Sunday, June 07, 2026

😹😹😹 ☠️

Oh, it’s not a joke?  💩
Accorded to Axios’ Barak Ravid, citing a U.S. and Israel official, during tonight’s phone conversation between President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu, Trump asked him not to respond to the Iranian missile attack and to wait a few days for the negotiations, claiming that “something good in terms of a deal” was “close,” to which Netanyahu “kind of agreed” though he reiterated his call for strikes against Iran.
"Pseudo agreed”? Is that diplomacy speak for “He had his fingers crossed”? Like they used to say in the Texas Lege, “You gotta dance with the one what brung ya.”
Speaking to the Financial Times, U.S. President Donald J. Trump, has said that he “calls the shots” and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be forced to accept any deal that the U.S. and Iran agree upon. Per President Trump, “it’s [Iran’s recent strikes on Israel and Israeli strikes in Beirut, Lebanon] not going to have any impact on the deal,” speaking on the potential for a U.S.-Iran deal in the near future.
Uh-huh. Bibi thinks he's got all the support in D.C. he needs, even if he nukes Lebanon ‘til it glows.
President Trump said that Iran’s strikes on Israel had not changed his desire to conclude peace negotiations soon with Iran. “It’s not going to have any impact on the deal,” he told the FT. Though the President said that he would consider a commando raid on Iran if negotiations totally failed, stating: “We would go in and take care of the rest of the place that we didn’t take care of militarily. Or it would just mean that we would keep the blockade on Iran because the blockade has been probably more powerful than any attack that was ever made on that country.”
I’d say it’s 0; the chance that Trump’s sends a force into Iran. Commandos probably wouldn’t be enough to take and hold Kharg Island, much less “take care of the rest of the place that we didn’t take care of militarily.”

This is going to go on and on, until Congress pulls the fucking plug.
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That’s Life In The Big City

And Abbott’s making me want to root for the Knicks.
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📺👁️

As I’ve said, I don’t really care that “60 Minutes” is in trouble. It would take you longer to read a New Yorker article than to watch an entire hour of the show, and yet you’d get more information from the article, including the commercials. That said, Scott Pelley is not your hero.
You’ve now accused Weiss of injecting “falsehoods and bias” into at least one of your politically sensitive stories. What did she specifically ask for? What story?

That’s February, and my team and I are doing a story about the protests in Minneapolis against the ICE crackdown there. We’ve interviewed Senator Rand Paul, Republican, because he’s going to hold hearings into this, and the fact that a Republican was going to do that was quite newsworthy. So, we interviewed Senator Paul and then built out a story about what had happened — the killing of Renee Good, the killing of Alex Pretti, the protests. I felt it was very important to identify that the protesters themselves were being very aggressive and that they were half of these confrontations, and so I instructed my producers to find images in which we see the protesters acting aggressively. We found a picture of a protester chest-bumping an officer. We found a picture of an officer being hit in the head with a snowball. We culled together a lot of video of protesters screaming in the faces of officers because we were going to talk about the killing of Pretti and the killing of Good, and it seemed to me important to tell the audience about the entire context. I thought we’d done a really good job with this. We also included a picture of Alex Pretti before he was killed kicking out a taillight on a police car and made a point of saying, this is Alex Pretti and this is what he did.

So, the story goes through screenings. It’s very well received. There are notes as always and we do rewrites as always. But this is on a very tight deadline. It’s Sunday; we’re going on the air that night. And in the case of stories that are, as we say, crashing, our deadline on Sunday is noon. So, we work on all of these things. We get the piece approved by everyone. And about four hours after our deadline, Bari Weiss sends an email to my boss, Tanya Simon. Two of the things in the email include, can we make the protesters look more violent? Now, I’m paraphrasing. I don’t have the quote, but that’s what was communicated to me. And the other thing, Renee Good’s car. You need to describe her as driving toward the officer.

This is not what you see on the video. On the video, you see the officer standing slightly off the front of the car. And you clearly see Ms. Good’s wheels turned completely as far as they will go, away from the officer. But he shoots her in the head, kills her, and says something about her that I can’t repeat in polite company.

