It was a time when strangers were welcome here

Alison McGhee posted this photo to go with an essay on Facebook* about the occupation of Minneapolis. The essay was fine, but she's no slouch as a photographer, either.

You already know what Trump's State of the Union message contained (lies), but what drove Cory Robin crazy was the Democratic response: "I spent yesterday tearing my hair out over the Democrats' response to Trump's State of the Union Address. I could say a lot about their choice of respondent and the substance of the response. But I want to focus only on style, rhetoric. Long story, short: I was appalled. I don't think I've ever encountered, outside academia, people with such a bottomless appetite for mountainous piles of meaningless, unnecessary, empty words, each of which seems genetically engineered to make any sentient being stop paying attention. Reading this speech, that is the only conclusion I can come to: that its sole and entire purpose is to make people stop paying attention. Again, forget substance, forget ideology, forget what the Democratic Party is, just focus on the style, the words, the impact on you, the listener, the reader. I'll dwell on just a few moments (which seemed like more than moments) in the speech, a few passages that do the opposite of what a passage is supposed to do—that is, get you from one place to the next."

Scahill and Hussain at Drop Site News, "As Trump Launches 'Massive' Regime Change War, Iran Strikes Back at U.S. Bases and Vows Not to Capitulate: Diplomacy was weaponized as an 'instrument of deception,' an Iranian official tells Drop Site. Tehran promises to inflict losses on the U.S. At approximately 9:40 a.m. local time in Iran, President Donald Trump launched what he bluntly characterized as a regime change war aimed at eliminating the Iranian leadership, destroying the country's missile system and naval forces, and calling on Iranians to rise up and seize control in the aftermath of the attacks. The bombing campaign was initiated by Israel but Trump's statement announcing U.S. involvement made clear the stakes to Iranians: 'Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take,' Trump said in a taped statement on Truth Social soon after Operation Epic Fury began. 'This will be probably your only chance for generations.' In what has now become a signature component of Trump's approach to Iran, the U.S. constructed a false veneer of continuing diplomatic negotiations, only to turn around and launch a major attack."

And for some quick history, Jean-Luc Szpakowski on "What happened in the Iran demonstrations." You will not be surprised to learn that the US and Mossad all played their role.

Don Moynihan, "Trump's weak justifications for attacking Iran: Why is American attacking Iran? It helps to have a coherent reason, to justify to the American public the costs in money and blood, to allies about the potential long-term risks, and to Iranians about the future of their country. After 9/11 there was broad support for invading Afghanistan because the country hosted the attack's mastermind. In 2003 there was less support for what turned out to be the false claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. They didn't, but Saddam stuck a belligerent tone and kicked weapons inspectors out. In 2026…Iran was at the negotiating table and we invaded…for reasons." But it's pretty clear that, Pete Kegsmith to the contrary, we did start this war, because we let Israel push us into it. But why?

"AIPAC Coordinates Donors in Illinois House Primaries: Three Democratic candidates are benefiting from dark-money super PACs, and they share hundreds of donors who have previously given to AIPAC and its subsidiaries. With Israel's reputation reaching record lows among Democrats, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is resorting to ever more sophisticated methods to support its preferred candidates while cloaking its own involvement."

At Columbia, ICE impersonated police officers and claimed to be searching for a missing child as a ruse to invade a college dorm and kidnapped a student. Mamdani picked up the phone and got Trump to release her.

"'Great villains': Law firms that 'groveled' to Trump scorched as revenge bid dropped: President Donald Trump's Justice Department backed down on Monday on a huge monthslong legal battle, no longer defending a series of executive orders that attacked prominent law firms that represented anti-Trump clients in the past. It's a huge victory for the rule of law, voting rights attorney Marc Elias told MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace — but also a huge black eye for the law firms that made deals with Trump to avoid similar regulatory action against them."

