Some Scenes From Today's No Kings Rally In Madison, Wisconsin

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Some pictures from the State Capitol part  of the rally. More from Reddit. From the Daily Cardinal. And as many as you want from many sources.

Here's a short PBS story of the rallies nationwide.

Here's a song. Bob Marley. Tracy Chapman. Marvin Gaye. Easterhouse. Creedence. 4 Non Blondes. Steppenwolf. Jefferson Airplane. The Beatles. The Rolling Stones. The Grateful Dead. Sly and the Family Stone. Stevie Wonder. The Dropkick Murphys. A rare gem from Bobby Darin. Rendering others to ashes will eventually bring the rendering home, in a reaping we now find unimaginable.

Here's something new.

Some revolutionary quotes from Ernesto "Che" Guevara. My favorite is this: "At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality […] We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force."

Great quotes from Nelson Mandela.

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R.I.P. Sylvester Stewart. I saw  Sly and the Family Stone once, in 1974. It was a great concert. They were on time, in time, and Sly started the show by imploring people standing in front of people in wheelchairs in the first row to move out of the way. No one moved. He picked out one guy, pointed directly at him and  said "I'm talkin' to you,  dude!" They all moved. Here's some of their performance at Woodstock. Here's some more.

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Update, July 3: Even Trump insiders are wondering about his physical and mental health. To which I respond: Duh! What were you wondering in, say, 2016? Or earlier? And, with doubts, especially about his mental health, will any of these "insiders" do anything with their doubts? Not likely. I wonder if they have any doubts about various members of Trump's administration, such as Pete Hegseth. One way to test Hegseth's functionality is to have a truckload of whiskey delivered to the Pentagon, addressed to "SECDEF."

Duh

A simple way to solve the debt crisis, or at least the Big Beautiful Bill crisis: Progressive taxation.

I remember when I was young that Nelson Rockefeller was described as being in the "90% tax bracket," meaning that he paid 90% of his income in Federal tax. Without complaint. A rich guy, from a robber baron family.

It seems unthinkable now, but reducing taxes on the rich to near zero is what got us into this mess. There will be a lot of demagoguery to overcome, but it can be done. Just as the Republicans have their Grover Norquist Pledge, Democrats can have a pledge of their own. They could call it the AOC Pledge, or the Bernie Sanders Pledge. Or the Save our Civilization Pledge.

There are sufficient economic reasons for taxing the rich: saving the system from insolvency, increasing general welfare through redistribution of  income and wealth, reducing inefficiency, and making the system more stable. I have another argument. It is morally and ethically evil for anyone to aspire to have a desire for unlimited amounts of money in its various forms and material possessions. 

It is a perversion of human existence to want to have it all, knowing full well that having it all means nothing for everyone else. Our current examples of endless greed - Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg -  are also examples of humans of the most repugnant kind, all more notable in their repulsivity than their vast fortunes. Who among us would want to be Donald Trump? Or Elon Musk? Or Bezos, with his grotesque wedding in Venice? 

For the economic theory inclined, I can do marginalism. In Neoclassical Economics lore there is such a thing as marginal utility. It is the incremental increase in usefulness of goods, services or money. The increase in happiness, or utility, of an additional dollar in income declines as the amount of dollars you already have increases. An additional dollar to the coffers of Jeff Bezos, for example, would be infinitesimally smaller than to a homeless person, axiomatically.

In our next civilization an upward limit on income and wealth will be necessary. That is, if he have a next civilization. We are so zealously pursuing our own extinction that the likelihood of any civilization at all is less by the day. 

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Here's a song. Barenaked Ladies. Barrett Strong. The Beatles. Pink Floyd. Warren Zevon. The Grateful Dead. Cream. AC/DC. Or, money doesn't talk, it swears. Lefty Frizzell. Willie Nelson. For mood enhancement, this.

