A new house project commenced this weekend. It should be the last one for a while, but it’ll be a big one – restoration of the hardwood floors, plus painting, new baseboards, all that crap. On Sunday we moved everything out of our bedroom, and we’re sleeping in Kate’s old room. Since we intend to replace our mattress, it went to the curb, along with the rolled-up old carpet from our bedroom. By Monday at noon, it had been taken away as part of our regular trash pickup.

I thought the same thing I did after a storm a couple of years ago toppled trees and tore off branches all over the neighborhood: Thank you, civilization. Thanks, tax dollars at work. Thanks for everything. The branches were all gone, chipped into mulch, within days. But for the still-ragged broken edges high up on a few trunks, you’d never have known what happened.

Trash, of course, never really goes away, it just goes someplace else. And I do my part to minimize ours. But I’m glad I don’t live on a farm, where there’s a pile of Mystery Junk behind every barn, or shoved into a long-vacant livestock stall. I recall those scenes in “Contagion,” deep into a deadly pandemic, when trash piles lined the streets of San Francisco. Rats were no doubt waiting off-camera.

An archaeologist friend (Sammy, John’s wife) introduced me to the concept of the “toss zone,” the area around early human settlements where early humans threw their trash – out the window, basically. (You wonder why so many pots ended up as shards?) There’s a group of grad students doing a “dig,” of sorts, outside a small house once lived in by Malcolm X in Inkster. Malcolm lived there for a year in the early ’50s, well after municipal garbage pickup, so I’m not sure what they’re looking for, other than period stuff, like the junk we’ve dug up around our house – coins, a couple of milk bottles with 3-cent deposit, a forgotten statue of St. Joseph, buried to make the house sell.

The milk bottles kinda touched me, as they likely came from the original workers who built our house in 1947. Today, those guys would drink Red Bull, or Mountain Dew, or some other swill.

Anyway, not much to say today. The Justice Department is finally doing its job, maybe:

The Justice Department is investigating President Donald Trump’s actions as part of its criminal probe of efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, according to four people familiar with the matter.

Prosecutors who are questioning witnesses before a grand jury — including two top aides to Vice President Mike Pence — have asked in recent days about conversations with Trump, his lawyers, and others in his inner circle who sought to substitute Trump allies for certified electors from some states Joe Biden won, according to two people familiar with the matter. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

The prosecutors have asked hours of detailed questions about meetings Trump led in December 2020 and January 2021; his pressure campaign on Pence to overturn the election; and what instructions Trump gave his lawyers and advisers about fake electors and sending electors back to the states, the people said. Some of the questions focused directly on the extent of Trump’s involvement in the fake-elector effort led by his outside lawyers, including John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, these people said.

We shall see, I’d say.

As for the rest of the week, let’s get through it. It’s Wednesday.

Everybody likes to think of themselves as brave. Right? I mean, some of us (raises hand) would fold quickly under torture; I don’t even like to watch it depicted in movies and TV, but my ego compels me to believe I’d do the right thing in a clutch situation, or even a non-clutch one.

Of course, I’ve never really been in one, so it’s all theoretical at this point.

Cowardice is the topic of the day. Let’s kick off with this great read on what happened when a man afraid of a black president prepared for the civil war he believed was coming. (Gift NYT link there. Let me know if anyone has trouble reading it.) It seems C. Wesley Morgan of Richmond, Ky. spent millions building his house, equipped with a literal bunker:

He had built the house in the Obama years, when he was convinced society was on the verge of collapse. Here his family could live in secluded comfort, and if the social fabric truly tore apart, as he expected it would, they could wait out the chaos in an abundantly stocked underground bunker. Now he couldn’t wait to be rid of it.

…On 200 acres of Kentucky meadow just outside of Richmond, his vision became a 14,300-square-foot reality. Nine bedrooms, three kitchens, a six-car garage, a steam room, a saltwater pool — the front entryway alone cost $75,000.

“My feelings were that we were going to have civil unrest because there was so much going on with Obama,” Mr. Morgan said. He believed that people were going to rise up against the attempts to overhaul health care and restrict guns, and that societal collapse would soon follow. He envisioned “roving bands of gangs” hunting for food and necessities in the aftermath. He bought riot gear, bulletproof vests and a small arsenal of firearms, so that “if you had to engage a band of marauders, you would have a chance to save your family.”

