Who else is wondering how embarrassing it will be when the Syrian rebels open Tulsi Gabbard’s file and start uploading it to the internet? Who else is hoping that when the United Healthcare CEO’s killer is arrested, he has a really good story to tell about why he did it? Yes, we don’t condone violence, but events like this are one reason I always enjoyed my career in journalism; you really never know what’s going to happen on a particular day, and things never unfold the way you expect them to, which is sometimes terrible and sometimes not, but almost always interesting.

Here’s the latest on the UHC CEO shooter, which suggests this guy planned this pretty well. Taking a bus in and out of the city was genius; interstate bus depots are packed with people, but no one looks very closely at anyone. It’s assumed you’re poor and inconsequential. A guy in a hooded jacket wearing a mask wouldn’t warrant a second glance from anyone.

I once had to pick up Kate and her roommate from an overseas trip at the Detroit Greyhound station. It was very early, before 6 a.m. as I recall, and I was parked outside in the pickup lane wishing I’d made coffee before I left. I watched a very old Jewish man — black hat, sidelocks, the works — walk in slowly, choose a seat in the waiting area, put on his tefillin and start davening. No one appeared to be giving him a second look. That’s a place you want to make your escape from after a premeditated murder.

But more will be revealed, because it always is.

I’ve noticed for a while that lots of new crime fiction is set in the past, because video technology makes it far harder to get away with murder these days; I guess this guy thought it through.

Enough, though — how was everyone’s weekend? I went to visit my old editor, who was recently laid up with a torn quadriceps tendon, an injury he suffered to the other leg just a few years ago. He’s at the sitting-in-a-recliner-in-a-leg-brace stage of recovery, so it was the right time to bring over some brownies and a flagon of green juice for healing purposes. The juice is my version of the First Watch kale tonic. Alan thinks it tastes like grass, but I find it quite the pick-me-up. The Vitamix is shaping up to be the best gift we gave ourselves this year, although I just made a carrot juice that turned out kinda meh. I’ll still drink it, but I won’t make it again. Yesterday we finally put the tree up and today it’s just been cleaning, chores and blogging. And finding clips of Trump’s Meet the Press interview online — jeez, what misery we’re in for.

Also, thinking of our next trip. Focus is closing in on Scotland and parts of the U.K.

Monday is on our doorstep. Let’s get through it.

Well holy shit, this is a twist, but in many ways an entirely expected one:

Alan just informed me there’s a third word, too — “depose.” Huh.

If it turns out this assailant is indeed an aggrieved client of United Healthcare, this could be a game-changer. We’ve accepted, for so long, the broken, immoral health-care system we have now, and for it to lead to this kind of violence? I’d like to think there’s still room in this country for some soul-searching. On the other hand, it’s not like Ted Kaczynski sparked a deeper interest in environmentalism.

Still, the cold-hearted reaction I’ve seen online — for every “this is terrible” there have been 20 Seinfeld-eating-popcorn “that’s a shame” GIFs. United Healthcare deleted a web page featuring the leadership ranks, with Brian Thompson at the top.

For those who’ve asked, it’s been 40 years since I lived in Ohio, and I likely never will again, although you never know.

At the very least, this is a hot national story that doesn’t involve you-know-who or Pete Hegseth’s mother, so I welcome something else to pay attention to.

Gotta run. Open thread.

Thanks so much to everyone who shared Thanksgiving menus, greetings, memories and more. Ours was fine. We traveled to Alan’s sister’s in Defiance, bringing half the meal. I already posted this in the comments on the last post, but if you’re not a comments reader, here you go, my favorite disruptor to the earth-toned Thanksgiving table:

That’s a cranberry curd tart, a New York Times recipe (gift link), and it was the bomb. A bit of a hassle to assemble all the ingredients, but fortunately a local nut shop — a nuttery? — had blanched hazelnuts so the skin-shedding step was taken care of. And I didn’t sieve the cooked cranberries; I pulverized them in the blender. It turned out fab. Try it at the next holiday table. Pro tip: If you have a non-stick tart pan, use it.

We took Alan’s new (new to us, that is) car, which has satellite radio, still in its trial period. He gets a one- or two-month trial, then so many months at $5 per, and then it bumps to its regular charge of $20. We’ve already decided that’s more than we want to pay to have it in one car, but as soon as I mentioned it to a friend, he said we have to get Sirius on the horn, inform them we won’t be paying that much, and let them counter. He pays $10/month, and that seems more reasonable.