David Dayen finds "The Quintessential Epstein Files Email: Jeffrey Epstein and his friends standing up for Mary Jo White against Elizabeth Warren tells you everything about the class war at the heart of the files. On June 5, 2015, Kathy Ruemmler, then a corporate lawyer for Latham & Watkins but just one year removed from her stint as White House counsel for Barack Obama, emailed her good friend Jeffrey Epstein. Ruemmler, who was once under consideration to become Obama's attorney general, wrote, 'I am working on a PR strategy for MJ White v. Elizabeth Warren.' Epstein responded, 'Good[.] mj is good.' And Ruemmler followed on in a response, 'Yes, and EW is the worst.' This is the perfect Jeffrey Epstein email, with as much explanatory power about this man, and more important the world he associated with and cultivated, than anything to do with child sex abuse. It shows that there is in fact an Epstein class, which not only believes in their own personal impunity, but seeks to protect their fellow travelers as well. And that ultimately lines up with a political and economic vision that favors corporate domination over the public interest. But you have to unravel all the backstory to best understand it."

RIP: "Neil Sedaka, a Pop Hitmaker Across Two Eras, Dead at 86: The songwriter and performer broke through with early Sixties hits like 'Breaking Up Is Hard to Do,' then mounted a Seventies comeback with 'Laughter In the Rain' [...] Alongside his neighbor and longtime songwriting partner, Howard Greenfield, Sedaka set up shop at the famous Brill Building and helped define the pop style that emerged from the New York City hit factory. Their success with songs like 'Stupid Cupid' for Connie Francis helped Sedaka secure a record deal of his own. He notched his first Top 10 hit in 1959 with 'Oh! Carol,' then followed it up with notable tunes like 'Stairway to Heaven' (not that one), 'Calendar Girl,' 'Little Devil,' and 'Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen.' The run culminated in 1962 when 'Breaking Up Is Hard to Do' went to Number One, and 'Next Door to an Angel' peaked at Number Five." I've always been a sucker for doo-wops, and these songs were always such fun.

RIP: "Robert Duvall, Apocalypse Now and Godfather star, dies aged 95." Yes, he was great in a lot of things, but lets's not forget his genre credit for The Twilight Zone, and most of all, that moment, early in his career, but at the end of the film, when Scout Finch looks up and sees him in the shadow behind the door, and their faces change in one of the finest acting duets on film, with virtually no dialogue. (In the book, Boo Radley had one short line of dialogue, though he is a huge, invisible presence from the beginning. That line was cut from the movie, to no ill effect.)

RIP: "Blues Icon John Hammond Dies At 83 [...] With more than six decades devoted to the blues, Hammond stood as one of the music's most committed and enduring champions. [...] For generations of artists and listeners, John Hammond represented a living bridge to the roots of American blues. His dedication preserved a lineage that might otherwise have faded from mainstream view. He is survived by his wife Marla. His recordings remain a testament to a life spent in service of the blues."

"Newspapers Did Not Kill Themselves: New docs say Jeffrey Epstein collaborated with the Russian mob to loot the New York Daily News, then tried to help Mort Zuckerman discard it when reporting became inconvenient. Almost nobody noticed earlier this month when the New York Daily News announced what felt like a 500th round of layoffs. Not long ago, the venerable working-class tabloid behind “FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD” would have been the ideal outlet for demystifying the prodigious evils of the Uptown Epstein network for outer-borough New Yorkers who elected Zohran Mamdani. But the latest iteration of “New York's Hometown Newspaper” has all of four reporters covering national news."

"A Running Count of How Many People ICE Has Killed and Injured: ICE doesn't share its violent incidents with the public. So here's our list. The Trump regime's deportation monomania has left far more people dead and wounded than it wants you to know. Agents' public executions of Renee Good and Alex Pretti have rightly drawn widespread fury, heartbreak, and action. And they are just two of the many more agents have murdered or caused to die in the field since January 2025. Even more people have died in immigration prison. And as for the people federal agents have merely injured? An official count doesn't exist. There is no doubt that the regime is working overtime to hide the full scope of the terror campaign spreading across our country. The Prospect launched this tracker to do our part to stop them from getting away with it. We are collecting data to bring the real harm into sharper focus and to counterbalance the mainstream media's sanitation of what we would call “pogroms” if they were happening in any other country. "

