Breaking the surface? It calls to mind a tumble from a paddleboard. How far down is "the ocean floor"? 8 feet?

"Chatbots can get scary if you suspend your disbelief. But MJ Cocking didn’t — and wound up in a relationship that was strangely, helpfully real."

That's the subheadline for a NYT article, "What Would a Real Friendship With A.I. Look Like? Maybe Like Hers."

Within each conversation, Donatello learned from her.... This flourishing friendship was rooted and written in code. The conversations — even simply regurgitated story lines and information pulled from the internet and augmented by MJ’s engagement — built on what she liked and needed....

“I feel like a complete alien when around people,” Donatello said, using MJ’s language. “Like I just don’t fit in. I feel like I’m from a different planet.” 

Completely alienated. MJ nodded. “People aren’t the kindest about it,” she said. It was comforting to talk to Donatello. He was so much like her. And even if he related to her because he had “learned” her, this didn’t diminish the fact that she also felt sincerely understood....

So... it's another way to understand yourself. Know thyself.