And so we await the heat. I did a lot of complaining about the cold spring, but the last fortnight has been lovely, perfect June weather. Warm enough in the afternoon, but not too, which is to say perfectly comfortable without turning on the a/c. That won’t be the case starting tomorrow (high of 86) and continuing through the week, including a very unseasonal 99 on Wednesday. A legit heat dome. Things won’t start to moderate until a week from Tuesday.
Oh, joy.
We’ll make it through, of course. Providing the power doesn’t go down or some other emergency doesn’t strike. There are pools and fans and air-conditioning. Lucky us.
Me, I went through training Saturday to re-start my career as a precinct poll worker, a prospect that fills me with both anticipation and dread. The Michigan primary is in August, and no one expects any surprises. November is a different kettle of fish, of course. As I sat through two hours of stuff I mostly already knew, I tried to concentrate on the idealism of the people who signed up for this duty and not the nefariousness of the scoundrels already undermining the process by sowing doubt among the pigheaded idiots who still — still! — believe that the 2020 election was “rigged,” as the president says over and over. The people pulling their strings are going to keep up the propaganda until November and beyond, with repercussions yet unknown. In other words, it’s very likely going to be ugly.
I’ll just do my part. New wrinkles since the last time I did this job: As ballot-box inspector, the person who tends the tabulator, I have to stand 10 feet away when a voter is casting their ballot, i.e., feeding it into the machine, and only come closer if they’re having trouble and need my help. Also, we’re now doing curbside voting in Michigan, so that situation could come up. That’s about it.
It’s funny, working the polls. An efficiency expert could have a field day with how things run; you could easily get the job done with a third of the staff. But that would actually increase the chances of shenanigans. The beauty of this Soviet-style workforce is, no one has hands on a ballot for longer than a few seconds. When I worked the absentee counting boards, we had teams of six, and one person’s entire job was to smooth the ballots after they were taken from the envelope, so they’d feed into the tabulator without problems. Another person was charged with opening the envelope. It was ridiculous, but also genius.
And still, ignoramuses (ignorami?) claim it’s crooked. They wouldn’t last an hour at the job, having their preconceived notions smashed like china.
What else is going on this weekend? Oh, did you hear about this? A man, upset by the murder of Alex Pretti, wrote a letter to Todd Lyons, acting director of ICE. It read:
You are a monstrous human being and will go down in history as America’s Reinhard Heydrich, the butcher.
The way you are protecting the obvious execution in Minnesota, even as we see the videos, will lead to your downfall. Even Trump will turn on you before the end, and you will be a sad, despised man who eats himself alive with shame at your own pathetic weakness.
You will never know peace. You will seek to lose yourself, to escape the burden of knowing the truth about yourself. But wherever you go, you will find yourself. You will torment yourself until your last day on Earth.
Harsh moral condemnation? Absolutely. A threat? No. That didn’t stop federal agents from coming after the writer, a Rochester, NY man, at his home and then, later, at his hotel in NYC, where he was staying with his daughter. And all this came after they did the same to a woman who’d posted the name of the ICE agent who killed Renee Good, even though the name had been made public by the Minneapolis media. In the latter case, they pressured the woman to take the post down (she didn’t). In both, they informed the people involved that “they may be in violation of federal law.” (They aren’t.)
Guess what the woman who posted the ICE agent’s name was doing when they threatened her? Working the polls in last Tuesday’s primary in New York. In other words, being a good citizen.
Finally, although this is a long essay, it’s worth reading, if you have any interest in ’60s radicals. It’s a review of Zayd Ayers Dohrn’s memoir, as the son of Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. But it goes far deeper, analyzing political violence in that era, and held my interest throughout:
In the past few years, the American Left has reformed once again, largely in protest of the Israeli slaughter in Gaza. Like the Vietnam War a generation ago, those protesters have been aided by a central, clarifying conflict—there has been, relative to the DSA of yesteryear, a bit less getting sidetracked into pointless internecine conflicts over the progressive stack—and unlike the Weather Underground, they have been free of any organized Action Faction, of any real effort to cross from building occupation and protest into violence. Of course, this has not spared them the same accusations of pointlessness, unreasonableness, and bigotry for failing to adequately appreciate the glorious incineration of children by US taxpayer-funded bombs. Merely protesting outside of sites dedicated to the auctioning of violently seized land is treated as a kind of violence itself, met with the same yowls and fainting that would meet actual efforts to resist the flattening of Gaza City, the illegal settlement of the West Bank, or at least the United States’ insistence on providing political and material cover for the ethnic cleansing of a captive population. They are still called childish for believing that the world does not have to be this way.
But if it is childish, if any of this—the outrage, the horror, the belief that something must be done—is childish, it is only because a child could see it. It is only adults who find comfort in the reassuring sobriety of pessimism. I keep reading that these protesters—like us, like the left wing of the Weather Underground—have been seduced by anti-American propaganda, by the nefarious infiltration of subversive “ideology” into feeds and articles and schools. If you believe that, you must imagine 9/11 with a twist: hours after the towers fell, as FDNY and NYPD officers swarmed the scene looking for survivors, a second wave of al-Qaeda hijackers brought another plane held in reserve, crashing it into the smoldering ground to kill the rescue workers they had lured there with the first attack. This is ordinary business in Gaza and Lebanon. What dastardly “ideology” is required to find this fact appalling? What far more common ideology is required to shrug, to accept that this is the way the world must be?