The roving bands of gangs didn’t show up, but one night a gunman did. What was he looking for? Dangerously mentally ill himself, he was looking for, well, a bunker:

(Morgan’s daughter), Jordan, 32, told her father she had come to feel unsafe at the house. In February of this year, she was hired by a law firm in Lexington and planned to move as soon as possible to an apartment in the city. “She must have sensed that she was being watched,” he said.

Someone had been watching, marking the house’s entry points and taking detailed notes on the family’s movements. Early on the morning of Feb. 22, prosecutors say, the watcher, Shannon V. Gilday, a 23-year-old former soldier who lived in the Cincinnati suburbs, climbed up to a second-floor balcony and began his attack.

I don’t want to spoil it for you, and I promise you it’s worth your time. One spoiler: This good guy with a gun grabbed one during the attack and emptied a 12-shot clip at the intruder. Missed every time.

After that, some comic relief, maybe? Here’s Haulin’ Josh Hawley, coward without peer, running away from danger, set to various theme music. Ha ha ha.

On to the Washington Post, who today published a piece on GOP candidates on the trail this campaign season, spreading dire portents to the faithful:

In both swing states and safe seats, many Republicans say that liberals hate them personally and may turn rioters or a police state on people who disobey them.

Referring to the coronavirus and 2020 protests over police brutality, Cox told supporters at a rally last month, “We were told 14 days to bend the curve, and yet antifa was allowed to burn our police cars in the streets.” He continued: “Do you really think, with what we’re seeing — with the riots that have happened — that we should not have something to defend our families with? This is why we have the Second Amendment.”

One example of a typical ad, from close to (my) home:

In northwest Ohio, a campaign video for Republican congressional nominee J.R. Majewski shows him walking through a dilapidated factory, holding a semiautomatic weapon, warning that Democrats will “destroy our economy” with purposefully bad policies.

I’m pretty sure I heard a radio ad for that guy when I was traveling last winter. He mentioned Trump about a million times in 30 seconds, and signed off with, “Let’s go Brandon!” I don’t know where he found that factory. Maybe it was Ohio Art in Bryan, where Alan worked for about a week during college; they sent Etch-a-Sketch production to China years ago. Democrats had nothing to do with it. Note the lead-in to that story: “The University of California Berkley uses Etch A Sketch as an exampleof the devastating effect of outsourcing and the New York Times ran a 2003 expose on the inhumane conditions at the factory where the Etch A Sketches were made near Shenzhen.” It so happens inhumane conditions were exactly why Alan lasted only a week; the tolulene fumes in that place made him dizzy and his dad told him it wasn’t worth it.

One more snippet from that Post story:

Rick Shaftan, a conservative strategist working with Republican challengers this cycle, said that the party’s voters were nervously watching crime rates in the cities, asking whether public safety was being degraded on purpose. He also pointed to government responses to the pandemic as a reason that those voters, and their candidates, were nervous.

Urban crime. Good lord. While it is absolutely true that violent crime has risen lately, it’s equally true that with rare exceptions, crime is still a matter of who you associate with and where you live. Whereas conservatives’ favorite violent crime, mass shootings, can find you anywhere. Church, school, the grocery store.

Paul Krugman had some thoughts on this, via Twitter. (J.C. said Twitter embeds may have been the cause of the loading problems some of you had a couple weeks ago, so just a link, sorry.) But this is, to my mind, the best of the thread:

I’ve believed this for years, that rural and small-town residents are the ones most out of touch. The people I know in cities travel whenever they can, read books not written by Sarah Palin and know way more about the farm economy than their counterparts in the boondocks know about how cities work. But never mind that.

So that’s how we start our (blessedly cooler) week ahead, then: Thinking about cowards. Hope yours is great. (Your week, not the nearest coward.)

So Ivana Trump is dead. Huh. Seventy-three seems a young age to have your heart just give out, but then, we don’t know much about the first Mrs. T, no matter how much of her life she “shared” with the rest of us. I use quotes because, to me, sharing implies a certain desire or gratitude on the part of the person being shared with: “Want half my sandwich?” “Sure.” And I don’t recall asking to learn anything about Ivana, even though she and her loathsome ex-husband were seemingly in my grill for most of the ’80s.