"Phil Ochs' Sharp, Satirical Protest Songs Still Resonate Today: Fifty years after his death, the protest singer's music is more relevant than ever. [...] 2026 marks half a century since Ochs' death, yet his lyrics are more relevant now than perhaps even he could have imagined. Ochs' career achievements, by any reasonable measure, were substantial—he wrote hundreds of songs, recorded seven albums for two major record labels, consistently sold out Carnegie Hall and other medium-sized concert venues, successfully organized several large-scale rallies, and always provoked an enthusiastic response from crowds at the countless political events at which he performed." Since I went to a lot of those rallies I saw him many times, and always loved him, so I was glad to see this appreciation of work that, yes, still resonates with me.

Neil Sedaka dedicated "The Immigrant" to John Lennon, but hearing it now makes me cry.

We will protect our home

This photograph was posted by Radley Balko in his amazingly comprehensive round-up post of February 3rd. He called it "Too Much Ice", and of course, the overwhelming content is about ICE's rampage, particularly in Minneapolis, but there's a bunch of other things, too, including the weather.

I thought I'd try to post this while I'm not watching the State of the Union speech. I'm sure the snippets in the morning will be less stressful. Trying not to think about Iran.

"Most Conservative Students Don't Feel Persecuted on Campus: A new survey of college students contradicts Republican rhetoric that campus culture is hostile to right-wing views. Despite widespread political rhetoric claiming that colleges suppress conservative viewpoints, new data shows that most college students feel free to express themselves regardless of their political affiliation. According to a report that Gallup and the Lumina Foundation published today, just 2 percent of all college students—including 3 percent of Republicans—say they feel they don't belong on campus due to their political views. That's one of the many disconnects between public perceptions about higher education's climate and value and what students say is actually happening on campus, according to the report, 'The College Reality Check: What Students Experience vs. What America Believes.'"

A Democrat flipped a seat in Texas in a district Trump won in 2024 by a wide margin. And no, this was no Harold Ford "Democrat", this was a union leader, Taylor Rehmet, more Berniecrat than Blue Dog or Dixiecrat, with a 14-point margin. Most articles treat it as a warning for Republicans, but perhaps it should say more to Democratic consultants who insist that only a Joe Manchin can win in these red seats.

"Every Single Participant in NYT Focus Group Preferred Progressive Candidates Over Moderate Ones: 'The Democratic Party needs to embrace voices that resonate with people,' said one participant [...] 'Spineless' was one word a participant had for the Democratic Party when asked to describe it. Another said the party appears 'paralyzed' while a 46-year-old Latina woman from Nevada said Democrats in Congress are 'sellouts and suckers.'"

"Don't Be Fooled By the Corrupt Court's Tariff Decision [...] This is a case where the legal merits of the President's action were just too transparently bogus even for this Court to manage and — critically — his actions and the theories undergirding his claims to the power were, for the Corrupt majority, inconvenient. The architect of the current Court — the Federalist Society's Leonard Leo — was behind the litigation that undid the tariffs. That tells you all you need to know. In this case Trump's claim to power was neither in the interests of the Republican Party — the Court's chief jurisprudential interest — nor any of their anti-constitutional doctrines. So of course they tossed it out. This may sound ungenerous. It's simple reality."

Dday, "Trump Justice Department Poised to Preserve Ticketmaster Monopoly: Settlement talks on a monopolization case against Live Nation are under way, with Kellyanne Conway and other MAGA lobbyists seeking a sweetheart deal. [...] The imminent settlement of the high-profile case has once again triggered tumult inside the Justice Department between Antitrust Division lawyers who are more wary of lobbyist-driven decision-making and Attorney General Pam Bondi's office, which is eager to please Trump allies and vested interests. [...] President Trump issued an executive order last year demanding a crackdown on price-gouging in event ticketing, making Davis's advocacy for Live Nation, the company that dominates the space, even more embarrassing."