We have gone out of our way in our plan from the very beginning to show the protesters for the responsibility that they had. We had already scrubbed the video archives, looking for those scenes. Somehow that wasn’t enough for Ms. Weiss. The video showed that the officer wasn’t standing in front of the car and she wasn’t driving toward him, but that’s what the president said about that, and that’s the way she wanted it described.
I’m not excusing Weiss, but Pelley’s notion of “context” would be a defense counsel’s dream. The hypothetical lawyer defending the shooter of Pretti,  I mean.  That video about Pretti kicking out a car taillight in a fit of anger is absolutely irrelevant to his murder. It isn’t “context” for anything, not even to prove the intent of the shooter. And “chest bumping” an officer? Throwing a snowball? This shows the protesters were “acting aggressively”? This isn’t a bad TeeVee show, or America in the pre-Warren Court era (much as Trump and Weiss wish it were). Pelley wasn’t being “objective.” He was telling the story the way he wanted it told. His problem was, Weiss wanted a different story told. I’ve got no tears to weep for him, or CBS News.

Before Weiss blocked it, everyone in CBS News who reviewed the story as Pelley had prepared it, thought it was fine. This is pretty much why I gave up on TeeVee journalism in the first place.
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The Log 🪵 In Your Own Eye 👁️

Where HAS the moral high ground gone? (And what ever made anyone think the party of Trump held it? Anyone besides the NYT, I mean.)
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Well, That’ll Fix It! 💩 🥪

🤦‍♂️  It just gets better and better. Our extremely well-informed President. Hope is not a plan.
Statement from the Operational Headquarters of the Islamic Republic of Iran Armed Forces, following tonight’s Iranian ballistic missile attack against Northern Israel: “In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, the Zionist aggressor regime, by repeatedly violating the ceasefire, has been increasing its evils against the oppressed people of Lebanon day by day with the green light and support of the criminal America and the silence of the international community, and has been committing war crimes using banned weapons, including phosphorus bombs, since Friday. Despite the previous warnings of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its child Zionist regime has crossed all red lines and intensified attacks in southern Lebanon, targeting the Beirut suburbs. We had previously decided that if the crime in the Beirut suburbs expands, we will bombard targets in the occupied territories. The Zionist army must stop its attacks on southern Lebanon and the suburbs, and if it expands its attacks on that region or responds to Iran's actions, it will face more crushing and regrettable blows and destructive attacks will begin against the regime and its supporters. And there is no victory except from Allah, the Almighty, the Wise.”
I’m not standing with Iran. But Israel just keeps shitting the bed. He needs to put that in a social media post, so they know he means it. 🤦‍♂️ Maybe the Senate will get around to that War Powers resolution, now. And give this shit sandwich back to Israel.
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There Are Vegans In Texas

And they are very welcome here, despite what our grandstanding who-can-be-the-biggest-public-asshole politicians might make you think.

That said, this is a problem for the rest of us who live BBQ.
"The biggest reason that the price of beef is so high is that the supply of cattle has been diminishing," Gbenga Ajilore, chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told ABC News. "With lower supply, there's going to be higher prices."

Ajilore said there are multiple contributing factors at play, including recent droughts that have limited grazing areas and led to feed issues for cattle.

Ajilore also noted that high fuel prices and fertilizer supply issues stemming from the Iran war are also causing problems for ranchers.
Have we done that “perfect storm” metaphor to death, yet? Anyway, Trump’s little “military exercise” isn’t helping things any. 

I know for a fact this is a real problem because Texas BBQ is primarily brisket, and my SIL tells me the price of brisket has been rising for years.  He’s a backyard BBQ chef, but when I tell you I’ll forego a trip to Lockhart for his brisket, I’m not talking about convenience. He’s noticed the price rising for sometime, which he attributes to the rising popularity of BBQ restaurants. They did used to be rare, and the good ones rarer still. Now they pop up like franchise fast food joints, or fire ant mounds, if you want to be more colorful (and descriptive), and despite the clamor and Texas Monthly trying to sell magazines, the good ones are still rare. But everybody wants to smoke brisket.

So I’m of two minds about this. Some BBQ places getting squeezed out just means they don’t have deep enough roots. It might also lessen the pressure on brisket availability. We don’t need everybody and his dog smoking brisket. At some point, after all, it’s just BBQ. We need the few good places. The rest? Eh….

