The Conversation -- May 19, 2025
Now They're Arresting the Opposition. Luis Ferré-Sadurní of the New York Times: "The Justice Department charged a New Jersey congresswoman with assaulting federal agents during a clash outside a Newark immigration detention center and dropped a trespass charge against the city's mayor that arose from the same episode, the department said Monday. Alina Habba, the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, disclosed the move in a post on X, saying that the congresswoman, LaMonica McIver, had been charged 'for assaulting, impeding and interfering with law enforcement' when she visited the detention center with two other Democratic members of Congress from New Jersey on May 9.... Ms. Habba also announced that she had dismissed a misdemeanor charge for trespass against Ras J. Baraka, the Democratic mayor of Newark, whose arrest had precipitated the flare-up with federal agents after he sought to join the lawmakers on their tour of the detention center but was denied entry. She said she had dismissed the charge 'for the sake of moving forward.'" ~~~
~~~ Marie: Arresting a Congresswoman attempting to fulfill her Constitutional duties is a consequential matter. You don't post about it on X. Unless you don't know WTF you're doing.
The President's efforts here to take over an organization outside of those bounds, contrary to statute established by Congress and by acts of force and threat using local and federal law enforcement officers, represented a gross usurpation of power and a way of conducting government affairs that unnecessarily traumatized the committed leadership and employees of USIP, who deserved better. -- Judge Beryl Howell, opinion, U.S. Institute of Peace v. Jackson ~~~
~~~ Derek Hawkins of the Washington Post: "A federal judge in Washington ruled Monday that the Trump administration exceeded its authority when it dismantled the U.S. Institute of Peace, an independent nonprofit created by Congress. U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell said the institute, while part of the federal government, was separate from the executive branch; therefore..., Donald Trump lacked power to terminate its board at will. Administration officials and members of billionaire Elon Musk's U.S. DOGE Service -- aided by local and federal law enforcement agencies -- seized the institute's privately owned headquarters in March and summarily removed its leaders."
~~~ The Independent's report, by Alex Woodward, recalls DOGE's "armed takeover" of the organization and its building. From the WashPo report, it appears now-former U.S. attorney for D.C. Ed Martin was threatened to criminally charge the employees of the Institute of Peace. Here's Howell's decision, via the courts.
Justin Jouvenal of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to cancel temporary protections that have allowed nearly 350,000 Venezuelans to remain in the United States for humanitarian reasons. Trump officials had asked the justices to lift a lower-court order that barred the administration from ending the temporary protected status while litigation over the matter continues. The Biden administration created the protected status for Venezuelans in 2021 and 2023, finding that economic and political turmoil under the regime of President Nicolás Maduro made it too risky to deport migrants back to their home country. Officials approved a third extension of TPS in the waning days of Joe Biden's presidency that would have kept the protections in place through October 2026, but the Trump administration said the program was not in the 'national interest.'" At 12:45 pm ET, this is a developing story that will be updated.
~~~ AND the following story fits right in with Oliver's segment: ~~~
~~~ Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: "CBS News faced another shock wave on Monday after its president, Wendy McMahon, abruptly said that she would exit her post, the latest development in an ongoing showdown between the news division and ... [Donald] Trump. Ms. McMahon, whose full title was president of CBS News and Stations, said in a memo that 'it's become clear the company and I do not agree on the path forward.' Tensions between Ms. McMahon and CBS's parent company, Paramount, have simmered for months, a period that Ms. McMahon described in her memo as 'challenging.' Paramount is in talks to settle a $20 billion lawsuit brought by Mr. Trump that accused '60 Minutes' of deceptively editing an interview last year with his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris. Many legal experts have called the suit baseless, but Paramount's controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, has said she favors settling the case. She is seeking the Trump administration's approval for a multibillion-dollar sale of her company to a Hollywood studio, Skydance. The situation prompted the executive producer of '60 Minutes,' Bill Owens, to resign last month, saying he no longer enjoyed his usual journalistic independence. At the time, Ms. McMahon took pains to signal her support for Mr. Owens...."
David Gilmore of Mediaite: "... Donald Trump has called for a 'major investigation' into Bruce Springsteen [the] night after the rock legend delivered a scathing critique of the president during his UK tour. In a Truth Social post late Sunday night, Trump accused Springsteen of having been paid by former Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris for a campaign performance and endorsement -- without offering any evidence. Trump also floated similar claims about Beyoncé, Oprah Winfrey, and U2 frontman Bono, all of whom publicly supported Harris or the Democrats during the 2024 election." Gilmore publishes two Trump posts, both of which required extended employment of the Caps Lock feature.