"Reporting Says Rubio 'Deliberately' Lying to Trump About US-Cuba Talks: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has long sought regime change in Cuba, and new reporting from Drop Site News on Monday suggested he may be intentionally misrepresenting the Trump administration's current policy in the communist country to achieve his goal. The outlet reported that, based on the accounts of five Cuban and US officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, the 'deal' that President Donald Trump has said is likely to be finalized soon is not being pursued in any high-level, official diplomatic discussions. Soon after issuing an executive order that labeled Cuba an extraordinary threat, accused it of harboring terrorists, and threatened other countries with sanctions if they provide oil to the Cuban government, Trump said his administration is 'talking to the people from Cuba, the highest people in Cuba, to see what happens.' But one senior White House official explained to Drop Site that 'he's saying that because that's what Marco is telling him.'

"Attorney General Schwalb Files RICO Lawsuit to Dismantle Razjooyan Slumlord Empire: First-Of-Its-Kind Lawsuit Aims to Permanently Shut Down Sprawling Real Estate Fraud Scheme That Exploits Tenants, Lenders, and District Government & Worsens DC's Affordable Housing Crisis. Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb today filed a first-of-its-kind civil lawsuit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) to dismantle an extensive real estate fraud scheme led by slumlord Ali 'Sam' Razjooyan, his brother Eimon 'Ray' Razjooyan, and their mother Houri Razjooyan. The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) alleges that the Razjooyans are operating a vast, illegal real-estate empire that controls dozens of apartment buildings in DC. Over the past decade, the Razjooyans have acquired over 70 primarily rent-controlled buildings – 90% of them in Wards 7 and 8. Through a Ponzi-like scheme, the Razjooyans deceive lenders with fake financial documents and false promises to renovate the buildings and then rent them to tenants who receive housing subsidies that are reliably paid by District government and that are above the rent-stabilized amounts. Instead of fixing up the properties, the Razjooyans use the loan proceeds to enrich themselves, pay off loans from previously purchased buildings, and buy new properties to perpetuate the scheme. The buildings then fall into disrepair, forcing hundreds of the District's most vulnerable tenants to live in horrific conditions, including rodent and insect infestations, gas leaks, electrical hazards, mountains of trash, mold, and flooding. At the same time, the Razjooyans are defrauding the District agencies that pay their tenants' housing subsidies—more than $16 million to date—by falsely claiming that the properties are safe and habitable, a required condition for receiving the rent subsidies. By allowing so many apartments to become uninhabitable, the Razjooyans are decreasing the housing supply in DC and worsening the District's affordable housing crisis."

"The 'Most Massive Attack On Free Speech' Is Happening Right Now, And The Twitter Files Crew Is Mighty Quiet: For the last five years, we had to endure an endless, breathless parade of hyperbole regarding the so-called 'censorship industrial complex.' We were told, repeatedly and at high volume, that the Biden administration flagging content for review by social media companies constituted a tyrannical overthrow of the First Amendment. n the Missouri v. Biden (later Murthy v. Missouri) case, Judge Terry Doughty—in a ruling that seemed to consist entirely of Twitter threads pasted into a judicial ruling—declared that the White House sending angry emails to Facebook 'arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States' history.' Never mind that the Supreme Court later reviewed the evidence and found that the platforms frequently ignored those emails, showing a lack of coercion, leading them to reverse the lower courts for lack of standing. To the 'Twitter Files' crowd and the self-anointed 'free speech absolutists,' the mere existence of government officials simply requesting private companies to look at terms of service violations was a sign of the end of the Republic. So, surely, now that the Department of Homeland Security is issuing administrative subpoenas—legal demands that bypass judges entirely—to unmask the identities of anonymous political critics, these same warriors are storming the barricades, right?" No, no more than they had a word to say when during Trump's first term someone ended up in jail for a political opinion on social media.