I recommend the Personal Life section of her Wikipedia page:

Trump married four times. Her first marriage, to Alfred Winklmayr, was for the goal of securing Austrian nationality, according to a biographer. She was married to Donald Trump from 1977 to 1992, and had three children with him: Donald Jr. in 1977, Ivanka in 1981, and Eric in 1984.

Trump married Italian entrepreneur and international businessman Riccardo Mazzucchelli in November 1995. They divorced in 1997. That same year, she filed a $15 million breach of contract suit against Mazzucchelli for violating the confidentiality clause in their prenuptial agreement, while Mazzucchelli sued Ivana and Donald Trump in a British court for libel. The suit was later settled under undisclosed terms.

In the summer of 1997, she began dating Italian aristocrat Count Roffredo Gaetani dell’Aquila d’Aragona Lovatelli. The relationship continued until his death in 2005.

Trump dated Italian actor and model Rossano Rubicondi for six years before they married on April 12, 2008. The marriage to Rubicondi, 36, was the fourth for Ivana, then 59. The couple’s $3 million wedding for 400 guests was hosted by ex-husband Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago with daughter Ivanka as her maid of honor. The wedding was officiated by Donald’s sister Judge Maryanne Trump Barry. Although Ivana and Rubicondi divorced less than a year later, their on-again, off-again relationship continued until 2019, when Ivana announced they had once again “called it quits”. Rubicondi died on October 29, 2021, at the age of 49.

Trump had ten grandchildren. In the late 2010s, she reportedly split her time between New York City, Miami, and Saint-Tropez. She stated she was fluent in German, French, Czech, and Russian. She became a naturalized United States citizen in 1988.

So many shudder-y lines in that, but my favorite passage is the entirety of paragraph four, and my head can’t help but imagine that ghastly wedding, of an Italian “actor and model” marrying a woman more than 20 years his senior, as the guests of her ex-husband, with her monstrous children in attendance, all officiated by her former sister-in-law. Then the topper: “Although Ivana and Rubicondi divorced less than a year later…”

Rubicondi died young, at 49 (melanoma). I went a-Googling for news about him, and was vastly unsurprised to read this:

When Rossano Rubicondi married Ivana Trump at Mar-A-Lago — the luxury Palm Beach club and resort owned by her second spouse, Donald Trump — in 2008, the Italian left made it clear he viewed himself as a champion-grade husband.

“Rossano trotted down the big spiral staircase and onto the outside terrace, where around 400 guests” — and a 12-foot-tall wedding cake — “were in attendance. He was fist pumping to the ‘Rocky’ theme,” R. Couri Hay, the press agent who was a guest, told The Post. “Usually the bride enters from there and gets all the attention. But Rossano was such a proud peacock that he couldn’t help himself. Some of guests were appalled.”

Another priceless line: “Some of the guests were appalled.” Really? I’d have thought the entire company would be up and applauding. The appalled ones must have ended up in the Trump administration.

I’m sure people will say nice things about her, because that’s what we do when people die, but let me add some shadow here: What Ivana Trump was, was a woman who fucked her way out of a Soviet satellite, found her equally mercenary match in the man she had three children with – somehow this is another instance where “sharing” doesn’t quite fit – got dumped/dumped him depending on who you talk to, then found a fondness for Italians. They must have found her quite the rare bird, with that brassy bouffant and a face that suffered from repeat plastic surgeries. She was never the “top model” her second husband claimed she was, although she had some fine features to pass on to her daughter, mainly the height and long legs and Slavic cheekbones (improved with implants, yes, obviously). And I guess we can appreciate what she is reported to have said when her old man packed his mistress along on one of the family vacations to Vail or some other ski venue out west: Confronting Marla Maples on the slopes, she said something like, “Are you Moola?” Which is funny.

She divided her time between New York, St. Tropez and Miami, all rich-people slums. A silly woman who lived a silly life and replicated her silly DNA three times.

No one ever said life was fair.

This will be it for me, then. Let’s keep the Trumps in our thoughts and prayers, and if we’re lucky and pray hard enough, maybe the next obit we read will be you-know-who’s.