Update, June 20: 72% of Americans Say the Rich 'Have Too Much' as GOP Pursues Another Handout for Billionaires

Occam's Razor

As the Trump dictatorship approaches its denouement we might be able to speed the process by improving our communication. I don’t mean playing nice, mincing words or speaking in euphemisms. What is needed is language that simply and accurately connects ideas to people’s minds. 

A perfect example of language that has outlived its usefulness is the imaginary division of populations into "left" and "right." It is called "the spectrum," but the only gradations along the spectrum are left, center and right. Over the years "extreme left" and "extreme right" were added, and some comedians have suggested "extreme center," though it is hard to imagine someone being extremely neither here nor there.

The spectrum doesn’t exist. It is a metaphor. The gradations are poorly defined, if at all, and have different meanings to different people. What left and right have become are lazy slogans and epithets that are used to confine discussion into false binaries and identities. I don’t fit into any categories, not willing to define myself or be defined. Not being self-defined makes it easier for me to see things as they are, rather than what binary they fit into.

For example, Donald Trump and his MAGA movement. They are phenomena that are amenable to categories, but not independent of each other. Trump, according to self-identified "leftists," is a fascist, another overworked epithet. He also is described as "extreme right." These abstractions may have meaning for ideological adherents, but don’t get us anywhere.

A better approach, I believe, is to use Occam’s Razor, a principle often attributed to 14th–century friar William of Ockham that says that if you have two or more competing ideas to explain the same phenomenon, you should prefer the simpler one. This guidance is popular among philosophers, scientists and mathematicians. 

A simpler, more direct, more reflective description of who Trump, his loyalists and zealots are is assholes. Merriam Webster defines asshole as a stupid, annoying or detestable person. I would add to that someone who enjoys making other people suffer, who lies openly, and who uses self-centeredness as a weapon to dominate and diminish others is an asshole. Such as Donald Trump.

There is such a phenomenon as fascism. It is an authoritarian system of government characterized by brutal suppression of unfavored segments of the population, crony capitalism and corrupt control of all institutions - legislative, executive and judicial. We are getting closer to fascism in the U.S. But the ideology of fascism is not something that I would apply to Donald Trump. He doesn't have the intellectual capacity to have an ideology. He is an asshole, without depth, discernment or understanding of any complex thought, theory or belief. Fascism is merely a tool for his narcissism.

Even the Heritage Foundation, which provided the plan for Trump's revenge campaign with its Project 2025, is more an asshole group than a forum for serious thought. It is a crackpot foundation, always has been. Project 2025 is ego-based, that the few - the rich, the "white," the "Christian" are the better people, and everyone else is inferior and to be dominated, scapegoated, imprisoned, maybe killed.

The ideological roots of Project 2025 were developed by members of the Federalist Society, formed in 1982 by an agglomeration of assholes from three elite law schools - Yale, Harvard and the University of Chicago.



So there is an "ideology" to the extreme posture of these various thinkers. But what matters is what is behind the beliefs, what is in the hearts and minds of these know-it-alls. Assholism is at the heart. "Better" than other people. Entitlement of the rich. Privilege. Cruelty. Narcissism. Psychopathy and sociopathy. Their argument of small government really means no government of them and anything they do. Similarly, their argument of low taxes really means no taxes for them, but high taxes for those less well-off.

The Trump fascism will fail, of course. Other factors will render this latest attempt at fascism short-lived. Economic downturn. Storms, floods, tornados, hurricanes, forest fires and brush fires. International chaos. Trump's declining mental state. His unhealthy lifestyle. His incompetence. His biting off more than he can chew, overplaying his hand.

What continues to baffle me, though, is the cultish following Trump developed almost immediately when he began his first campaign for president in 2015. Now, despite Trump's abundantly obvious incompetence and malevolence, the devotion from his followers is undiminished. Though I am baffled at how durable this fanaticism continues to be, the same explanation applies. They are assholes. They know better, or should. Trump appeals to their lower nature - bigotry, narcissism, malevolence, entitlement, scapegoating and paranoia. And, plenty of them are just plain stupid. Plenty of examples can be seen in the Jordan Klepper infiltrations of MAGA rallies.