Patrick Svitek of the Washington Post: "Former president Joe Biden thanked Americans on Monday for their 'love and support,' a day after it was disclosed he has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. 'Cancer touches us all,' Biden wrote on X in his first public comment about the diagnosis. 'Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support.' Biden shared a picture of himself seated with former first lady Jill Biden and their cat, Willow."
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⭐Tyler Pager of the New York Times: "Former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was diagnosed on Friday with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones, his office said in a statement on Sunday. The diagnosis came after Mr. Biden reported urinary symptoms, which led doctors to find a 'small nodule' on his prostate. Mr. Biden's cancer is 'characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone,' the statement said. 'While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management,' according to the statement from Mr. Biden's office, which was unsigned. 'The president and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.'" The AP report is here. MB: This is terribly sad news. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Here are some details of the President's diagnosis, by Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post. Gina Kolata has the New York Times' report. The AP's report, by Carla Johnson, is here.
"Trump Orders the Government to Stop Enforcing Rules He Doesn't Like." Maxine Joselow, et al., of the Washington Post: "Across the government, the Trump administration is trying a new tactic for gutting federal rules and policies that the president dislikes: simply stop enforcing them.... In some cases, Trump has personally ordered a halt to enforcement.... 'The conscious effort to slow down enforcement on such a broad scale is something we have never seen in previous administrations,' said Donald Kettl, a professor emeritus at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy. 'It amounts to a dramatic assertion of presidential power and authority.'... Critics say the administration is breaking the law and sidestepping the rulemaking process that presidents of both parties have routinely followed."
Marie: We don't need to be lectured on how the Shortsighted, Short-fingered Vulgarian is destroying the U.S.'s status as the world's most powerful nation, but here are two academics to endorse our observations: ~~~
Michael Posner, in a New York Times op-ed: "In the late 1980s, Joseph Nye, the Harvard political scientist who died this month, developed the concept of 'soft power.' His central premise, that the United States enhances its global influence by promoting values like human rights and democracy, has guided U.S. foreign policy for decades across both Republican and Democratic administrations. Donald Trump has made clear that he fundamentally rejects this vision. As president, he has ordered a sweeping overhaul of the State Department that will cripple its capacity to promote American values abroad. At the center of this effort are drastic cuts to the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor -- the State Department's core institution for advancing soft power, which I led under President Barack Obama. Unless Congress intervenes, the debasement of the bureau's role will impair America's ability to challenge authoritarianism, support democratic movements and provide independent analysis to inform U.S. foreign policy. The long-term result will be a United States that is weaker, less principled and increasingly sidelined as authoritarian powers like Russia and China offer their own transactional models of global engagement.... Lawmakers from both parties need to stand up to [Marco Rubio] and demand that the State Department continue to support the Bureau...." ~~~
~~~ Kyle Chan, in a New York Times op-ed: "For years, theorists have posited the onset of a 'Chinese century': a world in which China finally harnesses its vast economic and technological potential to surpass the United States and reorient global power around a pole that runs through Beijing. That century may already have dawned, and when historians look back they may very well pinpoint the early months of ... [Donald] Trump's second term as the watershed moment when China pulled away and left the United States behind.... Mr. Trump is taking a wrecking ball to the pillars of American power and innovation. His tariffs are endangering U.S. companies' access to global markets and supply chains. He is slashing public research funding and gutting our universities, pushing talented researchers to consider leaving for other countries. He wants to roll back programs for technologies like clean energy and semiconductor manufacturing and is wiping out American soft power in large swaths of the globe. China's trajectory couldn't be more different.... America ... may end up as a profoundly diminished nation."
