The question remains: Is Trump a Russian asset?

As Trump pressures Ukraine to basically surrender to Russia, it is worth noting that the so-called "28 Point Plan" resembles the one Paul Manafort was pursuing back in 2016. Heather Cox Richardson explains:

According to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 2019 report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, in summer 2016, Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort discussed with his business partner, Russian operative Konstantin Kilimnik, “a ‘backdoor’ means for Russia to control eastern Ukraine.” According to the Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee, the plan was for Trump to say he wanted peace in Ukraine and for him to appoint Manafort to be a “special representative” to manage the process. With the cooperation of Russian and Russian-backed Ukrainian officials, Manafort would help create “an autonomous republic” in Ukraine’s industrialized eastern region and would work to have Russian-backed Yanukovych, for whom Manafort had worked previously, “elected to head that republic.”

According to the Senate Intelligence Committee, the men continued to work on what they called the “Mariupol Plan” at least until 2018. Putin has been determined to control that land ever since. And now it appears Russia is pushing Trump to deliver it.

I want to zero in on that last sentence: Russia is pushing Trump to deliver control of eastern Ukraine to Putin - something he's been working towards since he first invaded Ukraine in 2014.

We've seen it happen over and over again. There have been interludes where Trump has hinted at holding Putin accountable. But he always caves and does the dictator's bidding. That's why, for almost a decade now, the question of whether or not Trump is a Russian asset remains on the table. 

MAGA has been trying desperately to discredit that question lately. That is precisely why, back in July, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released documents claiming that former President Barack Obama and others in his administration manipulated intelligence to “lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President Trump.”

To understand what's going on here, it is helpful to remember that, when it comes to Trump and Putin, there have been several questions raised since the summer of 2016.

1. Did Russia hack and leak DNC and Clinton campaign emails? Yes
2. Did Russia attempt to hack into state election machinery to change vote totals? No
3. Did Russia attempt to influence the 2016 election in favor of Trump? Yes
4. Did the Trump campaign conspire with the Russian attempt to influence the election? Unknown (the Mueller report couldn't prove a legal conspiracy case, but that was because of the answer to question #5)
5. Did the Trump campaign obstruct justice during the Mueller investigation? Yes

The answers I've listed to those questions have been addressed by both the Mueller report and the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report. DNI Gabbard and other MAGA influences are intent on discrediting what those reports documented about question #3 (and, by extension, 4 and 5). As a refresher, here's what the Mueller report summarized about that question:

“[T]he Special Counsel’s investigation established that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election principally through two operations. First, a Russian entity carried out a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Second, a Russian intelligence service conducted computer-intrusion operations against entities, employees, and volunteers working on the Clinton Campaign and then released stolen documents.”

What's interesting is that Gabbard and others completely ignore both the Mueller report and the Senate Intelligence Committee report. Instead, they are going after an Intelligence Community Assessment  (ICA) that was released by the Obama administration on January 6, 2017 which stated the following:

We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.

What we know from reporting by the Washington Post back in 2017 is that five months prior to that assessment, the CIA sent a "bombshell" report to President Obama.

Early last August, an envelope with extraordinary handling restrictions arrived at the White House. Sent by courier from the CIA, it carried “eyes only” instructions that its contents be shown to just four people: President Barack Obama and three senior aides.

Inside was an intelligence bombshell, a report drawn from sourcing deep inside the Russian government that detailed Russian President Vladi­mir Putin’s direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and discredit the U.S. presidential race.

But it went further. The intelligence captured Putin’s specific instructions on the operation’s audacious objectives — defeat or at least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and help elect her opponent, Donald Trump.

Initially, President Obama was primarily concerned about the possibility that Russians would hack into state voting infrastructure (question #2 above). Over the course of September 2016, the intelligence community produced several reports stating that they had "no evidence of cyber manipulation of election infrastructure intended to alter results.”

So on December 7, 2016, Obama instructed the intelligence community to pull together the information they had on the tools Moscow used, the actions it took to influence the 2016 election, and an explanation of why Moscow directed these activities.” That led to the ICA that was released in January 2017.

Gabbard and others are trying desperately to undermine that assessment in order to prove that Putin didn't interfere to help Trump. They claim that Obama set up the whole "Russia hoax" by ordering the assessment, while Brennan, Clapper, and Comey conspired to use Hillary Clinton's Steele dossier as the source of their claims. 

None of that is true. As just one example, when Brennan sent the "intelligence bombshell" to Obama in August 2016, the Steele dossier was languishing inside an organized crime unit at the FBI’s New York field office. The FBI's Crossfire Hurricane team didn't even see it until September. According to everyone's sworn testimony, it was not used as a basis for the January ICA. But it was included in the classified annex because Comey insisted that - even though the dossier hadn't been verified - the president had asked for all of the information they had on Moscow's activities. 

This all might seem to be too much "in the weeds" for a lot of folks. But keep in mind that the current Director of National Intelligence - Tulsi Gabbard - actually accused President Obama and his cabinet officials of treason, claiming they initiated a years-long coup against Trump. And now, Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones is leading an investigation into these claims. Apparently it's going about as well as the prosecution of Comey by Lindsey Halligan. 

All of this is designed to allow Trump and his enablers to claim that the president is a victim of the so-called "Russia hoax." But as he continues to do Putin's bidding by pressuring Ukraine to surrender to Russia, the question remains: Is Trump a Russian asset?

Is Vance a groyper?

Marjorie Taylor Greene isn't the only MAGA member breaking up with Trump. Nick Fuentes has taken things even further. Here's what he said about the president on his podcast last week:

Fuck you! Fuck you! You suck! You are fat, you are a joke, you are stupid, you are not funny, you are not as smart as you think you are.

If you watch my show, you know I’ve been very critical. I’ve never been this far. This just goes to show, this entire thing has been a scam. When we look back on the history of populism in America, we are gonna look back on the MAGA movement as the biggest scam in American history. And the liberals were right, the MAGA supporters were had!