OK, that’s enough. News from Hot City later this week, I hope. IF I SURVIVE…..
Sherri said on June 28, 2026 at 6:55 pm
Zayd Ayers Dohrn’s podcast about his parents and the Weather Underground, Mother County Radicals, was quite good: https://crooked.com/podcast-series/mother-country-radicals/
I think that people, especially the establishment Democrats, are underestimating just how pissed off ordinary normies, the suburban moms, are about what’s going on. They think it’s a fluke, just the kids, that people are looking to politicians like Mamdani, and that they should fight them back and retake control so that they have a chance of attracting the switch voters they’re sure are out there if they just craft the perfect message.
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nancy said on June 28, 2026 at 8:57 pm
I suspect you’re right, Sherri.
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kayak woman said on June 28, 2026 at 9:24 pm
Back in the early days of covid when I became a full-time telecommuter, there was a heat advisory on The Planet Ann Arbor for a 92 degree day. Our radio was sending out alerts for 3 days before. My 30-something daughters got a bit freaked out about me, as I was gonna be alone for that day. I had to remind them that their parents’ house has central A/C. We don’t like to turn it on but we do if we need to.
We are scheduled to head up to our cabin on L. Superior on Wednesday, so maybe we’ll miss the heat dome. We’ll see.
Thanks to you and everyone else who continue to work the polls. A thankless job even in good times.
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Julie Robinson said on June 28, 2026 at 9:46 pm
Sherri, I keep reading stories that the Democrats are trying to figure out how to get around Mamdani, how they can contain him and get back to business as usual. How’s business as usual working out for you, dudes? Dems need to embrace Mamdani and learn from him, because, Zohran/Luke, you’re our only hope.
After several elections checking in voters I’m moving to the help desk this year. It’s a troubleshooter position, for those whose info on their ID doesn’t match what’s in the system. Florida has already passed its version of the SAVE act, grr, though it won’t be in effect this year. More problematic is that when people renew their driver’s license their registration doesn’t update automatically as it used to, so I anticipate trying to help many of those.
Florida law requires a precinct not be staffed by only one party. Okay, great, but how the hell do you get a Republican to volunteer for their civic duty? We’re always down to the wire on that.
Am intrigued by curbside voting. Waiting to hear more about that.
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basset said on June 28, 2026 at 10:27 pm
Had to quit the election work last round to look after Mrs. B, she can’t be left alone.
Still have a chance to restore my other long-term service, though… gave blood for 49 years till I got cancer and the Red Cross made me stop, if I can get my labs down low enough I can give one more time and make fifty.
The dog trip I mentioned yesterday continues to go well; another dog joined the run in Louisville and right now they are at their overnight stop in Buffalo, they’ll finish up tomorrow in Brattleboro, Vermont.
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Deborah said on June 28, 2026 at 11:22 pm
Someone referred to Trump on Bluesky as Dumold Trump. I thought that was a good one.
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alex said on June 28, 2026 at 11:57 pm
I just wasted a whole weekend taking directions from an AI chatbot in order to migrate data from a Windows accounting software program (Quicken) to its more recently released and purportedly compatible Apple counterpart. An unmitigated disaster. At least I still have a backup to the uncorrupted data in Windows.
The last time I had an experience this vexatious, I was trying to save my post-retirement COBRA insurance after the carrier told me I was being cancelled for nonpayment, never mind that I’d paid. I was speaking to some presumably Indian or Pakistani guy whose English was unintelligible, if not non-existent, who was constantly setting down his phone to shuffle through his ream of scripts while children shrieked in the background. I actually preferred that. At least the guy was trying. The chatbots are just plain full of shit, and that’s aside from when they’re blowing sunshine up your ass and blaming Microsoft and Apple for a third party’s product that simply doesn’t perform as promised.
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David C said on June 29, 2026 at 6:32 am
After fifty to sixty years of being fed the same shit sandwich, if the conservadems think I’ll be OK with some ketchup on my shit sandwich they really aren’t reading the room.
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Jeff Gill said on June 29, 2026 at 7:45 am
It doesn’t address the key questions of the review, but I was reminded of seventeen years I spent working in the juvenile justice system, and would often give new hires or staff newly promoted to a supervisory role my copy of Bill Ayers’ 1997 book, “A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court.” It’s quite good, sadly all too relevant even now, and everyone found it useful reading: about one in two would say on returning it “hey, isn’t that the guy who…?”