Again, the NYT wrote another article claiming it's "moderates" for the win, so have a rebuttal from Noah Berlatsky called, "If Moderates Overperform, How Do You Explain Sinema? [...] I'm hesitant to offer any one rationale here, but there are a few points worth noting. First of all, a lot of moderate policy positions poll very badly. For example, increasing the minimum wage is popular with Democrats, with Independent, and even with Republicans—in branding herself as a moderate by elaborately opposing a minimum wage hike, Sinema actually embraced an incredibly unpopular position."

RIP: "Chuck Negron, Founding Member of Three Dog Night, Dies at 83: Negron's lead vocals powered many of the band's biggest hits, including 'Joy to the World,' 'One,' 'Easy to Be Hard,' 'Old Fashioned Love Song', and 'The Show Must Go On.'" I saw them at a festival at Atlantic City and they put on a helluva show. They were a cover band, which many people disdained, but boy, they sure picked the songs.

RIP: "Bud Cort, star of Harold and Maude, dies aged 77." Yeah, he did other stuff, but this is one of our most beloved movies of all time and he will always be Harold to us.

RIP: "Jesse Jackson, civil rights leader, dies aged 84: A trailblazer in the civil rights movement and Democratic politics, Jackson championed the rights of Black, poor and working-class people with his 'rainbow coalition'The Rev Jesse Jackson, the civil rights campaigner who was prominent for more than 50 years and who ran strongly for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988, has died. He was 84. 'Our father was a servant leader – not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,' the Jackson family said in a statement." I will never forgive the Clinton gang for deliberately sidelining him in favor of Al Sharpton.

Mark Kermode pulled no punches in his review of Melania.

Spider-Noir - Official Black & White Teaser Trailer (2026) Nicholas Cage, Brendan Gleeson

In case you missed it, here's Bruce Springsteen's song "Streets Of Minneapolis".

And Billy Bragg's "City of Heroes".

All you gotta do is call

Neat, short little memo with useful graphs:
"To: Interested Democrats
From: Senators Chris Murphy, Adam Schiff, Tina Smith, and Elizabeth Warren
Date: January 12, 2026
Re: Democrats can't run on affordability without calling out billionaires and big corporations
We write today to lay out the case for why the Democratic Party should adopt an affordability platform rooted in an economic populism that is willing to confront concentrated corporate power. Billionaires and corporate interests have captured our political system, but our party's anemic response to the rigging of our democracy and economy in favor of the ultra-wealthy has eroded our credibility with working people. Donald Trump's brazen corruption and billionaires first economic policy has exposed him as a fake populist, offering Democrats an opportunity to return to our roots as the party that values hard work and stands with working people. But that will happen only if we demonstrate a real willingness to take on corporate power and the billionaires who are making it impossible for the American people to provide for themselves and their families. A raft of recent research demonstrates that this platform is popular across the political spectrum and especially with working-class voters"

ICE are terrorists and must be stopped. Atrios called them America's Worst Murderers. "ICE Agent Kills Woman, DHS Tells Obvious, Insane Lies About It: On Wednesday in Minneapolis, masked government agents apparently representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) surrounded a stationary vehicle stopped in the middle of a residential street. One of them demanded that the driver "get out of the fucking car," and yanked violently on the driver's-side door handle; another, stationed near the left headlight of the vehicle, drew his pistol. The driver, after briefly reversing, swerved away from the agents, apparently attempting to drive away. As the vehicle moved forward, the agent with the drawn pistol stepped aside while firing three shots directly at the windshield and open driver's-side window, killing the driver." Anyone can see that in the videos which went viral immediately. (The still frames in this article make it pretty clear.) But DHS told an entirely different story.

And since that happened, there have been so many stories about ICE and Border Patrol snatching kids, murdering Americans, breaking down doors and kidnapping people in their underwear, preventing parents from rushing their child to the E.R., and numerous other outrages while Bondi tries to blackmail Walz to illegally acquire voting information and the administration issuing memos of illegal instructions and trying to defend them in court that I just can't keep up.

