SocraticGadfly

I too talked to Mitch the Kentucky Turtle for 20 minutes

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 18:38:00 +0000

I am so going to MAGAts hell …

Plenty of people are claiming to have talked to the Kentucky Turtle for 20 minutes, I guess in some Pythonesque attempt to prove he’s not quite dead yet:

I am really going to MAGAts hell now.

Let’s start with the unreported people speaking with the Kentucky Turtle, if not for 20 minutes.

First: Dr. Jeebus H. Trump, of course.

“He laid hands on the young boy on his head and said to him, “Talya koum!” (which means “Little boy, I say to you, get up!”). Immediately the boy looked as he was starting to raise up from the hospital bed and began to slide out of the hospital bed as if to walk around (he was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and told them to give him something to eat.”

Next, Elaine Chao:

“Xi says hello and he’s going to let us name a Chinese merchant vessel after you. Oh, I have to go back to China. We’re negotiating a new trade deal. Don’t you like that I got people to stop worrying about you by saying that I didn’t need to come back here originally?”

Rand Paul:

“I wanted to thank you for your inspirational leadership as the senior senator from Kentucky and how I can’t wait to take over.”

Thomas Massie:

“Mitch, if only I could have gotten you to be a real fake anti-MAGAt. I’ll run for your seat after you’re dead.”

Gov. Andy Beshear:

“As a cojones-free Democrat, I of course can’t say who I will choose to fill your seat if you should die and need a short-term successor, because I can’t do that, because I couldn’t stop your fellow Republicans from removing that power from me.”

Kim Davis:

“Is it true that you were secretly homosexual? Maybe God punished you in advance with polio. Oh, if I were in power, I wouldn’t sign your death certificate. Besides, you married a non-Merikkkan woman.”

John Marshall Roberts:

“Thanks for all your help with the Supreme Court. If you’ve committed any potential crimes, or want to commit any actual crimes before you die, we’ll fix it for you with a special ruling.”

Alison Lundergan Grimes (pronounced Alice in Wonderland Crimes):

“I am glad to have represented military ConservaDems losing races to Republicans by falling to you in 2014. I’m sad that I can’t lose again to a great patriot like you.”

Scott Jennings:

“It’s me sir, Scott Jennings, not the Jeopardy guy. But I’m sure you’ll inspire lots of Jeopardy rounds in the future.”

Bagger Vance:

“There’s nothing I can say beyond what our lord and savior Donald John the Evangelist Trump has already said.”

Buck Dharma:

“Don’t fear the reaper. Let Juliet Elaine fix you up with some Chinese fentanyl.”

The Socratic Gadfly:

“Back up, everybody.

“Sorry, Buck, the Mitch bot’s hardware is frozen again. He can’t break on through to the other side right now. He’s frozen so stiff he can’t become a frozen stiff.”

(Opens Chao’s purse, looks. Finds a vial. Opens it.)

“This shit, Buck? Xi ripped her off. Fentanyl with a 98 percent sugar cut. I’d get out of that shipping deal, too, if not too late, Elaine.

“As for you, Bagger? There’s nothing you can say, period.

“As for you, Kim Davis? Go thou and do likewise.

“Where did Grimes go? Oh, she disappeared? And Beshear with her? Shock me.

“John Marshall Roberts? If only I could get all of America’s non-duopoly voters to elect me, I’d play Andy Jackson to your Marshall.

“Rand Paul, return that squirrel hair to its rightful squirrel. Massie, ditto with the better-groomed squirrel hair.

(Yanks.)

“Shit, really, that’s real hair? Squirrel hair might be better.”

“Folks, I’m not a doctor, and I don’t play one on TV. I also don’t play either a doctor, a Jeebus pretendian, or a bald-faced, semi-bald-headed liar on social media.

(Glares at Jeebus H. Trump.)

“All of you are the problem, including Alison Wonderland and Andy Pasture from the left hand of the duopoly.

(Hears a moaning whisper. Bends his head near Mitch’s mouth.)

“No, I don’t know the frequency, and stop calling me Kenneth.”

(Hears another moaning whisper.)

“Yes, Trump’s still here. And Vance.”

(Another soft moaning whisper.)

“Actually, your sin is worse than the sin against the Holy Ghost.”

(A murmuring whimper whisper.)

“The United States of America is dying like you are. Your sin is to be part and parcel of making it a failing state.”

(Hears the remaining people in the room all getting louder and louder, topped by Trump’s brief, then breathless, bellows.)

“Who am I? Mark Twain talked about my uncle and I.”

Top blogging of June 2026

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 14:00:00 +0000

As normal, not necessarily posted in June, but per Blogger stats, the most commonly read in the month.

The normal drumroll counting backward:

At No. 10, I wrote contra Barbed Wire on Whataburger, or as I spell it, What? A Burger?, one of Texas' three biggest retail/food cults. That was from May, and carried over into June.

At No. 9, from March, about how global warming is apparently speeding up, a worrisome issue in the climate crisis, of course.

No. 8? From April, where I talk about the economic boondoggle and environmental destructiveness likely to result from Texas' 2025 constitutional Proposition 4.

No. 7, also from April, about the city of Denton, Texas' net-zero hypocrisies.

No. 6, I talked about James Hansen's zeal for nuclear power as a weapon in holding off the climate crisis, a zeal with which I don't totally agree. Also from April!

No. 5 may be bot-driven? Who knows any more. It's a 2017 post about the Texas Green Party's drive to gain party-line ballot access by running a candidate in the general election in a statewide race for which no Democrat filed.

No. 4? Finally, one from June. "John Cornyn: Walking self-dead."

No. 3? Appropriate for the Semiquincentennial, it's pretty much the last time I offered presidential ratings and ranks. From 2017.

No. 2? From June, about finding a real nutter on Substack. I've got a post just about a massive round of blocks slated for early July, but this guy was so nutter he got his own.

No. 1? From June, about Kenny Boy Paxton's impeachment attorney endorsing James Talarico and related matters.

Platner: Deflated, not just deflating like a cheap balloon, with my own callout of Klip

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 17:35:00 +0000

Riffing off my Substack version of this, earlier and shorter, Platner is now deflated, past tense. He has "suspended" his campaign. Two years ago, I had people attack me when I said Brainworm Bobby was quitting the presidential race after he "suspended" his campaign. We all know what it means, so STFU Brainworm MAGAt MA-HAt asshats. (I know other sites have reported he has "ended" his campaign or is "resigning" as the Democratic nominee, but this one is better.)

Most politically minded people have probably already heard the claims that Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner raped a woman he was dating. I saw that via Payday Report, on my blogroll. There, Mike Elk added that Hasan Piker found it believable.

Meanwhile, some people are claiming, like this Rhombus Ticks, that it's all a setup. Unfortunately, I was replying to his reply to someone else, so I can't counterblock him. Damn, Substack needs to fix that. Other readers of this? Please block him. (He claimed this was all a nothingburger compared to Epstein, was a conspiracy, and also that the self-implosion/takedown of Al Franken was also a conspiracy.)

This is no surprise.

The Platner engine was leaking oil at the start of the week. A Maine teevee station notes as part of its story that he had already postponed some campaign events. Also per that? Jenny Racicot did not come out of nowhere. She first spoke to the NYT five days before the Maine primary, without mentioning details.

This Substack, a piece at All Your Days, says he talked to staff Monday night and, by saying he's in control of who replaces him, indicates he's planning on resigning — for the right replacement.

So how did we get here? Oppo research done on the cheap, per All Your Days:

Here’s how the disaster unfolded. The Wall Street Journal reports that Dan Moraff, the progressive strategist who recruited Platner and ran his launch, asked a Democratic research firm for an expedited, cut-rate review of the candidate rather than the thorough background check that has become standard in major Senate races. That would have been a weeks-long process costing roughly $20,000. Instead, New York-based Northside Research delivered a brief risk-assessment memo in three days for $6,250, federal disclosures show, in place of the usual research book that should have run hundreds of pages.

Northside’s memo flagged some of Platner’s problematic Reddit posts, but it missed the full trove. It also missed the death’s-head tattoo—the one resembling the Nazi SS Totenkopf—that Platner wore for 18 years before learning, he says, what it evoked. It similarly missed the sexually explicit texts he sent to several women after his 2023 marriage—texts his own wife discovered and reported to his aides, who decided they were a private matter.

Ooops.

I suspect that Dan Moraff will be toxic from here on out, as will Northside Research. According to search-engine grabs of this paywall-protected WSJ piece, Moraff said he wanted to blow up how Democrats do campaigns. Well, he blew up two things — his reputation and probably Dems' chances of regaining the Senate.

That said, it's not just Moraff doing stupidities, per All Your Days:

In North Carolina, Schumer and the party’s Senate campaign arm reached into the primary and anointed Cal Cunningham, a clean-cut veteran who, the Associated Press noted, was a star recruit of the minority leader himself. Cunningham was straight out of central casting for the Schumer biopic, perhaps, but in October 2020, his sexts to a woman who was not his wife became public. Sound familiar? Nonetheless, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee shoveled millions more into the race. Cunningham lost a must-win state by two points after leading in the polls, as Sabato’s Crystal Ball recounts.

Shock me. There's more there.

As for Northside? If this is the correct website, the teh suck minimalist design itself speaks volumes. Per a description of the company, the website and head honcho Jonathan Davis on this piece, that has to be it. A 2023 issue of the Intelligencer has a bit more. Coming next? Finger-pointing, of course.

This guy, meanwhile, answers the Rhombus Ticks nutters, beyond what Elk said.

That said, many others. like Rhombus Ticks, are surely wondering "why now"? (Some, like him, aren't wondering, in reality, they're "just asking questions" about both "why now" and "who is she"?)

It appears the June story was a "marker," if you will. But, with Mills having suspended her campaign, who could pick up that marker? The one real progressive alternative, Amanda LaFlamme, had to run as a write-in after not getting enough signatures. See my coverage here.

That said, in writing earlier about the Totenkopf, I mentioned oppo research! And other "progressive" concerns that a leftist non-Democrat would have! Here:

Obviously, I can't read all his deleted Reddit posts. They were written years later. For someone who claims they were leftist by then, a certain amount of them cut against that grain. And, yes, PTSD is serious and real. But, per the Latin bon mot, "in vino veritas," PTSD doesn't necessarily cause an "alt-persona" to arise.

This also show that he's a political novice. Experienced candidates running for something as high as a US Senate seat do "oppo research" on themselves to find out in advance what opponents might dig up, and to be prepared in advance.

I didn't think to check his Wiki much in advance. I'm as troubled by the fact that his family was moneyed enough to send him to an elite prep school like Hotchkiss as anything else, even if he got financial aid. Did he get booted, though? That's not the only high school he attended. The other is also private, originally Catholic but now nonreligious.

Still rings true. (Speaking of, why was his eliteness not called out more? Or, in light of all of the above, did nobody look at why he dropped out of Hotchkiss?)

Addenda to this versus my Substack post Tuesday.

I'm sure after July 27, there will be more time to answer all of this. (That is the deadline for Maine Dems getting a replacement, assuming he resigns by July 13.)

Per a Drop Site reporter's Twitter, Platner volunteers want him to resign and have a candidate: Troy Jackson.

Contra Black Twitter like this guy retweeting this?

Yeah, you were stanning for a Black candidate like Kamala Harris the Zionist genocidalist, while I, actually skeptical, rejected Jill Stein as a hypocrite and voted for the Hispanic Communist Claudia de la Cruz.

Or per first guy retweeting this?

Sure, Blacks have a higher degree of skepticism. Where are the Black "Nones," let alone agnostics or atheists? And, Black buy-in to evangelical Christianity explains Black sex on the down low and greater AIDS rates.

If you're going to be tribalist, you're going to get it back.

Per other thoughts in general, note that I noted months ago, besides the other issues, "Hotchkiss," meaning I didn't totally buy the "working class" narrative. Note per my observance about Amanda LaFlamme and her getting generally shunned by Maine unions that I further didn't buy it.

Speaking of? I called out Klipp, who had a non-apology for previous support for Platner, which arguably, per a previous post he linked, included support for Platner deliberately not being given a full vetting by Moraff. In a highly competitive primary, you have the money to spend on an additional $20K or whatever for a more thorough vetting.

Here's what I said in restacking him.