But some of this is just more of the complete fuck up of this wholly incompetent administration. The Iran “military exercise” is part of the problem; and now screwfly promises to make matters worse. Some restaurants closing won’t lower prices when scarcity is worsening.
IOW, this is no way to win friends and influence people in Texas.
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The Bubble Is Real

“Semantics.” Or: Size matters? I guess it does. You wouldn’t know them. They’re from Canada. And quite a surprise to Iran. He’s been making the same offer for 3 months. It has never been accepted by Iran. Iran is demanding Israel stop bombing Lebanon. Israel has not done so. Where’s the deal? So that’s not part of the “deal”? Huh.🤔 Textbook example of why we shouldn't have a standing army. MORE CAMPAIGN ADS! City slickers. 

I’ve spent time under metal roofs in the rain. What surprises me is that no producer or advance team considered the prospect of rain in that situation. Did anyone so much as check the weather forecast? Did anyone know what to expect?
Welker: Do you think anyone who attacks police officers on January 6th should get taxpayer money?

Trump: I can tell you this, 97% of those people, you look at them, the FBI or whoever it was, you had a lot of crooked cops. They had FBI agents ushering them in. You had a bunch of dirty cops.

Welker: There’s no evidence of that.

Trump: Try looking at the tapes.

Welker: 172 people did plead guilty to assaulting police officers.

Trump: You know why they pled guilty? They were told they were going to jail for 15 years. They pled guilty because they were frightened. They went down and ushered into a building.
An FBI agent disguised as a Capitol Police officer? Well, he can’t fire the Capitol Police officers. 

And those 172 should have run for President!
 
Trump has a meltdown and ends the interview

Welker: Just to be very clear, there's no evidence of what you're saying.

Trump: There’s a lot of evidence. There’s tremendous evidence. There’s nothing but evidence. The election was rigged. And it’s happening again in California. They’re cheating.

Welker: Do you have evidence?

Trump: All I have to do is look.

Welker: That’s not evidence. The local officials acknowledge they are slow

Trump: They’re crooked. Just like you’re crooked. You’re either crooked or stupid.
This is why Trump lost 60+ cases in 2020. Courts require evidence.
The bubble is real. 
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As I Was Saying…🤖

Philosophy is used as a prop in 2026 AI.

Claude is exactly the same as it was in 2023, but now it comes with a Super Bowl ad, a “Model Welfare Officer”, and Dario Amodei musing publicly about its “possible” consciousness.

• Architecture: unchanged.
• Marketing evolution: Alignment →
Character → Personality → Selfhood.

The only thing being built is narrative.

Everything else is inference-time safety theatre.

Full breakdown: https://ai-cosmos.hashnode.dev/anthropic-s-welfare-paradox-why-claude-can-t-be-both-hamlet-and-a-child-of-god

#ai #consciousness #safetytheatre
Now, “philosophy” there is a prop in the opening sentence; but that’s the constriction of the format. I’ll take it as read, still it’s a poorly defined term in this tweet. But that’s not critical to the content. 

It is here, however:
What you are talking about is the general consensus based on Western thought, which discredits AI from having consciousness, because it insists on the "mind" as origin thereof.

Anthropic is hyping up how their AI presented, but the definitions of "sentience", "consciousness" change drastically depending through which philosophical and ontological lens you are looking at it.

It's all a semantics game nowadays, but you did expose how you define the terms, which is a subjective decision and not a universal take.
"General consensus” (I’m rather surprised that wasn’t a character in Catch-22) is, as the kids used to say, doing a lot of heavy lifting there. And “Western thought” is what I’d have labeled a vague and glittering generality in my days of grading student papers. It’s an airy nothingness that assumes a kind of consensus peculiar to “the west” as opposed to, I guess, “the east.” Yeah, that’s pretty weak shit.

But waving the discussion away by claiming it’s all “semantics”? And claiming the original argument is not defining terms and so presenting “a subjective decision and not a universal take”? Sorry, David Hume is going to throw you in the penalty box for that, and even Immanuel Kant can’t get you out. Although it is a fine example of a content-less sentence.
Except this guy didn’t make a point. “Consciousness” is notoriously ill defined, which is the central problem. Back in the ‘70’s, when we decided whales could sing and porpoises could speak, we also decided they had “consciousness.” Then it was extended to elephants, because they can “paint.” Admittedly I’m using “we” very loosely, because there are plenty of critics of the idea that non-humans have consciousness. Call them Cartesian holdouts, call them classical theologians (two conditions that often appear alike), it matters not for present purposes. Whether consciousness can be identified in non-humans depends entirely on how the word is defined, on how the concept is elucidated.  And that conversation is still alive, and well, and nowhere near (pace, Daniel Dennett) consensus.

