Week of What the Hell !!
Veterans Day, They Risked Everything to Win for Us, Politicians Surrender Everything, Saved from Jaws of Victory, Weak Promises, January Health Insurance to Skyrocket, Next Up: Epstein

Reason not to believe your eyes:
Democrats were expected to win anyway and the Republican Party ran a bunch of poor candidates.

The wins are a disaster for Democrats:
Democrats are, in a way, losing because they’re going to simply drive more people to the red states where life is easier, safer, and less expensive.

A more detailed analysis is available as Juliet speaks to us in podcast.

Over half a century ago, I was assigned in college course work to a semester in Washington, DC studying government.

One thing I noticed right away: most Senators never open doors. They walk the avenues of Washington surrounded by staff in a sort of traveling office, reading notes, dictating memos, listening to summaries. They cannot be interrupted by outside distractions. Aides even occasionally stop traffic as Senators cross streets.

It is efficient, in its own way, allowing them to work without interruption. And it promotes institutional isolation. They are not only members of what is often called the most exclusive club in the world. They often come to see it as the only real world. Constituents exist, to be sure, but only in how they affect the real world.

There is a sort of logic to it. Peace on Earth is every sane person’s hope. For Senators who believe their institution is the very core of Democracy, it can mean collegiality at all costs.

Seeing all sides of every issue, endlessly searching for friendly relationships, compromising everything even if the gain is nothing, can become an institutional imperative.

They are, after all, the only realists, since the Senate is the ultimate reality. Senators are the nation’s grownups, and the eight who are much too big for mere political struggles are grownups among the grownups. Wiser than the wisest.

They are above it all. They don’t even open their own doors.

Senator King’s wisdom:
So, standing up to Donald Trump didn’t work…

Jason Linkins and Adam Serwer have it pretty much nailed:

Key result:
This latest Republican attack on the poor and the sick, and the Democratic defection to join them, is a deadly insult to grievous injury for millions of Americans who will be assailed by preventable illness, dogged by physical pain, and crushed beneath the weight of both sickness and worry.

Key ethic:
A nation with this embarrassment of riches should have long ago figured out how to make universal healthcare a reality, and the fact that it has not is a collective sin that the decent human beings here should be sickened by.

He offers an example from a podcast from The Bulwark:

MILLER:
Democrats online are big mad. Not me. But before we get to my contrarian take, Will, what what do you make of the deal?

SALETAN:
Damn. Well, Tim, I’m afraid we probably agree more than you’d like. Uh, okay. To me, the key word in what you just said was online. Democrats online are really pissed off. This is not an online thing. This is a real life thing. … So I I don’t think it’s a terrible loss. I think Democrats are still standing up for what they fought for. Um and I think only if you are so online that you don’t feel the pain that a lot of people are feeling over the shutdown would you think this is a total sellout.

driftglass offers a point of contention:
This drawing of a clear, bright distinction between “online” Democrats and “real” people is something the Bulwark is positively riddled with.

driftglass gets creative. He goes to the Bulwark YouTube comment section and finds a host of reactions from non‑online, which is to say real, folks – angry as hell folks, that pretty much perform his rebuttal for him.

Well…
    …yeah, there is that…

I’m no political expert, but does it make sense to create headlines by lecturing the press about a story you don’t want them to cover?

How bad (Leaks from the FBI):
Even agents presumably hardened by long experience dealing with repulsive crimes were upset and traumatized by viewing some of it.

Why this cover-up doesn’t work:
Some observers have expressed concern that Patel and Bondi might be scrubbing the files of any material that incriminates Trump or other top Republicans, but so many people have seen so much of the information that it would be impossible to get away with that. It’s even possible, in such a chaotic and uncontrolled project, that some agents have been able to make copies of information they think might be at risk of being hidden or destroyed.

[Note: It’s long (44 minutes), but Infidel urges us to pay attention to the first 16 minutes.]

If anything, Infidel understates the incompetence of Trump leadership. The video account shows a degree of carelessness on the part of Trump authorities that makes it seem like a cover‑up conducted by the Three Stooges:

• Storing files they wanted to hide in accessible directories on accessible networks.
• Borrowing thousands of agents for a secret project: detecting and cataloging where in those files Trump is named, not realizing that any of those agents could become a news source.
• Suddenly realizing that those thousands of agents might not be well versed in hiding information. Hastily contriving training materials on secrecy that they then stored in those same non-secret areas.

Separately, Infidel points out one compelling factor that may make a complete release of Epstein materials an eventual fact. The molestation of thousands of children is one issue that unites pretty much all segments of American society.

