1/. Thomas Edsall in the Times writes long and detailed columns, and this one about the Democratic party is spot on.
Unfortunately he doesn't give any specific recommendations about how to reform the Party, but the first step is realising we have a problem.
Which our elites refuse to recognise......
The moment is ripe to deal a debilitating blow to Trumpism and the MAGA movement.
Right-wing populism is staggering. Democrats are not only favored to win back control of the House, but they also have a long-shot chance of taking over the Senate.
President Trump’s favorability ratings on both his job performance and the issues that propelled him into the White House have nose-dived. The ICE and Border Patrol killings in Minnesota have focused public attention on the dangers of autocratic rule. His second term has been dominated by a bizarre combination of narcissism, corruption and a lurching foreign policy.
But if Democrats are to succeed in excising the Trump malignancy from the body politic, their party faces a major hurdle: public distrust, if not downright animosity. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/27/opinion/democrats-trump-midterms-future.html
3/. And if you read Edsall's article above, you might agree with this one from Michelle Cottle......
In another sign that American politics is trapped in the Upside Down, last week a rogue band of House Democrats voted to holdBill and Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress.
It was a bit of a surprise turn in these hyper-polarized times. The charges stem from the Clintons’ refusal to testify behind closed doors before the House Oversight Committee in its investigation of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
On Jan. 13, just hours before Mr. Clinton’s deadline to appear before the committee, the Clintons sent letters to its chairman, James Comer, decrying their treatment and defying their subpoenas. The committee voted to recommend contempt charges to the full House the next week. Nine of the panel’s 21 Democrats joined Republicans to pass the measure against Mr. Clinton. Three supported the one against Mrs. Clinton as well.
4/. Andrew Sullivan tells it like it is......we are in a fascist state.....
I really don’t know what to write.
The first month of 2026 has provided a series of events that have simply broken my heart as well as my brain. Sure, I knew this was possible; I predicted it ten years ago. The word I came up with in the week before the 2016 election to describe a Trump presidency, when I saw it coming, was “abyss.”
Why that word?
To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, we live in a republic, if we can keep it. And yet, more than two centuries later, we are openly contemplating throwing it up in the air and seeing where it might land.
An abyss is being in mid-air in this rupture in our civilization.
It is where lies and truth are entirely interchangeable; where the rule of law has already been replaced by the rule of one man; where the Congress has abdicated its core responsibilities and become a Greek chorus; where national policy is merely the sum of the whims and delusions of one man; and where every constitutional check on arbitrary power, especially the Supreme Court, is AWOL. In that abyss, even an attempt to explain events through the usual rubric of covering a liberal democracy is absurd. Because that rubric is irrelevant.
5/. Right now it appears Trump is on the retreat, but he isn't.
Two steps forward, one step back is the way dictators consolidate their power.....gradually.
Excellent post from Thom Hartmann.
“CNN BREAKING: Kristin Holmes reports Stephen Miller is saying ‘there may have been a breach of protocol’ and Noem is blabbering about how she was in touch with Trump and Miller for her talking points. Miller is saying that he got his information CBP trying to shove it down to Bovino! This fucking clown show guys. They are all going down.”
Meanwhile, Democrats are celebrating the replacement of Nazi-cosplayer Greg Bovino and eager puppy-killer and adulterer Kristi Noem with Tom Homan, who merely takes $50,000 bribes in burger bags and is therefore presumably more reasonable. Blue collar versus white collar, and all that.
But, wait a minute. Slow down. It’s way too premature to toast the dawn of a new era.
Fascist governments don’t rise in one giant arc, nor do they collapse that way. It’s more of what electrical engineers and ham radio operators would call a “sawtooth pattern.” Climb an inch up toward fascism, get pushback from the public so you back down a half-inch until things quiet down, then move up another inch in another step toward the ultimate goal of total tyranny.
6/. Tom Tomorrow describes our reality.......
7/. "Obey or Die" - than't the real message from Minneapolis...
Thom Hartmann with a chilling article.....