Here's one way the domestic scene is a train-wreck, too: ~~~
~~~ Dan Richards, in a New York Times op-ed: "... as Europe embraces the night train, the United States seems to be sleepwalking into a transport dead end, slashing funding for public infrastructure and firing transit workers. Long-distance public transport in America may be heading inexorably toward a binary choice: fast, exclusive and environmentally ruinous or slow, tortuous and run-down.... In ... [Donald] Trump's second term, with many climate commitments and environmental protections already up in smoke, the road ahead seems clear: more gas-guzzling cars, planes and rockets. The national rail system is written off as either irreparably broken (like the long-suffering Amtrak) or a mismanaged white elephant (as with several stalled high-speed rail projects).... The secrets to China's fantastically successful matrix of high-speed railways are clear: consistency of vision, courage of conviction, a successful nationwide rollout and, crucially, adequate funding." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Last night I watched a ridiculously improbable 1946 propaganda film noir called "The Stranger." It is set in a small Connecticut town, where a Nazi hunter, with the aid of local townspeople, saves the free world for democracy. (As I said, the plot & premise were ridiculous.) But the opening scene of the quintessential American town square struck me because the "action" was a bus driving into the town and letting travellers off at the local general store. I live in a small town not unlike the one depicted in the movie. You won't see a bus stopping by here. They might fly by on the nearby Interstate, but even there I've never seen a bus except perhaps for a few tourist buses carrying leaf peepers in the fall.
Sometimes Andy Borowitz's headlines look real. Here's today's: "Qatar Signs Historic Deal to Own US President." MB: I'd say the royal jet plane was part of the package deal.
Josh Boak of the AP: "Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent acknowledged Sunday that Walmart, the largest U.S. retailer, may pass along some of the costs from ... Donald Trump's tariffs to its shoppers through higher prices. Bessent described his call with the company's CEO a day after Trump warned Walmart to avoid raising prices from the tariffs at all and vowed to keep a close watch on what it does. As doubts persist about Trump's economic leadership, Bessent pushed back against inflation concerns, praised the uncertainty caused by Trump as a negotiating tactic for trade talks and dismissed the downgrade Friday of U.S. government debt by Moody's Ratings." (Also linked yesterday.)
Katie Baker of the New York Times: "Even before ... [Donald] Trump was re-elected, the Heritage Foundation, best known for Project 2025, set out to destroy pro-Palestinian activism in the United States.... Now, four months after Mr. Trump took office, Heritage Foundation leaders are taking an early victory lap.... In interviews with The Times -- the Heritage Foundation's first public comments since Mr. Trump took office about its blueprint for shaping U.S. public opinion on Israel -- Project Esther's architects said there were clear parallels between their plan and recent actions against universities and pro-Palestinian demonstrators on both a state and a federal level." (Also linked yesterday.)
Still Not Cruel Enough, But Budget Bill Makes It Through Committee. Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "The House Budget Committee late Sunday night revived ... [Donald] Trump's stalled bill to cut taxes and spending, after a handful of fiscally conservative Republicans relented and allowed it to advance even as they continued to press for deeper reductions to health and environmental programs.... On Sunday, after a weekend of intensive negotiations with House Republican leaders and White House officials, [the rebels] switched their votes to 'present,' allowing the measure to move forward without lending their support. It sent the bill past a crucial procedural hurdle but indicated that there was still major trouble ahead for the package, which Speaker Mike Johnson has said he wants the full House to consider before Memorial Day." The NBC News story is here. The AP's report is here. ~~~
~~~ Heather Cox Richardson comments on the bill and on other matters, some related and some not. She recounts one incident from October 2024, in which Trump attended a forum where he "corrected" people knowledgeable about tariffs: "It must be hard for you to, you know, spend 25 years talking about tariffs as being negative and then have somebody explain to you that you're totally wrong." He is such a dimwit. ~~~
~~~ "Attack of the Sadistic Zombies." Paul Krugman: "... this reconciliation bill -- that is, legislation structured in such a way that it can't be filibustered and may well pass with no Democratic votes -- is different in both degree and kind from what we've seen before: Its cruelty is exceptional even by recent right-wing standards. Furthermore, the way that cruelty will be implemented is notable for its reliance on claims we know aren't true and policies we know won't work....The House Reconciliation Bill, by slashing benefits -- especially Medicaid -- will cause immense, almost inconceivable hardship to the bottom 40 percent of Americans, especially the poorest fifth...." Read on.
Elizabeth Williamson of the New York Times: "Above the Law, a legal industry website with a long history of skewering the nation's most elite firms, has found a moment and plenty of inside tipsters.... Since March, when Mr. Trump began targeting for retribution top law firms whose clients and past work he does not like, Above the Law has become a rage read for lawyers incensed at the firms that accommodated him." Here's the main Webpage for Above the Law. The headlines are pretty great: "Wingnut Texas Judge Overrules SCOTUS Trans Decision Because YOLO; James Comey Enjoys Long Walks On The Beach.... So MAGA Gonna Send Him To El Salvador Prison Camp and so forth.