When we look back in history we will see Trump as a scam artist.

This is significant because Fuentes is the leader of a group commonly known as "groypers." It would take days to pull up every disgusting quote from this guy, but this clip pretty much sums up his overall viewpoint: 

Jews are running society, women need to shut the fuck up, Blacks need to be imprisoned for the most part, and we would live in paradise, it's that simple. It's literally that simple...we need white men running everything. OK?

That is the kind of bile Fuentes' supporters (mostly young men) are being fed of a daily basis. Therefore, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see a connection between the groypers and the Young Republicans whose text exchanges were recently made public.

MAGA author Rod Dreher was in Washington D.C. recently (he lives in Hungary these days because he loves what dictator Viktor Orban has done to that country). He wrote that a D.C. insider told him that  “between 30 and 40 percent” of the Zoomers who work in official Republican Washington are fans of Nick Fuentes. Dreher goes on to say that he talked to J.D. Vance about his concern regarding the groypers.  How did the VP respond? Dreher refused to tell us. 

I shared with him my views about the threat that Nick Fuentes and Groyperism pose to the country, to the GOP, and to him personally. He listened to what I had to say. And that is all I can say about it, out of respect for his privacy.

It's worth noting that when Vance was asked about the racist/sexist/anti-semitic texts from the young Republicans, he basically brushed it off with the equivalent of "boys will be boys." It sure sounds like he might have done the same thing with Dreher's warning. 

So let's compare the views of Vance to those of Fuentes. The former:

• told Tucker Carlson in 2021 that the country was being run by a bunch of "childless cat ladies."
• spread the lie about Haitian immigrants eating pets.
• embraced the white supremacist "blood and soil" view of American nationalism.
• embraced Gernany's Nazi party.

Jamelle Bouie noted these similarities and was left with one question.

Here’s my question for you: You can parse all the rhetoric you’d like, but what is the actual, practical difference between Vance’s call for the removal and potential expropriation of “illegal” immigrants — defined in terms of ethnic and racial difference — and Fuentes’s vision of a white ethno-state in what is now the United States?

They look about the same to me.

Another way of asking that question would be: "Is VP Vance a groyper?" My response to that one would be: "They look about the same to me."

But it's not just the racist/sexist/anti-semitic views that Vance shares with Fuentes. Here is what Dreher said about the groypers:

I asked one astute Zoomer what the Groypers actually wanted (meaning, what were their demands). He said, “They don’t have any. They just want to tear everything down.”...

Compare that with what Vance said to Jack Murphy in 2021:

"Step one in the process is to totally rip out like a tumor the current American leadership class and then reinstall some sense of American political religion."

When asked by the host what that would look like, since elections are ineffectual, Vance brings up his buddy Curtis Yarvin.

As a reminder, Yarvin is the guy who says that our government has gotten stale and needs to be deleted. In the place of a deleted government, Yarvin says that we should install a "national CEO," otherwise known as a dictator. He then says that "if Americans want to change their government, they're going to have to get over their dictator phobia."

Right now people like MTG and Fuentes (among others) are jockeying for positions in a post-Trump era. So is J.D. Vance. This is where all of that is headed - if Vance has anything to say about it.  

What the government shutdown did/didn't accomplish - and why.

The big story of the day is that on Sunday night, eight Democrats "caved" and voted to end the government shutdown. Even Steve Bennen - who usually maintains a clear focus on the Republican disaster - joined the chorus.

The public has blamed the president and his party; Democrats received a dramatic boost from the electorate five days before the Sunday-night vote, which should’ve stiffened spines; Trump’s approval rating is sinking; and GOP officials were increasingly divided against one another. The pieces, in other words, were in place for Democrats to stand firm in support of a popular cause. Eight of them folded anyway.

Of course, Bennen is right on all of those points. But as someone who tends to challenge conventional wisdom, I think there are a few other things to consider. 

Back in February, I wrote about how Democrats need to think like community organizers and do a power analysis. If we apply that to the way the government shutdown has been playing out, there are three ways the Republicans had leverage. 

The first is the one that Josh Marshall identified from the beginning of the year: Democrats are fighting an asymmetrical battle.

This is of necessity very much an asymmetric confrontation. It can’t not be. The White House has all the executive authority and, indirectly, the congressional power as well...to extend the metaphor — the Republicans have a big army and the Democrats have no army. Because of the 2024 election. So Democrats keep running out onto the open field with no power or defense and getting crushed, which creates these repeated set pieces of helplessness and impotence. That amounts to free programming for Donald Trump.

The second point of leverage for Republicans is something Barack Obama identified back when he was still a U.S. Senator. 

The bottom line is that our job is harder than the conservatives' job. After all, it's easy to articulate a belligerent foreign policy based solely on unilateral military action, a policy that sounds tough and acts dumb; it's harder to craft a foreign policy that's tough and smart. It's easy to dismantle government safety nets; it's harder to transform those safety nets so that they work for people and can be paid for. It's easy to embrace a theological absolutism; it's harder to find the right balance between the legitimate role of faith in our lives and the demands of our civic religion. But that's our job.

The way this played out during the latest government shutdown is that Trump and Republicans are more than willing to let the American people suffer - whether that is fighting all the way to the Supreme Court to stop SNAP payments, disrupt air travel around the holidays, or take away people's health insurance. As a matter of fact, they're not simply willing to let people suffer during the shutdown. It is the core of their agenda.  

The third point of leverage for Republicans is that, as David Roberts wrote a few years ago, they regularly disassociate their rhetoric from their agenda/actions.

Republicans thus talk about “taxes” and “spending” and “regulation” in the abstract, since Americans oppose them in the abstract even as they support their specific manifestations. They talk about cutting the deficit even as they slash taxes on the rich and launch unfunded wars. They talk about free markets even as they subsidize fossil fuels. They talk about American exceptionalism even as they protect fossil-fuel incumbents and fight research and infrastructure investments.