Kristi Noem, Donald Trump, Greg Bovino, and even whiskey Pete Hegseth are all out there trying to tell us that Alex Pretti was a domestic terrorist who came to a protest with the intention to “massacre” ICE agents.
But that’s not their real message.
Back in 1980, I went into Uganda during the Civil War against Idi Amin to take over a refugee camp up in the Karamoja region. When I was leaving the country, going through the Entebbe airport (which had only intermittent electricity and considerable damage from the war), I was confronted by three armed men, two of them Tanzanian soldiers (who’d just successfully occupied the country as Amin fled to Saudi Arabia) and one a local Ugandan policeman.
One of the soldiers had an AK-47 over his shoulder and he grabbed the clip and rotated the gun down so the barrel was pointed right at my nose from a distance of about 6 inches.
“I could kill you right here, right now,” he said with a smile, “and nobody will ever know. Nobody will ever punish me. Now, give us half of your money.”
His message was essentially the same message that the Trump regime is trying to communicate to all of us today:
“We have all the power. You have none. We can get away with murder, repeatedly, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
In other words: “Obey or die!”
8/. Forget the Oscars, how about the Trumps!
SNL cold open, 6 minutes, quite good!
9/. The Democratic elites promise the midterms will save us.....they are, as usual, oblivious.
Republicans are feverishly undermining all of the election systems......
Last week, during an Oval Office interview with Reuters, Donald Trump touted his accomplishments and suggested that they were so great that “we shouldn’t even have an election” in November. Not surprisingly, that comment made headlines.
But it is at best a distraction from the real threat: the United States will have elections this year, but they will not be free and fair.
Far more important than his musings about calling off the midterms was what the president told the New York Times in another Oval Office interview. As the Times noted, he said that “he regretted not ordering the National Guard to seize voting machines in swing states after his loss in the 2020 election.”
Talking about the capacity of the national guard to execute that plan, he explained: “I don’t know that they are sophisticated enough … I’m not sure that they’re sophisticated enough in the ways of crooked Democrats, and the way they cheat, to figure that out.”
10/. This is what the Democrats should be saying......but don't have the balls.....3 excellent minutes.....
They'll send Trump a strong letter instead....and cozy up to their buddies in the Senate.....
Really, really good.....
11/. The Guardian says this is one of their best skits for a while.....
But to appreciate it you have to see the movie below...
Here's a [rave] review of One Battle After Another from NPR.
12/. Last week in Collapse......some very interesting stats, but the scary one is about water.....
They use the analogy surface water is the checking account, and groundwater the saving account.
Both are globally under stress....
Civilization has entered an age of “water bankruptcy”, a term which scientists stress is more urgent than the commonly misused term “water crisis.” They write that: “a crisis is usually understood as a temporary departure from normal conditions, triggered by an acute shock (such as a drought, flood, storm, hurricane, wildfire, or contamination event) and followed by some form of resolution….The system is no longer oscillating around a stable baseline temporarily disrupted by shocks; instead, the baseline itself has shifted because critical natural capital—perennial river flows, groundwater storage, lakes, wetlands, snowpacks, glaciers, forests, and other water sources and water-related ecosystems—has been consumed or degraded. In many basins, even a sequence of many wet years cannot restore the lost functions within any reasonable human time frame….{some scientists have} been using the term water bankruptcy to capture it: a state in which a human-water system has spent beyond its hydrological means for so long that it can no longer satisfy the claims upon it without inflicting unacceptable or irreversible damage to nature
13/. What's your label?
14/. Let's hope this is true.
Sweden has given Ukraine a new weapon that might make a difference......
This is not today; it is a hundred years old. In the first times, Sweden’s steel was known for its accuracy and discipline. The same work that steel once did, today Sweden’s code is doing.
When Sweden joined NATO, many observers focused on geography. No one saw the real thing, and that was history.
Sweden is not a new military country. It just returned to its old state. Today, the Archer artillery is visible on the front of the Kharkiv. This is the result of a hundred years old Habit of Sweden: making things better, faster and accurate.