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Louisiana. Jonathan Edwards of the Washington Post: "Seven inmates remained on the loose Sunday night after escaping from a New Orleans jail Friday, probably with help from inside the facility, according to local authorities, who warned that the escapees should be considered 'armed and dangerous.' Deputies discovered the inmates had disappeared Friday at 8:30 a.m. during a routine headcount and immediately began 'emergency protocols,' Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson told reporters Friday, adding that her deputies were working with local and state law enforcement to try to recapture them.... Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) said the jailbreak could be the largest in the state's history and 'should never have happened.'... Jonathan Tapp, special agent in charge of the FBI's New Orleans office, said during Sunday's news conference that the agency 'strongly' believes that inmates are receiving help on the outside to evade capture." ~~~
~~~ AP: “Officials increased the reward for the capture of seven inmates who escaped from a New Orleans jail by fleeing through a hole behind a toilet as at least a dozen law enforcement agencies pressed their expansive search for the men for a third day on Sunday. FBI Special Agent Jonathan Trapp said at a news conference that seven of the 10 men who originally escaped on Friday are still at large and that the FBI is offering $10,000 per inmate instead of the $5,000 previously announced."
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Israel/Palestine, et al. Tia Goldenberg, et al., of the AP: "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that his decision to resume limited aid to Gaza after a weekslong blockade came after pressure from allies who said they wouldn't be able to grant Israel the support it needs to win the war so long as there were 'images of hunger' coming out of the Palestinian territory. Israel has faced condemnation from the United Nations, aid groups and some European allies for its blockade of goods into the war-ravaged territory, including food, fuel and medicine. On Sunday it said it would allow a 'basic' amount of aid into Gaza to prevent a 'hunger crisis' from developing. Food experts have already warned that the blockade risked sparking famine in Gaza, a territory of roughly 2 million people.... Under the newly launched air and ground offensive, Israel plans to displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and secure aid distribution inside the territory. Netanyahu said Monday that the plan would include 'taking control of all of Gaza.'... The aid that would be let in would be 'minimal,' Netanyahu said, without specifying precisely when it would resume...."
Poland. Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: "Rafal Trzaskowski, the liberal mayor of Warsaw, appeared on Sunday to have eked out a narrow win in the first round of Poland's presidential election, a vote seen as pivotal as the government seeks to unwind hard-right policies put in place by a previous administration. Mr. Trzaskowski, a member of Prime Minister Donald Tusk's Civic Platform, won 30.8 percent of the votes cast, according to exit polls released by Polish state and private television stations. But competing against 12 rival candidates, he fell far short of a majority, finishing just ahead of Karol Nowrocki, a candidate backed by the hard-right Law and Justice party, who took 29.1 percent. The two men are set to compete in a runoff on June 1."
Romania. Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: "In a setback for Europe's surging nationalist forces, Nicusor Dan, a centrist mayor and former mathematics professor, on Sunday won the presidential election in Romania, defeating a hard-right candidate who is aligned with ... [Donald] Trump and has opposed military aid to Ukraine. With more than 98 percent of ballots counted, preliminary official results gave 54 percent of the vote in the presidential runoff to Mr. Dan, 55, the mayor of Romania's capital, Bucharest. His opponent, George Simion, a nationalist and fervent admirer of Mr. Trump who had been widely seen as the front-runner, drew only 46 percent. As he slipped behind Mr. Dan in early counting, Mr. Simion told supporters that 'we are the clear winners of these elections.' He called for national protests should the final count show him as the loser, railing against what he said was an attempt 'to steal the victory of the Romanian people.'" MB: Extremely Trumpy.