In short, Republicans have mastered post-truth politics. They’ve realized that their rhetoric doesn’t have to bear any connection to their policy agenda.

Trump and the MAGA movement have taken that one to a whole new level. As an example, last month Speaker Mike Johnson said, "Let me look right into the camera and tell you very clearly: Republicans are the ones concerned about healthcare. Republicans are the party working around the clock every day to fix healthcare. This is not talking points for us: we've done it." That would be laughable if it weren't so enraging. The only thing Republicans have done about healthcare is cut Medicaid and try to kill Obamacare more than 70 times. According to Project 2025, the Republican agenda is simply more of the same. As Roberts said, "their rhetoric doesn't have to bear any connection to their policy agenda."

It is that third point of leverage the shutdown effectively targeted. As Josh Marshall wrote, "The upshot of the shutdown is that Democrats now own the affordability issue, and they’ve focused it on health care coverage, which Republicans want to make more expensive or take away altogether."

I know that, in the midst of Trump's threats to almost everything we hold dear, Democrats are angry and want their representatives in Congress to "fight, fight, fight." But I'd suggest that we also need a strategy for winning those fights. Given those first two leverage points, I didn't seen an endgame for Democrats on the shutdown. If it had dragged on and on, Republicans would have been content to let the American people suffer, leaving Democrats to look weak and helpless to stop them. 

I'm not saying that I agree with the 8 Democrats who voted to end the shutdown. Their stated reasons simply sound weak and reactive. But I would suggest that the party needs to continue to grapple with finding their own leverage points and using them wisely. No one strategy is going to be foolproof and work all the time. While taking a stand for affordable healthcare didn't accomplish all we hoped it would, the willingness of Trump and Republicans to inflict pain on the American people was exposed to the light of day. Let's take that win and run with it.

The day the music died

In light of all the horrific things the Trump administration is doing, this one doesn't seem very significant. 

Nearly nine months after Trump became chair of the center and more than a month into its main season, ticket sales for the Kennedy Center’s three largest performance venues are the worst they’ve been in years, according to a Washington Post analysis of ticketing data from dozens of recent shows as well as past seasons. Tens of thousands of seats have been left empty.

I can't help but think about the fact that two of the biggest moments in music history over the last couple of decades took place at the Kennedy Center. First came this moment in 2012: 

 

Three years later, this happened:

 

Notice who is in the stands swaying to the music, wiping away a tear, and joining the standing ovation. 

I'm not a music historian, but I doubt there has ever been a presidential administration that did more to celebrate this county's musical heritage than Barack Obama's. I am reminded of this part of his speech at the 50th anniversary of Selma:

We’re the inventors of gospel and jazz and blues, bluegrass and country, and hip-hop and rock and roll, and our very own sound with all the sweet sorrow and reckless joy of freedom.

In addition to Obama's support for the Kennedy Center, the White House hosted eleven "Performances at the White House" honoring everything from country music to Broadway, Motown, and classical music. 

Did you know that six years before the first performance of Hamilton, Lin Manuel Miranda performed "The Hamilton Mixtape" for poetry/spoken word night at the White House? And before there was Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl, there was Marc Anthony at the White House for Fiesta Latina.

The line-up for Red, White, and Blues night at the White House was extraordinary, featuring musicians like B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Keb' Mo', Mick Jagger, and Jeff Beck. But of course, I was thrilled to see Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks in the line-up. That was the night that this happened:

Adding to the darkness that seems to have overtaken us these days is the fact that those kinds of moments aren't happening any more. That's why these words from Bruce Springsteen reached down into my soul and brought a tear to my eye.

Duane Allman died fifty-four years ago. But his legacy lives on.

Fifty-four years ago today Duane Allman was killed in a motorcycle accident. He was only 24 years old. And yet, every list of the greatest guitar players of all time has Duane in their top ten. It is hard not to wonder how the world of music would have been changed if he'd lived longer. 

When it comes to the Allman Brothers Band there are lots of interesting stories to tell. For example, here is what Warren Haynes wrote about their impact on a young Southern boy growing up in Asheville, North Carolina.

Over the next few years I would begin to play guitar as everyone of my music loving friends became Allman Brothers’ freaks. That music spoke to anyone who heard it but in the South it resonated with us. It spoke volumes. It brought a voice to people like myself in the midst of some confusing, ever-changing times. Here was this group of Southern hippies with an integrated band coming out of the Deepest South with equally deep music on the heels of some extremely deep changes. We didn’t realize how heavy that was at the time but we sure realized how heavy the music was. Every guitar player in every Southern town was listening to the Live at Fillmore East record and worshipping at the altar of Duane Allman and Dickey Betts.

It can be hard to imagine how Duane and Gregg Allman - two white brothers from the South - so effectively maneuvered the deep changes that were happening in this country in the 50s and 60s. But for them, it was all about the music. Here's how Gregg described it:

Duane and I were raised in Panhandle, Florida. We used to listen to a station that called itself “The black spot on your dial”. It played Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, and it hit Duane and me like spaghetti hitting a wall...

I learned to play mostly from black people: the clubs on Daytona Beach, Surf Bar, Paradise, all black dudes.

While another famous Southern Rock group played their concerts in front of a Confederate flag, Duane and Gregg would have none of that and, instead, celebrated the Black Southern blues players they admired so much. The day after Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, Gregg wrote this song - which he later recorded with Duane.

 

As that song demonstrates, it was through their experience with Black Southern blues music that they viewed the struggle for civil rights in this country.

Duane is known for being the best slide guitar player in history. One of my favorite stories about him is that he was inspired to learn that skill after hearing Native American Jesse Ed Davis playing slide on Taj Mahal's recording of Statesboro Blues. Take a listen to that one. 