Since so much of the news has been terrible of late, I feel like I have to point out some definite glimmers of light, both in Michigan:

Two ballot initiatives advancing progressive causes — reproductive freedom and voting rights — have turned in signatures far, far, farrrrr in excess of those needed to get on the November ballot. Both are constitutional amendments, which means if they pass, they’ll be difficult to roll back in the future. Michigan has these direct-democracy features baked into its constitution, which was last revised in 1963, so some very New Frontier details. Sometimes good ideas get in there, sometimes bad ones (term limits, ahem). But it’s the system we’ve been given, and some people are working it.

Anyway, the reproductive-freedom initiative would give women the right to make that choice at any point in their pregnancy, so of course the pushback has already started: This will allow 12-year-olds to undergo hysterectomies! Women will have abortions in the eighth month! And so on. But they turned in a record number of signatures: 753,000, well over the 425,000 required.

Promote the Vote, the other one, came in with something like 663,000, and would make voting easier, more convenient, and — this is the big one — provide for nine days of early in-person voting, which we don’t currently have. (On the other hand, I believe some of the union contracts make Election Day a holiday, in the interest of participatory democracy. That might go in the next negotiation, huh?)

That both of these breezed across the finish line with such a margin — all petition drives over-deliver, because all the signatures have to be verified, and inevitably some are tossed — suggests all is not lost.

And today was another J6 hearing, ai-yi-yi. This is getting so ridiculous, this giant pile of evidence, something more better come of it than a bunch of embarrassment. Meanwhile, dozens of Republicans are running for office on the STOLEN ELECTION. It’s revolting. Maybe November will sort a few things out; I certainly hope so.

Another perfect day today, and I smashed it — up early, worked out, walked the dog, showered, worked, cleaned the goddamn coffeemaker. Remembered to have something for dinner, prepped it in plenty of time, drank lots of water. It’s amazing what a good night’s sleep can yield.

Now let’s see what Wednesday brings. You never know.

Yikes, now that was a weekend. Perfect weather both days, just in time for miserable weather arriving during the week, when we’ll be scraping the bottom of the 90s. Why do I live here, I will ask myself on days like that. The answer:

Blue water, blue skies. That’s why.

That was Saturday. On Sunday, bike ride to John’s Carpet House for some of the blues jam that happens there every Sunday, in season. It’s grown — considerably — since the last time I was there. It’s much more of a place to show out, but still friendly, and that’s what counts. I had a late lunch of two tacos from a place that was selling them for $2 each. The guy asked me what I wanted on them. I asked what he had. Cheese, sour cream, taco sauce, jalapeños or something he called “Kranch.”

“It’s so good on tacos, you won’t believe it,” he said.

OK, then — cheese and Kranch. Which turned out to be ketchup and ranch dressing, but he was right — it wasn’t half-bad, at least when you’re hungry, and I was. Plus two Modelos.

It was necessary to be outside this weekend to shake off the stench of current events. Which leads to some bloggage:

A profile of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer that will definitely polish her brand as a possible presidential contender down the road. Washington Post, but the link is a “gift” link, so I’m hoping you all can see it. Anyway:

Whitmer is a woman, but she is also an attractive woman, and her use of executive power, when wielded broadly, seems to deeply trigger her male antagonists. The Republican leader of the state Senate, Mike Shirkey, bragged on a hot mic that he had “spanked her hard on budget, spanked her hard on appointments,” and also contemplated “inviting her to a fistfight on the Capitol lawn.” Another Republican lawmaker, Sen. Ed McBroom, complained that Whitmer had been “neutering” him and his colleagues, the cause of the legislature’s “emasculation.”

At the start of the pandemic, Whitmer urged the federal government to supply more equipment to Michigan. On live television from the White House press briefing room, Trump dismissed her as “the woman from Michigan.” She was in national headlines. Democrats called it a political gift. Joe Biden thought about making her vice president, inviting her to Delaware to talk about the job in secret.

But that’s also when the threats started. Hundreds that don’t make it into the media, she said. And then there were the armed protests. And then there was the hit list with her name on it, belonging to a man who shot and killed a former Wisconsin judge. And then there was the kidnapping plot, a saga that began in the fall of 2020 and stretched on into a trial this year. Four men were charged, their plans and fantasies spelled out in public court filings: hogtying the governor, laying the governor out on a table, shooting the governor in the skull, shooting the governor in her doorway. She tried not to follow the trial coverage, but the headlines always passed by on Twitter and in push alerts. How could she not look? “Like, for weeks that this trial was going … every day,” she said. “So even if I wasn’t reading those articles, I couldn’t get away from them.”