Overeating and consumerism — I guess this means we’re in the holidays for real. It beats talking about Kash Patel turning the FBI into Donald Trump’s personal revenge machine. And the very real chance he’ll get confirmed. If you haven’t read Sherri’s thoughtful comment toward the end of the last thread, I suggest you do so now. I spend a lot of time thinking about this, too: How we can dig ourselves out of the morass we’re in. Because of my work experience, I spend much of it concentrating on the news media. The same NYT that gave us that wonderful cranberry tart also served up this headline over the weekend: Trump Disavowed Project 2025 During the Campaign. Not Anymore.

What? Say wha-? You’re joking! Of course, many of us were screaming HE IS LYING ABOUT THIS throughout the campaign, but so glad to hear he’ll now be held accountable, lol.

I don’t have the stomach for this now. Let’s make fun of Mitch Albom.

I’ve been saying for a while how I’m marveling at the anachronistic nature of Albom’s work; it really doesn’t seem to have changed one bit since he started this job in the ’80s. He pulls the same mangy rabbits out of his hat:

The one-line paragraph.

The repeating phrase (in this case, “rub your eyes,” often delivered in a one-line paragraph). The noodling, the telling us what we already know, the HOW BOUT DEM WOLVERINES AMIRITE message delivered, and re-delivered, through several hundred words. And then there’s the tortured simile:

On a bracing cold afternoon when Ohio State, at 10-1 and ranked No. 2 in the nation, and Michigan, at 6-5 and ranked somewhere between “Why” and “Bother?”, the Wolverines marched into Columbus like the fiercest theater critic at the biggest box-office play.

That makes zero sense. Critics go to plays in their opening days, not after they’ve become boffo box office. But as Boon says to Otter, “Forget it, he’s rolling.”

Also note that there’s no dateline, and all the quotes came from Fox Sports, which means Mitch watched the game on TV and filed a column about it. You could do that job! I bet Sherri, for one, would do it better.

But at this point, who cares? It’s the last weeks of the last good year. Let’s enjoy it as they play out.

Back to the basement for me, where we are reassembling my home gym after months of idleness (for the equipment, not me). The week is ours for the taking, so let’s.

What did you have for Sunday dinner? We just had Kenji Lopez-Alt’s kung pao chicken, and y’know what? It’s pretty damn good. I made it a little on the hot side, but it didn’t disappoint. Used bok choy instead of zucchini, may have had a heavy hand with the ginger, garlic and peppers, but who cares, it was delish.

This will be a weird week, with the holiday bearing down on us. So much prep work, then the feast, then the leftovers. I predict a lot of meals taken standing up, eaten out of refrigerator dishes. And pie.

While I would like nothing better than to move on, I spent some time wondering what the resistance, if any, will look like in Trump II, and what’s more, who will surprise us in the process. I wonder, for instance, about the military. I can maybe see certain troops participating in the mass imprisonment of immigrants, but when protests begin, will they shoot or brutalize their own countrymen and women? I just don’t see it. Of course, I didn’t think Trump would win, either, so.

What do you think? What’s the worst that can happen?

Hate you leave you with just this, but I have some food prep to do.

Well. Mehmet Oz, Linda McMahon? I got nothin’.

I’m going to call him Mehmet from here on out, because I suspect he hates it. If I’m remembering correctly, wasn’t he outraged to learn, when he ran for Senate, that the ballots in Pennsylvania would carry his full legal name, with no honorific? What? You mean I won’t simply be “Dr. Oz,” the way it is on all my branding? Yeah, well, fuck that guy sideways. Twice. He once had a reputation and a decent life, and he threw it away for money and quackery. He doesn’t deserve the title.

A woman of my acquaintance, who I suspect would generally be pretty conservative, is horrified by all this. One of her family members decided to “space out” her child’s vaccines, because Common Sense. Fortunately, the rest of the family piled on and got her back on track, but I wonder if that will even be possible in this new era.

“I feel like we’re on a roller coaster, an old wooden one that hasn’t been maintained and maybe the structure has been colonized by termites, and we’re going up the first hill and we can see springs and parts falling off the car, and we haven’t even started the ride yet,” I said.

“I pray for sanity,” she said. I always overdo my metaphors.

I recall that in his first transition, Trump offered stewardship of the Federal Aviation Administration to the pilot of his plane, because it seemed like a fit. The pilot, to his great credit, turned it down. Mehmet thinks he and RFK Jr. can run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services? That is a real job, not just a photo op. They will make a hash of it. I am on Medicare now. These motherfuckers are going to ruin it, just as I finally can collect on decades of investment.