There are lots of tunes you can listen to that explain why Duane's guitar-playing is so revered. But one of the best comes from the time he spent as a session guitarist at Muscle Shoals studio (prior to forming the Allman Brothers Band). At the time, Wilson Pickett was recording there. The other session musicians were all white men, who would go into town for lunch. But both the Black guy and the long-haired hippie weren't welcome in small town Alabama in 1968. So Duane and Wilson hung back together at the studio. That is when Duane convinced Pickett to record Hey Jude, even though the Beatles version was still topping the charts. It's worth noting that this is the one that grabbed Eric Clapton's attention and inspired him to ask Duane to join Derek and the Dominoes in recording Layla and Other Love Songs. Stay tuned for the guitar riffs near the end of this one.

 

There was, however, a lot more to Duane's playing than shredding and jamming. Here's one of my favorites where he makes the guitar sing during his fills for the blues song Gregg wrote - Please Call Home.

Finally, there is only one song the Allman Brothers Band recorded that was written solely by Duane - Little Martha. This one, which was recorded just a couple of months before he died, demonstrates that Duane also had a softer, more gentle side.

 

 

While it is difficult to avoid wondering how the world of music might have been affected if Duane had lived beyond his short 24 years, Alan Paul described why his musical legacy lives on.

Duane’s continued relevance – his ongoing musical dialogue - is in large part because he consciously set out to create something that was bigger than himself. The lack of egocentrism in his vision for the Allman Brothers Band guaranteed that he and his ideas would live forever. For all his charisma, technical facility and musical inspiration, he did not build a band aimed merely at casting a spotlight his way...

“They wanted him to form the Duane Allman Band, but he had something different in mind. Something bigger,” says drummer Jaimoe.

As a testament to that legacy, last April Jaimoe (the only surviving member of the original line-up) gathered The Brothers for two nights at Madison Square Garden.  

 

Derek Trucks said there were ghosts in the room when he and Warren Haynes recorded Real, Real Love. You can definitely hear him channeling Duane on this one.

Today we mourn the loss of Duane. But clearly, his legacy lives on.

Is the No Kings movement a color revolution?

After the No Kings protest on Saturday, I was curious about how MAGA pundits would respond, so I watched a few clips from their shows/podcasts. For the most part, they went from claiming that those involved would be America-haters, terrorists, antifa, and Marxists beforehand, to claiming it was all just old people afterwards. 

On Youtube, it was a post by Glenn Beck that caught my eye because it was titled, "Glenn Beck Exposes No Kings Plot: This IS a Color Revolution!" In case you're not familiar with the term "color revolution," here's how Wikipedia defines it:

The color revolutions were a series of often non-violent protests and accompanying (attempted or successful) changes of government and society that took place in post-Soviet states (particularly Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan) and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the early 21st century.The aim of the color revolutions was to establish Western-style democracies.

I'll grant that Beck isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Perhaps he thinks that comparing the No Kings protests to non-violent attempts to establish democracies in post-Soviet states is fear-inducing. But if that's his idea of a critique...I'll take it!  

So I watched the video. Beck begins by calling everyone who attended the protests an "idiot." But after about 9 minutes of that, things get pretty interesting. At that point, he starts talking about the intellectuals and organizers behind the protests and encourages his listeners to read two books. The first is "Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, " by Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan.

For more than a century, from 1900 to 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts in achieving their stated goals. By attracting impressive support from citizens, whose activism takes the form of protests, boycotts, civil disobedience, and other forms of nonviolent noncooperation, these efforts help separate regimes from their main sources of power and produce remarkable results.

Over the last few months I've heard about the "3.5% rule," but didn't know where it came from. Thanks to Glenn Beck, I now know that it came from Chenoweth and Stephan.

Looking at hundreds of campaigns over the last century, Chenoweth found that nonviolent campaigns are twice as likely to achieve their goals as violent campaigns. And although the exact dynamics will depend on many factors, she has shown it takes around 3.5% of the population actively participating in the protests to ensure serious political change.

Whether or not you agree with the "3.5% rule," the fact that "nonviolent campaigns are twice as likely to achieve their goals as violent campaigns," is the money quote.

The second book Beck mentions is "From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Guide to Nonviolent Resistance," by Gene Sharp.

From Dictatorship to Democracy was a pamphlet, printed and distributed by Dr Gene Sharp and based on his study, over a period of forty years, on non-violent methods of demonstration. Now in its fourth edition, it was originally handed out by the Albert Einstein Institution, and although never actively promoted, to date it has been translated into thirty-one languages. This astonishing book travelled as a photocopied pamphlet from Burma to Indonesia, Serbia and most recently Egypt, Tunisia and Syria, with dissent in China also reported. Surreptitiously handed out amongst youth uprisings the world over - how the 'how-to' guide came about and its role in the recent Arab uprisings is an extraordinary tale.

 If you're interested, check out Sharp's "198 Methods of Nonviolent Action."

Silly me. I had studied the nonviolence methods of Ghandi and MLK when I was in college in the 1970's. But I thought all of that wisdom had been lost in the succeeding decades. Here it is alive and well in a whole different form among the intellectuals and organizers behind the No Kings movement. That brings me so much hope and joy!

At this point, I haven't seen a lot of other MAGA pundits comparing No Kings to the color revolutions.  But someone who did make the connection is Kirill Dmitriev, Putin's Envoy on Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation. In response to a tweet from Mike Flynn about the No Kings protests, he wrote: "Same playbook and same people who do 'color revolutions.' Sad that very few people understand the deep level of coordination and experience involved." It's not hard to understand why Putin would fear color revolutions. As a matter of fact, that fear could be what drove him to invade Ukraine.

The Kremlin’s fear of a fresh popular revolution threatening its position in power isn’t far-fetched; history favors nonviolent movements, which boast a 53% success rate compared with the 26% success rate for violent campaigns. In Russia’s neighborhood, civil resistance has proved itself to be a particularly potent strategy – between 1900 and 2019, 58% of the region’s major nonviolent movements succeeded in achieving their goals.