I’m glad she’s talking about it, because most of the state media do not. Whitmer is nakedly ambitious, but this is so obvious.

Here’s more WashPost content, and another gift link, actor John Turturro talking about his grandmother’s illegal abortion:

My mother, Katherine, the fourth of six children, was born in Brooklyn to immigrants from Sicily. Her mother, Rosa, took care of the family and worked as a seamstress from home; her father, Giovanni, earned his living as a shoemaker. They struggled as many poor families did, then and now, to feed and clothe their children. Then Rosa became pregnant with child number seven.

She was 40. She had a baby, a 4-year-old, a 6-year-old, a 7-year-old, an 11-year-old and a 13-year-old. I imagine the method of birth control was rudimentary. Rosa’s older sister Margarita was distraught that Rosa would have another mouth to feed. Margarita persuaded her sister not to bear another child.

She was given a “special drink” by her sister. It didn’t go well:

My grandmother became feverish — most likely from an infection that turned into septic shock that evening — on fire from the poison, burning inside. Pennyroyal, I know now, can be toxic to the liver. My mom watched her mother stand up on her bed, pulling at her hair and asking God, “Why?”

Rosa Inzerillo was taken to Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn on April 18, 1927. She died on April 25 at about 7 a.m.

I’m glad he wrote about this, because we know this is who most often gets an abortion — a woman who already is a mother and is struggling with the ones she has. The column goes on to describe what happens to a poor woman with six children who dies in 1927. It blew up her family, in every way imaginable. I won’t spoil it — just read.

And on a lighter note, ha ha, a NYT magazine story on why the future of opera may be unfolding in? Yes, Detroit. Another gift link. My friends who have seen the productions Yuval Sharon has done so far have raved about them. We’ll have to see one next season, if we can get seats after this.

With that, I believe I’ve got some recovering to do from all this sun. Funny how it knocks you flat, ain’a? But I’m thinking some pizza will be good medicine.

Let the week begin.

I was going to write something last night, but I had a date with three former colleagues at a steakhouse about an hour away, and I opted to do that instead. Never turn down a chance to have a two-hour meat house date with fun people. I listened to “Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus” on the way home, very loud, and decided I don’t care how many people OK-boomer me, that record is great and I will not apologize for loving it.

It’s the Summer of Nance, I’ve decided. All healthy eating, self-improvement, open windows, warm breezes, old music and weeknights out in Howell, Michigan.

First, a housekeeping note: I don’t know what was going on with the page not loading on your iPhones, etc. I try not to bother J.C. with every little thing, but the other day I noticed the spam filter on my NN.c email has seemingly dissolved. Every day I have to kill a couple dozen penis-enlargement emails, and no matter how many times I mark them as junk/spam, it doesn’t seem to learn. This, J.C. suggests, is a server problem, at least in part, so who knows, maybe they’re going through some things at Dreamhost.

Anyway, J.C. is going away on Sunday for two weeks in the Galapagos Islands, so we must all keep our fingers crossed that nothing goes awry in his absence.

Another housekeeping note, but really just self-promotion: I had a chance to write the “I Wish I’d Been There” column for Echoes magazine, published by the Ohio History connection, and it was published in recent days. The e-reader is a little awkward, but just drag the slider to page 46 and there it is: A moment of Ohio history I wish I’d have observed directly, when Elvis Costello and Bonnie Bramlett got into a fistfight at the Holiday Inn in downtown Columbus. To the credit of Bill Eichenberger, who asked me to do it, I must say that column has a nice, playful spirit. I read one about 10-cent beer night at Cleveland Stadium to get a feel for the voice, then noticed the byline: Erik Harden, son of my old Dispatch colleague Mike. Small world.

Note to Dorothy: When I went into the clips from the separate Costello and Stephen Stills shows from that night, the byline on the review of the Costello show? Mark Ellis. Jeff Borden wrote about Stills. I always thought concert reviews were a waste of time, unless it was for a show that was going multiple nights, but then, newspapers used to have space to burn. They needed to fill those pages somehow.

