This will be quick because I have a long to-do list, as generally happens to women before a holiday. But they’re all happy errands, for the most part, so no biggie.

First, let’s go with the lighter stuff, if you consider waiting for a fool to drown “lighter,” but you know my sense of humor.

There’s a guy who’s been hanging around the local waterways for a while, navigating what’s charitably called a “homemade houseboat.” It looks like a shipping container sitting on a raft, the raft itself floating on 55-gallon plastic drums. It might not be a shipping container, but that’s about the size. Everything about it is what you’d call “makeshift,” and maybe “half-assed.” It made the papers when it required Coast Guard assistance to get through the considerable currents at Port Huron, where Lake Huron drains into the St. Clair River. Once past, though, the captain — of the houseboat — waved them off and said he was fine. He’s now docked in Lexington, Mich., and the story goes that he’s trying to do “the Great Loop,” or the circumnavigation of the eastern U.S. via the Atlantic Ocean, the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. It’s unconfirmed, but if he is, I’d advise taking a few days off, or even a few months.

The gales of November are blowing as we speak, with a blizzard bearing down on the U.P. and just general misery everywhere else. If that ridiculous thing leaves the safety of its current mooring, it’s bound to be broken up before he reaches Saginaw Bay.

On a darker note, I don’t know how I missed this earlier in the week, but here’s a gift link to a great analysis of the Epstein emails by that guy whose name I always have to look up, Anand Giridharadas:

At the dark heart of this story is a sex criminal and his victims — and his enmeshment with President Trump. But it is also a tale about a powerful social network in which some, depending on what they knew, were perhaps able to look away because they had learned to look away from so much other abuse and suffering: the financial meltdowns some in the network helped trigger, the misbegotten wars some in the network pushed, the overdose crisis some of them enabled, the monopolies they defended, the inequality they turbocharged, the housing crisis they milked, the technologies they failed to protect people against.

This is Giridharadas’ particular hobbyhorse; he writes a lot about the global elite, who care less for the rest of us than they do their own spouses. But it’s pretty perceptive, rich with detail and observations like this:

Many of the Epstein emails begin with a seemingly banal rite that, the more I read, took on greater meaning: the whereabouts update and inquiry. In the Epstein class, emails often begin and end with pings of echolocation. “Just got to New York — love to meet, brainstorm,” the banker Robert Kuhn wrote to Mr. Epstein. “i’m in wed, fri. edelman?” Mr. Epstein wrote to the billionaire Thomas Pritzker (it is unclear if he meant a person, corporation or convening). To Lawrence Krauss, a physicist in Arizona: “noam is going to tucson on the 7th. will you be around.” Mr. Chopra wrote to say he would be in New York, first speaking, then going “for silence.” Gino Yu, a game developer, announced travel plans involving Tulum, Davos and the D.L.D. (Digital Life Design) conference — an Epstein-class hat trick.

Landings and takeoffs, comings and goings, speaking engagements and silent retreats — members of this group relentlessly track one another’s passages through JFK, LHR, NRT and airports you’ve never even heard of. Whereabouts are the pheromones of this elite. They occasion the connection-making and information barter that are its lifeblood. If “Have you eaten?” was a traditional Chinese greeting, “Where are you today?” is the Epstein-class query.

A long read, but it kept my interest throughout.

And with that, it’s off to tackle the to-do list. At the end, I’ll have a homemade apple pie, a brined turkey, the makings of tomorrow’s green-bean dish and maybe time for a cleaned bathroom or drink with a friend. (I’m hoping for the latter.)

Have a great Thanksgiving, all. Back after.

Sometimes I feel bad about calling the First Lady a sex worker. (Or an old whore, depending on my mood.) First, because sex work is work, as we feminists say. Second, because I believe she’s retired from sex work, and maybe that should be acknowledged. And finally, because the current non-occupant of the now-demolished East Wing isn’t much of a First Lady this term, why quibble about what she did to get the job?

First, maybe we might address the question: Was she a sex worker at one time? (And I know we’ve talked about this before. I’m not obsessed. OK, maybe a little.) Not in the stand-on-a-corner-in-skimpy-clothing sense, no. But everything we know about her history as an immigrant, about what she did when she came to New York, the people she associated with, etc. suggests a form of…polite sex work, you might say. She was a “model,” a job description applied to many pretty girls whose photo will never appear in a magazine or catalog, or walk a runway. But she would make herself available for events requiring a certain number of hot women in attendance — parties, openings, nightclubs, etc. — and would be happy to catch the eye of the rich men in attendance. I suspect that is exactly why she came to the U.S., in fact: To find a wealthy man who might marry her and allow her to not only never see the rough side of Slovenia again, but to maybe get her parents out, too.