While Russia’s “special military operation” launched on Feb. 24 to “denazify” Ukraine came as a shock to many, Putin’s fear of popular revolutions means he has been plotting to regain control in Ukraine ever since a popular revolution in February 2014 deposed Kremlin-backed president Viktor Yanukovych.

If the worst thing that Beck or any other MAGA pundits can say about No Kings is that we are emulating nonviolent color revolutions to defend democracy - a prospect that terrifies Putin - it is just the kind of affirmation I've been looking for to indicate that we're on the right track.

The America I love

During his conversation with Marc Maron, Barack Obama took a step back from the specifics of what we're dealing with these days and gave an overview of the basic conflict that has been at the heart of our differences since the founding of this country. 

To illustrate the warring narratives, the former president pointed to the speech he gave at the 50th anniversary of the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, saying that - of all the speeches he gave during his presidency - that is the one that is "closest to my heart."

As a point of privilege, I'll simply say that six years ago, I wrote that the Selma speech was the most important of Obama's presidency.  The context in which he gave it is important to recognize.

Early that year, Rudy Giuliani had set off a firestorm by suggesting that Obama didn’t love America. The accusation was made because of the president’s refusal to use the words “radical Islamic terrorist.” It became one of those stories that not only swirled around right wing media, but migrated into mainstream outlets as well. The patriotism of this country’s first African-American president was under assault.

Here are a few key quotes from the speech:

What greater expression of faith in the American experiment than this, what greater form of patriotism is there than the belief that America is not yet finished, that we are strong enough to be self-critical, that each successive generation can look upon our imperfections and decide that it is in our power to remake this nation to more closely align with our highest ideals?...

The American instinct that led these young men and women to pick up the torch and cross this bridge, that’s the same instinct that moved patriots to choose revolution over tyranny. It’s the same instinct that drew immigrants from across oceans and the Rio Grande; the same instinct that led women to reach for the ballot, workers to organize against an unjust status quo; the same instinct that led us to plant a flag at Iwo Jima and on the surface of the Moon.

It’s the idea held by generations of citizens who believed that America is a constant work in progress; who believed that loving this country requires more than singing its praises or avoiding uncomfortable truths. It requires the occasional disruption, the willingness to speak out for what is right, to shake up the status quo. That’s America.

Many things have changed since that march over 50 years ago, but one remains constant.

[W]hat has not changed is the imperative of citizenship; that willingness of a 26-year-old deacon, or a Unitarian minister, or a young mother of five to decide they loved this country so much that they’d risk everything to realize its promise.

That’s what it means to love America. That’s what it means to believe in America. That’s what it means when we say America is exceptional.

For we were born of change. We broke the old aristocracies, declaring ourselves entitled not by bloodline, but endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. We secure our rights and responsibilities through a system of self-government, of and by and for the people. That’s why we argue and fight with so much passion and conviction — because we know our efforts matter. We know America is what we make of it.

As Obama told Maron, the clash on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965 was between people like young John Lewis, who held that view of patriotism, vs. those with billy clubs on horseback who represented conquest, hierarchy, domination, and the idea that if you weren't a white property-owning male, you didn't matter.  

The reason Obama brought up that speech is because, once again, those two narratives are clashing. MAGA isn't even being subtle about it - they're saying the quite parts out loud.

For example, back in July, J.D. Vance gave a speech at the right wing Claremont Institute where he "offered one of the clearest articulations to date of American citizenship and identity based on ancestry and bloodline rather than the principles outlined in our Declaration of Independence." A couple of months later, Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO) gave a similar speech  titled "What is an American" at the National Conservatism Conference. After referencing his (white) ancestors who conquered the west, Scmitt said:  

[A]ll of them would be astonished to hear that they were only fighting for a “proposition.”... 

America, in all its glory, is their gift to us, handed down across the generations. It belongs to us. It’s our birthright, our heritage, our destiny.

If America is everything and everyone, then it is nothing and no one at all.

When pundits and politicians wring their hands about what divides us in this country...they should look no further than these two narratives about what it means to be American. 

Ahead of the No Kings demonstrations on October 18th, MAGA talking points about it have been consistently repeated. They're suggesting that the people who protest on Saturday "hate America." 

I tend to reject using the word "hate." But if those folks want to paint me as rejecting the America of (white) bloodlines, conquest, hierarchy and domination, I'm happy to own that charge. 

The America I love is the one Obama described. And yes, it includes everyone.

Selma shows us that America is not the project of any one person. Because the single-most powerful word in our democracy is the word “We.” “We The People.” “We Shall Overcome.” “Yes We Can.” That word is owned by no one. It belongs to everyone...

We are Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea, pioneers who braved the unfamiliar, followed by a stampede of farmers and miners, and entrepreneurs and hucksters. That’s our spirit. That’s who we are.

We are Sojourner Truth and Fannie Lou Hamer, women who could do as much as any man and then some. And we’re Susan B. Anthony, who shook the system until the law reflected that truth. That is our character.

We’re the immigrants who stowed away on ships to reach these shores, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free –- Holocaust survivors, Soviet defectors, the Lost Boys of Sudan. 

We’re the hopeful strivers who cross the Rio Grande because we want our kids to know a better life. That’s how we came to be.

We’re the slaves who built the White House and the economy of the South.

We’re the ranch hands and cowboys who opened up the West, and countless laborers who laid rail, and raised skyscrapers, and organized for workers’ rights.

We’re the fresh-faced GIs who fought to liberate a continent. And we’re the Tuskeegee Airmen, and the Navajo code-talkers, and the Japanese Americans who fought for this country even as their own liberty had been denied.

We’re the firefighters who rushed into those buildings on 9/11, the volunteers who signed up to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

We’re the gay Americans whose blood ran in the streets of San Francisco and New York, just as blood ran down this bridge.

We are storytellers, writers, poets, artists who abhor unfairness, and despise hypocrisy, and give voice to the voiceless, and tell truths that need to be told.