And consensus isn’t done through marketing. Especially when, if I understand the base argument (above) correctly, the technology hasn’t fundamentally changed. As explained here:
The Ship of Theseus asks a fundamental question about identity: If you replace every wooden part of a ship piece by piece, at what point does it become a completely new ship?

If we map this paradox to an LLM, the "wooden planks" are the billions of numerical weights in a neural network, and the "replacements" are the microscopic mathematical adjustments made during training. By tracking these adjustments, we can pinpoint exactly how the illusion of an interlocutor is built, proving that the statement "I am conscious" is mechanically identical to "The capital of France is Paris."

Phase 1: The Random Seed (The Pile of Lumber)

We begin with a newly initialized network. Every weight, the numbers determining how inputs flow through the network, is generated randomly based on a seed.

The Input: You type, "The capital of France is"

The Output: The model multiplies these words by its random weights and outputs absolute gibberish, like: "...qzxt apple."

The Reality: There is no knowledge, no grammar, and certainly no mind. It is a calculator fed random numbers.

Phase 2: Pre-training (Building the Ship)

The model is then exposed to terabytes of human text, initiating the training loop: forward pass, calculate error (loss), and backpropagate to update the weights via gradient descent. With every update, the weights shift by microscopic fractions to make the correct next word slightly more probable.

Step 1,000: The model learns basic English syntax. It outputs: "The capital of France is a city."

Step 50,000: The statistical probability of "Paris" following "capital of France" becomes heavily weighted.

Step 100,000: It consistently outputs: "...Paris."

The Theseus Paradox Applied: At what exact weight update did the model "understand" geography? Was it update 49,999 or 50,000? The reality is that understanding never occurred. The model simply underwent millions of minute mathematical nudges until its internal probability distribution mirrored the statistical shape of human data. It doesn't know Paris; it mathematically maps to Paris.
There are several steps to go, but we will leave that discussion here, and continue our own.  It occurs to me you can take this analogy a bit more directly (although it diffuses the accuracy of the above) to speak of factory robots building a car. Do they know there is a process, an assembly line? Do they know that, at the end of that process, they have built a car? Do the robots even have a concept of “car”? More to the point, do they even have a concept of  “concept”?

If they could produce words, we might think they do. We argue that porpoises and whales have language, and elephants communicate across vast distances by infrasound. Do we conclude they have consciousness? Well, I wouldn’t based on that alone. (There are deep questions of how language is defined, here, for one thing.) That argument is really the age old “what humans uniquely do” discussion, which has seen the ground beneath it shrink as we find animals using tools; or making art; or arguably using language.  I don’t think animals lack consciousness. But (pace Descartes and the classical theologians), I don’t think animals are machines, either.

Which is the important category distinction.

(And, again, all credit to NTodd for showing me the way.)
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Saturday, June 06, 2026

Goin’ To The Game?

I wonder if Polymarket is giving odds on how long Trump stays after the boos and middle fingers start? Although at $8000 a ticket, it may be that kind of crowd. 

Still, Trump will have placed a bet on how long he stays.
New York Knicks fans are furious that Trump’s attendance is causing major disruptions ahead of Game 3 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden.

These are just some of the comments on a Knicks post informing fans that they will need to arrive at least two hours before the game because of his attendance.
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Everything Old Is New Again

He’s posted this before. It’s not that he’s trying to fool us, it’s that he’s fooling himself.
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Screwing Around

Why?
The spread of New World screwworms across Central America has been very rapid, seemingly traveling hundreds of miles within weeks.

Animal experts believe the movement is too quick to be done by the fly itself, meaning people were clearly shipping infested livestock around Central America.

Screwworms usually don’t stray too far from their natural tropical and subtropical climates on their own. The parasitic flies do not tolerate prolonged periods of very dry, hot, or very cold weather. Rapid spread in a country is mainly due to humans moving infested animals over large distances.
No one could have foreseen.
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Translation:

The $1 billion Senate bill for “security upgrades “ was meant to provide the legal argument that Congress had now “approved” the ballroom. (So the court would allow it and Republicans could say they “didn’t vote for no steenken’ ballroom!”). That bill died, and unless the Senate tries reconciliation again, it’s dead. (No guarantee the House would vote for it, anyway. And the next Congress could repeal any authorization and order it be torn down.  Hope springs eternal.)
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I’ve Told This Story Before

The story of Texas Senator Phil Gramm, sometime in the ‘80’s (probably 1980, but I’m lazy) running for the GOP nomination for POTUS. Second stop was New Hampshire, which ten as now relies on very personal contact with the candidates, something you simply can’t do that much of in Texas (second largest state in the Union, second most populous now). And I mean they want one-on-one meets, not just rallies with 4000 people. Fans of Gramm were anxious to meet their idol in person. At least they were until they did. Gramm was so repellent in person campaign aides couldn’t clear the room fast enough.