Per my own piece, with link to an older Blogger piece, I DID WONDER, long before the Maine primary, if Platner’s team had done in-depth self-oppo research. We of course now know the answer was “no,” and that this was deliberate. Did you wonder about that in the past?

Per this comment near the end of your current piece:

Ruling out anyone with Reddit post-level flaws bars millions of otherwise decent people from politics. The only people left are the exact kind of squeaky-clean, McKinsey consultant politicians that was the entire point of my piece in the first place.

You’re presenting a twosiderish fake dilemma and at least backdoor endorsing a campaign whose recruiter deliberately did this.

You’re been around this biz yourself at the national level long enough, you know that’s why real self-oppo-research is done. Per my piece, Mainers had options to Platner and Mills, and unfortunately one of them in particular never got traction. Feel free to report about that, and other things, next time.

Ken also boo-hooed about Popehat Ken White's callout of him.

I wrote about that on Substack; see there rather than a repeat here.

I do want to add that it's far more than Popehat kicking Ken in the nads, and others are now kicking him for his smug take on Popehat. Here's a good one; it also calls out Ryan Grim. There are plenty of others.

I think Ken is trying to insist that he was just and only writing about upsetting the Democratic politics as usual applecart. But, the terms and field of debate aren't yours alone to define, Ken.

To put it another way? If you have shit in one hand and New Coke shit in the other, you still have shit in both hands.

And, Ken, until you admit that, you're still going to be holding shit, and stanning for shit, too often.

Why didn't you ask how somebody who went to an elite prep school like Hotchkiss got labeled as a workingman populist? For that matter, why didn't you ask if he dropped out, or if he got kicked out?

Mike Elk on Payday Report HAS, in fact, raised that issue, in his piece about Platner's possible and hoped-for replacement, Troy Jackson:

While many complained that Graham Platner, who hailed from a wealthy family, presented himself as a “working class” guy, the 58-year-old Jackson grew up in poverty in the north of the state and has a history of direct action as a unionized logger.

That said, Mike links to David Dayen at The American Prospect, who notes that the Maine Democrat Party could squeeze Platner supporters in what appears to not allow voters a chance at participating in choosing Platner's replacement. Give the whole thing a read.

Mike also, in another piece, has a callout of Moraff based on personal experience.

Jeet Heer, with this subhed:

Democratic leaders have rightfully lost credibility. But that’s no excuse for political adventurers to seize the moment and pump up false saviors.

followed by this:

This is even though, during his rapid ascent and equally quick plummet from political stardom, Platner waved more red flags than the track marshals in a hundred auto races. Among the major scandals he endured were: the Nazi tattoo on his chest; six years of employment as a private defense contractor (in other words, as a mercenary) for the firm then known as Blackwater; a history of lurid, misogynist, and generally inflammatory Reddit posts; a recent pattern of sexting other women while married; and allegations of abusive behavior towards women.

Yeah, Blackwater? Should have been immediately disqualifying besides his problems with women.

and Katha Pollitt are also weighing in on the bad vetting, as I await Klipp sticking his turtle head out of his shell.

And it keeps getting worse. Looks like somebody should have vetted Moraff better.

Mike Elk reports that Pittsburgh-area Congresscritter Summer Lee booted him from her 2022 campaign over allegations of sexual harassment against HIM. Maybe that's why he just gave Platner nickel-version vetting.

And more yet, with a sort-of callout of Bernie Sanders, too:

You GO, Mike.

While campaign videos distributed by the Sanders campaign described Platner as a working-class oyster farmer, this was far from the truth. Platner’s grandfather, Warren Platner, was a wealthy interior designer and architect who designed the iconic restaurant Windows of the World on top of the World Trade Center and the headquarters of the Ford Foundation.

His father was a wealthy attorney and his mother owned a high-end restaurant outside of Bar Harbor, Maine. His father gave him the money to buy a house and his mother bought his oysters for her high-end restaurant outside of the tourist haven of Acadia National Park. Platner lived on a $60,000-a-year military pension and by all accounts did not struggle to pay bills.

This is all related to the "Hotchkiss" stuff that caught my attention. Platner WAS and IS NOT a "working class everyday person."

Texas Progressives talk semiquincentennial and more

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Off the Kuff analyzes the NYT poll of the Texas Senate race.

SocraticGadfly offers critical reviews of a pair of books broadly related to the semiquincentennial — an interesting new take on the formation of the Constitution and a "resistance" book.

Eric Berger of Space City Weather (and Ars Technica) is still hopeful for America.

The Trib takes a deep look, including interviewing survivors, one year after the Kerrville-area floods. It's a long read.

The Lege still isn't talking about a bill to require training for county emergency management directors.

Trump lies, and a physical border wall is back on the plate for at least one stretch of the Big Bend area.

The Observer covers the Texas Democratic convention. This:

The lack of diversity at the top of the ticket, clashes over Israel, and debates over progressivism versus moderation represent a battle for the future of the party that was thinly veiled by constant calls to unity.

Is a biggie. As I told Kuff, and am writing here, one example? Has comptroller candidate Sarah Eckhardt made a specific anti-BDS pledge? The answer? She is sympathetic to pro-Palestinian protestors, but has not made a specific pledge like that. And won't.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project attended a new weekly pro-democracy protest in League City, Galveston County. It’s essential people see others willing to stand openly & confidently for democracy no matter the aggression of the right.

Steve Vladeck has a roundup of second-tier SCOTUS rulings.

Alison Cook encourages you to plant a fig tree.

Bayou City Sludge introduces you to some of the fat cat Republican donors in our fair city.

The Current showcases the party platform differences on data centers.

The Lone Star Project argues every Texas Republican that supports Ken Paxton is as unfit for office as Paxton is.

The Waco Bridge shows how to swim safely in nature.

Amanda Marcotte suggests Texas Republicans may come to regret mandating Bible studies in the classroom. And I may regret posting anything by Amanda Marcotte the Hillbot. It turns out to be mainly speculation which is more likely wrong than right.

Strangeabbott hires the Schatz to give Texas elections the Schitz

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 18:16:00 +0000

Strangeabbott hires nutter Nate Schatzline to somehow try to fuck around with elections and do T-Rump's bidding. That's what it means, Kuff. NOT hiring him to replace Jane Nelson as secretary of state is kind of a tell. Outside of fucking around with elections, as the story notes, he'll be Strange's point man on trying to get the Lege to OK closed primaries. Note that Schatz pushed a bill to that end in 2025 but it never got out of committee, meaning Strange is going to probably have to do a fair bit of strongarming.

Schitz — yeah, let's just go there — is also a 2020 election falser and more.

And, in re that Trib piece, as I said on Kuff's posting of it:

Once again, the Trib tries to erase third parties. I don’t know who the Libertarians might be running or not, but I know the Greens have a practicing Muslim, Shehla Fahzi for comptroller, who promises to trash all anti-BDS language in the Comptroller’s office, a pledge I am unaware of Dem Sarah Eckhardt making. (I’m going in part on an interview the Observer had shortly before primaries, when it never raised that issue with her.)

Shock me.

Eckhardt? She is sympathetic to pro-Palestinian protestors, but has not made a specific pledge like that.

TIme for another round of Substack blocks

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 14:00:00 +0000

This follows on my previous one, published in April.

We start with likely racialist if not actual racist, and Zionist fellow traveler, Stetson. He reads both racist Richard Hanania AND a second Substack where Hanania coauthors, and Zionist genocidalist Bari Weiss, along with Jesse Singal of the Harper's letter bullshit. Oh, and Sully, Andrew Sullivan the rac(ial)ist. He also follows at least one COVID contrarian, plus Freddie De Boer and others. Oh, and yes, Hanania is still a rac(ial)ist. Jamelle Bouie has the goods.

Racist, genocidalist, homophobe and more (language like "sandfaggots") Chet S.

No More Lies? Rothschild comments, especially with claims the US went bankrupt in 1871 and was refounded as a corporation with Rothschild help? We've gone from anti-Zionism to antisemitism, and into conspiracy theory. Also a COVID denialist. And a climate change denialist. Also, his URL is "No More Lies 1"; gack, is there another? Also also, he has a Jeebus picture as his icon.

Silvia Rousseva? Saw No More Lies as a climate change denial restack by Silvia. Even more of a COVID denialist; follows naturalist fallacian Mike Adams, among others. Calls Charles III "lizard king" and quite possible means it in the Icke sense. Also a Bulgarian nationalist, I guess, who says that Bulgaria joined NATO "under Foreign Minister Solomon Passy (no, this is not a Bulgarian name, in case you’re wondering)." I guess a Rumanian name like Silvia Rousseva, if real, also isn't a Bulgarian name. (It is interesting that Adams seems to loathe MAGAts. Does he loathe MAHAts too?) For right now, he's just muted.

Among those he follows? Don Jeffries. He's a Trump assassination conspiracy theorist, a "ZOG" person, and via his self-published level books on Goodreads, a JFK assassination conspiracy theorist and a COVID conspiracy theorist. (He's blocked there, too.) He's also a flat racist, per this piece. AND also, GACK, a "crisis actor" conspiracy theorist, per this piece.

Another followed? Vigilant Fox. COVID conspiracy theorist, presumably an antivaxxer if they're "MAHA" as well as MAGA. Claims to have been a "healthcare worker" during COVID, which as we anti-COVID conspiracy theorists know, can mean about anything. Even if you're "licensed."

"Dr." Wojak. Quotes are deliberate scare quotes. COVID denialist and even a "hoaxer." Ebola denialist. Tick conspiracy theory promoter. (Don't even bother asking if you haven't heard.) Measles epidemic denialist.

These above all came directly (Rousseva) or indirectly via this piece at The Dissident. Dood remains good on rounding up stuff tangentially or directly related to Israel, and personally has not crossed THAT line, but he sure attracts a lot of people who do.

The Truth About Cancer? Rod Dreher-level religious nuttery, combined with pseudomedicine, including touting ivermectin (natch) for cancer. And contrails! And false claims about glyphotate. (Via Mike Adams of course.)

Scott Carney for promoting things like Trump assassination conspiracy theories. And, although she didn't write this one, Nina Burleigh is part of the listed team at that Substack. Also, no dood, Trump is not in any literal sense the (nonexistent) antichrist. Nor did he steal the 2024 election through a device of inventing fake counties. Yes, Carney, you admitted you got p'wned. You didn't admit you're a sucker enough to get p'wned.

Another Dissident post, about Zelensky's state funeral for Nazi and former OUN leader Andriy Melnyk, has led to more blocks.

Via Zionist "Pickles" in his feed I hit Zionist "JTexaynes," full of Zionist drivel. Pickles comes off as a less-than-fully-odious conservative Zionist.

Binky LaRue: Antisemitic, not anti-Zionist, if he's talking about how ALL the Jews in Israel aren't semites (on a modified version of the Khazar hypothesis, still, most Ashkenazi have some semitic ancestry, and certainly Mizrahi, Sephardi, etc., and also talking about what Henry Ford said about the "Protocols." Later claims the Protocols are true. Also a conspiracy theorist, claiming Patton was killed by "them" (natch) because he claimed we were fighting the wrong war. Has other "them" notes.

Off him, Tariq Acknickulous, who's antisemitic, anti-anti-Zionist with strawmanning to boot, clueless about why many people join the US military and sounds like "privilege" himself, and more.

Also off Binky? SRK.

Off SRK? The Dutchess, with a "truth about Hitler" post. And "Freedom Fighter." Avowed National Socialist. Fraktur / Gothic font. "1488" part of name. Actually reported that one, too. Hertz with funky letters. Another Nazi.

Off the second of two Dissident posts about Larry Johnson claiming Iran already has one or more nukes, pseudo-leftist Tedder 130. Muted first. Now blocked. Between bitching that he hasn't informed himself better in comment to a comment by me (why bitch? get started!) to reading non-leftists like Taibbi, Tracey, and the antisemitic-flirting John Helmer, that's not anti-imperialist in a principled sense, it's a grab bag of shit.

Pickles? Small-grade generic Zionist liar. But, more and more time on social media makes me quicker to pull the block trigger.