And that’s exactly what happened. Is that sex work? Probably millions of women consider potential life partners with eyes that cold. I think FLOTUS herself answered that best of all, when asked if she’d be married to her husband if he wasn’t rich: “Would he be married to me if I weren’t beautiful?” A transactional woman.

Her empty, loveless marriage suggests they both got what they wanted from it. After all, this is a woman who wouldn’t move into the White House until her prenup was recast to her satisfaction. At this point, she doesn’t need to have sex with anyone. She has a child and a wedding ring; she will never go quietly, unless it’s with suitcases stuffed with cash.

But I get salty when I hear the most repulsive of the MAGA crowd go on about the warm, elegant, refined Michelle Obama, calling her “Big Mike” because she used to be a MAN, doncha know? They photoshopped dicks onto her dresses and say her husband is gay, then complain that no one will put Melania on the cover of Vogue. “That old whore?” I reply.

This is counterproductive, I know. It won’t bring people together, join hands across the chasm of our differences, etc. But it seems the only response.

What else is going on today? There were some demonstrations in Dearborn yesterday. One was initially organized by a fringe candidate for governor — go ahead, guess which party!!! — protesting SHARIA LAW, etc. He called it off after claiming to have a change of heart about our Muslim neighbors. but the ball he started rolling didn’t stop. This guy appeared to be behind the wingnuts:

At about 6 p.m., there was a growing crowd confronting Jake Lang, a rightwing activist from Florida who organized one of three rallies Tuesday. Police then brought up several metal barriers around Lang and his supporters, keeping them separated from the crowd, who yelled back at Lang at times.

Here’s the gubernatorial candidate:

Another gathering was led by Anthony Hudson, a Republican candidate for governor who initially was planning an anti-sharia rally, but had a change of heart after spending four days last week in Dearborn and Dearborn Heights, visiting mosques and Muslim leaders. Hudson told the Free Press in an interview his rally was to promote unity, but also to tell Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud to be more respective of Christians and their concerns. Hammoud faced criticism earlier this year for berating a Christian minister, but later said the city welcomes all.

Note the misuse of “respective” by the reporter. The word he was trying for is “respectful,” but unfortunately, all the copy editors were purged in some previous round of cuts, apparently.

Listen to this douchebag, though:

Hudson said he visited the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Dearborn Community Center, the Islamic Institute of America in Dearborn Heights and the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights, where he met with Imam Mohammad Elahi, a prominent Islamic and interfaith leader in Michigan. He also visited Eternal Light, a nonprofit in Dearborn Heights, and a food bank.

“We’re proving the point that we didn’t see sharia law in Dearborn,” Hudson said. “We didn’t see women getting assaulted or disrespected. We saw women business owners that were yelling at men, telling them what to do. We saw young women walking at night to go to the bars and they weren’t being harassed. We saw the gentlemen’s clubs, which is against sharia law. We saw the liquor stores, which is against it. We just saw so many things that were against sharia law that I made the determination that during my trip, my four days, there was no sharia law.”

Afer living here all these years, I notice the wingnut panic over Dearborn runs in cycles. They all seem to take their cues from one another, because they have so few original ideas, and the wheel has turned again. The other day I looked up M*ll*ssa C*ron*, the fameball from the 2020 election cycle, and even she was posting “content” from Dearborn during the call to prayer, barking, “How would you like to listen to this five times a day?” And I considered that nearly all the people within earshot are Muslim themselves, and Melly herself lives in goddamn Macomb County, so what’s her damage? It’s just Dearborn’s turn, I guess.

God help us if they discover Hamtramck. OK, then. Time to find a grindstone and press my nose to it. Happy Wednesday, all.

How many of you have young-adult children? And how many of them are at least as disgusted with the Democrats than the GOP? Are they even, perhaps, more disgusted, because at least the GOP says it’s the enemy of things that are important to them, while the Dems pretend to be on their side? And refuse to leave their elected positions until, like, oh, Eleanor Holmes Norton, they have to be forced or shamed out due to their physical and mental deterioration? (Note: This hasn’t happened yet, in Norton’s case. She plans to run again.)

