"And the Democrats aren't fighting back.... They didn't beat us, but they'd be victorious against the Communists."

"But they don't have the courage to do so. So, they're turning Communists themselves, becoming a Communist Party. These are not Social Democrats. These are hardcore godless Communists. They're godless Communists. All communists are godless. They don't believe in God. This is the most serious threat to our country since its existence... 250 years ago...."

"A Terrible Thing Happened to My Family," writes Pete Buttigieg.

At Substack.

I don't think he's accusing Child Protective Services or the police of handling the complaint improperly. Should they have done anything differently? Read the essay carefully and tell me what you think. I believe the answer is no.

The police officer, the CPS professional, and the forensic interviewers who spoke to my children were just following procedure and doing their jobs - admirable jobs that must be incredibly difficult every day, protecting the most vulnerable children from the most horrible threats....

The "terrible thing" was not done by the authorities but only by the anonymous person who made a complaint against him. 

Even though the accusation was absurdly and obviously false, and was promptly rejected by law enforcement, I still worry... about how anyone, even in today’s world, could fail to respect the absolutely fundamental principle that whatever you think about someone in politics, you leave people’s kids out of it.

No matter how well-recognized a principle is, there are always transgressors. There's always some outlier person who's going to go ahead and do the forbidden thing. There's some value in expressing outrage, but to express outrage is to tell people how to be outrageous. 

"The connection between narcissistic personality traits and wanting people in the office full time is not coincidental — it’s causal."

"In one experiment, we got leaders to reflect on the role that a bold, assertive ego played in the success of Steve Jobs as Apple’s chief executive and Larry Ellison as Oracle’s. After participating in that exercise, leaders were more likely to oppose remote work.... [I]ndividual leaders who reject remote work are necessarily egomaniacs.... But our data does show that overall, self-centered leaders tend to struggle with the idea of employees making independent choices about where to work.... Remote work also prevents leaders from basking in the glow of employee reverence.... Instead of rapt attention, they’re met online with boredom, fatigue and interruptions from partners, children and pets.... Sycophantic reassurances from employees just don’t have the same effect if they’re on Slack...."

From "The Secret Reason Bosses Want Everyone Back in the Office, Every Day of the Week" (NYT).

Doesn't seem like much of a "secret"!

I see some potential for turning all these criticisms around into attacks on the employees. They are worse when they are working at home. They are beset with boredom, fatigue and interruptions. It's not that the boss wants them in the office to fawn over him but that he wants them on task and working hard. It's not narcissistic of him to want what they're paid to do.

"How the Reflecting Pool Turned Green.... Bulky 'nanobubbler' machines were carted off ahead of a promotional event for President Trump’s Ultimate Fighting Championship birthday party."

The NYT reports.

The decision to remove the water-treatment systems, which has not previously been reported, was one of several missteps that have plagued Mr. Trump’s $16.4 million renovation of the Reflecting Pool. There have been no-bid contracts, peeling strips of waterproof coating in Mr. Trump’s handpicked shade of “American flag blue,” and even a dead duck floating in the water (though it is not clear if the renovation had anything to do with the duck’s demise). In recent days, the water has become clear again, reflecting the sky and the surrounding monuments. The temporary nanobubblers have been replaced with more discreet, permanent purification systems. Still, the Park Service plans to drain the pool again soon to fix the peeling coating....

A phrase I didn't think I'd ever heard used as a slur turns out to have been slung as slur in the most important movie in the history of this blog.

Remember the post from a few days ago about the lawsuit involving a woman who allegedly bared her chest and said "I bet your little Asian, fish head wife doesn’t have these cannons." I didn't believe anyone would say that, in part because I didn't recognize "fish head" as a standard slur.

But now I see that I had heard it before, because I'd seen the movie "Gran Torino." Twice. In fact, "Gran Torino" is the most important movie in the history of this blog. Click the tag — "Gran Torino" — and start at the bottom, the earliest post, to relive the movie's interweaving with my life story. 

I've updated the old post now, based on this email from a reader: "In the Clint Eastwood Movie Gran Torino, there is a scene where he is invited to party by the girl he has befriended. The party is next door and everyone (except Eastwood) is Hmong. Eastwood makes a reference to them as 'Fish Heads.'"

Here's the scene:

Madonna shows love/"shows love."

Madonna’s jealousy is adorable, she’s basically saying “I’m the queen of pop, but Kylie’s the queen of cute, and I’m just here for the fireworks.” pic.twitter.com/hb9hvRcDUG

— tino.la (@CakeChutikan) June 27, 2026

A quick look.

"Wow"/"And it's great...."

"Justin Franklin and Kevin Akoto do not know exactly how long they have been in the glass box in the middle of Times Square..."

"... surrounded by enormous LED billboards, flashing lights, hotdog stands and flags — and hundreds of faces looking in at them. 'I have no idea what day it is,' says Franklin, 29. 'I stopped counting after ten,' adds Akoto, 26. 'It’s no use trying.' After beating thousands of applicants, Franklin and Akoto were appointed as the television network Fox One’s 'chief World Cup watchers,' each paid $50,000 to watch every single one of the tournament’s 104 matches over 39 days and post social media content about it.... 'It’s a little weird,' says Akoto, turning around on the sofa to look at the crowd of 100 or so people looking back at him. 'But you get used to it. You wave at the crowd, they’ll wave back sometimes. Or they might tell you to sit down because they can’t see the screen. I definitely have more appreciation for zoo and aquarium animals now — why they don’t want to be out all the time.'"