Someone followed by a commenter there, Dude? White Rabbit. Also Nazi with the Gothic font. Runs not just one but two shithole Nazi sites. And, Zyklon Bee (duh) whose home page of activity says "Jews, Jews, Jews." Off that person, blocked NatSocToday and Aryan Revolutionary (who looks awfully dark to be one), Right Winger Austin (also has "1492" in name) for general racism and virulent sexism, off him, the regularly restacked Ben L (with the @ of "peniszone"), off Ben L the guy named Randall Flagg (@ of "reinesblut") off HIM the Pragmatic Prognosticator (who is anything but). Blocked again directly off Dood? Debarelli, antisemitic, chemtrails. Off her, SiriusRex (antisemitic, Masonic coonspiracy theories and what I'll call volkish ideas about biology) and Die Welt gehört uns (complete with Nazi logo and slogan), Phantom Pain (one of several people with the fake quote from JFK 1939 about Jews in Israel blowing up their own telephone lines as a false flag, and talking about "Rothschilds").

Off Dude, in a different direction? Meryl Nass is a COVID conspiracy theorist, climate change conspiracy theorist and more, connected with Dr. Malone, too, on her website, even nuttier than her Substack. She got her medical license suspended in Maine and has since then engaged in false representation. Of course, I blocked Dude himself.

Rolf Kvalik? JFK assassination conspiracy theorist, of the new Israel did it breed. An 8-part series, 6 of them paywalled, claiming the "new" 2025 document dump was a smoking gun. He goes further and laughably claims someone "most Americans have never heard of," Meyer Lansky, was the fixer in all th is, which of course brings in the Mob.

Never Trust a Wizard. 9/11 truther and COVID denialist. I had subscribed to him without realizing all that.

David Carroll? Zionist trying to reverse troll.

On something else? I'll block Kevin Levin as soon as I can block him after his immediate block or autoblock of me for having the temerity to mention Lincoln and colonization on his Civil War History site. (The subject is never discussed by him.)

San Marcos says "no" to data centers; what's next?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 18:27:00 +0000

San Marcos is Texas' first incorporated city to essentially ban data centers. Sen. Paul Bettencourt, invoking the Lege's 2023 "death star" law, says this is an illegal moratorium. Others note that reconfiguring zoning laws is not a moratorium. Expect Lege wingnuts to push a new law next year, followed by ignoring the state and US constitution's prohibition on ex post facto laws, and then to go after San Marcos. This will be justified under the idea of the new law simply "clarifying" the 2023 death star bill. The story notes that some smaller cities have already followed a "lite" version of San Marcos' idea.

Then, there are cities that don't have zoning, like Alvin, mentioned in the story, and of course, Helltown. Like unincorporated areas in places like Hood County that considered incorporation to hold off either data centers or crypto-mining sites, maybe this will spark a change of mind.

Or maybe not. That Hood County incorporation election fairly soundly lost last fall. Those who voted it down will continue to bitch, continue to not look in the mirror, and continue to vote for Rethuglicans for the Lege, gov and lite gov. Once again, contra Kuff, this won't be a Democrat wedge issue, in part,

Because ...

Strangeabbott has called for a ban on data centers in rural areas. Treat this as a worried midterms election stunt/pledge until proven otherwise.

Pro Publica offers up a trio of climate change stories that speak truth

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 14:00:00 +0000

First, carbon capture doesn't work, which I have long known, but needs to be told again and again and again, versus the lies of Big Oil and the companion lies of Big Neoliberal Government.

Pro Publica has a great piece. It notes that projections for how much carbon capture and storage can do have increased even as the world fiddles while the planet burns more and more, and we get more and more behind the curve of serious action.

THIS:

Right now, globally, we’re permanently burying less CO2 than a single large power plant can emit in a year.

Is the bottom line.

That's followed by the lies of Big Oil and Big Neoliberal International Government being exposed:

Some experts point to the CO2 that gets pumped into the ground to help extract oil as proof CCS works. But that process, called enhanced oil recovery, isn’t designed to function the same way and isn’t monitored as stringently.

Global leaders are betting on carbon capture working now more than ever.

The models used in the latest United Nations assessment presume the technology succeeds.

IEA representatives and U.N. modelers say their projections reflect what the world has to do to achieve its goals of averting extreme warming.

There you are.

The story then crunches the math.

On carbon-capturing plants? We'd have to plant THREE Texases or a bit more; or one Mexico, which is that same size. You see that happening?

Plus, we'd need to be building countless injection sites — after doing proper geological study to determine each one works — AND monitoring all of them. You see that happening?

And the price tag:

[B]y 2050, the world could be spending half a trillion dollars — more than China’s military budget, and 10 times more than the U.N.’s humanitarian and development aid budget — each year.

To coin a phrase: You see that happening?

Related? Pro Publica does a deeper dive of how Big Oil, and specifically BP (stands for "Bullshitting about Petroleum") specifically bought off Princeton scientists in its "Wedges" study 22 years ago, and bought them off on ... carbon capture.

Yes, bought them off:

While its chief executive, John Browne, was rebranding his company as Beyond Petroleum, BP sought out researchers who were already thinking about how to address climate change without replacing fossil fuels. The company found them at Princeton University, where it set about amplifying their work by donating $15 million to start the Carbon Mitigation Initiative. The research program was framed around finding solutions to climate change while keeping fossil fuels in play, focusing heavily on carbon capture.

What else is there to say?

Maybe this:

BP executives were deeply involved throughout the paper’s creation, according to an investigation by ProPublica and Drilled. [Robert] Socolow and [Stephen] Pacala, the authors of “Wedges” and the new center’s co-directors, not only discussed ideas with the company but, in a departure from academic norms, passed drafts back and forth and welcomed extensive feedback.

Like a book publisher shaping a clunky early draft into a bestseller, an executive at the company suggested the scientists punch up the language, which they did. Browne himself suggested wording that became a part of the title. Together they helped make wonky scientific ideas more digestible for popular consumption. BP even tried — unsuccessfully — to revise a version of it.

“Chaps, I have had a go at rewriting the paper,” Browne’s climate adviser wrote the researchers at one point.

THERE's the smoking gun.

The two scientists of course deny anything nefarious:

Socolow and Pacala say they were sincere in their intent to solve climate change in the best way they believed possible, at a time when it was not obvious that wind and solar would succeed the way they have today. The researchers say BP had no control over the scientific content of the paper. They rejected the view that technologies didn’t exist to start solving climate change immediately and hoped carbon capture offered, as Pacala said, a way to make fossil fuels “climate safe.”

OK, well, do I totally believe that?

Not really.

Per his Wiki, post-retirement, Socolow has been a big pusher of the "personal carbon footprint." You know who else pushes that? Big Oil. "Guiltwashing" is a form of "greenwashing."

You know what else Socolow does, per a link on his Wiki? He continues to push carbon capture, and that's as of a 2024 Washington Post op-ed. In other words? He's a liar.

That said, BP wasn't alone, of course. It was simply the most aggressive oil major, in part as the biggest non-American, non-national, oil company.

That said, not only was BP not alone, Princeton was also not alone.

In the trifecta? As described by Pro Publica in detail in another story, just like Big Tobacco, is Big Oil buying off scientists to do its bidding.

This:

Corporate funders sponsored entire centers, paid the salaries of researchers, kept offices on campus and in some cases had veto power over projects.

Companies maintain they are supporting innovation and needed science. Universities say that with safeguards, sponsorship enhances research programs while preserving academic independence.

Still, the impact of funding constitutes a pattern that Benjamin Franta, an associate professor of climate litigation at University of Oxford, called the “colonization of academia.”

Is just right.

Once again, fuck off Blue Anon Mother Jones

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Mojo blames Trump for Social Security's looming issues.

Reality?

As I told Kuff, where I saw the link on a recent "weekend link dump":

Uhh, Social Security's problems are driven by both hands of the duopoly. No president this century of either party has made a proposal to increase the FICA income tax cap. No Congress led by either party has done that, either.

But Biden's expanding Social Security to federal employees without adding money? That bill came from Congress, and had been kicked around by both parties since 2013

You could extend that to a lot of other things.

Let's take COLAs. Why doesn't the FICA tax cap have a COLA, like income tax brackets, or like Social Security payments?

For that matter, why didn't Pelosi COLA what turned out to be the last minimum wage increase bill, in 2007, which I called for at this site at that time?

Hell, per Mojo, why do we have a separate FICA tax?

Cuz FDR said Social Security "mustn't have a dole." And so:

Almost alone among advanced industrial societies, the United States thus defined old-age pension support not as a civil right but as a property right, and built the Social Security system on a private-insurance model.

Just like health care.

Why did it not go to farmers and domestic workers originally? In part to cut out the self-employed, but even more, to cut out Black folks; without that, I think FDR was afraid he didn't have the votes. But it got all but 33 votes in the House and all but 6 in the Senate. As with Jews, maybe he just was that much more conservative than Eleanor. (Per Wiki's page, 65 percent of Black Americans were excluded.)

But Mojo's duopoly-tribalist at end and that's that.

Tad Stoermer's McResistance™: A steaming pile of shit

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 14:48:00 +0000

A Resistance History of the United States by Tad Stoermer
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

GACK.

And, per the header, I can't think of a better piece to post on the Semiquincentennial. I said "McResistance™" in the header; it's like The Resistance™carried over from Trump 1.0 to Trump 2.0.

Full of seemingly mendacious framing, what I'll call lies by omission and more. And, probably all in the nature of grifting at the left edge of BlueAnon.

A few preliminary notes.

First, I follow Stoermer on Substack. (That will be changing, though.) I had not seen anything wrong with what he says, while noting that everything is paywalled and usually the paywall is pretty quick, as in, within 100 words or so. Boy, is the reality different.

Second, I am not sure that I noticed there that he is a former staffer to a US Member of Congress, maybe because I didn't click the "about" and was otherwise fooled. Since we have no third-party members (sit down Bernie Sanders) that means he’s a Democrat, and hence, as a talker about “resistance,” almost surely a member of The Resistance™. His personal website has more. Very “conventional,” even insider-ish on background. Owns two houses per that, and per IMDB, also does time in the Bahamas. Teh Google does not tell me what Congresscritter he worked for; I am curious and “goes to motive, your honor.” Scratch that; he has an older Wordpress, with an about page and it was for Mary Landrieu. Maybe that's just because he was in Louisiana, in law school at Tulane. But, she was a clear ConservaDem, on about anything other than civil rights.

(Side note: I find it interesting he went by "Taylor Stoermer" earlier. And his IMDB has the Danish "Størmer." Interestingly, that's not his

The first section? Rejecting Edmund Morgan’s late 20th century interpretation of Bacon’s Rebellion when many historians both Black and White used that as their framework for criticizing the 1619 Project (my links?) is a bold move — and contrarian. I've discussed, and critiqued, critics of the project and the project itself here.

The second? Yes, even if Giles Corey didn’t say “more weight,” it was resistance to authority. Stoermer doesn’t even explain why he remained silent, for one thing. He also doesn’t note that 1692 Salem still had a “state church” and that none of the people there had fled for the religious freedom confines of Rhode Island. Salem 1692 has little relevance for today, other than to remind people what the First Amendment is all about, or to remind them what hysteria and sociogenic disorder or functional neurological disorder (the old conversion disorder) are about.

Speaking of? He doesn’t seem to mention the First Amendment here. I don’t know that for sure because there’s no index, always a ding.

Related on the issue of relevance? Per a 3-star reviewer, I bet a lot, a lot of people were expecting events more modern than this. While I doubt a 1-star reviewer’s claim that this is AI, a prescheduled book tour and other events does make it look like Tad Stoermer, like many others, is trying to make a buck off the semiquincentennial.

But, by 100 pages in, I’m figuring this is probably 2-star, and I’m not willing to totally reject the AI idea, and I know that I am not likely to read every word and that I am likely to unfollow him on Substack.

But wait, it gets worse!

Lightly grokked chapter 3. I already know what Somerset is, and contra some of the 1619 Project’s critics, said it DID play a part in the Revolution. Stoermer also ignores that it was a wartime policy, as Britain maintained slavery in the Caribbean until the 1830s, and that Black Americans who fled to Nova Scotia faced degrees of racism there. He also has a subsection, “Why we weren’t told this story,” which implies that “they” hid the story.