We’re the inventors of gospel and jazz and blues, bluegrass and country, and hip-hop and rock and roll, and our very own sound with all the sweet sorrow and reckless joy of freedom.

Dangerous old men

Barack Obama said something recently that I found quite thought-provoking. 

OBAMA: It's fair to say that 80% of the world's problems involve old men hanging on who are afraid of death and insignificance, and they won't let go. They build pyramids, and they put their names on everything. They get very anxious about it.

[image or embed]

— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) September 25, 2025 at 1:02 PM

Having studied Obama intensely over the last decade, I can tell you that he doesn't throw stuff like this out lightly. I can actually imagine him calculating how many of the world's problems track back to old men who are afraid of death.

It's important to note that, based on past statements, Obama wasn't using the term "men" generically. This statement echoes something he said back in 2019.

The world would be a better place if more women were in charge, former President Barack Obama says. Speaking at an event on Monday, Obama also said that many of the world's problems stem from "old people, usually old men, not getting out of the way...They cling to power, they are insecure, they have outdated ideas and the energy and fresh vision and new approaches are squashed."

My mind immediately went to that fact that, ever since about 2016, I've said that the three most dangerous men in the world are Donald Trump (79), Vladimir Putin (73), and Benjamin Netanyahu (75). Globally, men's average lifespan in 71, while in the U.S., it's 75. I wouldn't be surprised if those were three of the men Obama had in mind.

As someone who is now in their 70's, I can attest to the fact that the imminence of death is much more present that it has been in the past. It is clear that, even in his dementia-addled brain, Donald Trump is thinking about it a lot as well. Over the past couple of months, he's talked about his desire to get into heaven several times. 

None of this is to suggest that I endorse the kind of ageism that I've seen on display lately. Someone shouldn't simply step down based on the year they were born. Those kinds of calls should be based on performance. There is a certain kind of wisdom that can come with age that is worth revering, just as there are young men who cling to power out of a sense of insecurity (J.D. Vance is only 41 years old).

But it is interesting to view Trump, Putin, and Netanyahu through this lens that Obama articulated. They're scared to death and are clinging to power in order to avoid the insignificance of death. 

Finding joy in a world drenched in fear/anger

This has been a dark week.

To be honest, I shed a tear when I heard that Charlie Kirk had been shot. It was partly because no human being deserves that. But I also felt the dread of what was going to come next. I wasn't wrong to feel that way. The division in our country has never felt more deep. The darkness from that seemed overwhelming. 

But then I ran across a video that had been posted the day before Kirk was shot. Perhaps you've seen it too.

While the performances are amazing, I suggest that you focus on the faces of the people in the crowd. One of the comments on YouTube captures my reaction perfectly: "I love flash mobs. I know it's weird, but the idea of huge amounts of people working together for zero payback except making people happy makes me emotional." Those performers not only brought joy to the people in the crowd. As I write, the video has garnered almost 7 million views in 5 days, demonstrating that people are starving for that kind of shared joy.

A few days later I ran across a couple of young men doing this on social media:

Want more? Here ya go.

These guys are "social media influencers" with hundreds of thousands of followers. But they're not just performing. I got hooked binging on T. Eian's videos and his skills aren't limited to dancing. He is a master at engaging all kinds of people - young, old, white, black, brown, etc. As with the flash mob, check out the joy they're spreading. 

When it comes to music, engagement, and spreading joy, no one is better at it than Jacob Collier.

 

You can tell that everyone in the audience that night had a spiritual experience.

Perhaps Nelson Mandela put it best: "It is music and dancing that makes me at peace with the world...and at peace with myself."

 

 I can't say that I have found peace with the world. But for right now, these performers have brought me some peace with myself. As Kamala Harris reminded us during the 2024 campaign, it's all about preserving our joy - especially as others try to ensnare us in fear/anger.  

Correcting Amy Walter with some recent history on immigration

One of my least favorite political commentators is Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report. Her appearance on the PBS News Hour on Tuesday reinforced that opinion. Host Geoff Bennett specifically asked her to comment on Trump's use of the military to paint a picture of toughness. Here's how Walter responded:

No, I think that's true, and I do think that's why it's been so interesting to watch the Democratic response, especially of Democratic leaders, not just in the state, but nationally...

The question going forward, I think, is how Democrats do talk about these issues, it's going to be really important for the — not just what's happening today in Los Angeles, but just writ large. I think there has been a lot of pullback and a lot of hand-wringing from Democrats about an issue which they used to have an advantage on during the — Trump's first term, they have a disadvantage on now.

Walter can't be bothered with talking about a president using the military against citizen protesters. Instead, she frames the issue as a challenge for Democrats. WTH?! Of course, right wing media was able to wallow in her comments about "handwringing Democrats" being at a disadvantage on the issue of immigration. 

But how can anyone take her historical reference seriously? Did Democrats have an advantage on immigration during Trump's first term? On what basis does she make a claim like that?

So here's a little recent history lesson for Ms. Walter. Republicans were shocked to lose the 2012 election after making huge gains in the 2010 midterms. The situation was so bleak for the GOP that they did an autopsy to try and figure out why they had failed so miserably. Here's one of the recommendations coming out of that autopsy:

[A]mong the steps Republicans take in the Hispanic community and beyond, we must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform. If we do not, our Party's appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only. We also believe that comprehensive immigration reform is consistent with Republican economic policies that promote job growth and opportunity for all.

Some Republican politicians took that to heart. In the Senate, Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John McCain (R-AZ), and Marco Rubio (R-FL) worked with four Democrats to produce a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill that included both border security and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. It passed the Senate 68-32.

But then House Speaker John Boehner refused to take up the bill due to pressure from his right wing Tea Party (prelude to MAGA) members. The bill stalled and was never passed - even though polls showed that a large majority of voters supported such a measure. 