As for McMahon, I’ll only point out that she’s the sort of very rich person who will not be harmed at all by the destruction of the agency she is charged with dismantling. Her grandchildren or great-grandchildren, or whatever generation is currently in play, will go to excellent private schools. It’s the rest of our offspring who will suffer.

All those kids who “got autism” from a vaccine and need IEPs in public schools will find themselves back on the shortbus.

Let’s see what today’s misery brings, eh?

A few years ago, one of Michigan’s plentiful dumbass state legislators introduced a bill to do away with private-employer vaccine mandates, specifically the ones hospitals commonly have that requires their employees to get flu shots and the like. I wrote a story about it, and what stands out to me is what the co-sponsor said when I asked him what his intent was:

“I’m not a strong believer in mandatory things. If it’s against someone’s religious beliefs or something like that, there are people who just don’t believe in things like that.”

There you have the Tea Party mentality, c. 2012: You can’t make me.

What I also remember about that piece is what a doctor told me:

“Nowadays, we’re trying to convince people who are already locked into their opinions, and also don’t have historical perspective on history of these diseases,” said DeGraw, who is a paid consultant for two pharmaceutical companies. “A child born in 1912 had a 1-in-5 chance of dying by its fifth birthday. Even my parents’ generation knew someone who died of these diseases.

“Pertussis is a great example,” he said. “In the ’30s and ’40s, before the vaccine, 7,000 to 8,000 kids would die in the U.S.(from whooping cough). Now, in the last decade, you only get a couple dozen.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., alleged incoming health czar in the Trump administration (although there are whispers he’ll be Chris Christie’d before January), says he’s not anti-vaccine. He just wants people to have choice, and for them to be fully informed about vaccine safety. I expect we could be heading toward a state of affairs similar to getting an abortion in a red state pre-Dobbs: Of course you can get your child vaccinated, but you have to sit through a video first, in which the “vaccine-injured” will tell sad tales about how their child was fine, fine, perfectly fine, and then he was vaccinated for measles/mumps/rubella and AUTISM. Still want that shot, mom? After all, most kids survive measles just fine.

I don’t want to keep harping on the medical damage we’re facing, because we’re facing so much other damage. Someone suggested that we could see a national school-voucher program in this administration, which will hollow out public schools. They’ll still exist in some fashion, for kids in Detroit or Chicago or wherever, and the Vance children and others of their wealth and class will attend elite private schools, but the vast middle class will be sucked into shitbag voucher academies. They’ll learn that God blessed America alone among nations, that slavery was really just an immigration program with a work requirement, and that higher ed is unnecessary — we need electricians, too! Girls can learn womanly skills like cooking, sewing and housekeeping, and boys will go to shop class.

Needless to say, teachers won’t be unionized, and they’ll be paid shit, while a few voucher-school tycoons grow very very rich. We’ll send money to homeschooling parents, too, and I’m sure that will work out just dandy.

I think I have to listen to some podcasts about movies or whatnot. This isn’t healthy for me or anyone else.

I went to Columbus this weekend, on family matters, and treated myself with the Crazy Mama’s 45th reunion party. Crazy Mama’s was a nightclub I used to go to, along with Jeff Borden and some others, back in the day, which is to say, the ’80s. It was spectacular; at a time when rock music had become bloated and boring — Kansas, anyone? — Crazy’s DJs played new wave, rockabilly, punk and other music that you never heard on the radio, and that just required you to get up and dance. And when I say “I used to go there,” I mean I was dedicated: For a while I was splitting my sleep in half. I’d stay until closing time, go home and sleep three or four hours, get up and go to work, then come home and crash for another three-hour nap before I left for another night of fun.

Pro tip: This is not a sustainable lifestyle, but I was very young.

I’d kinda-sorta planned to go with Borden and another friend, but Jeff had some family matters of his own and so that plan fell apart. I don’t mind going to stuff like that by myself, however, and the music was great — the Whiskey Daredevils, Willie Phoenix, Screaming Urge and the Fleshtones. I had a good time.

But now I’m back home, and it’s starting to look like family matters may bring me back to Columbus sooner rather than later. (I’m being oblique here for a reason.) They say life is a shit sandwich, and everybody’s got to take a bite. I just wish the whole country wasn’t being served a giant platter of them.

Oh, forgot to add: Here’s a podcast featuring Kate. You can listen on whatever platform you prefer. The podcast is called Outer Limited, and it’s produced by a music journalist here in Detroit and another bassist with a local band. The focus is Detroit music. She sounds good!