Chapter 4? Madison, the man who opposed chaplains in Congress, did not write the Bill of Rights for largely, let alone purely, cynical reasons. In an era where all New England states had state churches, the First Amendment alone was far from cynical. Stoermer also knows, but won’t tell you, that in 1787, the “Virginia Plan” DID want to federalize the constitution. And, Virginia's state-level Bill of Rights had both a religious freedom section and a freedom of conscience section.

In the same chapter, we get a WHAT THE FUCK moment. “Zuinglius”? The man commonly known as the Reformed movement reformer “Zwingli”? Nobody spells it in fully Latinized version. It comes off as snooty, when you recognize he's talking about Zwingli, or so it does to me, as if he's trying to shove erudition down your throat. And Stoermer doesn’t tell you that, mixing church and state, to use modern American terms, he was killed in battle. (And, he was more than "just a chaplain"; don't believe any claims to that end.) So, in this chapter, we have multiple lies by omission, and I am thinking he’ll be lucky to be above 1 star.

He also doesn’t tell you that, in 1776, Washington reversed his stance on banning new Black soldiers. Indeed, Blacks were fighting in the Virginia Battalion under Lafayette in 1781.

Patrick Henry as a McResistance model? The man who, unlike Washington, freed ZERO of his slaves at his death? Uh, sure.

If you want an anti-Federalist who took a pass on national office under the Constitution? Why not Sam Adams, who owned zero slaves in the first place?

That said, I’m puzzled otherwise. With this degree of talk about resisting the Constitution, for its flaws, with THIS DEGREE of talk, is Stoermer saying that he thinks the Articles of Confederation were better? Or, is this a chapter for McResistance as cosplay? Neither idea is good, nor palatable.

Chapter 5 on Oney Judge? Washington’s scheme was indeed illegal. I had always before thought the six months were consecutive, but that’s not true. That said, the original 1780 law, and the new in 1788, did not apply to members of Congress. Washington avoided seeking a ruling as to whether executive officials were covered or not.

Chapter 6 on Thoreau? Learned nothing new other than his grandfather resisted patriots in the Boston area and spent a night or two in jail as well.

Chapter 7 on the Underground Railroad and Fugitive Slave Act trials? From a book I recently read, “Freedom Ship,” I know now that, to coin a phrase, more enslaved Blacks freed themselves via The Underwater Submarine than via The Underground Railroad. I had not heard of Chloe Cooley before, or Upper Canada’s 1793 Act Against Slavery. That said. Stoermer oversells it. It’s no different than New York State’s law for gradual emancipation. It did not abolish slavery for any currently enslaved people, it allowed them to be sold within Upper Canada, and back into the US. And, it did nothing to save Cooley. She was taken across the Niagara River and Wiki’s page on her says her fate after that is unknown. (Her page ends by saying New York State’s emancipation act was very similar to that of Upper Canada.) See? Mendaciousness and lies by omission.

And, on history books, feeling the need to repeatedly look shit up, stuff that I'm not sure is less than fully true but about which I have suspicions, is guaranteed to piss me off. I skipped the rest of the chapter because I’ve read books about the Underground Railroad as well as “Freedom Ship,” two bios of Charles Sumner and more.

Chapter 8: I’ve read a bio of John Brown, a dual bio of Brown and Lincoln and other material about Brown’s funders. Largely skimmed.

Chapter 9: Reconstruction. Nothing new.

I then have the insight, after seeing no index at the end, but a “Resistance toolkit,” that he’s like the Indivisible dudebros of the first Bernie Sanders campaign. My thoughts about them and their grifting here.

And yes, grifting is the word, and it’s the word I’m ready to use about Stoermer by the 100-page mark.

I mean, think about it. Book officially comes out in June, tour already lined up. (I’m shocked his website doesn’t have a “merch” page.)

A quote from my Indivisible takedown is relevant:

What's also "funny" is that the sheepdoggers, per Ted Rall, seem to talk more about resisting than about proposing specific ideas. Maybe because they know that today's national Democratic Party, with its neoliberal foundations, is largely bankrupt. And we haven't mentioned foreign policy.

But wait, beyond my Goodreads review, I'm not done kicking Stoermer in the nads.

Per the last sentence of the pull quote?

What’s his stance on Gazans resisting Israel? Russia resisting US-NATO imperialism (while expanding its own)?

Back domestically, what does this former Army officer and son of a Navy officer think of “large standing armies” and whether ours today is too big, not too small?

Otherwise, typical of McResistance, he’s on Instagram, but not Book of Face, even though Hucksterman owns both. He’s of course on Blue Sky and of course not on Shitter.

Scratch that! Actually, he WAS on there. Academia.edu and one other site both sent me that link, with one calling him “History Doctor” before the link. Further per the three-star reviewer calling him an armchair revolutionary, his LinkedIn lists him as living in Denmark. Guess that armchair came from across the Kattegat direct from Ikea in Sweden? And yes, we’re very much in the land of snarkin’ not cotton. And, per the “shape-shifting” feeling I’m getting — “Taylor” to “Tad,” “Stoermer” vs “Størmer,” etc.? That LinkedIn also says he got his Tulane law degree back in the middle 1990s. Say, age 25 in 1996, and thus, 55 now? Interesting that he’s never landed a tenure-track academic position. Maybe he just didn’t want one. But, even if tenure in a place like Tex-ass has less security than it did in the past, nonetheless, in general, tenure offers a degree of financial security.

Beyond that, actually looking through his Substack? A post that, before the paywall, excoriates any “Hang more [sic, we hung about none] Confederates” ideas? Lost me right there. I’ve long said the biggest thing wrong with Reconstruction’s military force was that we needed 100,000 troops for a generation instead of 20,000 for a decade on occupation duty. Contra Spielberg’s myth-making, Abe Lincoln’s rosewater wouldn’t have been that much better than Andy Johnson’s rosewater + open racism.

Beyond that, actually looking through his Substack? A post that, before the paywall, excoriates any “Hang more [sic, we hung about none] Confederates” ideas? Lost me right there. I’ve said the biggest thing wrong with Reconstruction’s military force was that we needed 100,000 troops for a generation instead of 20,000 for a decade on occupation duty.

As for who he reads? Largely left hand of the duopoly types. The Minnesota nicely odious Garrison Keillor is one.

Per a three-star reviewer on Goodreads, he's an armchair revolutionary, if any. Besides that, even within nonviolence, does he do anything? I mean, like BDS? I check the label all the time on olive oil to make sure none of it's Israeli. I don't buy any Unilever products because of their "tireless" effort to silence the actual Ben and Jerry. I don't buy Coke products.

Ditto on oil. We have to have gasoline from somewhere, if we don't own electric vehicles, but I still can, and do, boycott eXXXon by brand.

View all my reviews

"The Making and Breaking of the American Constitution"

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 14:00:00 +0000

The Making and Breaking of the American Constitution: A Thousand-Year History by Mark Peterson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.5 stars rounded down. The first 2/3 were absolutely 5 star, the big framing issue followed by the actual US Constitution up to 1890. The latter 1/3, though, would probably do only 3.5 stars at best.

This is a long review, even more so with expansion off the Goodreads version.

This is a magisterial and thought-provoking book that argues the US Constitution was at its core, a land-acquisition, land-development, and land-management tool, along the lines of one of the three written documents that form the core of the British constitution. That said, I don’t totally agree with all of his thought, especially near the end of the book, and am expounding on that part further here.

First, that word. “Constitution.” Peterson notes that the US "Founding Fathers" used it for a system as much or more than a single written document, not only under the Articles of Confederation but in the first years after 1789.

Otherwise, Peterson is serious in this framing, complete to using land and realty terms like "allodial" and "cadastral."

First, those three documents? Many fairly serious history buffs recognize two of them — the 1689 Bill of Rights and Magna Carta.

The third? William the Conquerer's 1086 Domesday Book.

No, the US Constitution is not an appraisal district book. But? Peterson notes it establishes a decadal census, that the "enumeration of the populace" already in the 1790 Census included more questions than "how many people live here," and that those questions expanded over time, and that part of the purpose of this was for federal government direct taxation. (Until the 16th Amendment, the US government could only tax directly in proportion to a state's population, thought this was ignored in the Civil War, with taxes levied directly on income regardless of state of residence AND having a multi-tier progressive style of taxation. Weirdly, just about zero Civil War histories discuss how it was unconstitutional.)

In addition, Peterson doesn't directly mention it, but Article III, about the US Supreme Court and inferior courts, talks about its powers in all cases of "law and equity." That's not equity in the 21st century version. That's land.

Peterson explains how, while Britain has an “unwritten” constitution, it has written elements — the 1087 Domesday Book, Magna Carta, original form in 1215 but reissued in rewritten forms at various times (tho not explicitly mentioned by him) and the 1689 Bill of Rights.

And, the US, though backboned by a “written” constitution, has unwritten elements — legal jurisprudence, what might be called constitutional common law and more. That’s contra “originalists” or “strict constructionalists.” He references these and other theories, all of which he considers as overlapping highly, near the end. Just as different interpretations of the British constitution wound up unconstrainable by the 1770s without some sort of major action, he notes already by 1990 and 200 years of the US written version, we were facing the same thing.

“No written document can ever completely define, let alone create, a governmental system and the fundamental principals that shape its nature.”

From there, starting with a parallel track, he talks about the Confederation creating the Northwest Ordinance, because Virginia and other states had competing land claims north of the Ohio that they surrendered, but no Southwest Ordinance, because the land claims to the Mississippi south of the Ohio were non-competing and thus not surrendered. From there, he notes that Georgia ratified the Constitution so quickly because it had zero money or troops to fight Indians, and how the Constitution reserved Indian land issues to the federal government.

From there? He excoriates Chief Justice John Marshall for validating the Yazoo land deals, for fetishizing "sanctity of contracts" even in the face of clear fraud, and for also using these cases to put Indian land claims on a lesser tier. (Peterson doesn't explicitly ponder if Marshall would have fetishized "sanctity of contracts" had the issue been something other than lang.)

Re the 1770s, he notes that the British constitutional system had evolved for a land-poor, and (relatively) people-heavy situation, while the US colonies faced exactly the opposite, as part of the situation, even problem.

Peterson notes the rhetoric of “permanence” in all written documents. Notes Madison, Federalist 48 and “parchment barriers.”

He notes “revolution,” pre-1776, per etymology, originally meant “restoration — a turn of the wheel back to an earlier condition.”

“Neither the state constitutions begun in 1776 nor the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 was a stroke of originary genius.

That pull quote, plus the non-pull quote above it, will get further thought below.

==

Chapter 1

Part of the Stamp Act’s problem was that it demanded payment in sterling, which Parliament expressly forbade colonies to coin, under the 1764 Currency Act, killing off Connecticut’s nutmeg shilling, etc. Ben Franklin added that, since it was to pay for troops, even if not all the coin went to Britain, much would go to Quebec and the Floridas, the new colonies. Before that, Peterson notes that as “new colonies,” the trio were not considered to be ready for representative government at that time.

He says the Articles of Confederation were “a treaty organization for mutual defense.” And not much else, and without the ability to tax to pay for much of a national army, they weren't even much of that. (That's something to keep in mind in light of Tad Stoermer's "McResistance" book, which is being reviewed tomorrow.)

==

Chapter 7: The President who failed to bark

I had never before read in detail Jefferson’s constitutional concerns not only about the Louisiana Purchase itself, but, looking forward, over the admission of states from that land, given that he believed the constitution and definitely its state-making process applied only to land east of the Mississippi, the US created by the Treaty of Paris, this was generally eye-opening.

He thought a constitutional amendment was needed, as part of his strict constructionalism, but Republican allies said no, and he agrees not to raise this in public. That's the "failed to bark."

Opponents of Louisiana’s admission, like Sens. Josiah Quincey of Massachusetts and Rep. Samuel Dana of Connecticut raised just that issue on the Congressional Dana even introducing such a proposed amendment requiring each of the original states to consent. Jefferson was the dog that did not bark in 1812. And Peterson fairly excoriates him.

As part of this, he also notes the Article IV provisions for how states were to be created. This is one area where I really had trouble with his line of thought, especially when I looked up the full Article IV, and went specifically to Section 3, about the admission of new states beyond the original 13:

New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

Well, there are several issues, whether it's more with the thinking of Thomas Jefferson and the strictest of strict constructionalists, Peterson's analysis, or both.