Vatican, etc. Matthew Bigg of the New York Times: "President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine attended Pope Leo XIV's inaugural Mass on Sunday and met later with the new pontiff in private, days after Leo expressed a personal desire to help end the war with Russia. The meeting took place after the newly elected pope offered on Friday to host talks between Ukraine and Russia at the Vatican and said he would make every effort so that peace could prevail.... 'Martyred Ukraine awaits negotiations for a just and lasting peace,' Leo said at the end of the service, echoing language used by his predecessor, Pope Francis." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Adam Nichols of the Raw Story: ";JD Vance's efforts to schmooze were rebuffed by Pope Leo XIV Sunday -- as the pontiff shook him off to meet with other world leaders.... [Vance] tried to speak to the leader of the Catholic church, who shook his hand but barely spoke in the 17-second encounter.... The awkward greeting with Vance followed a sermon in which subtle digs were aimed at ... Donald Trump's administration. Though he didn't name Trump, the pope talked about 'hatred, violence, prejudice, the fear of difference, and an economic paradigm that exploits the Earth's resources and marginalizes the poorest." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Update. John Hudson, et al., of the Washington Post: "Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio held their first formal meeting with Pope Leo XIV on Monday as the Trump administration seeks to reset relations with the Vatican by working together on resolving the war in Ukraine and de-emphasizing fundamental disagreements over migrant policy.... Vatican readout of the papal audience confirmed only that it happened, with no mention of content. It noted that Vance subsequently met with Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, a senior Vatican diplomat, for 'cordial talks' on topics that included 'ecclesial life and religious freedom,' as well as respect for humanitarian law and negotiated solutions in conflict zones.... On Saturday, Rubio met with the Vatican's point man on Ukraine, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, and welcomed the Holy See as a possible venue for Russia-Ukraine peace talks and as a facilitator for returning the hundreds of Ukrainian children taken to Russia during the war." Here's the AP report. ~~~
~~~ Marie: The photo that heads the WashPo story reminds me of a couple of juvenile deliquents boasting to the headmaster about a prank they pulled, as he smiles along -- right before he lowers the boom on the little punks. I cannot take Little Marco & JayDee seriously.
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Reader Comments (22)
I checked with the Mayo Clinic re: Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
It's a mental health condition in which people have an unreasonably
high sense of their own importance. They need and seek too much
attention and want people to admire them. People with this disorder
may lack the ability to understand or care about the feelings of others.
NPD is found more commonly in men.
This condition cannot be cured.
Thirteen symptoms are listed. Guess who fits neatly into all of those
symptoms.
Here's a clue: Donald Trump.
Test
Cancer diagnosis
There’s some kind of weird historical alignment going on right now. News of A cancer diagnosis for the last truly American President comes at a time when the country’s first dictator, a savagely stupid, greedy and bigoted fat boy, oversees the demolition of a once great nation. And on the other side of the world, China is stepping quickly through the opening provided by that imbecile.
It’s looking less likely every day that we will be able to recover from the savage idiocy and wanton destruction of the nation’s institutions, economy, and health by a regime based on hatred and self defeating stupidity, following the outline (Project 2025) which itself is based racism and power mad delusions.
Like Joe Biden, we have received our own diagnosis of late stage cancer. The cancer cells, Trumpist ignorance and hatred of the American Experiment (as no experiment that does not line the pockets of the Trump Crime Family is dismissively cast aside) along with the devolution of a political party now hopelessly debased and diseased, have been advancing for almost a decade, and almost overnight it seems, have spread to all corners of the body politic.
Cancer has been described as a traitor to the body. Quite right, it eats away at healthy cells the way Trump and Musk the despicable holy rollers like Mike Johnson and Sam Alito attack the body’s systems.
It has even spread to Democrats. Vide Gavin Newsome, who has determined that if he wants to be a post-Hitler president, must up his cruelty quotient by stepping on the most vulnerable in his state, the homeless and immigrants in need of healthcare. The idea being, I suppose, that if he pretends to be just another cancer cell, the cancer will accept him as a member of its wrecking crew.
We are close to end stages here. All empires eventually fail. We are like citizens of Rome who suffer under a demented emperor who grabs as much loot as he can and who believes himself to be a god.
The vandals are on the way.
Dark ages are ahead.
Even if we survive the cancer, the body will never be the same. The traitor cells have done their job.
Adding to ForrestMorris's diagnosis, from Bluesky:
decompensation
and a bluesky note from congressman Lloyd Doggett
wanna be tyrant
CNN
"Trump’s biggest win isn’t a trade deal — it’s his distortion of reality
But the agreement with China is only a “win” if you squint through a MAGA lens. Trump set the house on fire and then fetched a single pail of water. It’s a start, perhaps. But some of the damage won’t be undone, and he’s still playing with matches."
