Josh Turek

Democrat Josh Turek, who was born with spina bifida, won his primary race in Iowa. I thought his victory speech was really good. This is what the Democratic party should be.

Foreign policy

Over the past month, there have been two dominant stories in American foreign policy. One, of course, is the war with Iran. The other is the much-anticipated summit between President Trump and Xi Jinping of China. And I think if you look closely at both of these stories, you see that our foreign policy has entered into a period of absolute incoherence ...

Ezra talks to Ian Bremmer about the US's present foreign policy. Ezra thinks it is, under Trump, incoherent, but I don't think so.

There's no great overacrhing political agenda - for Trump it's personal. He wants to dominate and control everything and everyone.

As President, sometimes it works like in Venezuela. But sometimes he meets others he can't bully, like Iran. In those cases he is at a loss.

As for Xi (and Putin and Kim Jong Un), Trump is confronted with a sucessfull version of what he himself wants to be. And in those cases, he defers, irrespective of policy differences.

Vore!

Today is the primary election for California governor. The top three contenders in this jungle primary are two Democrats - Xavier Becerra and Tom Steyer - and one Trump-supported Republican, Steve Hilton.

I already voted by mail and I've chosen Tom Steyer. I think the DNC wants everyone to vote for Becerra, but for once in my life I'm voting for who I like best, not the person who has the best chance to win. Hopefully the two Democrats will win and end up running against each other.

Graham Platner

UPDATE: OK, there's this now ... Graham Platner And His Wife Dismiss Reports Of His Alleged Sexting As ‘Gossip’



I don't live in Maine so I've only been somewhat aware of the Democrat who wants to challenge Susan Collins to become senator there - Graham Platner.

But I would not want to be friends with a person who had a Nazi tattoo and who sent sexual messages to dozens of women while he was married. So why would I vote for such a person to make important political decisions in my name?

I don't like the wife telling us that we are bad people because we care about such trivial matters when important issues are at stake. These trivial things show his character. I mean - haven't we Democrats been criticizing Hegseth for his tattoos, criticizing Paxton for his lack of morals?

Disappointed in Bernie for supporting this guy.

The midterms

I would agree with Ezra that it appears that Trump has given up on the idea of Republicans winning the midterms via participation in "free and fair" elections.

But I don't agree that he's ok with losing the midterms. I think he just plans to stay in control using other methods than winning the hearts and minds of voters.

So what might he do? He's already trying to reduce the Democratic vote by making voting harder. And I wouldn't be surprised if he staffed all polling places with military/ICE or even declared martial law in order to suspend the elections.

Ezra doesn't understand why Trump doesn't do the obvious things he could to regain the support of voters. I think what Ezra's misses is that when you are a despot, you don't have to care about being popular. In fact, part of what proves how powerful you are is that you can force people to bend to your will whether they like it or not.

Ezra Klein

Ezra Klein speaks with Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari.

They mention the Roman Empire as an example of the "might makes right" scenario that they believe both the US and Israeli administrations are presently embracing, but Rome was so much more than that.

Thomas Massie

Thomas Massie on Meet the Press today. Though he's a Republican, he's an interesting guy and principled - I like him. Seems a shame he was driven out.

The Democratic autopsy

- Rembrandt - The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp

‘A huge omission’: Everyone is baffled by the exclusion of Gaza in DNC autopsy

[...] Multiple progressive activists said they had spoken with the report’s author about how the Biden administration’s approach to the Israel-Hamas conflict hurt former Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, especially with younger and more progressive voters ...

Sigh :( I guess it is inevitable that the Democratic party would try to pin the blame for losing the last presidential election on Biden. They don't want to face the truth behind their failure.

Biden was right to go to Israel's aid after the terrible attack from Hamas. The fact that Muslim voters and young male voter chose Trump doesn't prove Biden was wrong, it proves how dumb those voters were.

The reason most voters turned away from the Democratic party was not because of Israel, it was because the Democratic party forgot what its constituency traditionally was - the poor, the struggling, the disenfranchised. Kamala Harris ran a campaign that was about entitlement, wealth, and imagined moral superiority. She was a bad candidate, and the party she led abandoned the lower and working classes.

That's why we lost. And if we keep lying to ourselves, we'll lose again.

Super pollutants

Trump administration says new EPA rules will save you money at the supermarket. It’s not clear they will

President Donald Trump announced on Thursday a delay to two Biden-era EPA refrigerant rules, arguing the move will cut costs for companies and save consumers money at the grocery store ....

But it was unclear Thursday whether or how companies like grocers would use those savings to make it more affordable for shoppers to fill their carts. The changes would not require grocers to take any steps to cut prices at a time when many households see their budgets stretched by soaring gas prices and years of elevated inflation.

The rules target hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, potent greenhouse gases commonly used in refrigeration and air conditioning systems that are widely accepted as contributors to global warming. Under the Biden administration, the EPA in 2023 finalized regulations aimed at cutting leaks and emissions from those systems, affecting industries ranging from grocery stores and food distribution to semiconductor manufacturing. Now, the EPA is delaying compliance by revising the 2023 rule and another regulation from 2024 ...