I see nothing in that language that precludes creating states from lands outside the Treaty of Paris borders of the US. Yes, there could be an implicit understanding that "this union" meant the 1783 borders, but, to hoist strict constructionalists by their own petard, does it say that? No.

For one thing, the treaty-makers in Paris gave half a shot at trying to get East and West Florida from Britain. Although they failed, they weren't giving up. Also, although the War of 1812 invasion of Canada was more about general antagonism to Britain compounded with pursuing northern Indians across the border, nonetheless, the Revolutionary War dream of incorporating parts of Canada surely hadn't died. So, the Founders and those immediately in the next generation were surely mentally prepared for new states outside of the original Constitutional boundaries. As for Jefferson's cited worries about the foreign-ness of New Orleans, that hadn't prevented Congress itself from trying to detach French-background Quebec from British control, nor from angling to try to get Spanish-background, but British-controlled since 1763, Floridas.

Peterson doesn't do the best job on this, nor does he cite how many people disagreed with Jefferson, nor note that Federalist opposition in Congress was mainly politicized opposition trying to hoist Jefferson by his own petard.

Let's also not forget that Jefferson had been planning the Lewis and Clark expedition even before proposing the buying of New Orleans, let alone the acquisition of the whole Louisiana territory.

Essentially, Jefferson strikes me as a pseudo-Hamlet, a fake ditherer, and for whatever reason, Peterson — wrongly in my book — takes him too seriously.

Heading back to Peterson, if the U.S. Constitution really were a land-acquisition, land-organizing, and state-organizing machine, and were largely intended as such by the Founders, they would have been thinking of land acquisition beyond Treaty of Paris boundaries, and of treating such land, for purposes of potential statehood, just like land inside Treaty of Paris boundaries but outside the 13 original colonies/states, after the Northwest Ordinance in the northwest, and after eventual individual state land surrenders in the "Old Southwest."

So, either his tacit support of Jefferson's interpretation is wrong, or his grand theory's legs aren't quite as strong as he thinks.

Chapter 8 The Machine Runs Amok: Expansion, Slavery and the Civil War

Peterson talks about the Domesday Machine continuing to the Civil War. The admission of Missouri, Jefferson’s “fire bell,” is next. The Boon’s Lick (as he has it spelled) area was one-third its population then. Next, Texas, and Americans moving there to force eventual union with the US.

Chapter 9 The Machinery Stalls Out: The Challenge of the Arid West

OK, during the Civil War, as many buffs know, Nevada clearly came in unconstitutionally, but Peterson really picks it up in this chapter. As part of this, he discusses John Wesley Powell and his western drainage basins, and Henry George and his single land tax. After that, it was politics. Republicans split one Dakota Territory into two states and rebuff a Democratic compromise to admit New Mexico. (It already then had more population; remember, Mexican citizens were granted US citizenship by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.) Although the constitutional population is 60,000, the informal rule was that a would-be state should have at least as many people as the smallest current state. Wyoming fell far short in 1890, and until the admission of Alaska, remained short. Eventually, Alaska passed it, and it went back to the smallest US state.

OK, that's the end of Part 1. He's mentioned what the Constitution was FOR, in his opinion. What happens when its original purpose is largely gone? What replaces that? That's theoretically what Part 2 is about.

Chapter 10 is about three distinct sub-nations — North, South and West. Really, the Old Northwest felt this way pre-Civil War, but Peterson picks this up as the first chapter of his Part 3, with the start of the second century of the US Constitution, the immigration to the Old Northwest and its industrialization in Chicago, Milwaukee, etc. But Peterson misses Turner’s “close of the frontier” thesis, which would have tied in here. (See how this book is thought-provoking, but yet has a miss here and there? It will have more misses in the future.) I mean, the original "for" is done because .... the frontier is gone! And, missing this put my skeptical antennae up.

I took side notes here about various US Censuses both before and after 1890, re my note above.

1790 asked over/under 16 years of age by number, male/female by number (for military reasons) and any slaves.

By 1820, the age breakdown was under 10, 10-16, 16-26, 26-45 and over 45, male and female, less granular age breaks for both slaves and free blacks, and also foreigners not naturalized.

By 1840, it was 5 year increments up to age 20, then 10 year up to 100. Then, you were asked your employment, not by individual company, but by seven broad classes of commerce, like agriculture, mining, trade, shipping, etc. Educational levels were first asked about on this census. Today's census wingnuts would have been erupting already then.

By 1860, the censed were being asked yet more detailed economic conditions. Remembering that farming was still the big occupation, you were asked what types of crops you were growing, and their estimated yield. Just like a county appraisal office today. By 1840, and expanding by this time, the Census was also moving beyond individual enumeration. Washington was gathering information on how many libraries, schools and such each county had. Here's the Census Bureau's official link for 1860. Mortality issues began to be asked at this time.

1870 saw the elimination of stats about slaves, of course. As the economy changed, more economic questions were asked about manufacturing.

By or before 1900, questions about marital status, number of children of each adult, whether currently living or not, whether currently at home or not, years of residence for the non-natives whether naturalized or not, whether a home was owned or rented and more, were all on the census. The wingnuts would really be apeshit. Anyway, the Census questions are moving beyond agriculture, mining, forestry and related.

Near the end of Chapter 10, on 243-44 he falters, in my opinion, claiming the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments undermined the Philadelphia compromise. I can halfway buy that about the Sixteenth, even though Peterson ignores that the Civil War income tax was unconstitutional for not being levied in proportion to state population itself. (Again, why do either Constitutional or Civil War scholars not pick up on this?) Later on, I started thinking, he is a bit like a more modernized Walter Karp in some ways.

The Seventeenth? I totally reject his thesis here. The only thing changed was going to direct popular election. The equality of states in the Senate was preserved. Frankly, his discussion on page 245 seems to misunderstand what was most at concern in the "New Jersey plan," and that was equal state representation, not indirect election. But, the idea of an indirectly elected Senate was was readily accepted in the "Great Compromise." The "Virginia Plan" also had a bicameral legislature, also with indirect election for the upper house. In its case, state legislatures nominated candidates and the U.S. House elected them.

He is right about how the US more and more has the "virtual representation" that the Founders rejected. Yes, I know that at the time of Philadelphia, it was thought that election by state legislatures would bind states more firmly to the Constitution, but that was 130 years ago as of the time of the amendment and the Civil War was 50 years ago. And, the Philadelphians explicitly rejected any "unit rule" idea for Senate voting, which partially weakened the direct state ties. Also, the first potential amendment to this end was proposed way back in 1826, which Peterson doesn't mention.

Chapter 11: The Great Transformation

Primarily about the rise of regulatory agencies, which of course started with Theodore Roosevelt but really took off with the New Deal. Not much special here.

One side note here: The Federal Housing Authority encouraged banks et al to punish mortgagees that did not install AC. Even "Cadillac Desert" didn't mention this.

Chapter 12: The Long Crisis of the Constitution

This starts with a partial overlap with chapter 11.

His first plaint is the Supreme Court's "insular cases" distinguishing "incorporated" from "unincorporated" territories. It's why there's subminimum wages in Guam et al today. To put it more bluntly, the rulings were racist for Caribbean and Pacific islands that were non-white. (Hawaii, with its white sugar plantation owners overthrowing the kingdom, was "incorporated."

It's "Brains Trust" as a plural. Surprised Peterson missed that.

He notes the post-WWII national security state was alien to the spirit of 1787. He notes the "War on ... X" mentality. Militarization of the US. Takes Ike’s comment about the military-industrial complex at face value, ignoring that, in exchange, Ike substituted the spying-snooping-overthrowing complex. (He's not alone on this; lots of people give Ike an unwarrented pass.)

A short epilogue "Toward 2090" notes the US has been "constitutionally adrift" since the end of the Cold War. Peterson wonders what the country and Constitution will be "for" in 2090. He cites a 1974 book by Rexford Tugwell et al that notes the founders (and others around the Euro-American world) cited "natural rights" but not "natural duties." Tugwell called for a Bill of Responsibilities, and further empowering the House.

The epilogue concludes with a bit of turd-polishing the Founders. It was, in reality, as he notes in the beginning in discussing "revolution" etymologically, a conservative re-turning in 1787. (Interestingly, Shay’s Rebellion as a partial cause of the Constitutional Convention is never mentioned.) Plus, as he notes, there was not "originary genius" at Philadelphia.

As for replacing today’s constitution, just as the Founders replaced the Articles of Confederation? With the amount of wingnuttery running around America, I’m far less sanguine of a good result from that than Peterson is.

That’s where I really thought of him as a new Walter Karp and falling to 4.5 moved downward.

Karp?

The first book of his that I read was great, for his exposure of the Machiavellian hypocrisy of William McKinley on things like the Philippines (all new to me at the time) and the posturing of Woodrow Wilson (generally not new). The second book? Middling, in part because Karp seemed to fetishize the Constitution too much. The third book? Pretty bad, between a mix of guzzling Jeffersonian Kool-Aid to being a sociological version of a constitutional originalist, and other things.

With all of this, if Peterson publishes another book and I see it at my library, I'm certain to read, but won't expect genius.

View all my reviews

Texas Progressives

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Off the Kuff notes Greg Abbott's pseudo-evolution on data centers, in which even Sid Miller is making him look bad.

SocraticGadfly talked about self-hating Blacks, Hispanics and Muslims attending the GOP state convention.

Talarico told Texas Democrats in convention the party must stop taking Blacks for granted. Black Democrats agree, beyond Jasmine Crockett's tepid support for him, which will remain tepid through November. That's why people like Kuff need to pump their brakes.

Bernie Sanders hater Dolores Huerta, not the most democratic person in Nevada, told Texas Democrats to "save democracy." See here and here for my take on 2016 and 2020 Nevada primaries.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project posted on Abbott’s likely far-right pick for Texas Secretary of State. With Harris County having a Black Muslim progressive woman as Democratic nominee for County Judge & Texas Republicans being anti-democratic and bigoted, we must be prepared for anything.

Big John Cornyn makes a tiny break with the GOP establishment, worrying about closed primaries backfiring.

Texas rabbis rip the Jewish fig leaf off "Judeo-Christian" over the State Board of Ed's proposed list of bibul verses for public school reading. Yeah, there will be lawsuits.

In something parallel, the Monthly says "Christian nationalists are cheering" for the SBOE's proposed changes to school curricula.

Contra RRC claims about doing all it can about old well blowouts, Russell Gold talks about "the Dead Sea of Texas," a Pecos County brine lake that's been around 20 years.

SpaceX: Unsafe workplace.

"'Hunter vs United States': The most important criminal case of the term" is a very good and very important read about Justice Neil Gorsuch's likely thought on expanding the scope of jury trials, and as a sidebar, how, on at least some issues, SCOTUS conservatives don't all fit in one package.

The Texas Signal celebrates Pride in Caldwell County.

Your Local Epidemiologist highlights the great success of the HPV vaccine.

Desal and cloud seeding for the Colorado? Shock me

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 17:41:00 +0000

Per Grist, because the seven Colorado River Compact states still refuse to face reality, those are the top items.

Cloud-seeding? Doesn't work that well. Besides, to the degree it does work? A Plains state is just waiting to sue for water deprivation.

Desal? Environmentally disastrous, and ain't that what got is in this situation in the first place?

Even nuttier things, like "mining" deep desert groundwater, stuff perhaps deeper than the Ogallala, speaking of the plains? GACK!

And, nationally, timid Democraps are part of the problem with "climate hushing."

Oh, carbon capture doesn't work, either. Pro Publica has a great piece. The real sad problem is that, just like Big Tobacco, as described in detail in another story, is Big Oil buying off scientists to do its bidding. Related? Pro Publica does a deeper dive of how Big Oil, and specifically BP (stands for "Bullshitting about Petroleum") specifically bought off Princeton scientists in its "Wedges" study 22 years ago. https://www.propublica.org/article/wedges-climate-research-bp-fossil-fuel-princeton

The Observer now in the tank for Proposition 4 ideas

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 14:00:00 +0000

I stand by what I said last April: Prop 4 will be a big economic boondoggle.

I called out librulz (sic) last year October for supporting it while ignoring that it was not only an economic boondoggle but environmentally destructive.

But yet, here's the Observer, running a piece about how we should, even if the science ain't there yet, find a way to use produced water. Beyond the fact that the science may never totally be there, this encourages fracking, even having the rest of us subsidizing it, which of course boosts the climate crisis.