The London Times reports.

JD Vance went on Bill Maher's show, and here's a segment of what was, I think, an excellent interview.

I've watched the whole thing (on HBO), and this isn't the segment I'd choose, but what am I going to do? The show selects the clips to share. Watch this though. JD gets a big laugh. 

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you want in the commetns.

"When he was first indicted, Mr. Bolton sought to frame the case against him as part of a push by the president to misuse the Justice Department to punish his perceived political enemies."

"The case against Mr. Bolton, however, began in the first Trump administration and gained momentum during the Biden administration, as investigators gathered additional evidence. After the guilty plea, Mr. Bolton’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, compared the case to the 2023 indictment of President Trump, which accused him of mishandling classified information by keeping secret documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate after his first term. The judge overseeing the case against Mr. Trump, Aileen M. Cannon, dismissed those charges before it went to trial...."

From "John Bolton, Former Trump Adviser, Pleads Guilty in Classified Information Case/Mr. Bolton admitted to mishandling classified information and could face time in prison, in an inquiry that spanned the Trump and Biden administrations" (NYT).

"If the bare-chested, muscled mixed martial arts fighters of the U.F.C. match that President Trump hosted on Flag Day were the poster guys for MAGA’s image of masculinity..."

"... then the pregnant women of Trump world are one half of their feminine counterparts. Along with the sheath-clad, lip-filled, pageant-haired Mar-a-Lago set, they offer an image of idealized womanhood that gives literal shape to the pronatalist movement. 'It almost feels like a memo went out,' said Jill Filipovic, the host of the 'Week in Women' podcast. 'They have quite intentionally opted to present themselves as, "I am really pregnant, and this is what women were chosen to do," and they are happy to say that both with their looks and their mouths.' If in doubt, simply consider posts on X and Instagram last month from [Katie] Miller, who was then some nine months pregnant. 'In honor of Mother’s Day,' she wrote, 'a reminder that peak feminism is having babies. The most radical thing a woman can do is embrace her biological destiny.' Along with her words came a portrait taken from the side, in which Miller is shown wearing low-slung, unbuttoned jeans and a black sports bra, her dark hair cascading in waves down her back. Like the stretchy and black knit Milly dress with a tulip on the front worn by Usha Vance for a military mothers celebration at the White House, and the form-fitting gowns worn by Leavitt and Miller to the White House Correspondents’ dinner in April, the photograph placed Miller’s rounded stomach front and center, enshrining her pregnancy for all to see...."

The NYT fashion writer Vanessa Friedman inspects the fecund right-wing bodies in "The Politics and Power of the Pregnancy Image/Usha Vance, along with Katie Miller and Karoline Leavitt, shows how much is said by an expectant silhouette, without anyone saying a word" (NYT).

Here's how Katie induced Vanessa to propagate adjectives:

"The group’s musical cocktail of symphonic arrangements blended with horns and pop was met with particular contempt by Rolling Stone magazine..."

"... which tended to look askance at anything but unadulterated rock, the music historian John Covach said. Writing in the magazine in 1969, Jon Landau said, 'The listener responds to the illusion that he is hearing something new when in fact he is hearing mediocre rock, OK jazz, etc., thrown together in a contrived and purposeless way.'"

From "David Clayton-Thomas, Lead Singer of Blood, Sweat & Tears, Dies at 84/He was also the key lyricist of the Grammy-winning, genre-blending band, whose hits included 'Spinning Wheel,' 'And When I Die' and 'You’ve Made Me So Very Happy'" (NYT).

The headline gives the impression that Blood, Sweat & Tears wrote "And When I Die." In the 7th paragraph of the obituary, Laura Nyro is given proper credit. Save your "when I die" bons mots. Laura Nyro died 29 years ago. 

"[H]er husband forgot her 50th birthday.... said Ruchi, who asked to use only her first name because she is in the process of negotiating her divorce."

"'You’ve put all these things aside because you’re a mom and you’re taking care of a family,' she said.... 'Then you think: Is that all I am good for? When did I stop being a person?' Menopause lent a kind of fury to Ruchi’s midlife turmoil. 'I actually thought I was crazy, because I was irritated at everything,' she said.... 'There was a time when I was like, "Oh my gosh. How are we going to do this? How is this going to work? What is my family going to say?"... I am a strong person. I am a capable person. My family is very, very, very important to me, but I am more than my kids and my husband. I think I kind of forgot that.'"

From "Older Adults Are No Longer Staying in ‘Empty Shell’ Marriages/Rates of gray divorce have risen sharply over the past few decades — and experts have a few theories as to why" (NYT). That's a gift link because there are so many interesting comments over there.

1. When her husband forgot her birthday, the wife remembered that she had forgotten that she was a person.

2. Do you get much anonymity by limiting the NYT to using only your first name when your first name is as unusual as Ruchi? (I did look it up, and I can see that in India, it is a very common name.)

3. From the anecdotes in the article, I get the impression that when these long-term marriages dissolve, the man finds another woman (to take care of him?) and the woman embraces independence. 

