1/. Thom Hartmann with some hopeful thoughts on how things might be falling apart for Trump and his goons....
Let's hope beyond hope this all comes true.....
Kids and cops got tear-gassed in Chicago, a judge is holding ICE/CPB
officials to account, Americans are horrified by the destruction of the East Wing of the White House, and even UFC fighters are starting to turn away from Trump. What’s going on? Is he really as strong as he appears to think?
In 1999, I was working in a remote part of rural Russia for a German-based international relief agency; we were building housing and trying to teach peasant agricultural methods to people who’d only ever known massive, collective factory farms. I was staying in the home of a family of four with two young children; Dad was Russian and Mom — her name was Olga — was from East Germany, although she’d grown up watching West German TV. https://hartmannreport.com/p/what-if-trump-is-weaker-than-we-thinkand-d44?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=302288&post_id=176876703&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=2cwgv&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
2/. The Government shutdown......SNL - very funny, 4 minutes.....
3/. Excellent title to this story -
What would you do if democracy was being dismantled before your eyes? Whatever you’re doing right now
How would you behave if your democracy was being dismantled? In most western countries, that used to be an academic question. Societies where this process had happened, such as Germany in the 1930s, seemed increasingly distant. The contrasting ways that people reacted to authoritarianism and autocracy, both politically and in their everyday lives, while darkly fascinating and important to study and remember, seemed of diminishing relevance to now.
Not any more. Illiberal populism has spread across the world, either challenging for power or entrenching itself in office, from Argentina to Italy, France to Indonesia, Hungary to Britain. But probably the most significant example of a relatively free, pluralist society and political system turning into something very different remains the US, now nine months into Donald Trump’s second term.
4/. Tom Tomorrow on the quietly dangerous "Speaker".....or shall we say nasty little toady......
5/. The Democratic Party has collapsed, and this article argues it's because our leadership is just too old.....
Very persuasive.....just think DiFi, Biden, RBG......they won't let go....
Last year’s election debacle, rooted in the rapid decline of the then-81-year-old Joe Biden, took a heavy toll on New Hampshire congresswoman Annie Kuster. “It was the most painful thing I’ve been through since my own parents aging,” she said of her up-close experiences with the former president. “Nobody wants to face incapacity.” It forced Kuster to look hard at her party. Months before the fateful presidential debate that exposed Biden’s frailty, Kuster, at a mere 68 years old, announced her retirement, having served in Congress for 12 years after turning a red seat reliably blue. Though fit and healthy, she was feeling her age on some issues. “We were dealing with AI, cryptocurrency,” she said of her work on the Energy and Commerce Committee. “I am not the person best situated to be dealing with these issues. I did my best to learn, but it’s just time for us to move over.”
6/. Angus Petersen with a clear eyed look at public health, and how it's going adrift not just here in Trumpland but globally......
There’s a quiet shift happening in the global conversation about public health. It’s not the loud, headline-driven talk of new vaccines or miracle drugs. It’s subtler — an uncomfortable recognition that our health systems, like our economies, were built on foundations that assumed infinite stability. Those foundations are now cracking. And as the cracks widen, it’s the poor, the working class, and increasingly the middle class who are feeling the strain. The story of 2025 is not only about disease or medicine; it’s about inequality — about who has the means to stay well and who does not.
The World Health Organization’s latest warning on antibiotic resistance sounds more like a lament than a bulletin. “Common antibiotics are failing across multiple regions,” the report noted earlier this month, urging governments to treat antimicrobial resistance as “a global security threat.” This isn’t hyperbole.
7/. Desi Lydic with a very amusing segment - "Marjorie!".....7 very good minutes...
8/. Interesting interactive analysis of how and where to expect extreme rains......
Ironically if you look at the article Central Florida will get above average rain.......like we just had in Mount Dora!
9/. DC's newest attraction....the ballroom.....2 minutes....
10/. And this is how it's getting built.....a most amusing SNL - 4 minutes....
11/. The evil bastard that gave us Trump just died.......no tears here.....
I have spent my adult life hating Dick Cheney.
Hatred is a poisonous thing. It can corrode us. Warp us and twist us into a mirror image of that which we hate. But, when harnessed and processed, it can drive us to become something entirely different. We can look into the face of the hated and decide, through sheer force of will and tenacity of spirit, to steer away from that which we revile and evolve into its antithesis. This takes a ton of work, however, and a near constant vigilance.
Cheney, who died at the age of 84 today, was one of the worst of us. A brilliant, talented man who used his gifts in the pursuit of wealth, power, and the degradation of humanity. Regardless of how corporate media and moderates want to rhapsodize about him as a “statesman,” or tell us that his feeble and self-serving “stand” against Trumpism was a “heroic turn,” there is nothing to celebrate. Here is a cautionary tale. A life lived making the world worse. A life that would have been better off un-lived.
12/. So how are you helping?