How is the Surrender Caucus going over with those young people?

This combination photo of eight senators who are facing criticism from the Democratic party for their deal to end the government shutdown shows Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., top row from left, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., and bottom row from left, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. (AP Photo)

Fucking Dick Durbin in particular:

Whoa — Sen. Durbin went to up Leader Thune during the vote last night to tell him that on the shutdown vote and ACA promise that "8 of us are sticking our neck out that you're going to keep your word. I hope you will. He said 'I assure you I will,'" Durbin says just now

— Burgess Everett (@burgessev.bsky.social) November 10, 2025 at 12:59 PM

We had one week — not even! — to savor our victory before the Neville Chamberlain Caucus ripped it away.

When people tell you that the GOP is unpopular, but the Democrats are even more so, this is why. The scoundrels.

So: With that mood established, I made the mistake of reading comments on a story about a local billionaire’s divorce. Thirty-year marriage, five children, which included one son who died young of an incurable disease (neurofibromatosis). They were together when they were young, and they split up when they were rich. See if you can guess what at least some of the online reaction was?

But of course. She’s a ho’.

Can you tell it’s been cold the last two days? Bitter wind, all of it? Yep. Let’s hope the back half of the week is more promising.

In other news at this hour, the GOP is still trash. This is a direct response to the SNAP crisis. I checked.

A few days back I turned on NPR, to yet another — yet! another! — earnest, NPR-like discussion on how to reach out to people you disagree with. How to build bridges, join hands across the chasm of our differences, all that.

And I…didn’t snap, exactly, but I reached my limit. I switched to the AM band, set push-button tuning for a couple of right-wing, all-talk stations. Enough of my NPR bubble; let’s see what the other side is talking about, vis-a-vis their political opponents.

I regret to inform you, although not surprised by it either, that they are not talking about joining hands, reaching out, or making nice. The only time liberals, or even moderates, are mentioned, it’s in discussions like, “How many New Yorkers will flee the city if Zohran Mamdani is elected? Tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands?” “The problem with that party is, they’re not proud to be American.”

And that’s not all. Talk about closed systems: In this world, Fox News at the top and bottom of the hour is nearly as lib’rul as NPR. One of the stations carries a network whose anchors and reporters say “the Democrat party” and “the government remains shut down, as Democrats refuse to budge from their insistence on free health care for illegal aliens.”

So no, I’m not particularly interested in hearing about how to talk to these folks. Really, really not interested.

But the blog today has been, as we say, overtaken by events, with the death of Dick Cheney. His black heart, mechanical though it was, finally couldn’t keep up with his deteriorating body, and he went the way of all flesh. I guess his statement in 2024, that he’d be voting for Kamala Harris, is supposed to redeem him somehow. Huh. Well, strange bedfellows and all that. We’ve talked here before about how Trump has managed to make even ghastly people look good, just because they oppose him. Dan Quayle and Mike Pence as the saviors of democracy – at least temporarily – is only one example.

But to me, Dick Cheney will always be this guy:

Thanks to Jeff G. for the image.

I remember learning about Abu Ghraib. I was finishing up my fellowship in Ann Arbor, driving back from a job tryout in Minnesota. I didn’t get the job, and Wisconsin was under my wheels on the way home, and I checked email during a gas stop. A friend in Fort Wayne wrote about the Lynndie England photos, the one where she’s holding the prisoner on a leash. He wrote something like, “But we haven’t accidentally dropped a nuke out of a Blackhawk helicopter, so I guess the war is going great!”

Very droll, my friends.

And who suffered for America’s foray into torture? Lynndie England, certainly, and a few other soldiers. Not Cheney.

So that’s my near-midweek catch-up. I would save this and post it tomorrow, but it’s time to discuss our late vice-president, so here you go.

I guess I’ve been gone a while. No reason. There are times when the well is empty and must be refilled, especially when you’re making a concerted effort not to think and write about a particular person more than is necessary, and/or part of our patriotic duty of being well-informed Americans.

Then I read about the Great Gatsby-themed party the president threw at Mar-a-lago on Halloween, on the literal eve of millions of Americans losing their SNAP benefits, and I get a goddamn facial tic. Fortunately, there are good people in the world:

That’s at the Eastern Market Saturday. I can’t wait until this motherfucker dies. The whitewashing of JD Vance’s marriage in preparation for that event, we’ll save for another day.