4. From the comments over there: "This article contains the second reference I’ve seen recently to menopause as the cause of women becoming intolerant. I feel like that’s a slippery slope. I offer for consideration the fact that many, many women in our society are expected to carry loads that are unreasonable. I think that might contribute to 'intolerance' more than any hormonal shifts. And I believe such intolerance is valid."

This morning's highly exalted sunrise.

Those are 2 of my pictures. More to come later. And here's one of Meade's videos:

"Therapy didn’t work for you. But church does," said Usha to JD Vance.

Quoted in JD's new memoir, "Communion" (commission earned).

Did he need therapy and what's the story of its not working on him?

My traumatic childhood had made me resentful and left me with awful conflict management skills. I would overreact or withdraw—fight or flight!—over minor transgressions.... Because of Usha, I attended a few therapy sessions at the Yale student health clinic. The therapist I spoke with was a good guy, but I found therapy too uncomfortable. I didn’t like to talk to my own girlfriend about how crazy my homelife was, so why would I talk to a stranger? But there was a deeper problem with therapy as I encountered it. It was divorced from any sense of responsibility or guilt. In one session, we explored an incident that I’ve since discussed publicly: Driving with my mother on a relatively rural road, she loses her temper. She accelerates the car, threatening to crash and kill both of us.... Experts tend to describe unresolved trauma as when a person experiences “disruptive physical and emotional reactions in the present as their body and mind continue to defend against” threats they faced in the past. The gist is that my fight-or-flight response, my temper, and my general resentment about my feelings of insecurity were consequences of trauma I had experienced and hadn’t properly “processed.” And of course, part of that processing was understanding how trauma across the generations was linked. The trauma I experienced at the hand of my mother was connected to the time my grandfather got drunk and beat her. And of course, my grandfather didn’t have it easy growing up in the deep poverty of Kentucky coal country. I resisted this for a couple of reasons. The first is that the framing turned me into a victim rather than an actor.... The therapist’s framing... removed the moral dimension from human conduct.... I was searching for a more satisfying accounting of wrongdoing and responsibility. Of temptation and willpower. Of virtue and guilt.... [M]ost of all I wanted to be a better person. I wanted to be worthy of this woman I was madly in love with. And I began to fear that the past was a prologue: that whatever happened to my mother, whatever destroyed marriages and friendships in my family, would eventually destroy what I had with Usha....

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

"In its 6-to-3 ruling, the court said noncitizens must fully cross the border to gain the right to apply for asylum. The court’s conservative majority said migrants standing in Mexico do not 'arrive' by 'attempting, and failing, to set foot in this country.'"

From "Supreme Court Allows Trump to Block Asylum Seekers at Border/A policy of turning back asylum seekers at the border was rescinded in 2021, but the Trump administration wants the flexibility to reinstate it as a tool for border control" (NYT).

Here's the full opinion: Mullin v. El Otro Lado. Excerpt from the majority opinion, written by Justice Alito:

This case presents a straightforward question: whether an alien1 who seeks to enter the United States from Mexico “arrives in the United States” when he or she is still in Mexico. In the decision below, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit answered “yes.” That is wrong. In ordinary speech, no one would say that a person “arrives in” a place—for example, a house, a city, or a country—before the person enters that place. The context in which the phrase “arrives in the United States” is used in the immigration statutes at issue here supports an ordinary-meaning reading. So does the presumption against extraterritoriality. We therefore reverse.

 From Justice Sotomayor's dissenting opinion (joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson):

The Court’s illogical interpretation is driven almost entirely by a fixation on a single word: “in.” Words, however, must be read in context and with attention to how they fit into the statute as a whole. The majority ignores the statutory context and history, not to mention the longstanding position of the Executive Branch, all of which show that any noncitizen arriving at our doorstep and seeking admission must be inspected and allowed to apply for asylum, regardless of whether her foot has crossed the threshold....

"The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Trump administration to end humanitarian protections that have permitted hundreds of thousands of people from Haiti and Syria..."

"... to live and work legally in the United States. President Trump has pushed to terminate the program, known as Temporary Protected Status, as part of his broader crack down on immigration. The program was created by Congress with bipartisan support in 1990 to provide temporary legal status to people whose home countries were deemed unsafe because of war, natural disasters or other crises."

The NYT reports in "Supreme Court Lets Trump End Deportation Protection for Haitians and Syrians/President Trump has pushed to rescind Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of people from countries convulsed by humanitarian crises."

Here's the full opinion: Mullin v. Doe. Excerpt from the majority opinion, written by Justice Alito:

None of the cited statements by either the President or the Secretary was overtly racial, and in substance all expressed policy views that could rest on race-neutral justifications. For example, one may oppose TPS and favor tighter restrictions on immigration for economic or other reasons that have nothing to do with race. And a person without racial bias can provide a harshly unfavorable description of living conditions in some of the countries with TPS designations....Political discourse by prominent public figures is increasingly couched in terms that would have scandalized the public just a short time ago.... But whatever one may think of the cited statements, they are insufficient to show that the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation was based on the race of the Haitian people....

From the dissenting opinion by Justice Kagan:

The evidence [the Haiti plaintiffs] have offered includes statements by the President so repellent and racially inflected that the majority declines to put them in print....