13/. This story details exactly what is happening to Trump's America.....embedded corruption......
Aglobal youth revolt is shaking the foundations of political power. In just a few months, millions of young people have taken to the streets across continents – from Timor-Leste, Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines, Kenya, Tanzania, Morocco, Madagascar, Peru and Paraguay – to denounce corruption and collapsing public systems. The spark is familiar: governments accused of looting public wealth while ordinary citizens face unemployment, rising costs, poverty and failing services. These digitally connected protest movements – leaderless, borderless and fast-moving – have toppled governments in Nepal, Peru and Madagascar. The anger is not abstract. It is directed squarely at political and economic elites who have turned public office into private estates. What they are confronting, often without naming it, is state capture – a form of corruption so deeply embedded that it shapes the rules of democracy itself.
Most people think corruption is about a politician taking bribes, or a public official pocketing cash for a favour. That’s the low-hanging fruit: petty or grand corruption, both corrosive but familiar. But there is a deeper, more dangerous form of rot – state capture. Not simply corruption of the system. It is corruption as the system.
14/. Kelly Eldridge Boesch with some surreal AI......
15/. Michelle Goldberg from the Times went to Maine to meet with Graham Platner, the Democratic candidate for
Governor with the Nazi tattoo, and came away impressed.
Interesting story - reflects the disgust and anger at the party's elites.....
From afar, the past week and a half looked so disastrous for Graham Platner, the upstart Maine Senate candidate, that I contemplated canceling plans to see him campaign in person. It would be pointless to make the trip, I thought, if the whole enterprise was on the verge of collapse.
Platner is the oyster farmer and former Marine with a baritone voice and a Bernie Sanders endorsement who this fall came seemingly out of nowhere to capture progressive hearts nationwide. Recently, a barrage of ugly revelations made it look like perhaps all the hope invested in him had been misplaced. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/31/opinion/graham-platner-democrats.html
16/. This one might be true......
17/. It's the autumn, and this means you can change your Medicare plans in a fixed window.
It also means direct marketers for Medicare Advantage plans try to suck you in, but if you are ever tempted to ditch Medicare for
Medicare Advantage, watch this segment from John Oliver as he explains all you need to know about the "Advantage" plans.
If you are getting close to 65, this is a must watch. For the rest of us, it's pretty funny!
18/. The Trump family wants us all to look at the bright shiny objects, so they can continue their crypto grift......
The corruption is what authoritarians do..........
DUBAI, Oct 28 (Reuters) - Eric Trump was in Dubai on family business. Meeting with a Chinese businessman and his associates on the sidelines of a cryptocurrency conference in May this year, the son of U.S. President Donald J. Trump ran through his usual talking points about the inefficiency of traditional banks and his own famous father’s run-ins with financiers.
Then came the pitch. Buy at least $20 million of “governance tokens” in the Trump family’s crypto business, World Liberty Financial, and become part of a venture that Eric Trump predicted would soon embody the future of finance in America, according to a person familiar with the meeting.
19/. I know I keep saying this, but I wish this was funny.....
20/. "The Ridge" looks like a really good series, and when it gets to the US I'll let you know......
It seems at first to be your standard six-part mystery-thriller. The Ridge opens with the protagonist, Mia (Lauren Lyle, last seen in The Bombing of Pan Am 103 and as the eponymous Karen Pirie, and so good in everything) having nightmares about her traumatic childhood. She wakes to a morning routine of yoga and deep breathing – though that doesn’t seem to help as much as the opioid patch she whacks on her thigh – before heading to the local hospital, where she works as an anaesthetist and where a patient comes round during an operation, then dies on the table.
But that is only the first layer of what becomes a veritable millefeuille of a drama.
21/. Another five star series "The Lowdown", with Ethan Hawke......
Ethan Hawke is hilariously raccoon-like in The Lowdown; not just because his hair is all scraggly grey-and-black, and usually in various states of disarray depending on whether his Lee Raybon is crawling out from the wrong side of the bed or the trunk of some neo-Nazi’s car.
A freelance journalist by trade (among other things), Lee is the self-appointed gumshoe in creator Sterlin Harjo’s deliciously pulpy and deceptively lighthearted noir caper. He sniffs around Tulsa, Oklahoma, digs through people’s trash, repeatedly makes a mess of things and mostly gets hostile responses from the people who have the misfortune of crossing paths with him (pretty much the world a raccoon lives in). But, every so often, someone will find Lee adorable or sympathetic enough that they just might lend him a helping hand, or even take him to bed with them. https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/sep/23/the-lowdown-ethan-hawke-review?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Bob Lefsetz recommends this Netflix documentary - "The Perfect Neighbor".
So do I - I've seen it and it's riveting......all real footage, and all from police bodycams. Recommend it.....
The trailer is in the story.....
This is the one you’ve got to see. Kathryn Bigelow’s “A House of Dynamite” is the one getting all the hype, but “The Perfect Neighbor” will get to you. This is America.