It might be useful if news platforms cut through the distortions and spent more effort informing people of reality. Who could do that?
Forrest,
You may recall that our old friend Dr. Marvin Schwalb, a regular contributor to RC before passing away, spotted Fat Hitler’s NPD even before his first horror show.
Marvin knew whereof he spoke. According to his obituary, “He was a professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at the University of Medicine and Dentistry, New Jersey Medical School for over 45 years and served as associate director of the Institute of Genomic Medicine before retiring”, and for a number of years was our resident go-to guy for professional opinions about the psychological mayhem perpetrated by the Orange Monster, his constant need to belittle others while lying about his own achievements.
Marvin had this fat slob pegged years ago.
Marvin, you were right all along (although none of us doubted him even way back when.)
Okay kids, Fat Hitler spat out a wishy washy message about Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis. BFD.
His stupid kid Junior doesn’t even pretend to be decent, attacking Jill Biden for not catching the cancer sooner (these fuckers would find
a way to be insulting after firefighters heroically saved a family from a burning building—“Yeah, but what took them so long, were they napping?”).
“How come DOCTOR Jill Biden didn’t see this cancer, huh?”
Because, moron, she’s not a medical doctor. And even medical doctors miss certain cancers without specialized tests.
Su here’s the question. How long before Fatty goes back to attacking Biden for everything from Bird Flu, to the San Francisco earthquake?
In hours, please
Done in our name.....
Carolina A. Miranda, in The Washington Post, in (sickening) words and photos, describes How a Salvadoran prison became a political human zoo
"The grotesque images that have emerged from CECOT, like the human zoos that preceded it, are about presenting a barely contained savagery, reinforcing the idea that some people don’t qualify as fully human. "
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looks like a gift link
@Akhilleus: Nonetheless, Dumbo Junior was likely right about Biden's having had prostate cancer for years; i.e., while he was in the White House and while he was running for president.
Zeke Emanuel, an oncologist who is Rahm's brother and was on Biden's Covid advisory board, suggested the cancer "should have been caught earlier and floated the possibility that the former president either skipped the test or the White House failed to report the results." Emanuel said that "medical ethics required that the option and recommendation of a test would have been discussed with Biden but that the decision to have it would have ultimately rested with him."
Do these Trump monkeys call each other up late at night and, giggling like teenagers watching animals humping, try out the latest dollop of horse shit?
“Hey, what if I say the only people getting Medicaid are all related to Bin Laden? Huh? Wouldn’t that be a riot?”
Yeah. Laugh? I thought I’d die.
So here’s billionaire moral midget, Scott Bessent, when asked about the Qataris handing Fat Hitler a $400 million luxury (and surveillance bug filled) jumbo jet.
“Well” he sniffed, “No biggie. The French gave us the Statue of Liberty. So there.”
Right. The operative word here, SCOTT, is “us”. The French gave US the Statue of Liberty. Not an individual. I mean, it’s not like I have it tucked away in my backyard. They didn’t give it to President Grover Cleveland to cart back to Princeton, NJ, now did they?
And we can all visit the statue. I took my kid there a couple of years ago. As a grad student at NYU years ago, I climbed all the way up inside. Is Fatty gonna let me wander around inside his plane and check out all the fake gold gewgaws? Can Marie take it for a spin over the White Mountains? Can Forrest use it to drop water balloons on Betsy DeVos’s mansion?
No, no, and no. It belongs to that fat pig.
So stick your jokes up your ass, Bessent.
Dead of Night
GOP plans on meeting at 1 am to discuss their billionaires bill
Marie: I doubt that President Biden has the option of "skipping the test." If the test is the PSA count, the basic indicator of prostate cancer -- and not always a reliable indicator, either way ... he would find it impossible to "skip."
I see a GP once a year for my wellness check, which is not really a physical, but provides her the chance of finding something that I may need to take care of. She is a really good internist, and most of her diagnostic effort comes from conversation and from reviewing my history of tests on her laptop. Within two weeks prior to seeing her, I give blood and urine samples, the results of which tell her most of what she wants to know. The PSA prostate number is one of the many readouts from those samples. She looks at years of longitudinal samples in my record, identifying tendencies. She always tells me what the # is and what it means (so far so good).
I believe that any President has to have such basic lab tests at least annually, as part of the physical. So the PSA data would be generated automatically.