Ayers & Studs Terkel discuss the book here, with transcript for those of us who read faster than we listen:
https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/bill-ayers-reads-and-discusses-his-book-kind-and-just-parent
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Jeff Gill said on June 29, 2026 at 8:01 am
Oh, and I had to figure out the music behind the Apple/Safari ad about online trackers. I feel better knowing. Maybe it’s just me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1DJ2jzrao0
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Andrea said on June 29, 2026 at 9:56 am
My organization is incubating a small juvenile re-entry program that was created and developed by young people who were formerly incarcerated. We have hosted them for 5 years and hope they eventually become their own organization. To that end, there is an advisory board for the program that we intend will become the Board of Directors. Bill Ayers is on the advisory board and he always has thoughtful things to say about their work.
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Julie Robinson said on June 29, 2026 at 4:28 pm
Alex, I had a similar experience getting help with my credit card, and when I called I got an English speaker who was crammed in a room so crowded I could hear all the other conversations going on, but not really her. I was trying to track down a credit from the Netherlands for a toll, and was concerned it was a new phishing attempt. She told me it was European Avis, and the headquarters was in Amsterdam, but couldn’t or wouldn’t trace any other info. We did rent a car for a few days in Ireland, in September 2024. I went to the rental website, couldn’t find anything, and didn’t want to face another phone call, so I gave up.
Today is five years since we moved to Orlando. We didn’t get a great start, with a pooping cat at TSA, but I’m really glad we’re here. Best of all, no more winter.
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Sherri said on June 29, 2026 at 4:29 pm
Something I have observed about long-time electeds is, they tend to start to lose a degree of connection with the people they’re elected to represent. It makes sense, if you think about it. To get elected the first time, you have to make a lot of connections in the community; you have to assemble a coalition of voters. But to govern, you have to make connections outside your representative area – connections with other lawmakers, with subject matter experts, and yes, with lobbyists. These are the people you work with to get things done. Over time, these relationships start to displace the relationships you developed to get elected, especially if you don’t face much of a challenge in re-election.
An example is a longtime Seattle legislator, Jamie Pedersen. He’s the current majority leader in the state senate, and has been in the legislature, house or senate, since 2007. He was even a key figure in getting a millionaire tax through the legislature last session, and yet, he’s facing a significant challenge from the left. He’s doorbelling for the first time in years, having to rebuilt those connections that have fallen by the wayside.
All of which is to say, the longtime electeds at the head of the Democratic Party, have lost touch with the voters. The voters are angry, and it’s not just a small fringe. The money people, on the other hand, aren’t angry, except at the voters who want to take away their money. Longtime electeds have more connection with the money people than the voters, and they’re losing primaries because of it.
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Icarus said on June 29, 2026 at 5:13 pm
Establishment Democrats are like the ghosts in The Sixth Sense: They see only what they want to see.
Just got back from our trip to Michigan/Chicago. My mom’s house is worse than I thought it was!
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Jeff Gill said on June 30, 2026 at 6:54 am
Once you let yourself see it, it gets shockingly bad in a big hurry.
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basset said on June 30, 2026 at 7:58 am
Meanwhile, both dogs have made it to their forever homes.
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alex said on June 30, 2026 at 8:46 am
Not only do the Dems need to get their shit together, they need a Project 2029 to immediately rein in the Supreme Court, which seems to love the theory of the “unitary executive,” but only when the executive is a Republican. Today’s installation by Paul Krugman is instructive: https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/lisa-graves-on-the-supreme-court
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Jason T. said on June 30, 2026 at 9:23 am
Someone (I can’t remember who) said something to me a while ago that really struck me: Everything’s a conspiracy when you’re too lazy or stupid to find out how things work.
I was reading this horrific story in Vulture about Nancy Guthrie’s kidnapping, and there are several anecdotes about the “citizen journalists” who have been spinning conspiracy theories. For instance, one day, the pool cleaners arrived. TikTokers and Instagram “true crime” streamers wanted to know: Just what are those pool cleaners doing back there?!
Uh, they were cleaning the pool. It’s Arizona and it’s 90 degrees and if you don’t clean the pool, it fills up with algae. (Ahem.)
But none of them actually took a moment to, say, pick up a phone and call someone and ask, or send an email. It’s more fun to spin up elaborate conspiracy theories!
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Julie Robinson said on June 30, 2026 at 10:20 am
Yup, you really have to keep at it with pools or they’ll turn green overnight. That’s why our last pool guy was let go. He kept saying he had been by to service the pool but it never looked any better. Some days we had even been home when he said he had been here.
Icarus, Jeff, I feel your pain. Here at least, it’s contained to her room and the hallway leading there. God forbid we have to call an ambulance, it’s tricky getting down that hall.
Our church has a thrift shop and I don’t help with it. Turns out I have a little PTSD.
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MarkH said on June 30, 2026 at 11:42 am
What Jason T. said @18.
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Sherri said on June 30, 2026 at 9:10 pm
The reactionary group on SCOTUS is engaged in what amounts to a constitutional convention, rewriting the constitution decision by decision. Birthright citizenship and some of the 14th amendment survived this time, but without major court reform, it won’t survive for long. The equal protection clause of the 14th amendment has been gutted so badly it barely exists anymore, just a relic to haul out whenever a white Christian man complains about discrimination.
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