My favorite story about a bad neighbor was told to me by Al Kooper. I was complaining to him about my problem neighbor and he interrupted me to tell me about his. He was living in the Hollywood Hills and his next door neighbor left their garbage cans blocking his driveway again and again and again, there was nothing he could do or say to stop them. So I asked Al what he did…and he said “I MOVED!”
Entitlement. That’s the scourge of America today. The people who feel that they alone rule their space and they’re entitled to live sans interference. But last I checked we live in a society. And we all have to get along. But we don’t.
So what we’ve got here is a lower class area in Ocala, Florida where everybody is a renter and most people are Black. But there’s this one elderly white neighbor who believes she’s entitled to peace and quiet. She doesn’t want the kids playing in the empty lot next door, even though they have permission to do so. And she keeps calling the cops.
Today's Airline joke
A jumbo jet is just coming into the Toronto Airport on its final approach.
The pilot comes on the intercom, "This is your Captain.
We're on our final descent into Toronto. I want to thank you for flying with us today and I hope you enjoy your stay in Toronto."
He forgets to switch off the intercom, and the whole plane can hear his conversation with his co-pilot.
The copilot says to the pilot, "Well, skipper, watcha gonna do in Toronto?"
"Well," says the skipper, "first I'm gonna check into the hotel and take a big crap . . . then I'm gonna take that new stewardess with the huge tits out for dinner . . . . then I'm gonna wine and dine her, take her back to my room and put it to her big time all night long!"
Everyone on the plane hears this and immediately begins looking up and down the isles, trying to get a look at the new stewardess.
Meanwhile the new stewardess is at the very back of the plane. She's so embarrassed that she tries to run to the cockpit to turn the intercom off.
Halfway down the aisle, she trips over an old lady's bag and falls on her face.
The old lady leans over and says: "No need to hurry, dear. He's gonna take a shit first."
Today's Jewish joke
A Jewish congregation in suburban Toronto honours its Rabbi for 25 years of service by sending him to Hawaii for a week, all expenses paid.
When he walks into his hotel room, he finds a beautiful nude woman lying on the bed.
She greets the Rabbi with, “Hi, Rabbi, I’m a little something extra that the President of the shul arranged for you.”
The Rabbi is incensed. He picks up the phone, calls the President of the shul and shouts, “Greenblatt, what were you thinking? Where is your respect? I am the moral leader of our religious community!
I am very angry with you and you have not heard the end of this.”;
Hearing this, the naked woman gets up and starts to get dressed.
The Rabbi turns to her and asks, “Where are you going? I’m not angry with you.”
Today's blond [man] jokes
A blonde man is in the bathroom and his wife shouts: "Did you find the shampoo?"
He answers, "Yes, but I'm not sure what to do... it's for dry hair, and I've just wet mine."
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A blonde man goes to the vet with his goldfish.
"I think it's got epilepsy," he tells the vet.
The vet takes a look and says, "It seems calm enough to me."
The blonde man says, "Wait, I haven't taken it out of the bowl yet."
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A blonde man shouts frantically into the phone, "My wife is pregnant and her contractions are only two minutes apart!"
"Is this her first child?" asks the Doctor.
"No!" he shouts, "this is her husband!"
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A blonde man was driving home, drunk as a skunk. Suddenly he has to swerve to avoid a tree, then another, then another.
A cop car pulls him over, so he tells the cop about all the trees in the road.
The cop says, "That's your air freshener swinging about!"
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A blonde man is in jail. The guard looks in his cell and sees him hanging by his feet.
"Just WHAT are you doing?" he asks.
"Hanging myself," the blonde replies.
"The rope should be around your neck" says the guard.
"I tried that," he replies, "but then I couldn't breathe."
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(This one actually makes sense.)
An Italian tourist asks a blonde man: "Why do scuba divers always fall backwards off their boats?"
To which the blonde man replies: "If they fell forward, they'd still be in the boat."
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Two blonde men find three grenades, and they decide to take them to a police station.
One asked: "What if one explodes before we get there?"
The other says: "We'll lie and say we only found two."
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A woman phoned her blonde neighbor man and said: "Close your curtains the next time you and your wife are having sex. The whole street was watching and laughing at you yesterday. "
To which the blonde man replied: "Well the joke's on all of you because I wasn't even at home yesterday
Today's Duggars joke
Judy married Ted; they had 13 children. Ted died.
She married again, and she and Bob had 7 more children.
Bob was killed in a car accident 12 years later.
Judy married again, and this time, she and John had 5 children.
Judy finally died, after having 25 children.
Standing before her coffin, the preacher prayed for her.
He thanked the Lord for this very loving woman and said, "Lord, they are finally together."
Ethel leaned over and quietly asked her best friend Margaret,
"Do you think he means her first, second, or third husband?"
Margaret replied, “I think he means her legs, Ethel!"
Todays police joke [and pretty true]