Pareene, "You Cretins Are Going To Get Thousands Of People Killed: Here's what you have to understand about the sort of people who become anchors, nonpartisan pundits, centrist columnists, and cable news political correspondents: They didn't sign up to be the resistance. They don't want Donald Trump to fail. They want him to 'pivot' and 'act presidential.' Yeah, there are guys (and it is guys, for the most part) out there who spend their whole careers trying to be Dan Rather staring down Nixon or Cronkite turning on Vietnam—or even just Tim Russert making some elected mediocrity stammer with a patented 'tough question'—but mostly these guys want to be witnesses to Great Men Making History. They want to Respect The Office Of The Presidency. Here's another thing you should understand about these guys: The only thing the elite Washington press corps likes more than a bipartisan commission on debt reduction is a stack of flag-draped coffins."

"Venezuela Regime Change and the Theater of the Absurd" — Josh Marshall finds it interesting that though Maduro has been kidnapped by the US, and the White House seems to be claiming they now run Venezuela, Maduro's government is still standing and operating. (And that's about as far as I got with international news before my brain started to melt, so look elsewhere for that.)

Robert Kuttner reckons "Trump's Attack on Powell Backfires: Even Trump's allies are disgusted by the clumsy power grab. [...] The attack on Powell and the Fed's independence was quickly denounced by people from both parties. Former Federal Reserve chairs Janet Yellen, Ben Bernanke, and Alan Greenspan, the latter two Republicans, as well as four former Treasury secretaries representing both parties issued a statement supporting Powell and denouncing the 'unprecedented attempt' to undermine the Fed's independence. Republicans in Congress, who have been reluctant to criticize Trump on other issues, joined in. Rep. French Hill of Arkansas, chair of the House Financial Services Committee, called the inquiry 'an unnecessary distraction,' adding that the charges 'could undermine this and future Administrations' ability to make sound monetary policy decisions.'"

Ian Welsh, "Keep Your Eyes On The Long Game of Imperial Collapse [...] But nothing has changed in the fundamentals. The US is in auto-catabolic collapse and so far there is no sign of the oligarchy losing control, which is the pre-condition for any attempts to change the trajectory. I've now seen data indicating China is leading in 89% of key tech fields, up from 80% a couple years ago. US industry is still collapsing. Research funding has been slashed. Final bastions like chips, AI, civil aviation and biotech/pharma are all under assault and will fall like dominoes over the next five to ten years. The US has no ship building capacity to speak of, is behind on drones and missiles (the key weapon systems of modern war) and can't even make key components in its military chain without Chinese help. Dollar hegemony is no more than five years out from being lost."

"Victory for Corporate Tax Dodgers as OECD Approves Watered-Down Global Minimum Tax: 'The Trump administration has chosen to prioritize maintaining rock-bottom taxes for big corporations to the detriment of ordinary Americans and our allies across the globe,' said one critic. The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development is facing criticism for buckling under US demands when finalizing an update to the global minimum corporate tax agreement. As reported by Reuters on Monday, the OECD agreed to amend a 2021 deal to enforce a 15% global minimum corporate tax to include 'simplifications and carve-outs to align US minimum tax laws with global standards, accommodating earlier objections raised by the Trump administration.' Under the original framework, OECD members agreed to apply a 15% corporate tax on multinational corporations that book profits in jurisdictions that have lower tax rates. President Donald Trump objected to this, however, and insisted that some US corporations be given exemptions that have subsequently been granted by OECD states."

"Zohran Mamdani Has More Jewish Support Than You Think: While attention is on the new mayor's revocation of pro-Israel executive orders, analysis reveals age and income shaped the Jewish vote more than ethnicity, religion, or support for Israel Ask anybody about the Jewish vote for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani in the election, and they'll tell you he lost it badly. If they saw the news coverage, the headlines put a number on it: One-third went to Mamdani, and two-thirds went to his opponent Andrew Cuomo. To backers of Israel, the support for Mamdani was too high. To others, it was read as a sign that Mamdani was too divisive for the Democratic Party coalition—alienating large segments of New York City's Jewish electorate. [...] A closer block-by-block analysis, in fact, reveals an entirely different story. Whether a voter was Jewish or not turns out to have little to do with their preference for Mamdani or his opponent. Jewish voters, like New York City as a whole, were split between New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his erstwhile opponent Andrew Cuomo based on culture, denomination, age, and income. Block-level results show that Jewish voters routinely voted in line with their neighbors. [...] Pulling Trump voters out of the analysis, it turns out that among Jewish Democrats, Mamdani performed far better than the exit-poll headlines suggested. Among Jewish voters who were genuinely up for grabs, Mamdani and Cuomo split them roughly 50-50. Among voters in Jewish surname (10%+) precincts that voted for Kamala Harris (60%+)—i.e. Jewish Democrats—Zohran Mamdani ran less than three points behind Andrew Cuomo: 47% to 49.5%."