To understand the Archer, one must understand Bofors. https://medium.com/@Owenwarner/swedens-archer-is-about-to-break-russian-defences-4831f40091d6
15/. You might have bad habits in the morning that could lead to decreased brain function!
Just simple stuff, but the #1 bad habit is checking your phone.....
Your mornings offer a unique opportunity to maximize brain function for the rest of the day. What you do (or don’t do) during the first 60–90 minutes after waking will influence your mood and cognitive performance over the following hours.
But the painful truth is: most people unknowingly sabotage their brains before 9 am and wonder why they’re unable to concentrate or feel stressed all the time.
The following five morning habits are common, and I engaged in them myself in the past. Let’s examine them from a neuroscience perspective and explore better alternatives for each.
16/. This sounds really good!
The trick, Zara Dunne tells her new underling as she shows her round the trades processing floor of the pension management company for which they both now work, is not to dwell on the fact that every day that passes is another day wasted. And to know where the nice biscuits are. This is very good advice for any twentysomething starting their first job, but especially one called Myrtle, as this one is, whom I imagine has already had much of the stuffing knocked out of her by her peers’ reactions to this odd parental choice of moniker.
Soon, however, they are all in need of substantially more comfort than even a chocolate Hobnob can provide, as a team of armed villains swarms the floor. From there, the glossy new six-part thriller Steal kicks into high gear and doesn’t let up for a moment.
17/. If you liked Led Zeppelin, you'll love this.....
Bare-chested swagger, out of control hair, thunderous guitar riffs … the heroes of 1970s hard rock are back, and burning up the cinema box office. Becoming Led Zeppelin, a film about the British band that dominated the music industry in the 1970s, was the most successful feature documentary at the US box office in 2025, taking over $10m, with a worldwide gross of over $16m. (Taylor Swift’s The Official Release Party of a Showgirl grossed considerably more, with $34m, but as an album-promoting clipshow it is evidently in a different category.)
Despite breaking up in 1980 after the death of drummer John Bonham, Led Zeppelin remain one of the world’s bestselling music acts, with estimated sales of over 200m records and 14.9bn streams. The band were famously press-shy in their prime, but agreed to take part in Becoming Led Zeppelin, which focuses on their early years up to the release of groundbreaking second album, Led Zeppelin II, in 1969. And contemporary audiences have responded – especially to the film’s presentation on the giant Imax screens, where it recorded Imax’s best ever opening weekend for a music documentary and became the format’s highest-grossing documentary of 2025.
Today's guy's joke
The pastor asked if anyone in the congregation would like to express praise for answered prayers.
Suzie stood and walked to the podium.
She said, "I have a praise. Two months ago, my husband, Phil, had a terrible bicycle wreck and his scrotum was completely crushed.
The pain was excruciating and the doctors didn't know if they could help him."
You could hear a muffled gasp from the men in the congregation as they imagined the pain that poor Phil must have experienced.
"Phil was unable to hold me or the children," she went on, "and every move caused him terrible pain."
We prayed as the doctors performed a delicate operation, and it turned out they were able to piece together the crushed remnants of Phil's scrotum, and wrap wire around it to hold it in place."
Again, the men in the congregation cringed and squirmed uncomfortably as they imagined the horrible surgery performed on Phil.
"Now," she announced in a quivering voice, "thank the Lord, Phil is out of the hospital and the doctors say that with time, his scrotum should recover completely."
All the men sighed with unified relief.
The pastor rose and tentatively asked if anyone else had something to say.
A man stood up and walked slowly to the podium.
He said, "I'm Phil." The entire congregation held its breath.
"I just want to tell my wife the word is sternum."
Today's religious joke
Shortly before shabbat (Friday night) , two drivers – one a rabbi and the other a priest – are in a horrible collision, and both cars are totaled. By what only can be described as a miracle, the two men are unscathed. After they crawl out of their cars, the rabbi sees the priest's collar and says, "So you're a priest.
I'm a rabbi. Just look at our cars. There's nothing left, but we are unhurt. This must be a sign from God."
The priest replies, "I agree with you completely. This must be a sign from God."