Donald Trump kicked off his 2016 presidential campaign by calling Mexican immigrants criminals and rapists. His presidency was filled with racist lies about immigrants invading our country and a truly horrific attempt to deter immigration by separating children from their parents at the border. Even some Republicans were appalled.

The first bill President Biden sent to congress after beating Trump in the 2020 election was on comprehensive immigration reform, including both border security and a pathway to citizenship. It never passed. Towards the end of his term, Biden and Democrats once again negotiated a bipartisan border control compromise in the Senate. But Trump urged Congress to kill it because he wanted to use immigration as a campaign issue.

During the 2024 campaign Trump ratcheted up the lies about criminal immigrants and even went so far as to claim that they were eating our pets. Now he's trying to implement his mass deportation agenda, even though only 39% of Americans support what he's doing. Polls consistently show that Americans support a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

If all anyone did was pay attention to right wing media and their enablers in mainstream media, you'd think Walter is right. But a brief look at both recent history and polling suggests that - at minimum - things are a bit more complex than her "analysis" suggests. 

If we are ever going to have a rational discussion about immigration, we're going to need to take a deep breath and step back from the racist fear-mongering and fascism emanating from Trump and his enablers. Democrats are firmly on the right side of history on this one. We recognize that we are a country of immigrants and that diversity is our strength. We must construct a humane immigration system because it's not just the right thing to do. It is the step we need to take right now in order to "perfect our union."

Got the blues?

Every link in this piece takes you to more great music.

Since we were in high school in the early 70s, I've known that my brother's favorite band has always been The Allman Brothers. I never paid them much attention because I was into other things. Then a couple of years ago, I finally decided to check into them to see what all the fuss was about. This was the first video I pulled up to check them out. 

At the time I didn't know that Soulshine was written by Warren Haynes and wasn't released by ABB until 1994 - long after both Duane Allman and Barry Oakley (original band members) had died in separate motorcycle accidents. 

But as I watched that video, I wondered who the young man with the long blond ponytail was. He blew me away with his slide guitar playing - standing so stoically in the place where Duane once stood. 

I soon found out that the young man was Derek Trucks - nephew of Butch Trucks, one of the ABB drummers. Derek was a guitar prodigy who had his own band by the time he was 13 and was opening for the Allman Brothers. He went on to become a member of the band when he was 20 years old and played with them until they disbanded in 2014. Derek also toured with Eric Clapton in 2006/7.

I went on to learn that in 1999, Derek met blues singer Susan Tedeschi and they were married a couple of years later. After fronting their own bands, the two joined forces in 2010 and formed the Tedeschi Trucks band. Here's their most famous song, Midnight in Harlem.

If you check into this band, you're going to hear a lot of people calling them the best touring band out there, and based on my limited experience, I'd agree with that. I went to see them last summer when they came to Minneapolis (my first live concert in decades) and it was a soul-stirring experience. 

I tell you all of that because it became an even bigger deal last November. Like most of you, I was pretty devastated about the election results and spent the next couple of weeks pretty immobilized by fear, rage, and depression. 

But then on the weekend of November 15 and 16 I got to live-stream the TTB concerts at the Fox Theater in Atlanta. Afterwards, I was no longer immobilized. Sure, I've continued to have times of fear, rage, and depression - but now I know that listening to good music keeps me functioning. 

You'll hear a lot of folks talk about the need for self-care during these times. Last November I learned that music is an integral part of self-care for me.

One more musical note before I close. Yesterday Sly Stone died. In honor of his tremendous contributions, here's how the Tedeschi Trucks band closed out that performance at the Fox Theater (I dare you to try and sit still through the whole thing): 

The Trump administration's attempt to restore white supremacy in the midst of demographic change

As we watch a militarized effort to terrorize black and brown immigrants (while importing white racists from South Africa), it is important to keep in mind the basis for this campaign. No one has articulated the fear better than white nationalist Richard Spencer back in 2015 as Trumpism was taking hold on the right (emphasis mine).

“Trump, on a gut level, kind of senses that this is about demographics, ultimately. We’re moving into a new America.” He said, “I don’t think Trump is a white nationalist,” but he did believe that Trump reflected “an unconscious vision that white people have – that their grandchildren might be a hated minority in their own country. I think that scares us. They probably aren’t able to articulate it. I think it’s there. I think that, to a great degree, explains the Trump phenomenon.”

Fox News and Republicans fully embraced the white supremacist great replacement theory sparked by this fear. 

The demographics these folks are referring to didn't simply spring up in the last few years as a result of recent increases in immigration. Demographers have been pointing them out for decades now. 

The real news is that, in addition to immigration, these changes are also based on birth rates. For example, "Children born in 2011 are members of this country's first majority-minority birth cohort." Another milestone was reached in the 2020 census: white non-Hispanic youth are now a minority (47%) among those under 18 years of age. Projections are that whites will be a minority in this country by 2044.

All of this led to an important analysis in the Washington Post back in 2018. At the time, the first Trump administration had released  a plan to severely restrict legal immigration - especially from countries in Africa and South America. The Post found that, if implemented, the plan would "delay the date that white Americans become a minority of the population by as few as one or as many as five additional years." Here's why (emphasis mine):

Experts say the main driver of diversification in the United States is the native-born Hispanic population, which grew by about 5 million from 2010 to 2016, just as the native-born white population shrank by about 400,000 over the same period, according to Census Bureau data...

“You can shut the door to everyone in the world and that won’t change,” said Roberto Suro, an immigration and demography expert at the University of Southern California. “The president can’t do anything about that. If your primary concern is that the American population is becoming less white, it’s already too late.”

The truth is that the Trump administration can't deport enough undocumented immigrants to change the trajectory that is underway. The bad news is that this is why they're going after legal immigrants and birthright citizenship. It is also why they probably won't hesitate to deport black and brown citizens.

Very much related to these efforts is the prevalence of natalism on the right - especially from folks like Elon Musk and J.D.Vance. The whitest age cohort in this country - baby boomers - is dying off and not being replaced by births. 