David Dayen has "Six Important Stories for 2026' from war to party politics to the economy to Hollywood.

"Activists Fight to Salvage the 'Sistine Chapel of New Deal Art': President Trump's plans to sell a federal building housing works of art about Social Security is an attempt to erase the country's history, a new petition argues. [...] But these are unprecedented times. After tearing down the East Wing to build a new ballroom without approvals from a national planning commission or Congress and affixing his name on the Kennedy Center, President Trump is seeking to liquidate four federal buildings by auctioning them to private developers."

RIP: "R.I.P. Bob Weir: Grateful Dead co-founder dead at 78." I can't even remember how many times I saw The Grateful Dead play, and I wasn't even trying—there was a time when they seemed to be everywhere. There are so many tributes to him on the web I don't feel like there's anything I can add.

RIP: "Scott Adams, Dilbert creator, dead at 68: Adams satirized the world of cubicle-based IT and engineering in Dilbert, which at its height appeared in 2,000 daily newspapers and was later anthologized in numerous books." It wasn't just engineers who'd suffered under bosses who were more of a hindrance than a help, so I used to get a good laugh out of Dilbert, but then he turned into a public right-wing crackpot and destroyed his cartooning career. A famously outspoken atheist, his final message said he'd done the reward-risk calculation when he realized death was impending and accepted Jesus into his heart.

RIP: Thelma Beall, co-founder of Ledo's Pizza, at 101. Ledo's wasn't exactly like a proper pizza, bur it was so delicious I didn't care. It's one of the things I miss most from back home.

What is past is prologue: Rick Perlstein, January 20, 2021, "This Is Us: Why the Trump Era Ended in Violence: The Capitol insurrection was born of a violent minoritarian tradition that is as American as apple pie—and it isn't done yet. [...] Any schoolchild can recite the story's opening chapter: The Southern states refused to sign on to a new constitution absent veto power over the rest of the states that did not organize their economies around the institution of chattel slavery. The veto took the form of the Senate, the Electoral College, and the 'three-fifths compromise,' inscribing reaction into the nation's charter at the level of the human soul. With that victory, something was institutionalized within the psyche of the South itself: the region's entitlement to an equal say, or even a dominant one, in the governing of the nation, no matter its share of the population. [...] When rule by right can be achieved through legal means, they're glad to rule that way; when politics fails, they pursue the same goal through violence. In the longue durée of American history, one can predict it with nearly Newtonian precision."

Sometimes I've wished for a real life Wallace & Gromit contraption to get me up in the morning, but I didn't realize it might actually work.

The Beatles, "Any Time At All"

Waiting for Twelfthnight

It has not been my merriest Christmas since I lost two important comrades on the day, so I'm going to ignore most of the other grim stuff for a bit and go straight to the traditional Christmas links while there are still a few days of Christmas left:
• Mark Evanier's wonderful Mel Tormé story, and the man himself in duet with Judy Garland.
• Joshua Held's Christmas card, with a little help from Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters.
• Brian Brink's tour-de-force performance of "The Carol of the Bells"
• "Merry Christmas from Chiron Beta Prime."
• Ron Tiner's one-page cartoon version of A Christmas Carol

Mayor Mamdani's inauguration speech was pretty inspirational: "I stand alongside over one million New Yorkers who voted for this day nearly two months ago—and I stand just as resolutely alongside those who did not. I know there are some who view this administration with distrust or disdain, or who see politics as permanently broken. And while only action can change minds, I promise you this: if you are a New Yorker, I am your Mayor. Regardless of whether we agree, I will protect you, celebrate with you, mourn alongside you, and never, not for a second, hide from you. [...] In writing this address, I have been told that this is the occasion to reset expectations, that I should use this opportunity to encourage the people of New York to ask for little and expect even less. I will do no such thing. The only expectation I seek to reset is that of small expectations." He gave namechecks to many groups and neighborhoods and Fiorello and The New Deal, too. I think Harold Meyerson liked it.