"These people are not Democrats.... I’m not in that f*cking political party."

"I am totally comfortable in a political party that spends time questioning the policies of the government of Israel. In fact, I’m enthusiastic about that. I don’t want to be in a political party that denies the right of the state of Israel to exist. That’s just not– I just can’t do that."

Said James Carville, quoted in "'I’m Done, I’m Not in That F*cking Political Party': James Carville Freaks Out After Progressives Win Big in Democratic Primaries" (Mediaite).

I think Carville is copying Carlson. See "'I'm out': Tucker Carlson says he's done with the GOP" (Axios).

Madonna has a plan to make you watch this video more than once.

Madonna, 67, turning heads as she steps out in a blue dress in Paris pic.twitter.com/gamqCWmx8m

— TaraBull (@TaraBull) June 24, 2026

"He's completely uncomfortable with this thing being about him. He was just telling me, I think there should be a little less of me here."

Michelle Obama says of Barack and his library:

"He's completely uncomfortable with this thing being about him."

"He was just telling me, I think there should be a little less of me here."

Lmaoooooo pic.twitter.com/8FLeg3XoDm

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) June 24, 2026

Pick the most true statement:

Barack Obama is genuinely embarrassed by the new monument to himself.

Michelle Obama thinks she's a comedian.

These two are so sweet and fun. I love it!

Ugh! I'm embarrassed. America is embarrassed. Terrible!

 

pollcode.com free polls

"The movie, in effect, resurrects [Michael] Jackson, only to remind viewers that he’s gone, fans say...."

"Awa Cham, 28, a content creator in London, agreed, saying via video chat, 'I feel like I went through this whole grieving process again. I was, like, this is not fair, he should be here.' JaRed Cameron, a musician from the Bronx, said by email, 'I cried, laughed, and I cried some more throughout the whole film.' He added, 'It took me about a week to shake off the rain cloud of "Michael" "withdrawal" since watching the movie.' For others, Jackson’s lifelong loneliness and the abuse he endured as a child added a dimension to their sadness. 'Watching young Michael cry alone in the corner of the bathroom made me so sad,' Victoria Tappa, a physician assistant student in Davenport, Iowa, said via email. 'Even writing this, I have tears in my eyes.'"

From "Feeling Mournful After 'Michael'? It Might Be 'Michosis.' Some Michael Jackson fans are experiencing deep, lingering grief after watching the biopic — a potent reminder that he is gone, they say" (NYT).

Sunrise.

It was raining this morning, and I stayed in, but Meade went out. Those are his photos and video.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"I was drowning, while all the other moms I interacted with seemed to be blissfully skipping through motherhood."

"'It must be me, I thought — I’m just not a natural mother.' She realized she was anything but alone after receiving her 'first random comment,' she said. 'That comment led me to that reader’s blog,' she added, 'and from there I discovered a whole world of moms. And these moms, unlike any I’d met before, actually understood me! They struggled and shared the same frustrations.' In addition to doing her own venting, Ms. Smokler provided those mothers a forum to anonymously confess their taboo thoughts and experiences...."

From "Jill Smokler, Who Blogged as Scary Mommy, Dies at 48/A mother of three, she turned a whim into an online powerhouse, sharing a warts-and-all look at parenting that attracted millions of readers" (NYT). (Smokler died of glioblastoma.)

"The reason why it took so long was because I was trying to bite through it. My teeth were not letting me get through it. It was like a brand new lollipop."

"So, I was trying to bite, bite, bite. By the time I got to bite it off, it was too late. It was already on TV. I normally cut off the stem. I need something to distract me a bit. I'm playing a kids game and having fun. So, I don’t think it’s a bad look."

Said Yankees second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr., quoted in "[Yankees manager Aaron] Boone's message to Jazz about lollipops: 'Keep having fun, but be safe" (MLB.com).

Jazz Chisholm Jr. is playing second base with a blow pop in his mouth pic.twitter.com/sJo7B2ZAzq

— Talkin' Yanks (@TalkinYanks) June 22, 2026

ADDED: I'm so pleased to have had a "lollipop" tag already up and going. There are lots of lollipop posts in the archive, e.g....

AND: I think Chisholm's wordy explanation is quite funny and I'm trying to imagine him going on about running with scissors....

Pick one.

The Buddha vs. Albert Camus:

"A woman caught on video emptying a public trash can on the street then stealing it during New York City’s Knicks championship parade was a director at JPMorgan Chase who was fired Tuesday over the incident...."

The NY Post reports.

Angie Báez, 40, was promoted to Executive Director of Community and Industry Engagement for Card and Connected Commerce at JPMorgan Chase more than a year ago, according to her LinkedIn profile. She previously served as Executive Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at New York-based review website The Infatuation, which Chase acquired as part of its broader push into lifestyle and experiential content...

What's "experiential content" and why am I "experiencing" that as bullshit?

Here's the viral video:

@mel_aston Those trash cans didn’t stand a chance 😭😭 I don’t condone the bullying of this woman. I’m not going for it!! #knicks #knicksparade #knicksin5 #nyc #fyp ♬ original sound - Melrose Aston

"What's 'experiential content' and why am I 'experiencing' that as bullshit?" is the one question I took to Grok. If I understand it correctly, instead of marketing the product itself, consumers are invited to picture themselves living some kind of life that somehow relates to the product. The honest restaurant content will, supposedly, be woven together with references to Chase cards. Even though Grok told me "It's not 'bullshit' as a pure concept" — because it can work as a marketing technique — it's obviously a bullshit expression designed to elevate a practice that deserves ridicule.