If these folks were really concerned about population decline, they'd be welcoming MORE immigrants. Instead, they want (white) women to have more babies. It's all an ugly mixture of misogyny and racism. 

Leonard Leo's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad month

These days, the news is almost too depressing to read. So I'll take good news any way I can get it. Along those lines is the fact that the month of May has been a pretty bad one for Leonard Leo - the man Justice Clarence Thomas once called “the Number Three most powerful person in the world.” Of course, Thomas was only joking...sort of.

In case you're not familiar with Leo, he's the Opus Dei Catholic who used dark money to stack the Supreme Court with extremists and then proceeded to pour millions into groups seeking to influence the Court. He has openly stated that his goal is to influence all aspects of American politics and culture by crushing liberal dominance. 

The bad new for Leo started early on in May when Cardinal Robert Prevost was chosen as the new pope, Leo XIV. While it remains unclear how he will interact with right wing Catholics in the United States, one of his first meetings was with the Opus Dei prelate, Monsignor Fernando Ocáriz. Apparently Pope Francis had begun the process of reforming the group, but it stalled after his death. It's clear that Pope Leo is prepared to pick up that ball, insisting on reforms. 

Given that Leonard Leo's focus has been to ensure a court that supports Catholic theocracy (integralism) and sides with big corporate interests, the fact that the new pope chose the name "Leo" is also relevant. The previous Pope Leo is remembered as one who was dedicated to social policies and social justice.

One of the barriers to Leo's goal of establishing a Catholic theocracy is the First Amendment's separation of church and state. In order to challenge the Supreme Court's interpretation of that amendment, Leo funded a court case promoting a publicly funded Christian school in Oklahoma.

At issue is the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma’s push to create the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which would be the nation’s first religious school entirely funded by taxpayers. The school received preliminary approval from the state’s charter school board in June. If it survives legal challenges, it would open the door for state legislatures across the country to direct taxpayer funding to the creation of Christian or other sectarian schools.

In other words, this case was a BFD!

The second blow to Leonard Leo came on May 22nd when this happened:

The Supreme Court on Thursday effectively ended a publicly funded Catholic charter school in Oklahoma, dividing 4-4.

The outcome keeps in place an Oklahoma court decision that invalidated a vote by a state charter school board to approve the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which would have been the nation’s first religious charter school.

Finally, you may have heard that this week President Trump directly attacked Leo. Here's what he wrote on Truth Social:

I was new to Washington, and it was suggested that I use The Federalist Society as a recommending source on Judges. I did so, openly and freely, but then realized that they were under the thumb of a real “sleazebag” named Leonard Leo, a bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America, and obviously has his own separate ambitions.

That attack came on the heels of the Trump administration losing 96% of rulings in federal district courts during the month of May. Seventy-two percent (72%) of those ruling came from Republican-appointed judges. So now Leo, according to Trump, is a "sleazebag" who hates America. 

Far be it from me to defend Leo against those attacks. It couldn't happen to a more deserving *sshole. 

But the whole situation is a cautionary tale to anyone who signs up to support Trump. The president has no policy or moral foundation. All he wants is 100% loyalty to his needs. If that isn't provided...you're simply a sleaze bag who hates America.

My message to Democrats: Don't you dare apologize for Biden!

Both mainstream and right wing media are once again obsessed with Joe Biden's age. Three events contributed to this renewed focus.

1. Publication of the book "Original Sin" by Alex Thompson and Jake Tapper,
2. The White House release of the audio tape of Joe Biden's interview with special counsel Robert Hur, and
3. The announcement that Biden has prostate cancer. 

The story being spun is that Biden was in mental decline during his presidency and that the truth about his condition was hidden from the public. Tom Bevan, publisher of the right wing site RealClearPolitics, said that "Gaslighting about Biden's mental conditions is one of the biggest scandals in American history." WOW, one of the biggest in American history?!

To believe that extreme hyperbole, you have to forget that President Biden took the historical step of stepping out of his race for reelection. You also have to completely ignore interviews like this one that Biden did with John Harwood nine days before the Hur interviews began - where he intelligently discusses some of the complex issues he was dealing with as president.

So where's this huge scandal? There isn't one. The truth is that Joe Biden's presidency was a tremendous success. There is a reason why that poses a big threat to Trump and Republicans. No one has consistently pointed that out better than historian Heather Cox Richardson. As an example, last August she wrote that "Under the direction of President Joe Biden, over the past three and a half years the Democrats have returned to the economic ideology of the New Deal coalition of the 1930s." What did that coalition accomplish?

Before 1935...the government served largely to manage the economic relationships between labor, capital, and resources. But [FDR's New Deal] recognized that the purpose of government was not to protect property; it was to protect the community...

This reworking of the American government to reflect community rather than economic relationships changed the entire fabric of the country, and opponents have worked to destroy it ever since FDR began to put it in place. 

The New Deal coalition survived those attacks until the 1980s. Here's what Biden faced when he took office: 

Biden set out to prove that democracy could work for ordinary people by ditching the neoliberalism that had been in place for forty years. That system, begun in the 1980s, called for the government to allow unfettered markets to organize the economy. Neoliberalism’s proponents promised it would create widespread prosperity, but instead, it transferred more than $50 trillion from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%...

When he took office, Biden vowed to prove that democracy worked. With laws like the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, the Democrats directed investment toward ordinary Americans. The dramatic success of their economic program proved that it worked. 

Republicans want Democrats on their heels apologizing for Joe Biden because, as the Trump administration focuses on undoing everything the former president accomplished, they want to ensure that no president in the future tries to replicate a return to the New Deal coalition of the 1930s.

I, for one, will not capitulate to that nonsense and I'll call out any Democrat who does. What President Biden accomplished during his four short years in office was a huge step forward for this country. I'm not only grateful to him personally, I proudly embrace his vision of making the government work for ordinary Americans.