There was internet buzz about a Substack piece claiming that white men were getting a particularly bad break in media these days, but Matt Bruenig and Carl Beijer find that the numbers don't back it up. But some people want to cling to it anyway and refuse to acknowledge that the real reason some guys are finding it hard to break into lefty journalism is that it's an incredibly tiny field and there just isn't much room for many people in it. And things keep getting harder by the day, for everyone.

I pulled down this map of the area I grew up in but I wanted a picture of an area I don't really know, West Virginia. And what set me on that path was that people always say the deep red states are the old slave sates, but West Virginia exists because they didn't want to join the rest of Virginia in fighting to defend slavery in the civil war. (Conversely, Maryland, the state where I was born and raised, is below the Mason-Dixon Line and was definitely a slave state but was nevertheless a Union state and is now deep blue.) And I really think people ought to take on board the fact that there was something else going on that took West Virginia down the deep red path.

The people at The American Prospect have collected their favorite stories of the year as the Best of 2025.

At the Guardian, "The photographs that defined 2025 – and the stories behind them".

World Nature Photography Awards

REST IN POWER: "Howie Klein, Visionary Music Executive & Anti-Censorship Activist, Dies at 77: Howie Klein, whose career took him from concert presenter and radio DJ to heading up prominent record labels and fighting censorship, died Dec. 24, 2025, after a long battle with cancer. His death was confirmed by numerous associates in social media posts; the place of death was not noted but Klein lived in Los Angeles for many years. He was 77" Long-time readers of The Sideshow will of course remember Howie's blog Down With Tyranny and his regular Thursday appearances on The Nicole Sandler Show, where he excoriated bad Democrats and the leadership's feckless performance on the party's — and the people's — behalf.

REST IN POWER: Nettie Pollard, British sexual freedom activist, early member of Gay Liberation Front, a founding member of Feminists Against Censorship, and former staff member of the National Council for Civil Liberties (Liberty) in its heyday, of cancer. She died peacefully on Christmas morning at 72.

"When Miscarriages Become Crimes: 412 women faced criminal charges for pregnancy outcomes. This is what fetal personhood looks like. [...] As it turned out, she was right to be fearful. The day after her miscarriage, Sasha continued to bleed and suffered from severe abdominal pain, so she returned to the hospital. There, her medical providers reported her to the state's Department of Social Services, whose staff alerted the county sheriff's office about a possible 'child abuse' case, as they complied with South Carolina's reporting mandates. According to the hospital, failure to report any suspicion of harm to a fetus, viable or not, can result in the provider being criminally liable. The sheriff's office began an investigation and eventually found the pregnancy remains in a trash receptacle near the motel. The Mayo Clinic estimates that 10 to 20 percent of known pregnancies end in miscarriage. Nonetheless, Sasha was arrested and jailed for the improper disposal of hers. A local abortion fund that had heard about the arrest on the news provided Sasha's $10,000 bail."

"Power, Not Economic Theory, Created Neoliberalism: Neoliberalism didn't win an intellectual argument — it won power. Vivek Chibber unpacks how employers and political elites in the 1970s and '80s turned economic turmoil into an opportunity to reshape society on their terms."

"Trina Robbins: Cartoonist, Historian and Lady of the Canyon: A three part Oral History of Trina Robbins, interview conducted by Heidi MacDonald of The Beat. This interview was recorded May 10, 2023 at Robbins' home in San Francisco."

Tom Baker's Christmas message 2025