Sadly, but unsurprisingly, they're not alone. The Sierra Club said vote yes, including supporting it at Lege testimony. (Sadly, a real environmental org like Center for Biological Diversity wasn't there.) That merited another callout.

Even worse, the Tex-ass Green Party supported it, which led to yet another callout, along with me proclaiming myself an independent leftist at the state as well as national level. As of now, on the three Greens on the state ballot on statewide races, I'll only be supporting one. (It's also sad they got a candidate for lite guv, not guv, and also, no RRC candidate. I do get the ballot fees; maybe next year's Lege will approve what was considered in 2025 and let them be recycled to party coffers.)

And, this once again shows that while the Observer may be left-librul, it's not leftist.

A few thoughts on the Prarieland sentences — and on Klippenstein's framing

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 18:00:00 +0000

This is a tweaked, mildly tweaked, version of what I posted at Substack on Monday.

Per the header, the second half of the header is my concern as much as anything.

This is an expanded version of a long, multi-link restack note I had to Ken Klippenstein’s piece on the sentencing.

Maybe Ken didn’t mean to come off as whitewashing one of the two judges presiding over the case with this:

Even the presiding judge, Trump appointee Mark Pittman, seemed to grasp the danger of treating belief as evidence. He asked Shideler whether owning a copy of Mein Kampf made him a fascist, or Das Kapital a communist. “Not unless it’s consistent with your other behavior,” Shideler answered each time. When the judge noted he himself owned “quite a bit” of Antifa literature, the room got the point.

But, without further context, it sure feels that way.

Speaking here from Tex-ass, yes, this is a fucked-up verdict. That said, the “Prairieland Eight” maybe didn’t have the best of legal representation? I don’t know.

That said, Ken omits two important details.

First, per an Associated Press story, Pittman was not the only judge presiding over the case. That’s a serious omission, as AP details what the other judge said:

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, one of two judges overseeing the proceedings, said what happened wasn’t a protest but “an assault on democracy.” All but one of the eight defendants sentenced Tuesday were convicted on terrorism charges.

Also, also, Judge Pittman wasn’t as non-biased as Ken makes it look. See here.

After spending over seven months in multiple jails across North Texas, the Prairieland Defendants finally had their federal trial start on Tuesday, February 17. But then, as soon as the first defense attorney started asking questions to the prospective jurors, presiding Judge Mark Pittman declared a mistrial. Why? Because attorney MarQuetta Clayton, the only Black woman among the defense lawyers and counsel for defendant Maricela Rueda, was wearing a t-shirt featuring civil rights leaders of the past. Judge Pitman also took issue with Ms. Clayton’s voir dire questions, which reasonably probed jurors’ feelings about protest.

As experienced defense attorneys, we can attest that Ms. Clayton did nothing wrong. Despite both the prosecution and the defense opposing more delays, Judge Pittman nevertheless declared a mistrial and dismissed the entire jury pool. Significantly, immediately before the judge’s decision, prospective jurors had overwhelmingly expressed criticism of ICE, and several took the position that the Second Amendment extends to protests – opinions with which the judge appeared to take issue.

That’s just the beginning of a whole shitload of shit from Pittman. Sorry, Ken, but I got that link after 30 seconds of search.

LOTS more about Pittman at the same link:

Judge Pittman refused to allow local counsel, George Lobb, to represent defendant Maricela Rueda, threatening to hold him in contempt for 90 days if he did not withdraw from his role as her attorney. This led Rueda to hire Ms. Clayton as her attorney.
Judge Pittman attempted to place limits on defense objections, allowing only one defendant’s lawyer to object during the prosecution’s case. After a motion from attorney Leigh W. Davis, counsel for defendant Ines Soto, the judge is now limiting duplicative objections which, practically, will still limit defendant-specific arguments.
In a pretrial hearing, Judge Pittman fined attorneys Patrick McLain, Brian Bouffard and Bradley Sauer, counsel for defendant Zachary Evetts, $500 each for filing a discovery motion, effectively discouraging other defense attorneys from filing motions in the case. It is not only the right of counsel to file pre-trial motions; attorneys are obligated by the Rules of Professional Conduct to competently and diligently represent their clients. This ruling by Judge Pittman arguably violates defendants’ Sixth Amendment rights and puts counsel in an untenable position with respect to their independent professional ethical duties.
Defense attorneys have been allotted only eight minutes each for their opening statements, and 35 hours total across nine defendants to put up witnesses. Judge Pittman has justified these time limit restrictions in a case where several defendants are facing life in prison by citing “other pressing matters on the court’s docket.”
Since the mistrial, Judge Pittman has moved the trial to a smaller room in the Federal Courthouse in Fort Worth, and assigned an overflow room for the public to observe in Dallas, more than 30 minutes drive away.
Most recently, Judge Pittman ordered that only the Court will be allowed to ask questions to the jury during voir dire.

Ken notes Pittman is a Trump appointee. Reed O’Connor? Shrub Bush, in one of his worst picks, and known as a wingnut-desired judge in venue shopping.

That said, an even bigger background problem is that the federal court system ONLY has judicial sentencing. Unlike most state courts, a jury has no part in sentencing. Many “John Doe” readers may not know that.

"There ought to be a law," indeed, changing that.

That said, to expand more beyond my quick hit?

I totally don't like the attempt to criminalize protesting. Totally.

And, I'm not using the word "but" to invite the cheap psychology hot take.

"That said" ....

I've been on record in this space since Trump 1.0 that "antifa" often sounds pretentious, often just by the word itself.

I've also been on record in this space that "antifa" often seems to be an excuse for Black Bloc type "wilding." I called them out for the first time just seven months into Trump's first term. Before COVID. Before the worse Trump 2.0. I said they were the Black Bloc rebranded and I refused to use the cutesy word. I said no again to violence vis-a-vis Andy Ngo in summer 2019. About 15 months later, I called out their ignorance of local neighborhoods, especially when being nearly all-white marchers. I called out the anarchist angle of many of them (probably actually pseudo-anarchist) in 2023. Last year, per the point of contention that started this piece, I mildly called out Ken over his take on on the cancellation of a No Kings protest in Minnesota after the Vance Boelter shootings. And, I called out Ken a bit more last fall for his framing of this "movement" as unorganized.

Related? Some of the arrestees were in the left-wing gunz world. As I said nearly six years ago about Garrett Foster being killed? I'll take a pass on that, too.

I won't let you have your cake and eat it too. You're either a movement, which implies at least attempts at organization, or you're 100 percent cosplaying.

Let's go further.

First, if you're going to be serious protestors, not play-actors, or to use the modern term, cosplayers, know who you're playing with.

And I said playing "with" not "against."

If you don't know that someone will not only pack heat to a protest site but use it, like top defendant Benjamin Hanil Song did, you'd better make yourself better informed before the moment of truth. Even with over-the-top sentencing set aside, you're still going to be tried as an accessory to any actual gun-related crimes. And, per KERA, Song was one of the core/original six.

As for the other defendants' claims in the case? Vandalizing property is itself NOT a "noise protest," per the Wikipedia page. I don't like it when Earth First does it, even just to logging equipment and definitely don't like it when it spikes trees. And, on the fireworks? Shooting them in the air? One thing. At the facility and at a guard tower, another.

Also from there? If you don't know that people in your group are likely to easily cop a plea, you'd better find that out in advance, too.

The link about O'Connor was from the National Lawyers Guild. Per Wiki, it objected to the arrests.

Wrong. I'll agree if you object to some of the specific charges, but not the arrests per se.

I'm not a "law and order" leftist. I am a skeptical leftist who has a brain. And a lot of people here did not.

And, with a long history here on Blogger, that's why it will remain my primary commentary platform for now.

Kendall Scudder elected to head Texas Dems

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 17:34:00 +0000

The formerly appointed party jefe got elected to a full term at the Texas Dems state convention, as noted by the Trib. In the face of opposition, unsurprising since I wrote in April about a letter from select staffers wanting him gone, but, "eventually." That, in turn, followed him cheesing off many staffers last fall with the decision to move state HQ out of Austin.

Details:

The party’s delegates overwhelmingly chose Scudder to continue on as chair over former TDP staffers Monique Alcala and Marco Orrantia, ending a bitter race centered on how the party should be organized and whether it was building enough infrastructure to capitalize on this cycle’s political tailwinds and lay the groundwork for long-term Democratic gains.

Sad part from the Trib story is that, while it talks about Scudder getting a landslide from the rank and file, actual vote numbers aren't reported. Of course, that's because the TDP ain't reporting them yet.

It should be noted that on the ballot to an interim term a year ago March, he took just 65 of 121 votes. OTOH, that was in the first round of a seven-person race.

Barak Ravid is MOU-whispering

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 17:13:00 +0000

Is the MOU indeed in danger? At the middle of last week, it and initial technical discussions looked to be going swimmingly. Now, after the weekend, not at all. So, perhaps, per my thoughts 10 days ago that the MOU was looking MIA, I was more right than wrong.

First, on the Iranian side, who's doing the attacks? The government? The Revolutionary Guards, who claim responsibility? A subset of them?

Second, per the MOU, and per the status before the Iran war started, while Gulf Arab states may want a closer relationship with Tehran, including loosening ties with Washington, an Iran-only, not Iran-Oman, Hormuz, will never be accepted.

The global community has long considered the strait an international passageway, despite its location in Iran and Oman’s territorial waters. In recent days, Iran has twice attacked vessels going through a route on the Omani side in an evacuation effort backed by a United Nations agency.

Iran insists that it alone must govern the strait, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf that once carried a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reiterated the claim on Sunday.

Period. (Also, per my analysis, Point 2 of the MOU supports the status antebellum.) Now, per two paragraphs above? Is Araghchi officially representing President Masoud Pezeshkian? Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei? The Revolutionary Guards?

Now, Barak Ravid. Beyond him being a Trump whisperer and a Satanyahu whisperer, this new piece about an Israel-Lebanon deal only extends the trend. How do sources outside the current government of Lebanon feel? Not told. Is Iran actually worried? Not told. Gulf Arab states? Not told. (That's beyond his Captain Obvious piece about MOU troubles, where the paywall came too soon for me to see his "angle.")

THAT said, a non-walled version of the piece indicated Ravik may be overselling it, and not commenting on one key angle: an Israel pullback, even if but a small one. On the other hand? The Dissident notes that Israeli pullback is contingent on Lebanon disarming Hezbollah. Ain't happening.

THAT that said, going back to Hormuz? Mearsheimer notes that Iran still holds all the trumps in the deck. (I see what I did.)

A couple of Texas political items of note

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 16:08:00 +0000

First, via Independent Political Report, with link there to original story by Ballot Access News, former Democratic lite gov candidate Michael Collier, trying to get on the ballot this year for the same spot as an independent, is suing the state over the petition signature gathering window, and is now backed by the Forward Party.

Kuff, of course, hates this. He hates it to the point that in his last graf, he pulls out the old left hand of the duopoly line, state-level version, to essentially say that a vote for Collier is "really" a vote for Patrick. I told him he had better not ever say that to my online face.

Also, the Trib piece he links to writes Green Kevin McCormick and Libertarian Anthony Castro out of the election. Shock me. (And, it's useless to get. the Trib, or the Monthly, to ever admit wrongness.)

Second, also via IPR, the Texas Libertarian Party is rejecting AIPAC-funded candidates. Yes, it's highly unlikely that's happening anyway, but still nice to see that for the record.

Birding lifers on spring vacation

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 13:38:00 +0000

I had an incredible vacation this spring, as attested by my posts about my time at Death Valley and Sequoia.

While the three national wildlife refuges I hit weren't scenic, between them and parkland in Las Vegas, I saw nine lifer and three semi-lifer birds. (By semi-lifer, I mean I had seen it before, but had either no photo or else a crappy one.) As I said on Reddit's r/birding, I'm not counting the magpie duck I saw, because they're a domestic AND they're non-native.

Let's go in order.

The first was at Red Rock Canyon, a Woodhouse's scrub jay:

Full album is here.

Next, Clark County Wetlands Park plus a city park on the north side.

We first have a common gallinule:

Then a ruddy duck:

I saw more ruddy ducks, many, at Kern National Wildlife Refuge, but this was the closest I got to one as well as being the first I saw.