I had trouble falling asleep last night — too much food — and saw the news about Shinzo Abe’s assassination on Twitter. I will always remember him as the guy who rolled his eyes at Donald Trump’s asshole handshake move. Of course, Ivanka is all torn up:

Saddened by the death of Former PM Shinzo Abe, a truly historic figure & leader of lasting consequence. Abe’s advice, wisdom & warmth had a profound impact on me during my government service. My heart is with his family & the Japanese people as the world mourns his passing. pic.twitter.com/UAEAXHRIGY

— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump)

She of course chose a photo that included Herself. “My government service,” lol.

And now I have to prep for the day, so adieu, which is also a good first word in Wordle. See you after the weekend.

Happy Independence Day. On this day, the first in nearly a half-century in which women no longer have bodily autonomy, six people are dead and 16 24 (as of now) are hospitalized after yet another mass shooting. I’m sure you’ve heard of it by now; it was in Highland Park, Ill., at the most American event possible, a July 4 parade. Children are separated from their parents. The shooter is still at large.

God bless America.

Maybe you’ve seen one of the video clips, of people running as a klezmer band plays on a flatbed. Highland Park is a very Jewish suburb, so that adds another angle to consider. I predict that within a week, once again nothing will be done except some lip-flapping about mental health, and soon we’ll see the grateful tweets about being able to “defend your family” with all the weaponry money can buy.

This isn’t freedom. It’s the opposite of freedom.

Exact moments as shots are heard as a mass shooting unfolds in Highland Park during a 4th of July parade celebration. #highlandpark #masshooting

— CHICAGO CRITTER (@ChicagoCritter) July 4, 2022

Not celebrating anything today. It’s another 90-degree scorcher. I got my morning swim out of the way when it was still bearable, bought groceries, and am now finishing a Mick Herron novel in my air-conditioned house, which I nearly killed myself cleaning yesterday. Our bathroom(s) project is done, but as usual, the silt-like dust that went through the house lives on. Not feeling particularly celebratory right now, anyway. But that’s the thing about the Fourth of July — no one demands that you show up for a parade, wave a flag, or whatever. You’re free to shelter from extreme heat with a technology that will further degrade the environment, whoopee. Beats sheltering from mass shooters, I guess.

I did have a good time at my reunion. The MAGA who ended my last one on a sour note wasn’t there, and I found some fun people to hang with, including the class president, who I barely exchanged a word with when we were in school together. The downside of a class of 750, I guess. There were more than 100 people there, and it was beastly hot in the courtyard of the restaurant we had reserved, even in the shade. Fortunately, the bar was air-conditioned, and open. A few more names have been added to the In Memoriam page. I looked it over while I was there (it was projected on a wall). Tried to remember who went when – car crashes first, then AIDS, then the early-reaping cancers, heart disease, etc. I mentioned this to one classmate I had zero memory of back then, and couldn’t even remember his name written somewhere on a class list. He said if you make it to 65, you’re probably good for another 15-20 years, then introduced himself as a public-health specialist. Figure he’d know.

Drove home Saturday afternoon, and listened to radio shows and podcasts about the Dobbs decision. On “This American Life,” an enthusiastic anti-abortion activist answered a question about what you’d say to a woman who absolutely, positively does not want in any way to be pregnant something like this: Tough shit, life is difficult, deal. Wow, what a gal.

OK, then. This photo is making the rounds, and seems like a good one to close with. See you later this week. America the beautiful:

A Lake County police officer walks through chairs and bikes left behind on the Central Avenue parade route sidewalk near the scene of the Highland Park mass shooting.

‘It was chaotic,’ reports of 6 dead, 2 dozen others shot during Fourth of July parade
https://t.co/kWBnLbO2nS
https://t.co/AgfvWCBJI4

— Brian Cassella (@briancassella)July 4, 2022

Friends, I’m headed out for a couple-three days. High school-reunion thing, visit-family thing, go-to-someplace-even-hotter-than-Detroit thing. What a week. What a bunch of weeks. Our bathroom project(s) are almost done, and I’m leaving Alan with the final days, but travel is important for the soul, even if you’re only going to Ohio.

But I’m talking today to you Hoosiers, and former Hoosiers, and anyone else who might be interested.

A friend of mine is running for Congress in my old district in Indiana. As an independent. Yep, following the Evan McMullin strategy. The odds are against him, and pretty steep ones at that, but this is America and he gets to try. So, meet Nathan Gotsch, who is trying. If you’re so inclined, there’s a fundraising link, and today is an important fundraising deadline. But if you want to give after, that’s fine too.