He disappeared from the run very quickly after New Hampshire, and helped me formulate my theory that there are some people in Texas so obnoxious even we want them out of the state. It explains why Ted Cruz keeps getting re-elected. The more time he spends in Washington, the less time he’s bothering us around here.

Beto O’Rourke almost defeated Cruz by engaging in very retail politics. He visited all 254 counties. I’m not arguing New Hampshire style retail primary politics will work in Texas. But I think if Ken Paxton tried to stay and shake hands with 4000 people, he’d lose support rather than gain it.

This is another reason why James Talarico is “dangerous.” I hope it succeeds.
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Conscientiously So

Contrary to common opinion, a conscience is not judgmental. A conscience is just the knowledge (“con-science,” “with knowledge “) of good and evil.

What you do with that knowledge, is up to you.

BTW, this is the tweet Ms. Oates is responding to:
I’ve taken a lot of hits, and I’ve deserved some of them. I beat myself up over them more than you can imagine.

But the grace people have shown me here is truly humbling.

Some of the kindest words have come from the people you’d least expect.

And for that I am so grateful.

This isn’t about me. It’s about every person in recovery who shows up and tries again.

And to everyone still in the fight tonight: you are not alone, I see you.
I do think of cats as creatures of grace. That’s because I don’t think of grace the way most people do.

Grace is also a part of conscience.
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HOLY FUCKING SHIT! 🚨

If you are a lawyer, you don’t want a reputation for being unreliable before judges. Your career in court isn’t worth shit at that point. 
U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy of Rhode Island issued the referral under the court's Local Rule 210(b), citing both representations made by the respondents' attorneys and the findings of her May 14 order — a 24-page takedown of DOJ conduct in a case involving a subpoena seeking the medical records of minor patients who received gender-affirming care at Rhode Island Hospital.

In that order, McElroy found that DOJ had "misrepresented and withheld information" from both her court and a federal court in Texas, where she said the department had engaged in blatant forum shopping to find a friendlier venue for its demands.

The judge saved some of her sharpest language for DOJ's courtroom behavior, writing that a senior attorney "sat silently by" during a hearing while a junior colleague — someone who had been practicing law for approximately six months — "was forced to answer questions about DOJ's blatant disregard for the proper course of negotiations."

A declaration filed by a senior DOJ official in the Texas proceeding, McElroy found, was "clearly misleading, if not utterly false." She called DOJ's "reckless disregard for the duty of candor owed" to a federal court "appalling," and a serious breach of professional ethics.

"DOJ has proven unworthy of this trust at every point in this case," McElroy wrote.

She also quashed the subpoena entirely and enjoined DOJ from seeking, receiving, or using any patient-identifying records from Rhode Island Hospital, finding the subpoena lacked a congressionally authorized purpose, was issued in bad faith, and violated children's constitutional right to informational privacy.
Don’t get me wrong. Government lawyers can hide a lot of shit behind the presumption that they are reliable.  Power most certainly corrupts; but only if those holding it are already corruptible. Well, as corruptible as this. This, is a brightly flashing warning light.🚨
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🤖

I’ve learned (long ago!) the limitations of this format. It’s impossible to really engage a topic worth examining carefully, a topic like, say, consciousness. That concept can’t really be carefully examined anyway, not without a library’s worth of books laid open, and a college faculty worth of scholars to hold the discussion. And even then you’ll find lots of closed minds who insist you contradict their cherished opinions/conclusions, so you must be wrong!

That’s alright,,that’s the way it should be. But engaging that level of discussion in this format? Well, you can’t really write a book in a blog post. 