What the docs or the patients do with the results is another matter. But I believe that if the doc saw PSA results that indicated a prostate problem, he/she would have informed the patient and prescribed further action.
Again -- when people talk about a prostate "test", maybe it is something different than the PSA read from lab samples. But it is the only initial screen of which I am aware.
RAS,
As you likely know. “Dead of Night” is a classic horror film comprised of several storylines. The centerpiece is particularly prescient regarding our current horror. This sequence involves a ventriloquist (the PoT) who believes that he controls his dummy (Trump). The dummy actually takes control of him and ruins his life, sticking him into prison for life. Eventually (I forget how) the dummy is brought to the ventriloquist’s cell where they argue. The ventriloquist, attempting to free himself of this horrible thing, smashes it to pieces. Later, after another stint in the psych ward, the ventriloquist comes out speaking in the voice of the dummy.
The truly frightening ending is that all the participants in the story think they were in a dream, but everything starts again and we realize it’s an inescapable nightmare.
Sound familiar?
After writing the comment above, I saw this WaPo article which says that PSA screening is not necessary for men over 70.
I'm confused. If you are going to have a blood test, why would you leave out any cheap easy screen that can routinely be performed with all the other things your sample is checked for?
@Patrick: I agree with your questioning why a man wouldn't get the prostate results along with all the other results from an annual blood test. However, Zeke Emanuel did mention it would have been Biden's decision -- not the physician's -- on whether or not to get the PSA test results after he turned 70. That is, he mentioned not getting a PSA test in connection with Biden's age being +70.
So I wondered why it was that men weren't advised to get the test after age 70. So I asked the Google's AI lady. And the reason -- at least according to Google -- for not getting the PSA test after 70 is telling: "because the potential benefits of treatment for prostate cancer are often minimal, and the potential harms of treatment can outweigh those benefits, especially for men with limited life expectancies."
So doesn't a president -- and especially someone running for four more years in the job -- have an obligation to gauge his life expectancy? Doesn't he have every obligation to ensure that -- with a little bit of luck -- he'll be up to the job in four or five years? To me, the answer to that is obvious.
I wasn't bad at Biden for thinking he could serve a second term. I was mad at his advisors and his wife. Now I'm a little mad at Biden, too. He had a duty to the country to be prudent about his life expectancy. And he didn't bother (or he did bother and he kept secret his poor prospects.)
@Patrick: I agree with your questioning why a man wouldn't get the prostate results along with all the other results from an annual blood test. However, Zeke Emanuel did mention it would have been Biden's decision -- not the physician's -- on whether or not to get the PSA test results after he turned 70. That is, he mentioned not getting a PSA test in connection with Biden's age being +70.
So I wondered why it was that men weren't advised to get the test after age 70. So I asked the Google's AI lady. And the reason -- at least according to Google -- for not getting the PSA test after 70 is telling: "because the potential benefits of treatment for prostate cancer are often minimal, and the potential harms of treatment can outweigh those benefits, especially for men with limited life expectancies."
So doesn't a president -- and especially someone running for four more years in the job -- have an obligation to gauge his life expectancy? Doesn't he have every obligation to ensure that -- with a little bit of luck -- he'll be up to the job in four or five years? To me, the answer to that is obvious.
I wasn't mad at Biden for thinking he could serve a second term. I was mad at his advisors and his wife for deceiving him into thinking he was up to it. Now I'm a little mad at Biden, too. He had a duty to the country to be prudent about his life expectancy. And he didn't bother (or he did bother and he kept secret his limited prospects).
Test, again.
Marie,
The film you watched last night, Orson Welles’ “The Stranger”, has been one of my favorite films for years. Despite its rather incredible premise, a vicious Nazi war criminal married to the daughter of a Supreme Court justice (is it still incredible today, when we have supporters of fascism on the Court?) it does point out how easily such a monster could insinuate himself into a bucolic American setting.
Welles was very much shaken by newsreels of Holocaust survivors as well as shots of the thousands of corpses left by the Nazis in concentration camps. At the time, 1945, many Americans were still skeptical of what actually happened in the death camps. Welles was the first American director to include clips of Nazi atrocities in a general release film (“The Stranger”).
It’s even more astounding that all these years later, there are still those who believe the Holocaust was a hoax. Some of these have been honored dinner guests of Fat Hitler at his crappy fascist hamburger stand in Florida.