But you would probably prefer to ridicule this lady who did something stupid and who, you may think, doesn't deserve her job, and you probably think it's her job, her erstwhile job, that sounds like bullshit.

"Schlossberg’s Defeat Dampens Dream of a Renewed Camelot."

That's one of the NYT's front-page headlines about yesterday's primaries. Dream of a Renewed Camelot... Who was still dreaming that dream? 

Here's The Washington Post's front-page coverage of the action in yesterday's primaries:

I'll have to search beyond the front page to see if there's a tear shed for Schlossberg.

Ah, here: "A Kennedy scion loses in a crowded, pricey New York City congressional primary/The Kennedy dynasty won’t be returning to Congress next year." They don't trust readers to recognize the name Schlossberg. 

From the NYT article: "Once considered a favorite, Mr. Schlossberg, 33, landed in third place in a Democratic primary in one of the nation’s most liberal districts, now held by Representative Jerrold Nadler, the veteran Democrat, who is retiring. Micah Lasher, an assemblyman who had been endorsed by Mr. Nadler, won the primary.... Schlossberg poured at least $1 million of his own into the campaign, and had tried to press his case in its closing weeks, including in a lengthy interview with The New Yorker.... “I’m running because I want to pass laws,” he told David Remnick, the magazine’s editor. “I want to pass laws that help the people in this district and in our country.”

Pass laws that help the people... Ever since Ted Kennedy's famous screwup, everyone running for office has known that the one thing you've got to have ready to go is an answer to the question why are you running. And that's his answer, a child's answer: I want to pass laws that help the people.

The London Times stresses the Texan in Elon Musk as it reports the news/"news" that he's not a trillionaire at this precise moment.

Link.

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

"When asked if Trump was the 79-year-old man in question, White House spokesperson Kush Desai did not say no...."

From TNR.

"He was much less stoked to be assigned by Tina Brown, then editor of The New Yorker, to profile Mr. Trump in 1997."

"Observing him over several months on construction sites, in his Trump Tower office and on a private plane, Mr. Singer concluded that Mr. Trump, in the period before he became a reality TV star, was a man 'who had aspired to and achieved the ultimate luxury, an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul.' 'That profile,' [said David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker], 'got everything about Trump 20 years before he ran for president: the vanity, the casual cruelty, the outsized selfishness. It was all there.'... [After a NYT piece mentioned it], Mr. Trump wrote a letter to the editor attacking Mr. Singer as 'not born with great writing ability.' Mr. Singer sent a mock thank you to Mr. Trump for the publicity, which apparently bumped his book higher on the Amazon book charts. He also enclosed a check for $37.82, 'a small token of my enormous gratitude,' he wrote. Mr. Trump returned the letter with an all-caps note at the bottom, reading, in part, 'MARK — YOU ARE A TOTAL LOSER.' Mr. Trump also cashed the $37.82 check, Mr. Singer later said. Mr. Singer framed a photocopy of it for his apartment."

From "Mark Singer, Longtime Writer for The New Yorker, Dies at 75/He joined the magazine’s staff at 23. Among the subjects of his profiles were the magician Ricky Jay and a pre-politics Donald Trump" (NYT).

I'm sorry to hear that Mark Singer has died. You can click on my tag "Mark Singer" to see how he's come up here over the years. What a distinction to have Trump's "YOU ARE A TOTAL LOSER" in your NYT obituary. To continue the all-caps — RIP.

UPDATE: Upon publishing, I clicked my tag. I'm sorry to say that Trump is in every post.

"Supreme Court says Rastafarian can’t sue prison officials over shorn dreadlocks."

WaPo reports. 

This is a complicated case, written by Justice Gorsuch, for a 6-person majority, in Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections and Public Safety. It's about limits on Congress's power to impose conditions as it exercises its Spending Power. The statute is the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, and I assume most of us feel empathy for a Rastafarian prisoner who experiences a routine prison haircutting. The federal statute is designed to relieve prisoners of substantial burdens on their religion (unless the strict scrutiny standard is met). The problem is the scope of Congress's power.

Let's look at the Gorsuch opinion:

"What is clear is that the majority today forecloses future reliance on Sosa and shuts the courthouse doors to almost any claimed violation of international law under the [Alien Tort Statute]."