Read more about super pollutants at Wikipedia

More air pollution, brought to you by the worst Presient for the environment in the history of our country.

Balboa Park

Spotted: four little cheetahbros making a paws-itively adorable debut 🐆✨ pic.twitter.com/ZgYyoA5RWW

— San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance (@sandiegozoo) May 19, 2026

For a while I lived in San Diego with my sister. Almost every day I would go jogging on the trails at Balboa Park, where the San Diego Zoo lives. Afterwards I would buy one of those Chipwich ice cream sandwiches from a vender there.

Balboa Park is one of the great urban parks in the United States. At twice the size of New York’s Central Park, Balboa Park is also the sight of the San Diego Zoo, the Globe Theater, and several museums. There are 65 miles of trails and paths, and a lovely variety of lush terrain through gardens and groves ... - Great Runs

Two songs

Share your favorite The Police song! 👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/2fqW2v1nDE

— 🎸 Rock History 🎸 (@historyrock_) May 18, 2026

This ...



And this one ...

The pay off

DOJ sets up $1.8B ‘anti-weaponization’ fund after Trump drops IRS lawsuit

[...] The massive fund would give Jan. 6 rioters pardoned by Trump a mechanism to seek taxpayer payouts for their claims of government overreach. The fund could even issue “formal apologies” to people who made claims against the government, the announcement said. The fund will stop processing claims by Dec. 15, 2028, about a month before Trump’s second term is set to end ...

You know, so Trump can use our taxpayer dollars to reward his police-beating followers ...

"Democrats, where are you?"

I took a lot of history classes in school, and so this comes as no surprise. The ancient world and the middle ages are rife with antisemitism. What's depressing is that people just don't think about it. I guess they are too much in love with having a group they can "justifiably" hate.

Every Time I Think of You

The Babys. On the muzak at the grocery store today.

Horseshoe Theory

Horseshoe theory

The Anti Israel Horseshoe Theory: How Israel is Reshaping the 2026 Midterms

[...] The 2026 midterm elections are becoming the first modern American election cycle in which hostility toward Israel is no longer confined to the political fringes. Instead, anti-Israel rhetoric has become a strange meeting point between the populist extreme right and the activist extreme left. Two movements that agree on almost nothing else, yet increasingly speak a common language when it comes to Israel.

This is not merely a foreign policy debate. It is becoming a defining cultural and ideological fault line inside American politics itself.

Political scientists call this phenomenon “horseshoe theory,” the idea that the far left and far right, rather than remaining opposites, eventually bend toward one another at the extremes. In 2026, Israel sits directly at the point where that horseshoe closes ....

I've watched my party - the Democrats - become more and more anti-Israel, even though the vast majority of Jewish Americans are Democrats, trying (I think dishonestly) to link Israel to the colonialism and oppression of our own European history.

And the Republicans have always been conflicted, having some members who are pro-Israel for their own religious reasons, while also having a history of hating Jews (the KKK, etc.).

I think, at the end of the day, both the Democratic party and the Republican party have deep reservoirs of antisemitism that they refuse to acknowledge and deal with. So they deflect and it persists.

Israel isn't the bad guy (or the good guy). Israel is the litmus test Americans find easy to use for their own varied purposes.

The latest grift

Endangered Species Day

For a Coming Extinction - W.S. Merwin

Gray whale
Now that we are sending you to The End
That great god
Tell him
That we who follow you invented forgiveness
And forgive nothing

I write as though you could understand
And I could say it
One must always pretend something
Among the dying
When you have left the seas nodding on their stalks
Empty of you
Tell him that we were made
On another day

The bewilderment will diminish like an echo
Winding along your inner mountains
Unheard by us
And find its way out
Leaving behind it the future
Dead
And ours

When you will not see again
The whale calves trying the light
Consider what you will find in the black garden
And its court
The sea cows the Great Auks the gorillas
The irreplaceable hosts ranged countless
And foreordaining as stars
Our sacrifices

Join your word to theirs
Tell him
That it is we who are important

Oceana

Today is Endangered Species Day.



The Republicans don't seem to care anymore about the environment, the Trump administration only wants to exploit it for money, and even most Democrats seem to only see it as an energy topic. It's our ecosystem, made up of the plants and animals that share the world with us - I think we should be preserving it, not plundering it.

Trip to China

"My precious"

I'm shocked, shocked, I say! Of course he doesn't give a poop about our financial situations. And, come on - he doesn't give a poop about the nuclear thing either. That's just his "acceptable" excuse for starting the war. But he does care about one thing ... his precious ... the big beautiful ballroom.

War movies

Retired general Mark Hertling discusses war movies. Strange though it may seem, I have some past posts about war movies, like Ten for the 4th. It's interesting to hear a military person's opinion of some of the films.