Strange to think my daughter will lose her rights and her affordable health care by the end of next year. And neighbors who watched her for years walking down our street, headed to school or the park, will celebrate. Hell, we could lose our health care, or see it whittled away to nothing, replaced by a “market-based” plan that will cost more than the pre-ACA plans did, and won’t cover anything anyway.

Rolling back fluoridation. The ignorance is breathtaking, isn’t it? To believe RFKJr’s lies about that, you’d have to believe the EVIL fertilizer industry had an EVIL problem, i.e., where to dispose of its EVIL waste, and some Snidely Whiplash in the C-suite said, “I know! Let’s add it to the nation’s drinking water!” and a plan was hatched to bamboozle the nation’s dentists, and it was successful, and all the EVILLLLL fertilizer guys cackled and rubbed their evil hands together in glee, and backed their dump trucks full of POISON to the nation’s reservoirs and poured it in, probably charging ratepayers for shipping and handling.

Because EVIL.

Well, I know what evil looks like, Pilot Joe. Sometimes it comes dressed in ignorance, but evil is as evil does, and a whole, whole lot of evil will be going on in the coming years. Because peanut butter is more expensive than it was a few years ago, and a suspiciously tall lady with a prominent Adam’s apple peed in the next stall at the coffeehouse, and oh my what could have happened.

I don’t have much to say today, except fuck it all.

Good morning, America, how are ya?

I think a lot these days about the damage done over the last 10 years or so. I’m focused on RFK Jr. at the moment, but I could be thinking of any one of dozens of people. Bobby’s patron speaks of children being “injected with this giant needle,” a ridiculous lie that’s hardly ever refuted by a journalist. RFK Jr talks about “72 vaccines,” another lie. The standard childhood vaccine array today is aimed at 15 diseases, some given over time in multiple doses. I counted the number of doses on the Cleveland Clinic vaccination schedule, and it totaled 37. My child got every one of them, including HPV, which conservatives, with typical Christian charity, call the slut shot. Needless to say, she’s healthy, unless you consider choosing a career in rock music an illness, ha ha.

And yet. A friend has a mother with some fragile health conditions, and when he told her recently that he didn’t want to visit until he’d had a Covid shot, she expressed concern that he’d had “too many” of those. He obligingly sent her the story about the German man who deliberately got a Covid vaccine about every four days for more than two years, for a total of 217. He is fine. But this is what I think of as the damage.

Clearly we’ll never reach Bobby and his cohort on this issue, but their continual amplification of this lie is seeping into the consciousness of otherwise reasonable people, who just vaguely worry that he’s probably wrong, but maybe he’s right, or a little bit right, and let that keep them from stopping in at their local pharmacy for whatever they’re due for.

Me, I’ve gotten eight Covid shots. I figure I’ll be getting two a year until I die. Still a Novid here. (Now let’s cue the troll who always pops up and jeers at us. Mr. Coffee, or something.) Might still get it. But I won’t get it because I let some propagandist talk me out of a safe vaccine. I got flu and shingles shots on Friday, and my fucking arm is still hot and sore from the latter, but that’s normal and I remember people with shingles telling me they have never, ever suffered such pain. Seems a good trade-off.

Today is the election. Over the last four years, despite saying ridiculous bullshit like “if I lose, that means it’s rigged,” millions of Americans have bought in to the idea our elections are not secure. They hold up this or that case of shenanigans as proof, whereas anyone who’s paid attention knows that yes, election fraud is easy to commit, on a very small scale. I could have voted in Indiana and Michigan — hands up don’t shoot — for a couple years, but I didn’t. And if I had, it would have made a difference in any race with a one-vote margin. I could have collected Kate’s absentee ballot and deposited it in the drop box with mine and Alan’s, which would technically be ballot harvesting because we don’t live in the same household anymore. Perusing the Heritage Foundation’s database of election fraud, you can read about individual cases. There are 19 listed for Michigan. Here’s one for Brandon Hall, a bottom-tier GOP activist:

Brandon Hall was convicted of ten counts of ballot petition fraud stemming from the 2012 election. Chris Houghtaling, who sought to become a candidate for the Ottawa County District Court, hired Hall to acquire the necessary signatures for his candidacy; Houghtaling reportedly did not care whether the signatures were collected legally or illegally, and even assisted in Hall’s crime by providing him old 2010 petitions to copy. Hall, realizing he did not collect enough signatures, used a phone book to complete the rest. Hall’s friend, Zachary Savage, assisted with the fraud, but prosecutors granted him immunity in exchange for his testimony. Hall appealed his conviction, which was affirmed. He is awaiting sentencing.

(Hall is the genius who briefly worked for James Craig, a former Detroit police chief who ran unsuccessfully for governor, and was part of this fiasco.)