I’ve been walking around woolgathering on a subject that floats in and out of my headspace — transgender…ism? Is that a word? Dunno, but the issue keeps surfacing in connection with terrible crime, and I’m alarmed for the trans people I know, all of whom are not criminals and may end up suffering as a result.

A kid in Indiana, arrested while planning a mass school shooting. Nashville school shooter, maybe transgender. The person just sentenced for plotting to kill SCOTUS Justice Kavanagh? Transitioning.

Anyone with half a brain knows that being transgender makes one far more likely to be the victim of a violent crime, not the perpetrator. Yet, we can always count on the New York Post, Rod Dreher and, well, most of the right wing to amplify every incident, and most people don’t pay attention beyond that.

Transitioning is such a huge step to make, I hesitate to suggest anyone does it on a whim. But the sort of people who commit mass shootings or targeted assassinations are not mentally healthy people.

It made me think of the ’80s, and this guy I used to work with. His marriage was clearly not meant for the long run. Every talk show – and there were a lot of them on around that time, from Phil Donohue to Jenny Jones to Oprah – was talking about repressed memories and/or Satanic cults, and especially repressed memories of Satanic cult abuse. And soon enough, she was accusing him of Satanically abusing their kids, or her, or that she was recovering memories of all of the above. I think she may have thrown multiple personalities in the mix, too.

A troubled woman, yes. But not one crazy enough to be committed. Subclinical, as the shrinks say. It made me think about people who believed, once upon a time, that incubi and succubi entered their bedrooms at night and penetrated them sexually, sometimes impregnating them. I saw “Agnes of God,” both on stage and in the movie. Now those people are more likely to believe aliens do the same thing. There are no incubi, succubi or aliens. I feel pretty confident in this.

My point is that every era in history, especially in this media-soaked age, has its high-profile mental issues, and I wonder if the people in that link-filled paragraph are truly trans, or have simple seized on it as a way to explain the static in their own heads. Next year, we may be back to incubi and succubi, who knows.

A passage from the story I linked above:

“They hate your guts. They despise everything you stand for, and we’re running out of time to stop them,” a somber looking Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears says in a recent campaign ad. “This election, don’t let radicals decide what kind of man gets to undress next to your daughter at school.”

Earle-Sears, a Republican, poured millions of dollars into this ominous advertising blitz attacking her Democratic opponent for governor, Abigail Spanberger, as a radical on transgender issues. She blanketed the airwaves with warnings to Virginians that mimicked Donald Trump’s successful campaign against Kamala Harris last year (“Kamala is for they/them, Trump is for you”).

But as Tuesday’s election approaches, the line of attack does not appear to be working as well for Earle-Sears as it did for Trump, according to data, raising questions about how potent the issue will be in the future for a party facing voter anger over high prices. Spanberger is leading Earle-Sears in recent polls.

So we may have already passed Peak Trans Panic. Let’s hope so.

It’s the return to standard time this weekend, so expect a tsunami of complaints. It gets dark so early now, etc. I will repeat my twice-yearly opinion about this: Changing clocks in spring and fall is a useful adjustment to the way we live our lives, at most a minor inconvenience, and some people should stop complaining about it.

I see the Free Press – the one in Detroit – is making a fuss over the upcoming 50th anniversary of the loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald. We will inevitably hear the Gordon Lightfoot song over and over in the next week. I’m taking this opportunity to echo something I believe Eric Zorn once wrote, and he may have been quoting Peter Sagal, I’m not sure: That Lightfoot’s song is only the second-best song about a shipwreck. The best is this one. Listen and see if you agree. It’s certainly a good anthem for times like these.

And with that, I’m back in the saddle. Have a good week ahead.

If anyone is wondering, Fran Lebowitz was great. Maybe that’s the wrong word, though. You don’t go to see Fran to laugh until you pee; it’s more a matter of chortling. She’s not a standup comic, but a wry observer of the world around us, and her friends. She told us about Martin Scorsese, and that photo by Peter Hujar, and Charles Mingus, who came for Thanksgiving at her parents’ house one year.

And she said something about Democrats in Washington. Yes, yes, they can’t get anything done when they’re in the minority and are blocked on everything, etc., but they can do one thing, she said: They can amplify the feelings and opinions of their constituents, and those constituents are furious.