And now, he and his Nazi pals are planning for concentration camps of their own.
My major quibble with the film was how long it took the FBI investigator, played by Edward G. Robinson, to realize that Rankin (the war criminal played by Welles) was a Nazi after he complained that Karl Marx couldn’t possibly be considered a German because he was a Jew. I suppose anti-Semitism was still a pretty strong influence on many Americans in 1946.
Still, love the ending, the Nazi, hiding our as a history professor, teaching about the passing of time, impaled by a moving figure on a European clock (the visible symbol of time) carrying a medieval sword.
Sic semper all fascists. Including you know who.
@Akhilleus: I knew you would call me out for pooh-poohing the film. I had never seen it before though of course I had heard of it for years as some iconic work of genius in the history of film. I still think it was awful. Just terrible.
The characters, like the general store manager, were stereotypes. Loretta Young -- even though her character development was the most realistic and the most literature-y -- was wooden. And she did such a bad job that Welles or the director must have felt it was important to spell them out to the audience. Because the E.G. Robinson character did explain Young's loyalty to her husband -- which she didn't abandon till he was about to kill her.
Why did the Robinson character not get some professional help once he'd traced the Nazi to that Connecticut town? If you're going to write an implausible situation into a story, you have to find some excuse that makes the implausibility plausible. A one-man operation to hunt down AND capture this terrible Nazi is not credible.
The script was so awful that the Welles character would be speaking like a normal boys' school teacher, then suddenly lapse into a Shakespeare-esque soliloquy about the character of Germans. (BTW, I thought Edgar G. Robinson's character figured out almost immediately that the professor was the Nazi after he made the crack about Marx.) These were local yokels, yet they all suddenly believed the Edward G. Robinson character was a fed, even though he didn't show anybody any proof of it. That's not how real people behave. Richard Long's character instantly had complete faith in Robinson even though he supposedly thought the Welles character was a wonderful guy and a swell teacher. (Here, if Welles, who helped write the script, had waited to let the teenager flip AFTER the dog was killed, that would at least be believable.)
And, my God where was Harold Lloyd for that finale? At least it would have been funny instead of predictably melodramatic.
I agree that the concentration camp clips were powerful -- too powerful for me; I looked away. But when the best part of a movie is clips from somebody else's work, that doesn't say much for the movie. The contrast between the horrible reality of the clips and the silly fiction of the film was jarring.
As for mystery, there is none. There are no revelations in the film. There is no artifice. No red herrings. Viewers know from the get-go (or from the minute the little Nazi guy gets to the town) that the Welles character is the Nazi. And that he's a murderer.
I know they used to write Hollywood scripts in three weeks, but I think if you and I had three weeks to write a script on any sensible treatment, we'd do better than that.
I could write a better "review" that this, but if Welles, et al., didn't bother to write a good script, why should I knock myself out knocking the one they did write?
Trump brainwashed a woman into attacking members of Congress and now the tax payers will pick up the $5 million dollar bill.
"President Donald Trump’s administration has agreed to pay nearly $5 million to the family of Ashli Babbitt to settle a lawsuit brought by the estate of the Trump supporter who was fatally shot by police when she tried to storm the House Speaker’s Lobby during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
The settlement comes after Trump returned to office casting Babbitt as a martyr and seeking to rewrite the history of the assault on the Capitol as a heroic act of collective patriotism, not a violent effort to overturn an election. Five people died in or immediately after the violence, during which more than 140 officers were assaulted."
Need those life jackets for the more fortunate.
Marie,
Haha…I’m not calling you out.. your opinion is entirely valid. I have different reasons for liking that movie, that’s all. The studio, in fact, chopped a lot of stuff during the edit process that Welles shot, so it’s not entirely the film he envisioned, which inevitably results in holes in the storyline. But the narrative issues you point out are fair game.
I have no idea what FBI protocol was in 1946 for tracking down Nazi war criminals. I’m guessing it wasn’t too high on the list. They did however, spend a ton of resources tracking down Nazi scientists and engineers like Werner von Braun, who developed weapons and rocket technology, to grab them before the Russians did.
I think the fact that there were a bunch of independent Nazi hunters like Simon Wiesenthal, indicates that J. Edgar had other priorities after the war, going after lefties, liberals, and commies.
Anyway, we can all differ on our likes and dislikes, especially where Hollywood studio movies are concerned.