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on the Supreme Court has succeeded in largely taking down American democracy.

In Mother Jones–I need to renew my subscription–Pema Levy and Ari Berman describe how.

And shame on Obama, Biden, and the Democrats for letting it happen.

Steven Haff writes:

“Thank you for posting the information you know about Jonathan Watts. I was a ballet pianist at the San Francisco Ballet School in the early/middle 80’s when Jonathan was a instructor there. I have not real contacts with anyone there anymore and periodically I would search online for some current information about him. Yours is the first new information I have read about him in years.

“I found him to be such an inspirational man. I feel it has been a blessing in my life to have met and worked with him. I loved the way he approached the work of training and his relationships with the students and us, the members of the staff. He was exacting, demanding, with an inspiring combination of technical knowledge, rhythmic sensitivity, and artistic sensibility. I never recall him being anything but inspiration and light in touch with students. I found him to be an wonderful example of the attitude it takes to succeed, keep the work going, have faith in yourself, and look for something inside which prompts your own expression. He helped change my attitude about what music should do for dance. I owe him a great debt for this. I have through the years worked with a number of wonderful, inspiring dance instructors, but not all were accessible outside of class. Jonathan was always open hearted and demonstrated a willingness to be available in mind and spirit.

“I left San Francisco, and went to the Houston Ballet in 1987 but I had a summer Joffrey session, in 96, where Jonathan was the director at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio. Again it was such a pleasure to work with him.

“I remember having a dinner alone with him in San Francisco but unsure when that was, though I think it was after I had left for Houston. I told him how I felt about his teaching, how his professionalism had meant so much to me, as a gesture of thanks.

“I am so sorry to hear of his passing. To me, a great man, one I was hoping to reconnect with again.“

You might want to refer back to the 1989 miniseries “The Nightmare Years,” to compare the way Trump does it to the way that the Third Reich did. Spoiler alert: not much difference.

The fawning obsequiousness of the “press” as they tripped over the tails while being dismissed by Trump from his meeting today with Zelensky does not, however, allow one to feel too much sympathy for them.

Instead, Trump’s contempt and their groveling both demonstrate the appalling moment at which America has arrived.

Trump says that the hundreds of thousands of federal workers whose jobs he terminated shouldn’t be counted toward the higher unemployment figures since their jobs were “unnecessary.” 

during her almost-two terms on the New York City Council, aggressively brokering the upzoning that encourages real estate developers to tear down low-rise, historic, lower-rent buildings to build more and more and ever-larger luxury apartment towers. Each upzoning scam is sold to the public as a win for affordable housing when they are in actuality anything but.

Now, irony of ironies, she has left the public sector before completing her second and final term and become head of of the New York State Association for Affordable Housing.

Let’s hope she actually supports affordable housing as she refused to do during her developer-funded City Council career.

The Washington Post details the way that three treasonous psychotics: Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Russell Vought, turned the full force of the American government against the American people.

Like Don Quixote, Trump entertains hallucinations in which windmills are adversaries.

Both fictional and factual characters indict the folly of self-delusion. Except Trump’s fantasies do actually have real-life impact–and it is unequivocally catastrophic, no more so than in his attacks on clean, sustainable, renewable energy.

and other business types. Forget ethics or integrity as guiding principles.

It is astounding that Harvard is even conducting talks with mud wrestler McMahon and the rest of Trump’s anti-Semitic, white supremacist administration.

Trump’s extortions have worked like a diagnostic tool to clarify how rotten and compromised is the entire leadership structure of this country: educational, corporate, legal–and, of course political.

Playing ball with Trump means Harvard will have forfeited its pole position in the Ivy League and private university hierarchy.

Nielsen ratings for Trump’s Kennedy Center Honors malfunction were the lowest in the Honors’ history.

Is the Cybertruck the ugliest car ever constructed?

The Cybetruck is “a mobile panic room, a place to make you feel strong when you are weak,” Maya Vinokour writes in The Nation. “At the same time, it nudges you to accept that, however strong you may be, you cannot surpass the machine. So why try?”