I’ve known Nathan for a few years. He’s a nice kid (although no longer a kid). And he’s running against one of the biggest embarrassments in Congress, someone who makes Mark Souder (who held the seat when I lived there) look like Winston Churchill. Read his pitch – Why should I care about your friend running for Congress? ha ha – consider a donation.

And have a great weekend.

I expect we’re all going to want to talk about today’s J6 hearing in comments, so I’ll keep this brief.

You know what detail pierced me the most? The one that rang truest, for better or worse? When Cassidy Hutchinson saw the valet going to clean up after the president’s temper tantrum, she grabbed a towel to help. She was aide to the White House chief of staff, but when she saw a mess she did what every woman — or almost every woman, at least the ones with mothers like mine — automatically does: She moved to clean it up. Because women are raised to clean up after themselves, and everybody else. I know there are exceptions, but I never check out of a hotel room without making sure no one left a wet towel on the bed, that all the dirty towels are in a pile for easy pickup, and any trash is in the wastebasket, etc. And I leave a tenner for the maid.

I’m also 1,000 percent convinced that this pig we allowed into the White House has been violent with every woman unfortunate enough to get close to him, including his own daughter. The story Ivana told about him raping her because he was mad his stupid hair-fixing surgery went wrong? I always took that with a grain of salt, because she’s as vile and stupid as he is, but not any more. A man who throws plates against the wall like an infant is capable of much worse violence. As we’re so often told, rape is violence, not sex, and it makes perfect sense that’s how he’d express himself.

A man in his 70s, physically attacking his own security detail. Imagine that.

I know it’s fashionable to beat up on Maggie Haberman, without whom we wouldn’t know a fraction of much of what we know about Trump, but indulge me here:

And:

At least some of the help is turning on their old bosses. Hi, Melania:

pic.twitter.com/PQXLSsv6IJ

— Stephanie Grisham (@OMGrisham) June 28, 2022

Again, not that Stephanie Grisham is anyone to admire. I’m struck, over and over again, how low the bar has fallen that we elevate a woman who went to work for Mark Meadows as a heroine, but a heroine she is.

The world makes no sense to me anymore. Let’s talk about it.

Well.

I was going to take a quick few minutes to update the blog on Friday morning, and then, well, you know what happened. I decided to wait through the weekend, just to see how it went. A few things are coming clear:

** Ginni Thomas was the draft leaker, maybe even without her husband’s knowledge (although probably not). Getting the opinion out weeks earlier pushed Kavanaugh into the majority. As someone said on Twitter, we’ll know it was her when no one else is publicly named (or the name leaks, ha ha) and punished for it.

** Speaking of Boof Kavanaugh, how amusing that his opinion had that air of brushing off his hands and walking away, having left abortion “to the states.” :::imagine another bitter chuckle here::: Not for nothing are the Republicans talking about national anti-abortion legislation. Already.

** Meanwhile, we know who the real victim is. Yes, Rudy Giuliani.

Photo editing mine. But you gotta love New York City, where a guy picking up a few essentials at the ShopRite can get a chance to lay hands on one of the biggest assholes on the planet (at the moment, anyway):

The ex-mayor told ABC the slap felt like “somebody shot me,” and, “Luckily, I”m a 78-year-old who is in pretty good shape.

“If I wasn’t, I would have hit the ground and probably cracked my skull.”

The former federal prosecutor told The Post he felt it was his duty to call the cops — likening the decision to his tough-on-crime policies as mayor.

“I say to myself, ‘You know something? I gotta get this guy arrested,’ ” he said. “I talk about ‘broken windows’ theory all the time. You can’t let the little things go.

Jesus, what a douchebag.

I was listening to some NPR egghead today when my inner feminist rose up and growled. It was the eighteenth mention of “pregnant person” that did it. Look, I know this is the new term of art, that trans men might need abortions someday too, but goddamnit: THIS IS ABOUT WOMEN. Uterus-havers, who may have sex with sperm producers, whether by choice or force, and get pregnant when they don’t want to be. Women, in other words. Sorry, I’m just not in the mood for language policing right now. We’re here arguing about incrementalism, and Republicans incrementaled a constitutional right right out from under us.

Fuck all this shit. Yeah, I’m still pissed. And will be, for a while.