Full album here.

Desert National Wildlife Refuge, just a little bit further north?

I heard the Lucy's warblers, which I knew nothing about before getting there. They're basically the one US warbler that lives entirely in desert and semidesert. They're hard to shoot, even for warblers, in mesquite shrub.

I also saw what I puzzled out to be a Nashville warbler:

I kept both of these smaller as they're lower-grade photos.

Full album, including some cool spiny lizard photos, here.

Next, at Death Valley, my first semi-lifer, an American pipit.

Showing the suckitude of Google's own AI-bot search through Google Photos, "pipit" returned nothing; I had to go into the individual album for Salt Creek.

I had seen one before at Bombay Beach, which I didn't realize at the time, but with a crappy photo. I saw one at Pixley NWR after Sequoia.

After that, in an area where I was just putzing around, some national forest land near Lake Isabella, I spotted a new member of the wren group, a northern house wren.

Full album is here. Again, a low-resolution photo that I'm keeping smaller.

Next, in what Google Images first tried to tell me was a golden eagle, a Swainson's hawk from Pixley NWR.

They don't normally come as far east in Texas as where I am. And Google Photos is teh suck again, not returning photos for "Swainson."

Next? The second semi-lifer, a Bullock's oriole. I had seen one before in Salida, Colorado, but no photos. They do semi-regularly come this far east in Texas, but I've never seen one locally.

Full Pixley album here.

Next, an eared grebe at the other wildlife refuge, Kern.

Google was again teh suck on searching my albums, so I had to search by file name on my computer to remember where I had seen it. Again, this is a kind of ragged photo so keeping it smaller.

Also at Kern, but much better? Greater white-fronted goose:

I was pretty sure this was a new bird when I saw it, and knew it was not a grebe and pretty sure not a duck, even at distance, though it was mixed in with shovelers and other ducks. Full album, with many other birds, is here.

Screwy about screwworms

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 17:40:00 +0000

The Texas Observer semi-laughingly hopes for a quick end to screwworm, without mentioning climate change, and also without interviewing a representative of the Texas Farmers Union, like you know, Democrats' candidate for Ag Commish. Bernard Rapoport is turning over in his grave again.

Laugh my ass off that auctioneers and ranchers are talking about the New World screwworm ultimately being good for cattle cuz "survival of the fittest."

Most ranchers and auctioneers claiming this ignore that climate change allows the fittest screwworms to overwinter ever further north, which is why I said "semi-laughingly" about the Observer. What if it crosses the Red and stays across the border in a mild, wet El Niño winter? Oooopppsssss.

And, the typical rancher probably rejects the broader theory of evolution by natural selection. Many ranchers, and even more, farmers, admit something about climate change while still being in a degree of denial about how bad it's going to get.

(That said, TFU's parent, the National Farmers' Union, is bad on climate with its support of E15 fuel.)

Texas Progressives talk

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 20:03:00 +0000

Off the Kuff contemplates the plight of the unhappy Republican and what they might do about it.

SocraticGadfly talks about all the loopholes in Strangeabbott's executive order for data center electricity supply.

State Board of Ed is finalizing its list of bibul verses for K-12 students to be brainwashed into. Cue your next First Amendment lawsuit.

Presidio's EDC is suing Team Trump over border walls AND/OR other possible barriers in the Big Bend area.

The Observer wonders why Laredo-area officials aren't being quite as tough.

Black history unveiled and preserved in San Antonio.

Neil at Houston Democracy Project said HPD has unlimited $ to police rank & file Democrats advocating for basic rights, but Texas State Republican Convention offers bigoted, anti-democracy hate with no impediment.

Melissa M. LÃ³pez and Dylan Corbett call on Congress to protect DREAMers for the benefit of us all. The Texas Signal looks at the joy and the fear around the World Cup in Texas.

Texas Monthly notes the surge of AI-generated political ads in our campaigns.

Law Dork analyzes the latest Trump Justice Department attack on ICE protesters in Minnesota. Franklin Strong makes one more appeal to try to influence the SBOE's statewide reading list.

Self-hating Blacks, Hispanics and Muslims attend Texas GOP convention

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 14:00:00 +0000

This picture should say it all, or nearly so:

Samar Halabi is the lady on left. That's clearly an African-American woman at right, and apparently a Hispanic in back.

And, they are self-hating, the Black and the Hispanic, even if they don't recognize it.

The Texas Trib has the details of the Texas Republican state convention.

It's a version of Martin Niemoller's old poem, augmented by the fact that racist wingnuts HAVE ALREADY come after you in the past, and some, whom the Texas GOP, or at least its biggest donors, have not disavowed, like Nick Fuentes, are trying to come after you again today, along with Mooslims.

But, I included Muslims in the self-hating, did I not?

First, the lady pictured:

Halabi, a teacher, declined to say how she would vote in November, but said that she is a Republican and always votes.

Well, there you go.

And more, from her husband:

Well, there you really go.

Halabi and her husband, Amjad Muhtaseb, were both registered as delegates for the convention.

Muhtaseb, an engineer and business owner, said Muslims are conservative by nature.

“We believe in Adam and Eve,” he said. “We don’t believe in this, multiple gender. We don’t drink. We don’t gamble. We are against pornography.”

They hope to bring more Muslims into the Republican Party.

And this:

When it comes time to vote in the midterms, Tarek Hussein plans to support his party where he feels it’s deserved.

“I will vote Republican for the good Republican candidate,” he said.

You've been kicked in the teeth, and told things will get worse in two years at the 2028 state convention, but you're back for more.

Yes, it will get worse.

Strangeabbott last year designated the Council on American-Islamic Relations a terrorist group. Muhtaseb and Tarek Hussein, who founded its Houston chapter, were both not just state GOP attendees but delegates.

Here you are on that:

Throughout the week, members of the convention attempted to remove them as delegates.

Ultimately, the party concluded that even the full convention did not have the power to boot them. However, the convention on Friday updated its rules so that next time it meets in 2028, the Credentials Committee could vote to remove delegates with ties to a terrorist organization.

Have fun coming back in 2028.

Let's add in that CAIR national is suing Strangeabbott over the designation.

Side note: This illustrates to a T the problems with a Westminster first-past-the-post political system when combined with a strong-presidential leadership model, or strong-governor model at the state level. Conservative Muslims have no home in a party rife with bigotry and third parties that might have room have no traction. That said, the American Solidarity Party, an American version of the Catholic-oriented Christian Democrat parties of Western Europe, would welcome conservative Muslim voters, I'm sure.

That said, sometimes, you move. Period. As a third-party voter who’s extended that third-party voting past presidential races to governor and senator, and now past that to lower-level races, I know that.

None of this is to suggest that every Black and Hispanic Republican is "self-hating." But, every one engaging in open bigotry against some other race, or here, a world religious organization, or elsewhere, against sexual orientation, is "self-hating" in my book. Note that I did not say you had to become Muslim — or teh gay. But, tolerance without open bigotry? Yeah, short of that, you're self-hating.

Trump a fascist? Let's pump the brakes a little bit on that

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 14:00:00 +0000

I've long been uncomfortable with such statements, and events of last week only increase my discomfort.

Note, this was originally set for last week, but I held off when I instead had material for a post about Trump backing new sanctions on Russia and restoring old ones, as it's a good lead-in to the ideas here, namely that Trump is not under Putin's thumb.

First, Trump's name has been removed from the Kennedy Center, after a judge's ruling. That piece, written last Saturday, is an update from this story, written last Friday, which said the Kennedy Center's Trump-flunky board voted to appeal the ruling. THAT said, per this Saturday story, the DC Court of Appeals rejected that appeal, which had requested a freeze on the original ruling.

Second, another judge ordered the Department of Interior and National Park Service to restore signage depicting the actual full story of American history in the parks, including slavery and climate change, and to do so by July 4. The Trump administration does not appear to be directly resisting the order, though foot-dragging on the date will likely happen.

The point is that Trump is not a Hitler or Mussolini, or even a Peron or Franco. Sure, people inside the administration and out, like his bald-headed Goebbels Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon, surely wish it were otherwise, but it's not.

Yes, Jan. 6, 2021 is the big exception. And, his current maneuver to order the USPS to restrict the return of mail-in ballots (which almost certainly will be overturned) is another. Weirdly, the federal judge with initial oversight allowed that one to go forward, not because he agreed with it, but because he said it had so many unanswered questions he couldn't rule on it yet. Excuse me Judge Nichols, but isn't that a good reason to rule against something?

Yes, it's true that Hitler and Mussolini came to power by legal means before destroying what had been the previous system of legality. Federal courts have helped Trump around the edges, but nothing like in Fascist Italy or Nazi Germany. (And, some things, like the continued gutting of the Voting Rights Act, are a Republican project in general, not a specifically Trumpian one.)

I think this in part boils down to a difference between leftists and liberals, and on a partially parallel track, between people who are members of the left hand of the duopoly and the less insane portion of the right hand of the duopoly versus people who are outside it to the left. (Centrist "independents" are usually semi-tribalist when push comes to shove and don't think outside of duopoly frameworks.)

Health care fails by The Atlantic and Mona Charen

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 14:00:00 +0000

And boy, were both of them two weeks ago big ones.

At the Ett-Lantic, an Elizabeth Cushing talked about the shortage of, and spiking price of, whey, without mentioning several relevant facts.

One is that protein over-supplementation is the latest, and ultimate supplementation craze. It's part of the American gospel of quick fixes that go along with American exceptionalism.

It's been goosed even more by much of the MAHA world.

And, it's dangerous.

And Ms. Cushing tells you none of this.

Eating too much protein can be hard on your kidneys, among other things. It causes dehydration from the extra water needed for its digestion. The extra water for digestion plus the extra water needed for the elimination of digestion byproducts stress your kidneys. That, in turn, can cause kidney stones. Especially because it's normally part of a low-fiber diet, whether with too much red meat or supplementation, it can screw with your colon. And, speaking of red meat, a diet with too much meat protein can cause not just kidney stones but end-stage kidney disease. It can also cause that old old disease of conspicuous consumption — gout.

Meanwhile, on Substack, Charen was poo-poohing the risks of even moderate drinking. The nut graf, semi-conspiratorial angle and all, is at top:

IS A GLASS OF WINE WITH DINNER going to increase your chance of getting cancer or another serious illness? For the past few years, we’ve been deluged with studies and news accounts suggesting that the answer is yes. This week, the USDA reinstated a caution in its dietary guidelines about limiting alcohol. Note: This is the Trump administration. No sane person seeking guidance on a health matter would look to their science-trashing witch doctors.

Really?

Yes, as next we get strawmanning and whataboutism:

The Trump clown show to one side, even if the federal government were staffed only by science-respecting people, we’d still have a problem when it comes to recommendations like whether or not to have that glass of wine, because our society is not good at evaluating risks. Not at all. For example, most parents drive their kids to school or walk them to the bus stop every day. They don’t permit their 8- or 10-year-olds to go to the corner shop by themselves or take a city bus. Why? Because they believe, wrongly, that if kids are left on their own there is a serious risk of kidnapping. In reality, stranger abduction is incredibly rare (abduction by non-custodial parents is another matter).

I don't know if Charen has alcohol abuse disorder, but these are the types of things otherwise intelligent alcoholics say.

It gets worse. Ignoring the 1964 Surgeon General's report on tobacco, and follow-up work after that, she essentially claims that all the studies on the health risks of alcohol not only are correlational without being causational, but can never rise to the level of proving causation.

My quote in my quote-restacking? This:

Strawmanning, gaslighting and red herrings, Mona Charen. First, governmental agencies AND non-governmental health organizations have warned about the cancer dangers of moderate drinking even before Trump returned to office. In fact, those observations started before this century, and first became more specific when OBAMA was president.

Second, per cancer and tobacco, at some point, observational studies, and analysis of them, become strong enough to become causation, not just correlation.

And should say it all.

Sidebar: Joe Mercola, yes, HIM, has dropped his antivaxxer stance in re Vitamin K shots for infants. Will wonders ever cease.

Who's the biggest bullshitter on the Iran non-peace treaty as the MOU threatens to unravel?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 15:09:29 +0000

That header is of course the first thing to remember. There IS NO "peace treaty."