This got a big response from the crowd. And yet, Michigan’s two do-nothing senators, both Democrats, continue to not do just that.

I read a review of Virginia Giuffre’s book, discussed at midweek.

The critic, Emma Brockes, puts her finger square on what I’ve been wondering since we all saw all those photos of Jeffrey Epstein’s birthday book:

But so much focus has been put on the prince that after reading this book, it wasn’t him I thought about most; it was the casual visitors to Epstein’s New York mansion, the illustrious men and occasional woman whom Giuffre says she encountered at dinners there.

In respect of these people I’d like to ask: who the fuck did they think the 17-year-old at the table was? What did they think she was doing there? Only Melinda Gates, who met Epstein once and cited him as a factor in the breakdown of her marriage to Bill Gates, sensed what apparently none of these people could put their finger on. Giuffre quotes from a statement made by Gates after her meeting with Epstein: “I regretted it the second I walked in the door. He was abhorrent. He was evil personified.” It was an insight that evidently escaped geniuses like the MIT professors Epstein continued to advise long after he’d become a convicted sex offender.

Ex!act!ly! It’s my belief that they knew exactly what she was doing there, and didn’t care. Rich people make their own rules. Also this guy…

The closest we get to a fresh allegation is Giuffre’s description of one of the scores of men Epstein forced her to have sex with as a “politician” and “former minister”, who choked and beat her almost unconscious, but who, she writes, is too powerful to name.

…is said to be Ehud Barak.

OK, then, time to wrap the week. The east wing of the White House is a pile of rubble, my massage was heavenly (“you’re very symmetrical,” the therapist said as she worked on my back), and it seems a good note to end on. The pedophiles and current crisis will still be there on Monday.

Do I have any photos to share? Not really. Here was the whiteboard workout for my Wednesday lifeguarding shift. Swimmers, give it a try:

Have a great weekend.

Because it felt like a grim duty, I forced myself to read an excerpt of “Nobody’s Girl,” Virginia Giuffre’s posthumous memoir. You’ll recall she was the first, and highest-profile, of the Epstein victims to go public. It was published in The Guardian. It’s as sad and awful as you’d expect, but this passage, about sex with the no-longer-titled Prince Andrew, caught my eye:

Back at the house, Maxwell and Epstein said goodnight and headed upstairs, signalling it was time that I take care of the prince. In the years since, I’ve thought a lot about how he behaved. He was friendly enough, but still entitled – as if he believed having sex with me was his birthright. I drew him a hot bath. We disrobed and got in the tub, but didn’t stay there long because the prince was eager to get to the bed. He was particularly attentive to my feet, caressing my toes and licking my arches. That was a first for me, and it tickled. I was nervous he would want me to do the same to him. But I needn’t have worried. He seemed in a rush to have intercourse. Afterward, he said thank you in his clipped British accent. In my memory, the whole thing lasted less than half an hour.

It took a few minutes for the image to swim up from the depths of my memory:

Remember that? It was 1992, and Andrew and his commoner wife, Sarah Ferguson aka the Duchess of York, were separated. She’d traveled to the south of France for a restorative weeklong holiday with a then-unknown Texas “financial advisor,” and the paps did what paps do:

The 55 pictures over nine pages showed a topless Fergie rubbing sun cream on to the head of her balding financial adviser, kissing him, lying under him and letting him kiss or lick – the actual activity has since been disputed – her toes.

The question of whether Andrew or Sarah were into foot play when they married, or whether one introduced the other to it, or if it just happened spontaneously, remains open. Me, I don’t judge, I just notice. A longtime reader of this blog once messaged me that when someone says, “check out the pair on her,” he first looks at her feet. I’d much rather have my feet rubbed than kissed, and tomorrow I’m cashing in a nearly expired gift certificate for a 75-minute deep-tissue massage that I hope will include a little attention to the ol’ dogs.

I am thinking about this because it keeps me from thinking about the White House being torn down to build what will no doubt be the ugliest, tackiest, goldest monument to Tubby ever, one that I believe we should allow a full squadron of graffiti artists to deface as soon as he leaves. Assuming he leaves.