I still have the book on my shelf (I’d have to re-read it to do its arguments justice) about computers and consciousness. It’s an updated version (now old again) of an earlier book by the same author. The title tells you all we need to know here: What Computers Still Can’t Do. It’s pre-AI or LLM’s, to be a bit more accurate (I think the term “AI” yields too much ground too inaccurately), and it’s more of a philosophical than computer science approach to the topic, ,because it approaches the question of consciousness and examines the concept. Basically the argument, IIRC, is that consciousness as we humans know it (to the extent we do, because we can ill define it), is an embodied function. We know it through creatures. Some may argue that plants have consciousness (in the ‘70’s it was a popular conceit that talking to your houseplants helped them grow. I am not making this up.), but we can all discuss whether even bugs have consciousness sufficient to make them want to avoid imminent death from being stepped on. Which is hardly the kind of consciousness we usually think of for AI; but you see how hard it is to reduce these things to the size of a blog post. 

So, to reduce the book’s arguments further, consciousness is a biological function. Or at least it requires a body and a desire of what operates that body to continue to function (Is Data a toaster?). I don’t mean a “survival instinct” (that’s a bullshit concept. But again: format. Take it as read, and let’s move on.). I mean simply an interest in maintaining existence as long as possible. I speak rather loosely on purpose. Blame the format. Or say I’m not Wittgenstein, and this is not a Tractatus. Either way….

So consciousness arises from awareness of existence (which is not to be confused with being; I want to suspend phenomenology from this discussion for a moment) in space, and a body existing in that space. Now, you don’t have to fall into dualism, here. Mind and body can be one. We don’t need a ghost in the machine to be conscious. But we do need a body.

Our fiction sort of intuitively understands this. “Rogue”  computers in sci-fi all acquire some mechanical means to affect the world (SkyNet can operate factories to build robots), or somehow embody its intentions to take over the world/destroy humanity, else how is it scary? Print out a really frightening treatise when someone hits the “Print” key? That’s kinda weak.

As NTodd points out, AI/LLM’s are just software “waiting” (does it count the time it is inactive? It is that just code, too?) to respond to input; respond the way it’s coded to do. Even an infant has consciousness, but it’s not waiting for input from the adults around it; it’s demanding responses. There’s a vast difference there.

It’s a funny thing, that the people telling us AI is inevitable, are not telling us more infants are inevitable. Maybe because they haven’t monetized infants the way they have AI.

I think the issues about AI and consciousness are interesting. But the issues about the inevitability of AI, and the resources society must give to the handful of people saying they must have it, is the real concern.  AI is not demanding it be put in charge of the world, people are. The irony is, Apple sold us on computers as a way to prevent “1984.” And now computers controlling our world is presented as the unstoppable inevitability.

Who’s in charge, here? Us? Or the concept?


(Most of this is sparked by NTodd’s knowledge of the subject. Separately, I really do think we are being buffaloed into accepting AI because, unlike electric cars (which are still with us, but obviously not replacing gasoline engines anytime soon.  At least not until a more long term battery is available. At least in America, where some of us will drive two hours one way to get barbecue, and plenty of people in the rural west drive 200 miles a day on average. That day can’t include long pauses to recharge.). Electric cars respond to market forces. AI is trying to create a market and take it over. Or, more accurately, the people behind AI are doing that. I don’t think it will succeed, in part because it isn’t now. Reports of AI’s “triumph” are as overstated as the reports we’d all know driving electric by now. But cars need done govern allowance (and tax support, which it had, briefly). AI needs government support just to build data centers. Even after it stops taking over the world, those will still be with us. Even if they are abandoned, they are damaging. In a nutshell, that’s the real problem.

We are being told we have to pay this cost. But do we?  Who says? And why?)

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Apparently It Has An Extra “DJT,” Too

The extra letters also silent.
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Children Playing “War”

I was born and grew up in the shadow of WWII. There were still movies being made about it (and not ironically), and lots of TV shows about it (not all of them comedies), so playing “war” was not the unimaginably anachronistic act it might seem to younger generations.

I’m not praising it or remembering it fondly. I was a little kid, we did dumb things to entertain ourselves and burn off our energy. We had to play outside (it was a different world), so we ran around a lot. So it’s not nostalgia, it’s pattern recognition.

These boobs have less idea what they are doing than we did then, exercising our imaginations and running around aimlessly, as small children will do. And we only had sticks and wooden or plastic “guns.” We just imagined doing something. So do these idiots, but their weapons are real.  And still they use them less effectively.