The rabbi goes on, "And look at this. Here's another miracle.
My car is completely demolished but this bottle of Manischewitz I just bought for Shabbat didn't break.
Surely God wants us to drink a toast and celebrate our good fortune."
Then he hands the bottle to the priest.
The priest agrees, takes a few big swigs, and hands the bottle back to the rabbi.
The rabbi takes the bottle, immediately puts the cap on, and hands it back to the priest.
The priest asks, "Aren't you having any?"
The rabbi replies, "No...I think I'll wait for the police."
Today's Irish joke
The rain was pouring down.
And there standing in front of a big puddle outside the pub,
was an old Irishman, drenched, holding a stick, with a piece of string dangling in the water.
A passer-by stopped and asked,
"What are you doing?"
"Fishing" replied the old man.
Feeling sorry for the old man, the gent says,
"Come in out of the rain and have a drink with me."
In the warmth of the pub, as they sip their whiskies,
the gentleman cannot resist asking, "So how many have you caught today?"
"You're the eighth" says the old man.
A short Irish joke
Paddy was waiting at the bus stop with his mate when a lorry went by loaded up with rolls of turf. Paddy said, 'I'm gonna do dat when I win de lottery'. 'What's dat ?', says his mate. 'Send me lawn away to be cut', says Paddy.
Today's Southern jokes
Florida “A Florida senior citizen drove his brand new Corvette convertible out of the dealership. Taking off down the road, he pushed it to 80 mph, enjoying the wind blowing through what little hair he had left. "Amazing,” he thought as he flew down I-95, pushing the pedal even more. Looking in his rear view mirror, he saw a Florida State Trooper, blue lights flashing and siren blaring. He floored it to 100 mph, then 110, then 120. Suddenly he thought, “What am I doing? I’m too old for this!” and pulled over to await the trooper’s arrival. Pulling in behind him, the trooper got out of his vehicle and walked up to the Corvette. He looked at his watch, then said, “Sir, my shift ends in 30 minutes. Today is Friday. If you can give me a new reason for speeding – a reason I’ve never before heard – I’ll let you go..” The old gentleman paused then said, “Three years ago, my wife ran off with a Florida State Trooper. I thought you were bringing her back.” “Have a good day, Sir,” replied the trooper. Georgia The owner of a golf course in Georgia was confused about paying an invoice, so he decided to ask his secretary for some mathematical help.
He called her into his office and said, “Y’all graduated from the University of Georgia and I need some help. If I wuz to give yew $20,000, minus 14%, how much would you take off?”
The secretary thought a moment, and then replied, “Everthang but my earrings.” Louisiana A senior citizen in Louisiana was overheard saying, “When the end of the world comes, I hope to be in Louisiana.” When asked why, he replied, “I’d rather be in Louisiana ‘cause everythang happens in Louisiana 20 years later than in the rest of the world.” Mississippi The young man from Mississippi came running into the store and said to his buddy, “Bubba, somebody just stole your pickup truck from the parking lot!” Bubba replied, “Did y’all see who it was?” The young man answered, “I couldn’t tell, but I got the license number.” North Carolina A man in North Carolina had a flat tire, pulled off on the side of the road, and proceeded to put a bouquet of flowers in front of the car and one behind it. Then he got back in the car to wait.
A passerby studied the scene as he drove by, and was so curious he turned around and went back. He asked the fellow what the problem was. The man replied, “I got a flat tahr.”
The passerby asked, “But what’s with the flowers?”
The man responded, “When you break down they tell you to put flares in the front and flares in the back. I never did understand it neither.” Tennessee A Tennessee State trooper pulled over a pickup on I-65. The trooper asked, “Got any ID?” The driver replied, “Bout whut?” Texas The Sheriff pulled up next to the guy unloading garbage out of his pick-up into the ditch. The Sheriff asked, “Why are you dumping garbage in the ditch? Don’t you see that sign right over your head.”
“Yep,” he replied. “That’s why I’m dumpin’ it here, ‘cause it says: ‘Fine For Dumping Garbage.’”
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