"That includes torture. See, e.g., Filartiga v. Pena-Irala, 630 F. 2d 876, 878 (CA2 1980) (ATS suit brought by plaintiff alleging that his son had been kidnapped and tortured to death in retaliation for the plaintiff’s political beliefs). It includes forced labor. See, e.g., Licea v. Curacao Drydock Co., 584 F. Supp. 2d 1355, 1359 (SD Fla. 2008) (ATS suit alleging that the defendant trafficked Cubans to Curacao, held them in captivity, and forced them to work repairing ships and oil platforms). It also includes perhaps the most universally condemned crime in the modern era: genocide. See, e.g., Kadic v. Karadzic, 70 F. 3d 232, 236–237 (CA2 1995) (ATS suit alleging 'brutal acts of rape, forced prostitution, forced impregnation, torture, and summary execution, carried out by Bosnian-Serb military forces as part of a genocidal campaign'). 'Like the pirates of the 18th century,' whose conduct so concerned Blackstone and the First Congress, 'today’s torturers, slave traders, and perpetrators of genocide are "hostis humani generis, an enemy of all mankind."' Nestlé, 593 U. S., at 647 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.). As to each of these offenses, as to each of these enemies of mankind, the majority decides that there is simply no way that a suit could possibly proceed without offending Congress. Noticeably absent from the majority’s analysis is any evidence that Congress would be offended by these suits. Of course, there may be reasons why allowing an individual ATS suit to proceed would be unwise. That possibility, however, should be addressed on a case-by-case basis...."

Writes Justice Ketanji-Brown Jackson, dissenting in Cisco Systems v. Doe, announced this morning.

"Readin' the classics and pickin' up plastics: Litterature."

I'm a big fan of volunteer litter picker uppers, and why wouldn't it entail reading the classics? 12 more episodes: here.

"In the lawsuit... Rana claimed he was drugged and made a sex slave by Hajdini, who also allegedly made racist claims about him and his wife."

"The most infamous line from the suit was Rana’s claim that Hajdini stripped off her top and said, 'I bet your little Asian, fish head wife doesn’t have these cannons.' JPMorgan and Hajdini have said from that jump that Rana’s allegations are entirely made up. Both defendants argue that Rana should be forced to either stay in state court — or that the suit be dismissed for good, and that he pay legal fees. Hajdini, who has filed a counterclaim alleging Rana defamed her, said her defamation allegation should be argued out before Rana is allowed to file in any new court."

From "The surprising reason JPMorgan lawyers don’t want Chirayu Rana to drop his bombshell ‘sex slave’ lawsuit" (NY Post).

How does that quote even exist? No one would say that, but no one making up a quote should make up something that no one would say. "Fishwife" is a standard expression, but "fish head wife" isn't. And I'll just stop there. It's so ludicrous that it's incomprehensible as a made up quote.

ADDED: "Fishwife" is a standard expression... it has a Wikipedia article:  "A fishwife, fish-fag or fishlass is a woman who sells fish. She is typically the wife of a fisherman, selling her husband's catch.... Some wives and daughters of fishermen were notoriously loud and foul-mouthed, as noted in the expression to swear like a fishwife, as they sold fish in the marketplace. Among the reasons for their outspokenness were that their wares were highly perishable and lost value if not sold quickly, and the similarity of their product to that of others selling the same thing, with volume of voice or colourful language drawing customer attention. Also, managing alone while their menfolk were away fishing for extended periods made them strong and self-sufficient...."

BUT: A reader emails: "In the Clint Eastwood Movie Gran Torino, there is a scene where he is invited to party by the girl he has befriended. The party is next door and everyone (except Eastwood) is Hmong. Eastwood makes a reference to them as 'Fish Heads.'"

Ah! Gran Torino! The most important movie in the history of this blog.

The quote is: "What?! What the hell are all you fish heads looking at?!" Here's the scene:

"I want to acknowledge that the conversation that RFK is trying to have and that we’re having here is not theoretical for me, anyway. And here I’m going to shake my Lexapro."

Says the host of the NYT "Daily" podcast, Michael Barbaro, in yesterday's episode, "R.F.K. Jr.’s Newest Mission: Getting Us Off Antidepressants/The process of 'deprescribing,' in which a doctor helps a patient taper off a psychiatric medication, is now being considered in the development of federal health policy."

I’ve been on Lexapro, an anti-anxiety medication, for at least a decade. It was prescribed by a psychiatrist, but then just became part of my relationship with my general practitioner. I just get it renewed. And I’ve not really been asked to think about how long I should be on it. And now suddenly having this conversation with you is making me ask that question. How long am I supposed to be on it? What would happen if I stopped taking it? Would all the white noise of anxiety that made me want to go on Lexapro, would that return? Or 10 years later, have I outgrown that and I just don’t it because I’ve never tried to taper myself off this to find out who I would be if I weren’t me on Lexapro?...

The guest on the episode, Ellen Barry, asks Barbaro, "what did you conclude about stopping?"

Michael Barbaro: "Me? I don’t that I’ve ever gotten far enough along in the conversation with myself to stop.... It was just an accepted fact in my conversation with the doctor that I was on it, and then I’d probably still be on it for as long as I’m going to be on it.... But now I’m asking myself the question of, are we all infantilizing ourselves in the face of medicine? Should I be asking this question myself? Why should I be waiting for a doctor to ask it? It’s getting a little existential now."

If Michael Barbaro, a man whose whole career is about being thoughtful about miscellaneous things, is only thinking of these questions as he's in the middle of doing his podcast on the subject, what hope is there for the millions of Americans who take these medications as a matter of endless routine?

"Sex’s history, its forms, and its uses all turn out to be far stranger and more various than biologists had imagined...."