What the heck. Nothing else is working, so let's try Occam's Razor. Call things what they are. Our republic is being run by assholes. Every one of them. Incompetent too. It won't last. Maybe calling assholes assholes will speed up the process of the demise of the Trump farce and its cult appeal.


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A discussion of how fascism works.

Some old news about Trump's Kompromat with Russia and its president Vladimir Putin. Who's calling the shots now? Putin is still president of Russia. I wonder if he is our president too.

Here's some more old news about Trump's "Golden Shower" incident in Moscow in 2013. Further verification. The story from the Steele Dossier is that Trump, while staying in a luxury suite at a  hotel in Moscow (guaranteed to be bugged and filmed) hired four prostitutes to urinate on the bed - which he thought was slept in by Barack Obama and his wife while he was president. Vladimir Putin's suspected Kompromat on Trump is that he has the video evidence.

The reason for Donald Trump's sociopathic vendetta against Obama is the skewering the then president gave him at the Washington Correspondent's Dinner in 2011. It was masterful, and, as people who know Trump said, it probably inspired Trump to run for president. Here's the full performance.

A story about Donald Trump's creepy attraction for his daughter Ivanka can be found here. A more complete story can be found in The Guardian. If you use Facebook, there's more here. I quit Facebook years ago, so I can't read it. Even Newsweek took notice.

A timeline of Donald Trump's creepy behavior when he owned the Miss Universe pageant can be found here. He walked in on teen beauty contestants when they were changing clothes in the Miss Teen USA pageant in 1997.

A new psychological disease has been defined as Trump Derangement Syndrome. Created by Republicans in Minnesota, it is a fake designation, but the term might more accurately be applied to Trump supporters - a madness that overtakes them in their fanatical adulation of him. Here's a more complete explanation.

Update, May 6:

Trump posted an AI generated picture of himself as the pope on his Truth Social page. Everyone of course is saying what an outrage this is, but what no one is saying is that Donald J. Trump, a pathological liar as part of his sociopathic character, actually believes that a fake picture of himself in pope regalia makes him the pope. Pope Donald I. If you have ever known any pathological liars you will recognize this trait. They believe their own lies as they are making them up. This calls for a song.

So, in meeting with Canada's new prime minister Mark Carney, Trump says he just wants to be friends. This statement has two parts. One is that in person with people who stand up to him he folds. The other is that, as a pathological liar Trump makes up whatever gets him through the moment. He folds in front of judges because he is not in charge in court. Before the day is over Trump will be badmouthing Carney, guaranteed.

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Here's Vladimir Putin singing Blueberry Hill. You can't make this up. Salon has a story about the event. The Fats Domino original. A more recent version. Elvis version.
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R.I.P. Jesse Colin Young. His best-known song. His version of Jambalaya is one of my favorites. Original version.

R.I.P. Richard Chamberlain. I never saw any of his television miniseries, but was an avid watcher of his medical series Dr. Kildare.

R.I.P. John Feinstein. He was interviewed often on NPR and PBS's NewsHour. Great example of how to be a human being.

R.I.P. Robert McChesney. He used to host a weekly public affairs discussion on Madison's WORT, such as this. After he left Madison for the University of Illinois he was often a guest, like here. His contribution to our understanding of press freedom and democracy in a capitalist system is incalculable. And, he was just a really good guy, articulate, decent and upbeat. He knew how to listen.
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Here's a song. Here's another song. A song for the collapse of the MAGA grift. They can all live here. The future is  here, and  we are on our own. The rain will be the calm before the storm.  A question we  will likely ask. We are sailing in a  strange  boat.

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Update, June 5:The breakup between Elon Musk and Donald Trump is becoming more fun every day. Yesterday Musk revealed that Trump is in the Epstein Files. Read more in the New York Times. He even suggests Trump is a pedophile, and calls for his impeachment. I have a better term for him: #DeltaFoxtrot.