Events

Cassie and I have gotten a couple of decent walks today, with a very long walk planned for tomorrow, because this is on the menu for late tomorrow night: The National Weather Service predicts a 70% chance of us getting 150 mm (6 in) of snow or more. Whee. Cassie will enjoy it, though.

Russia expert (and emigrée) Julia Ioffe picks apart the OAFPOTUS's clownish attempts to end the war in Ukraine one more time: Stop me if you’ve heard this one. President Donald Trump, eager to get another peace deal under his belt, sends everyone in Washington, Kyiv, Moscow, and Brussels scrambling as he announces that an agreement to end the Ukraine war is imminent. The proposal, on even the most cursory examination, is revealed to echo the Russian position, at which point Volodymyr Zelensky and the...

Not a whole lot going on today. Early departure from work, four days off, lots of couch time and walkies with Cassie, and oh my god what is that thing heading towards us: Yeah, looks like we might get some snow on Saturday. But since we know that on Tuesday, we'll adapt. Also, the A-Ring A-Hole is a dork.

So in case I don't have a chance to read all of these tonight: Did the White House staff put up tacky, gold-colored, signage outside the Oval Office because the OAFPOTUS is a classless tool, or because he's well along the dementia highway? Dan Rather puts the blame for declining educational outcomes in the US squarely on the party who has attacked public education for 40 or 50 years now. DOGE has officially ended, having accomplished absolutely nothing good, and of course it'll be up to my party to...

I'm a bit under the weather but still have to get to rehearsal tonight, so just briefly: Michael Tomasky observes that the general public have developed antibodies to the nonstop lies coming from the OAFPOTUS. Adam Kinzinger takes on the big piggy in the Oval Office as well as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's (R-GA) resignation late last week. Chris Dalla Riva explains how the US copyright system bears some of the responsibility for the enshitiffication of music and movies. Tim Wu thinks the federal judge...

First, just a reminder: anthropogenic climate change (aka global warming) will not wipe out humanity; but it will lead to millions of deaths, plus immense costs and disruptions, which the next few generations will bear. And we could have prevented it. Another reminder: despite what this map shows, as soon as the first real cold of the 2025-26 winter hits after Thanksgiving, lots of people will say "this disproves global warming." No, climate theory predicts weather extremes with the average temperature...

It feels like we have way more color today than we usually have this late in November: The short-term climate forecast calls for below-freezing temperatures for most of next week, so I expect even the last remaining maple holdouts will drop the rest of their leaves pretty soon. I'll enjoy this for now, though.

Republicans in Congress have reached for the trough of public money with both hands, just as the OAFPOTUS is about to steal hundreds of millions from us in the most offensive way possible, according to Radley Balko: Last year, New York City paid out $205 million to settle 956 lawsuits alleging police abuse. That figure includes about $16 million each to two men who served three decades in prison for a murder they didn’t commit. It also includes people who were wrongly raided and beaten by police, and...

Jeff Maurer warns us not to get our hopes up that the Epstein scandal will be the undoing of the OAFPOTUS, as he has a long record of trying and failing to cover stuff up that wouldn't really matter if he'd just been transparent: It’s not possible for Trump to act more guilty than he’s acting about the Epstein files. His behavior makes the sweating guy from the Key & Peele “browser history” sketch look cool and composed. The logical deduction when someone acts like they have something to hide is that...

Lots of morning meetings, then stuff so far this afternoon, and now...a quick breath. Of course, given that it's still 2025, I'm not exactly breathing sweet summer air: The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has blocked the (obviously unlawful) Texas redistricting effort, using logic that would very likely bolster the way California passed theirs. Paul Krugman muses that the billions the cryptocurrency industry spent to "buy a president" may not be the winning investment they thought, perhaps because they got...