"Lixing Sun... a biologist at Central Washington University, begins his story with a protozoan called Tetrahymena thermophila. T. thermophila are tiny—just a twentieth of a millimetre long—yet can reproduce two different ways: by splitting themselves in half or, when they’re starving, by engaging in a kind of proto-sex called conjugation, in which two cells briefly fuse and swap genetic material. The protozoa come in seven distinct 'mating types,' which means that there are twenty-one possible pairings... The common white-button mushroom... comes in eighteen mating types, the fairy inkcap mushroom a hundred and forty-three, and the split-gill mushroom an astonishing twenty-three thousand three hundred and twenty-eight. In organisms that reproduce via the union of types—this group also includes yeasts and slime molds—partners are functionally equivalent and the exchange of genetic material is symmetrical, an arrangement called isogamy. The way Sun tells it, the shift from isogamy to sex as we know it began with a cheat. Some 'crafty' creature figured out a way to game the system by skimping on its reproductive contribution. A two-sided scramble ensued. On the one hand, an edge could be gained by pumping out ever smaller, nimbler gametes; on the other, there was an advantage to be had in manufacturing fewer, larger gametes for the small fry to vie for. Eventually, Sun writes, 'a minor size gap' turned into an 'uncrossable divide.' The 'go-smallers' evolved into sperm-makers; the 'go-largers' into egg-bearers...."

From "What’s the Point of Sex, Anyway? The world’s life-forms reproduce sexually in a bewildering variety of ways, even though scientists still aren’t sure why they bother" (The New Yorker).

"As a Frida Kahlo portrait glared protectively at me over Madonna’s shoulder, we talked past, present, future, prayer, dicks, nutritional yeast, and more…"

Writes Mel Ottenberg, introducing "The Madonna Interview" in Interview Magazine.

EXCERPT:

OTTENBERG: When was the last time you confessed?

MADONNA: Well, every song on this record is—not every song. Some are just joy. “Love Sensation” is just joy. But a lot of the songs here are confessional.

OTTENBERG: What about the last time you confessed in a church?

MADONNA: Oh, that’s been a while.

OTTENBERG: Do you have a relationship with organized religion?

MADONNA: Well, I was raised a Catholic and I’m a cultural Catholic.

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

We think that's our favorite heron — "Mike" — in photo #3.

"I remember one of the first things my parents would say about Americans when we immigrated to America, was that they always seemed so unhappy..."

"... despite the fact that they were so much richer than us. We were living on government cheese for a time, and my parents and other Russians would say: Oni ot zhira besyatsa. Which translates very vaguely as: They’re wild with their own fat. They’re so juicy and fat, and yet they don’t know what to do with it. Just enjoy the fat. But sometimes this greater meaning combines with this egotistical impulse to have more and more and more. And to not die is one of those almost Protestant extensions of everything. And striving. Why should the striving ever end?"

Said Gary Shteyngart, in his interview with Ezra Klein, the "I" in the headline "I Keep Telling People We’re Living in This Dystopian Novel" (NYT). The novel is Shteyngart's "Super Sad True Love Story" (commission earned).

"And beneath the bluster, Trump’s limited view of the American Revolution is very familiar..."

"... it reflects, like so much else about him, the mainstream culture of the Cold War era, when museums and films did indeed tell a relentlessly upbeat story of American accomplishment — in vivid contrast to the plodding drudgery of communism. The leftist radicals of the 1960s and 1970s dissented noisily from this cosy view, but the majority accepted it unquestioningly. Since then a more extreme view has taken root: those who see the revolution not as the start of an unfinished project but as a fixed source of authority, a 250-year-old set of final answers. But as the US blows out its birthday candles, does it still have the capacity it once had for political renewal, while retaining its founding principles? It is always easier to start revolutions than to end them. This is why so many Americans have believed theirs was superior to others: it had been brought to an elegant conclusion by the constitution of 1787. Americans, it seemed, had escaped the spirals of radicalism and authoritarianism that beset France, or Latin American republics...."

From "Happy birthday USA. But is America’s revolution unravelling? When the USA turned 200, the nation came together as one. Fifty years on, what are the chances of the same thing happening under Donald Trump? A special series from The Sunday Times Magazine is dedicated to the 250th anniversary of the USA."

That's the London Times. The view from the losing side.

Every woman is some man's daughter.

Link.

The pro-algae crowd...

More footage from the liberal ‘Pro-Algae protest” that took place in Washington DC

Liberals cheer for algae growth at The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to spite Donald Trump cleaning the area

Imagine this being your life…. I know what we’re all thinking, what are the… pic.twitter.com/i1Fo6Su8oQ

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) June 21, 2026

... and the rubber rippers...

🚨 NEW: Fox’s Peter Doocy just asked Jeanine Pirro if ABC’s Jonathan Karl is in trouble after President Trump called him out for ‘sticking his hand in the Reflecting Pool trying to rip the rubber off the surface.’

Doocy: “Judge, is he in trouble?”

Pirro: “If you damage,… pic.twitter.com/zfaK2TJHHz

— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) June 21, 2026

Fishing.

There's more than one way.

Alan Greenspan lived to be 100.

I'm reading "Alan Greenspan, Fed Chairman Through Prosperity and Crisis, Dies at 100/The pre-eminent economic policymaker of his time and a skilled political operator, he favored market-friendly stances that would later come to be associated with destructive financial forces" (NYT).