Here’s another, Nancy Williams:

Nancy Williams was charged by the state in Wayne County with 3 felony counts of forging a signature on an absentee ballot, 2 felony counts of election law forgery, 5 misdemeanor counts of false statements on applications for absentee ballots, and 7 misdemeanor counts of receiving a payment to influence vote after participating in an absentee ballot trafficking scheme involving elderly voters at a nursing care facility. She submitted voter registration and absentee ballot applications for 26 legally incapacitated residents under her care without their consent. Williams had the absentee ballots mailed directly to her. She pleaded guilty to 7 counts of receiving a payment to influence vote in exchange for dismissal of the other charges, was sentenced to one year of probation, fined $3,500, and assessed $1,096 in fees. Similar charges against Williams in Oakland County are still pending.

You don’t win elections with 26 votes, at least not important ones. You win with thousands, hundreds of thousands. And that requires a conspiracy so vast it would collapse in hours.

But that’s where we are today. I hope we take a step back, but I expect bad things will happen between now and next January 20. We just don’t know what kind of bad things, and they’ll be different for everyone.

Be at peace, all. I’m working overnight tonight as a Dem challenger (observer) in Macomb County, where the city clerk has opted NOT to take advantage of eight days of pre-processing of absentee ballots, for unclear reasons. What that means is, I go to work at midnight and get off Whenever. So expect me Whenever, and play nice in the comments.

Sorry for not much to say today, but my brain is buzzing and I need to get some real work done. In the meantime, I remind you that this idiot is going around saying this, and I honestly can’t imagine anything worse for the country:

Anti-vaxxer RFK Jr. announces that Trump has “promised” him total “control” over America’s public health agencies if he wins pic.twitter.com/BRJceUzwVk

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 30, 2024

Please vote as though your life depends on it, because it does.

I was champing at the bit to vote early, and did, along with 145,000 other Michigan voters, which suggests a lot of bit-champing out there. My early-voting center said it had been steady all day, and it was. Didn’t take me long with the straight-ticket option, a choice I used to scorn, but well: Things are different now. Then there were the usual Wayne County judicial races, lots of them unopposed and/or under-opposed, which means the ballot says “vote for no more than 18,” and there are only 16 names in the race, so why bother.

But it’s done. And I got the good sticker:

Now let’s see if the number of emails and texts drop off. I’ve found responding “fuck off” to the ones that come from candidates you despise works as well as STOP. Just another week and change until I can either stop taking OTC sleep aids, or start taking double doses, plus CBD gummies.

I’m fresh home from leading the neighborhood Halloween slow roll, although I didn’t. Lead, that is. I got the tandem out, wiped the dust off, pumped up the tires, made a playlist, and met about five kids and three adults at the appointed place. When we set out, I led for about half a block before three kids dressed as Ironman, some other superhero and a dragon (but “a Mario dragon, not a regular dragon”) blew past me and set a rather brisk pace. Fortunately, one of the other adults had done group rides before, and could outpace them and block the intersections. I just tooled along on my Soviet limousine, playing The Cramps and Bow Wow Wow, and everyone arrived at the block party safely.

Update: Just received a text from someone telling me to call Sen. Stabenow and tell her “Michigan families can’t afford higher prices and to support the elimination of taxes on overtime and tips to help families survive.” Testing my Fuck Off strategy.

Count me among those who are not outraged by the Washington Post’s non-endorsement. I’ve always found endorsements fairly silly, a relic from when every newspaper had a specific constituency. (Fun fact: There were once six daily newspapers in Fort Wayne, Indiana, two of them in German.) I could excuse a union worker for wondering which judge the labor paper thinks he or she could vote for. But the self-importance that some editorial boards display around this time is ridiculous, for a practice that maybe, maybe influences 10,000 votes nationwide. That said, to decide to forego endorsements this year of all years is only proof that an authoritarian doesn’t have to crack down, they just have to make other people think they might, and people like Jeff Bezos fall right in line. So I didn’t cancel our subscription. I should cancel Amazon Prime, and still might.

Meanwhile, I found this infuriating multimedia presentation on how abortion is, and isn’t, being performed in the new era. Dr. Kristi Tomlin’s story is particularly crazy-making.

Finally, if you’re online as much as I am, you’ve probably noticed the degradation of content on websites and social-media platforms. I used to hate that word — content — but what’s out there now doesn’t really deserve to be called anything else. Turns out, the problem is “slop,” most of it AI-generated. Interesting explanation at the link. I guess it was fun while it lasted.

Monday awaits us all. Hang tight.