Let’s also turn our attention to other, more substantive matters. Roy has a nice piece on Zohran Mamdani. Dunno if it’s paywalled, but here’s a passage Dems should be paying attention to:

It should be mentioned that part of Mamdani’s success is his willingness to champion policies the voters actually want instead of making up excuses for why they can’t have them. Cheaper housing, lower cost of living, higher minimum wage — those are all easy layups. Even his promise to protect people from ICE goons reflects a growing consensus across the country at large.

These policies are reflexively treated by the Prestige Press as outside the mainstream, but if they are, it’s because those guys put them there, not because voters don’t want them.

Why did Trump win? In part, because he promised things people want. Yes, most of it was transparent, obvious bullshit — how’s that better, cheaper health care working for you, Kentucky? Is it infrastructure week yet? — but it worked for a man with a known track record for lying. Why can’t it work for those of us who deal in good faith? It seems it’ll be easier to make NYC buses free than design a national health-care plan, but what do I know? I know enough about public transport to know that fares are a small portion of system revenue, and the more people who can take public transit into a densely populated city, the better it is for everyone. I’ve been taking my beloved DDOT 31 bus down to Wayne State when weather permits, and I’m reminded again of how pleasant it can be, to throw your bike on the rack, ride downtown, retrieve the bike and cycle the last three-quarters of a mile to campus, without having to worry about parking. Besides, I’m taking a creative writing class, and we’re into poetry now. I need to hear the songs of my people for inspiration. and you hear them on a bus. Here’s something I heard the other day: “Hey, beautiful, I like your glasses.” And he was talking to me!

Anyway, go Zohran. Let’s try you for a while.

OK, I gotta think about exercise, a shower and dressing for the evening — going to see Fran Lebowitz tonight with a friend. Hope the remainder of your Wednesday is swell.

Hi there. Sorry the comments on the previous post were closed. I posted that on my re-downloaded WordPess mobile app, thinking it might make posting on the fly easier. Didn’t realize it defaulted to closed comments; I just thought you guys were not into it yesterday. I need to find that setting and fix it.

How’d your No Kings rally go? Detroit’s went swimmingly, but as this is the third one, I’m no longer surprised by that. The first one, in…April? Yes, April 5. That one was a revelation, seeing thousands of people coming out to say, essentially, We Can’t Believe This Shit, And We Object. That was a moving march up and down Woodward, no speakers, just fellowship. The second, in June, was held at Clark Park, and was stationary; we came, held up signs, but didn’t listen to the speakers. (I kept hoping they’d put on a rousing playlist, but no.) This one, at Roosevelt Park under the newly renovated Michigan Central Station, was also a speaker-forward event. We walked around, took some pictures of the best signs, stayed a decent interval and left to enjoy a couple beers in the warm October sunshine.

The important thing is to show up. Be one of the millions who are not OK with what’s going on. There won’t be a quiz on the speakers’ remarks.

One guy was yelling about Palestine, with a sign that accused Biden, Harris and Trump of complicity in genocide. I pegged him as yet another Arab-American Jill Stein voter. It was a nice day, so I didn’t want to ask how the new regime was working out for his countrymen and women in Gaza. (As of Sunday? Not well.)

But it was the Grosse Pointe demonstration that was truly heartening. Officially it was for the Pointes, Harper Woods and the east side of Detroit, but it was really robust — a couple blocks of people covering the sidewalks at a busy corner, shaking signs. I didn’t stop because I was en route to Detroit, but honked the whole length of the demonstration. It was a long honk.

So we head into the cool months — I have to assume this will be the last one until spring — knowing we’re not alone, that millions are as horrified and distraught and angry as we are.

Meanwhile, if you haven’t seen this, you should see this:

This is what you-know-who posted early Sunday morning, after the No Kings protests had largely wrapped. I know none of these know-nothings care what the rest of the world thinks about us, but I do, and so should you. This is not just literally disgusting, it’s horrifying in what it says about the man who posted it. I wear my Is He Dead Yet? T-shirt with pride, but also dread.

This, by the way, is what the vice president posted yesterday:

[image or embed]

— JD Vance (@jd-vance-1.bsky.social) October 18, 2025 at 3:32 PM

I guess he really is the worst stereotype of the American hillbilly: Mean, parochial, clannish, violent.

But let’s not dwell on the bad news as the week starts, OK? Seven million of us showed up yesterday. That’s something. Have a good one. Here’s a cute dog to cleanse your palate:

Still thinking about the other side. See you at the demonstration, brothers and sisters.