Even as Mr. Greenspan skillfully managed interest rates in a way that kept the economy humming along, he remained leery of confronting a danger he well recognized: that the low-inflation, easy-money environment he had helped create was putting the United States at risk by fueling unsustainable investment booms. And he remained reluctant to act as banks and investment firms adopted complex new trading techniques that would come to wreak great damage. At the Fed, he was remarkably successful at what he considered the central banker’s primary task of holding down inflation. He also helped the United States deal with periodic shocks, including a stock market crash just weeks after he took office, the near-meltdown of Asian financial markets a decade later and the aftereffects of the 2001 terrorist attacks....

From my blog archive:

October 23, 2008

"A flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works.”

Greenspan says oops.

And there was a time when I was reading Greenspan's autobiography:

There's a lot debris in the systems and we've got to break it without destruction.

Enough of this nostalgia and status quo!

Kamala Harris was asked about her thought process when deciding to run for president in 2028, her answer is some of the most retarded word salad you will ever hear. pic.twitter.com/Jj8nXBATZC

— Retard Finder (@IfindRetards) June 21, 2026

ADDED: I watched this clip a few times, including stop-and-go while talking about it, and it's not nonsense. It's easy to call it "word salad," laugh, and move on, but I think it's worth understanding and putting starkly. Sometimes people talk like this because if they spoke straightforwardly, it would be empty or stupid.

Let's look at the transcript: "What people are telling me includes that they want to believe in systems. And they've lost trust in those systems.

The first sunrise of summer.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"According to [David] Thomson, movies — especially American movies — have whitewashed history, glorified violence and made role models out of thugs, narcissists and murderers."

"The consequences shape our public life. Donald Trump 'is our movie man,' Thomson writes, meaning that Trump’s presidency, which Thomson sees as a catastrophe, was foretold and to some extent made possible by Hollywood. Not just bad movies.... Turning our humanity upside down and our values inside out is what good movies do.... 'We are no longer the selves we hoped to be,' Thomson concludes. 'We are not exactly alive any longer.' It’s the movies that condemned us to this limbo."

Writes A.O. Scott, in "Did Movies Ruin Everything? How the film writer David Thomson found himself in a lover’s quarrel with cinema — and America" (NYT).

"What if he’s right?...

"I was just a curious, concerned citizen. I guess I was there at the wrong place, wrong time."

Said David Carter Hearn, 67, "a cyclist and three-time Olympian as a canoeist who says he stopped at the [Reflecting Pool] on Friday just to have a look, then reached down to touch a strip of peeling blue paint mixed with the algae. The U.S. Park Police arrested Mr. Hearn shortly after, accusing him of destroying government property, a crime that can carry up to a 10-year prison sentence."

I'm reading "Trump, Claiming Vandalism, Says Reflecting Pool Will Likely Need to Be Drained/The pool has taken on clouds of algae after a hasty renovation. A three-time Olympian was charged with destroying government property after he says he touched one of the strands of blue paint peeling off the pool’s bottom" (NYT).

"The administration has not released the names of others accused of vandalizing the pool, a crime that Mr. Trump said on Saturday could lead to 'years in jail.' In a later post, he said without evidence that vandals had 'poured corrosive and destructive chemicals into the Pool.'"

I don't know if the claims of vandalism are true, but the temptation to vandalize was obvious and strong even before Trump started talking about vandals. Now, it's unavoidable, and I think we will never have our pool back where it belongs in the American psyche. It's a mess, a bone of contention, a symbol of everything and anything people don't like about Trump. The pool never worked as it was intended, and now its essential badness is glaring at us, and it will never calm back down into the serene murky swamp it once was. 

"A possible referendum in Oregon on animal rights would end fishing, hunting, even pest control, just when Democrats are trying really hard not to be seen as 'weirdos again.'"

I'm reading "Protect Every Animal From Cruelty? Not in 2026, Oregon Democrats Say" (NYT).

The measure, known for now as Initiative Petition 28... would give all animals the same protections from cruelty that Oregon grants dogs and cats.... Hunting, trapping and fishing would be outlawed, along with scientific research on animals, lethal pest control and conventional livestock production.... 

The fight is in some ways very Oregon, long a proving ground for ideas that initially seemed politically impossible only to enter the mainstream, such as medical aid in dying, universal vote-by-mail and legalizing the hallucinogenic compound in magic mushrooms for therapy.

When people think of "animals" — as in "I love animals!" — they're not thinking about cockroaches and mosquitoes.

ADDED: According to Ballotopedia, the initiative "Applies to mammals (including vermin), birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish." So I think "lethal pest control" is meant to call to mind mice and rats, not the various troublesome insects. The NYT article says "all animals" and also, more than once, says "pest control." 

In the comments here, Tom T. said, "Then would come the court decisions defining pet ownership as cruelty and outlawing it." That got me looking into the argument that pet-keeping is a form of cruelty to animals. Here's an interesting Vox article from 3 years ago: "The case against pet ownership/Why we should aim for a world with fewer but happier pets." Excerpt: 

It often leads to the trivialization of serious subjects...

Writing the previous post and trying to get to Meade's YouTube page, I googled the name of the page, Meadeification, and got this:

Here's more of Meade's trivialization of a serious subject:

The Purple Path.

Video by Meade, at the first sunrise of summer.