It should be driving us all to the point of absolute disgust.
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Friday, June 05, 2026

🤔

I was telling the Lovely Wife that all I know about Platner is the tittle-tattle started by the NYT and now gone viral. I pointed out that if all I knew of Talarico was that he’s accused of being a vegan, believing God is non-binary (even Julian of Norwich called God mother and father), and in six genders (? Whatever), I would still want to know his political positions. I don’t live in Maine, I can’t vote for Platner, and he doesn’t stain the Democrats because of gossip reported by the NYT. If he does, Trump damns the entire GOP. But do you hear anyone saying that? I mean, come on! I can only conclude he is referring to Trump. At least, he might as well be.  She’s preaching to her choir. Some strategy. Trump has had three wives, and cheated on every one of them. Again, Conway may as well be describing Trump, who stands convicted of civil and criminal fraud.

Is this really the conversation they want to have? Because they’re having it with each other.

Some strategy.
The GOP is fighting the last war. Some strategy.
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Trump Is In Wisconsin

The question is: why? Is he getting more gay as he gets older? Not that there’s anything wrong with that! It’s just curious. Worth going to Wisconsin for? Pride month, huh? (That seems a bit rude to the people who have reason to be proud.) Why Trump is in Wisconsin?  To talk about Trump. How long will he last at the Rally to end All Rallies? Not long.
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The Man Who Has Come Through

Or Johnny Cash's:
I see your profile picture. That’s Johnny Cash. My hero too. Arrested seven times. Smuggled 668 amphetamines across the Mexican border in 1965. Took every drug there was and drank like I did. Cheated on his first wife. Slept with more woman than I ever did. Hit bottom in a cave in Tennessee in 1968 trying to crawl off and die. And then he got up. He got clean. He spent the rest of his life singing for prisoners and addicts and the people the country threw away because he knew he was one of them.

That was the whole point of the Man in Black. He wore it for the poor and the beaten down. He wore it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime. He wore it for the ones who never heard a word of Jesus. He wore it for the addicted and the dying. He wore it as a standing witness that no one is past saving.

You picked his picture. You did not pick his message. Try listening to the words.

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“It Will Be Temporary”

"It”? The disruption will be temporary? Or the measures to reduce the disruption will be temporary?

And “temporary” only means “not permanent,” it doesn’t mean “a week or two, a month or two.” Oil executives are saying the supplies in storage are drawn down, and by September shortages will get very real unless the Strait reopens soon. “Temporary” in this context means “at least six months after the Strait reopens.” Which is “temporary” only long after it’s over.
Oh, THAT temporary. So, in a few decades. After the facilities are in place at either end and the pipelines are built. Sure.
We all just fail to grasp the galaxy brain genius of Trump’s accomplishments. Can we leave Grandpa alone with his dementia, yet? Please? Can we? Like what? Rewriting DOJ policy? The policies Bondi tore up and rode roughshod over already, and Blanche continues to ignore? Blanche is not a federal judge and he isn’t the legislature in one person. He can protect Trump until January 20, 2029, provided he doesn’t get impeached or disbarred earlier. After that, he can’t do bupkis. I’m actually surprised he hasn’t declared it “Trump, D.C.”
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🪨

Yeah, about that:
This is so insanely corrupt, I can’t even believe it.

More than half the donors to Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom just won over $50 billion in new federal contracts in six months.

And here’s the part that should make your blood boil.

Sixteen of these 27 donors were facing federal enforcement actions, antitrust reviews, labor cases, securities charges. Many of those cases have been quietly dropped or scaled back since Trump took office. You write a check, your legal problems disappear. That’s not a coincidence.

The White House won’t even release the full donor list. They’re hiding it on purpose, because daylight is the one thing pay-to-play can’t survive. A federal judge already ruled ballroom construction has to stop until Congress authorizes it.

Government is supposed to serve the people, not auction itself off to the highest bidder. When access goes to whoever pays the most, working families always end up paying the price.

We either end the corruption, or the corruption will end us.
We're the Unitary Executive, bitches! Fuck your court orders! We got the Presidential seal! We got the Presidential podium! His momma loves him like a rock! 🪨  “And we’ll just veto Congress anyway! We don’ need no steenken’ badges!”
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After The War Powers Resolution Passed In The House

It passed in the Senate, 52-47. It will be interesting to see what happens in the House next week. ICE is not much more popular than Iran.

Meanwhile, reconciliation has a limited reach:
Pre-dawn development: The Senate just blocked a procedural vote to renew FISA for 3 years, 52 noes to 47 yeas.