There is a 60-day ceasefire which now SEEMS to be OK, with a "Donald John Trump" signature on the US side Wednesday of an MOU where he clearly TACO-ed, along with the signature of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

On Shitter, and presumably on other social media, Israeli Zionist Jews, American Zionist Jews, American Zionist goys, and general neocons are all excoriating Trump, including Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ affiliated with any of those groups.

MAGAts who aren't necessarily pro-Israel or anti-Israel, but just blind suckers of Trump's micropenis are in an ongoing state of denial. Wednesday night, after posting my Substack version of the actual treaty and Trump's clear TACO-ing, I finally said explicitly: I block you unless you admit T-Rump TACOed. And I did with multiples.

The flip side? Not everybody in Iran is signed off. The opposition is no more powerful, I think, than in 2015, but they've got T-Rump 1.0 and 2.0 facts in evidence to support their case. Here's the nutgrafs:

A major factor pushing even a government heavily influenced by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) to seek detente with the U.S. is the dire economic condition inside Iran after years of sanctions and the destruction of Iranian civilian infrastructure during the recent war. Several million Iranians are believed to have lost their jobs directly or indirectly as a result of the recent fighting, blockade, and internet shutdown. The International Monetary Fund now projects that Iran’s GDP will contract by 6% in 2026, with consumer prices rising nearly 70% during the same period.

The Iranian economy is dominated by a network of semi-governmental institutions with ties to the security establishment. These firms largely control the flow of imports, exports, and energy resources, and are also tasked with navigating the complex web of sanctions the country faces when trading abroad and repatriating funds from the sale of oil and gas.

For conservative skeptics of the MOU, who doubt the deal will bring a durable end to the war, these powerful business conglomerates are seen as the forces pressing the government hardest to move forward. Known in Persian as “khusulati”—a blend of the words for “private” and “government”—these firms stand to regain access to billions of dollars of frozen funds, as well as new business opportunities in Iran’s oligarchical economy.

That said, despite the ultra-hardliners, who may in this case get their heads thumped by Khaminei fils, Mojtaba Khamenei et al, they know they can close Hormuz again.

And, anybody who saw T-Rump's post-signing news conference knows he looked crushed, and fully 80 years old.

(Sidebar to the link above? There ARE female journalists in Iran, contra the lying Islamophobes.)

That said? there’s plenty of stated and unstated asterisks in that statement that are bridges to be crossed between now and June 19.

Bibi has spoken, to say he doesn’t feel bound by the agreement vis-a-vis Lebanon.

Will Trump do more fake yelling at Satanyahu? Will The Dissident, and even more, John Mearsheimer, not fall for that this time?

In Drop Site’s first piece, various Iranian talking heads already noted that attacks on Lebanon would not go unaddressed. Will only Israel be attacked, or will the Great Satan (Greater than Satanyahu?) have Middle East military bases targeted again as well?

Quite possibly yes, according to a new piece from Drop Site. Iran has warned Trump that unless he restrains Bibi in Lebanon as forcefully as needed, it will torpedo the MOU by an unannounced attack on Israel.

That said? As noted in my Substack link, Point 1 has degrees of ambiguity about Lebanon. The Iranians know that, too.

“Regarding Lebanon, we have warned both the mediators and the American side that if the regime fails to comply with the existing agreement, Iran will respond with substantial military measures without prior public notice,” said the Iranian official, who is not authorized to speak publicly. “Should the United States intervene, conditions particularly those related to the Strait of Hormuz could rapidly revert to a wartime environment.”

On the "not authorized to speak publicly," is this one of the ultra-hardliners mucking around? Maybe not: Those "technical talks," scheduled to start today, have been postponed.

Technical talks that were scheduled to begin Friday in Switzerland were postponed, with Iranian officials citing the continued attacks in Lebanon. Some officials have also denounced the prospect of Iranian leaders being photographed meeting with Trump or other U.S. officials responsible for assassinating the country’s Supreme Leader. U.S. officials have acknowledged the delay, but have not confirmed the reason. Late Thursday, the White House said Vice President JD Vance—who has been put forward as the public face of the U.S. negotiations—would not be traveling to Switzerland as previously announced, saying, “The logistics of these negotiations have never been simple or predictable.” A senior Pakistani official claimed the meeting was canceled because of religious observances related to the Islamic month of Muharram, a period of mourning for Shia Muslims.

As for the reason for cancellation? The Iranian claim of Muharram, especially important to Shi'ites? Per Scott Anderson in "King of Kings," 40-day mourning anniversaries and similar litter the Shi'a religious calendar.

The piece then goes on with lies by Bagger Vance and other things. That said, behind the lies is Vance being sent out to publicly attack Netanyahu, and his allies in both Israel and indirectly in the US. Also of note is that the IAEA-overseen process for dealing with Iran's enriched uranium is what it had proposed before the first attack.

That said, why should we assume this is anything much more than a more intense round of performance theater? Yes, the piece is by Jeremy Scahill, and he's pretty smart and pretty connected, but John Mearsheimer, to name a name I've named before in the last month or two, has fallen for the Trump-Netanyahu schtick before and Scahill isn't otherwise perfect. (Biggest example of that is Scahill going along with Glennwald in turning over all the "unused" Snowden files to Pierre Omidyar, as noted here. ) Beyond that, Politico reports that Trump is basically pushing Vance to stick his neck out on all things Iran.

Beyond that, in the same rant, Bagger Vance said that he does not think the MOU requires Israel to withdraw from Lebanon. Due to the ambiguity of point 1, it's possible.

And, with the Switzerland talks on hold? The Lebanon ceasefire is now off again.

As for “Peace Deal”? Yeah, Pakistan’s prime minister called it that, as noted on The Dissident’s piece and elsewhere. And? First, it’s not true; it’s just a ceasefire. Second, he’s got reason to puff it.

Here's links from Tuesday evening, updated in light of my Substack piece up top.

First, the NYT.

• Iran says “no tolls, but fees,” at Hormuz. Per Spock, “a difference that makes no difference is no difference.” Apparently that's going away, though.

• Per Bagger Vance and my link whole thing is only about a page and a half long. That’s about right for an actual ceasefire, actually. That’s why Vladimir Vladimirovich doesn’t sign off on fake ceasefires proffered by NATO.

• Iran’s president said most the major stakeholders are cautiously on board. He's now signed, so he's on board.

• Speaking of Vlad the Impaler? Trump thanked him and Winnie the Pooh, Xi Jinping, for their help. Nat-Sec Nutsacks™, if they haven’t started asking already, being still stuck on kvetching about Trump’s surrender to Iran, will soon start asking how much Trump surrendered to one or both of them. And, what Trump said about Xi is a flat lie, as, with coordination with Iran, Chinese-bound (even if not Chinese-flagged) tankers HAVE sailed through Hormuz after Iran shut it down.

• Trump claims it’s stopped Iranian nukes. It did no such thing, and besides, you started Iran on the path to partial enrichment because you abandoned the Obama deal.

• Lebanon? Trump joins Satanyahu and claims it’s not part of the deal. Really? Then why your most recent play-acting yelling. Pakistan as well as Iran says it is.

So, right there, the prologue to a ceasefire isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

Could there be deliberately ambiguous language? Possible. It happens all the time in diplomatic negotiations.

But, it almost never happens when specifics of battle are mentioned. Something is either on the table or off.

That leads us to the bottom line, not only from the NYT, but in general:

Hanging over the next round of U.S.-Iran negotiations will be “a history of broken promises, non-compliance, and even the tearing up of agreements,” Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, said in comments reported by state media. “We are planning the negotiation process and the implementation of the agreement on the basis of mistrust, past breaches of commitments, and previous experiences.”

Another NYT piece speculates about what’s not in there that Satanyahu is mad isn’t in there. Nuff ced.

OK, next?

Drop Site reported that Iran used professional psychologists to craft its messages to Trump. Nice idea. May have helped in the short term. Won’t make a degree of difference in the long term.

Now, on to Nat-Sec Nutsacks™, Never Trumper Rethugs and other detritus.

The Bulwark uses poop emojis to call it a “Giant Bag of Dogshit.” That it is, but there’s a neocon or four running around there who would still like Bibi to off Iran.

Francis Fukuyama, mad that he can't lament The End of Iran™, gets a bunch of shit wrong, starting by framing a memorandum of understanding to establish a ceasefire as though it were an actual agreement.

Now, like others, he uses this as an occasion to excoriate Trump. Natch. But, Trump deserves excoriation from an anti-Zionist angle, from an anti-imperialist angle, not from Nat-Sec Nutsacks.™

He gives the game up here:

The MOU that Trump celebrated is a worse agreement than Obama’s 2015 deal, which Trump endlessly castigated in the past.

Shock me.

Just before that, after listing everything NOT in the MOU, Fukuyama said:

The reported “Memorandum of Understanding” (MOU) kicks all of the contentious issues down the road into negotiations that are to take place during the 60-day ceasefire. Trump treated all of these issues as having been conceded already, but if that were the case, why weren’t they in the MOU? It is very unlikely that Iran will budge over the next two months, since it is precisely these issues that speak to the regime’s core identity.

He does get one thing right. Trump’s bullshit is on the rise:

Trump stated that if Iran didn’t agree to these outstanding terms, he would re-commence the war and possibly make the United States “the guardian of the Middle East” in return for 20 percent of the region’s revenues. It is hard to know whether such an initiative is more ludicrous from the standpoint of countries in the Middle East, including U.S. friends like Saudi Arabia or the UAE who would now be paying explicitly for U.S. protection, or from domestic opinion in the United States, where everyone would like to be done with the region as soon as possible.

As for what I said about him above? The Persuasion Substack, in addition to him, has Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ junior member Yascha Mounk as founder, Glenn Greenwald wannabe and walking odiousness Thomas Chatterton Williams, wingnut David French, etc.

Speaking of Trump bullshit? A Tuesday evening AP story has the roundup. Lies about Obama sending cash to Iran in 2015 of course top the list. Claims that oil is already flowing and other bullshit. In reality, oil won’t get back to normal for months, even if there is a formal signing on Friday. That 60-day clock will be ticking, especially with Iran talking about “fees” for Hormuz and Bibi still running off at half-cock.

Finally, let’s turn to Mondoweiss, as always a voice of reason.

Dissident, Mearsheimer and others could stand to read it for this gimlet-eyed take on the T-Rump/Satanyahu relationship alone:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that “We will remain in the security zones for as long as required to defend our country.” Security zones, in Netanyahu-speak, mean occupied territories.
He went on to say, in Trumpian fashion, “Iran was racing toward a nuclear weapon. If we had not acted at the time we did and with the power we did…Iran would already have atomic bombs.”
That is, of course, a complete lie, one contradicted by every intelligence assessment in Israel, the U.S., Europe, and everywhere else that has assessed Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
It’s a mark of Netanyahu’s desperation that he feels the need to say it. It is also a mark of his need to pacify Trump by affirming the false narrative of an American victory.

Bingo.

Actually, not quite yet bingo.

Add this follow-up:

Tehran is surely as unimpressed as so many of us are with Trump’s public, epithet-laced scolding of Netanyahu. As I’ve noted, Netanyahu is also unimpressed with it. Words, no matter how harsh or vulgar, carry no weight here. Only the threat of real consequences will force Netanyahu to back off in Lebanon, and no one, including the Iranians, knows whether Trump will impose them on his ally.

NOW “Bingo.” What’s so hard about understanding that?

So, why did Iran sign off if the Lebanon issue isn’t decided, among other things?

Mondoweiss is good there, too.

It starts by referring to the January protests. It notes that, even if Israel played a fair role in them as instigator, the net result was that Iran killed thousands of its own people and remains an authoritarian, repressive government highly unpopular with some swaths of the populace, and at least moderately unpopular with huge segments. The Revolutionary Guards are still massive grifters, to boot.

Finally, Israhell and that "Samson option," especially nuclear versions.

Much of what you have heard is true.

The Institute for Middle East Understanding has the basics.

Israel has nuclear-missile submarines as part of its weaponry. The Germans sold them the subs as "conventional" ones knowing they could be upgraded.

Israel is believed to have stolen both bomb-grade uranium and technical know-how from the US, possibly as much as 100 kilograms on the uranium, per Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Or possibly 250 kilos, per Wiki's page. Weirdly, Sy Hersh, in his book "The Sampson Option," claims Israel did NOT steal any HEU.