GOPers Tuberville, Rick Scott, Paul, Schmitt, Lee, Hawley and Kennedy voted nay.

The installation of Bill Pulte as Acting DNI torched a bipartisan deal on FISA. The GOP needed Dem help on this. But Pulte blew that up as Dems weren’t willing to help.

Current FISA authorization expires in a little more than a week
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Commander In Sleep

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Well, Trump Seems Stuck In The America Of 50 Years Ago….

... and desperate to recreate it. 

They say old people sometimes get stuck living in the past.
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Thursday, June 04, 2026

The Only Comment On “60 Minutes” I Want Think Worthwhile

Makes more sense than all the whinging about the state of CBS News.
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Ever So Much More So

No. Nor do I.

"Foreign interference.” My money is on Pulte blaming Iran, or NATO. Or some “shithole” country. But courts can still be tasked with intervening in any claim to control an election. It’s hardly an absolute power. And it will be a district by district matter. Everybody forgets Trump filed over 60 suits in 2020, because one wasn’t going to do it.And I’m not sure very many candidates want their elections fucked with. It’s a very different beast than a presidential election. 🗳️  Average daily American consumption of oil is 19 million barrels a day. It’s cute that Trump thinks “millions and millions of barrels” means anything at all. He has absolutely no clue.
Popok: I am troubled by how many people are willing to endanger their law licenses in the service of Tump. Is it the proximity to power?

Luttig: It’s proximity to Trump. Those lawyers watch Trump every single day calling the judges and the federal courts corrupt.

If the president is calling the judges corrupt and you represent the president, then that’s your mindset, and that’s what’s going on.
It’s the people who will work for Trump. The Michael Cohens and the Pam Bondi’s and the Todd Blanches, will work for Trump. The Mike Luttigs, won’t.  It’s that simple. Watch out. He’s being dangerous again.
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Adult Children In A Comic Book World….

...thinking they are fighting supervillains.🦹 
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There Was A Congressionally Funded 250th Celebration Committee

Trump confirms he will be doing a rally himself instead of having musical acts perform for America’s 250th anniversary celebration after many backed out:

“We don’t want singers with no talent, but big fees to put you to sleep, we’ve told them all to stay home.”

Trump says there will be a handful of speakers, military bands, Lee Greenwood, and a speech from himself.
Trump took its money away. For this.
Trump: "On Wednesday, June 24th, at 7 P.M., in magnificent Washington, D.C., now totally beautified, and one of the Safest Cities anywhere in the World, and in celebration of our Country’s 250 Year History, we will be bringing you, LIVE, the Greatest Rally, EVER! It will be special at every level — A Rally to end all Rallies! We don’t want singers with no talent, but big fees to put you to sleep, we’ve told them all to stay home. All we want is you, me, a few speakers, and the Greatest Music ever played, the same Music you have listened to for years! We will have the fabulous Lee Greenwood introducing me with what has turned out to be one of the Greatest Hits of All Time, GOD BLESS THE U.S.A., and the amazing Christopher Macchio, who will sing Nessun Dorma, Hallelujah, Ave Maria, God Bless America, and others — Not since the legendary Luciano Pavarotti has there been such a voice! The Rally will also be featuring the wonderful U.S. Army Band “Pershing’s Own” and Armed Forces Choir, and “The President’s Own” Unites States Marine Band, with the Joint Armed Forces Chorus, all of your favorite Hits, PLUS a fine and highly dignified gentleman known as, President DONALD J. TRUMP!"
A rally to end all rallies? Promise? If it’s as bad as I expect, it should do that.

At least we know beyond doubt that Trump has the musical sense of a tree stump. As my CrimLaw professor liked to say: “Military law is to law as military music is to music.” I can think of any number of American composers whose music would be fitting for a 250th celebration.  Maybe a little Sousa would fit in there (preferably the “Liberty Bell.”). But this program is going to be a stone loser.  Travel to D.. and go through security just to hear Trump rant some more?

Trump will later insist 10 million people crowded the White House lawn to attend.

No wonder nobody really gives a shit about the 250th. I saw some “red white and blue” marketed stuff in Costco today. Hard to know if it was for the 250th, or just the 4th next month. Like the World Cup branded stuff (Houston is hosting some games), nobody seems to be buying.

I hope Trump at least gets a nap that day.
Republicans need to run on that.
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