Key focus:
But if you know me by now, you know all roads go back to Moscow. Or really, anywhere kompromat on this scuzzy, flabby-brained bag of crapulence can damage this country’s national security.

She does have a way with words.

Key back channel:
Epstein was talking with the Russians and people in Trump’s circle at a period of time that is MIGHTY inconvenient.

She reportedly has all the modern conveniences, including guards who now function as servers to her varied requests.

AND
She is angling for a complete commutation, which Trump refuses to rule out.

Grung_e_Gene at Disaffected and it Feels So Good goes there, voicing the worst of our suspicions, including those suspicions we have a hard time not believing.

Megyn Kelly doesn’t exactly go along with the Epstein ethic (“It’s still disgusting”), but she insists molesting a 15‑year‑old is not really, truly, actually child abuse.

Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit develops a less than admiring view of Megyn Kelly.

Key denial:
Epstein was no friend of mine, and I never drew us becoming knights and competing at a joust for the virginity of a 13-year-old Eleanor of Aquitaine…

Separately, The Beaverton covers a new Epstein strategy, as Trump now accuses all 342 million Americans of also being in the Epstein files.

As Dave points out, the Miracle Mile Shopping Center in Chicago does not exist.

All having one commonality:
We are watching the ideology of the far-right MAGAs smash against reality, with President Donald J. Trump and his cronies madly trying to convince voters to believe in their false world rather than the real one.

The same analysis is now available in audio format, as Richardson narrates in podcast.

You have to show up and play in order to win.

M. Bouffant at Web of Evil goes to history to present a similar period in America’s past.

And waddya know? It’s during my lifetime.

Baptists in that day and age were demanding from Jefferson his assurance that government would have nothing to do with religion.
Nothing.

Which brings us to Imani Gandy and Jessica Mason Pieklo of Rewire News Group.

This pair of legal experts manage to entertain, even when they’re talking about super serious stuff. This week, it’s about a new challenge to the Separation of Church and State initiated by a Colorado religious school who want to be at least partially funded by Colorado.
Since they say students can opt out of religious courses, the school is not discriminating. They think that means Jefferson’s separation is maintained and, if you live in Colorado, they want your tax dollars.

The state of Colorado says no, it’s against the law. So the school sues.
The Colorado Supreme Court says no, it’s against the law. So the school is taking it to the US Supreme Court.

And it looks like the Supremes just may overturn the Constitution and force taxpayers to fund the school.

This is a serious breach of law by religion, but I still find the best part beginning at 14:14, where the two talk about a previous case that narrowly, very narrowly, went against religious funding.

Imani Gandy:
Saint Isidore of Seville, named after the patron saint of the internet.
That’s a thing. That’s true.
 
So this school was intended to be an explicitly religious school that would participate in quote “the evangelizing mission of the church.”

Jessica Mason Pieklo:
It is absolutely wild to me that Catholics have a patron saint of the internet.

Imani Gandy:
When did that happen?
 
Like I feel like patron saints, they were named in like the 12^th and 13^th century.
Who woke up and decided that the internet needed a patron saint?

Jessica Mason Pieklo:
If Comcast goes down, do I pray to Saint Isidore?
No, I’m serious.
 
Like… if I can’t find something, I know what to do. Like, you know, I pray to Saint Anthony or the patron saint of lost causes.
I mean, Catholics have, you know, patron saints for literally. We have them for everything.
 
But the internet is like an interesting evolution of faith. That’s really all I have to say about that. I didn’t believe it either.
 
And then I thought, wow, these folks really did name their school after the patron saint of the internet!
They were that earnest and serious about it.

Imani Gandy:
Which is absolutely absurd.
I wonder when we’re going to find the first patron saint of like… ChatGPT.

Jessica Mason Pieklo:
The patron saint of AI?

You may prefer a more complete transcript (PDF)

Right Wing Watch brings us pastor Webbon calling on Trump, in his words, to become the American Caesar

Problem with one-size religion:
The Celts recognized that the shape of each soul is different; the spiritual clothing one person wears can never fit the soul of another.

As Dave Barry puts it:
Recently I found myself in a high-stress situation involving seven Jewish women and a large quantity of zucchini.

Dave’s issue is not so much religious as it is practical:

To some extent I can empathize, although Dave, for all his hesitance, is a bit more daring than I.

I did try cooking a few times, before being assigned permanent dishwashing duty.
In my defense, my cooking did dramatically improve once my loved one ordered me to stop using the kitchen timer. Turned out it was the smoke detector.

Now I am allowed to make my own lunch, which alternates between putting together a sandwich on odd days and cooking some sort of pre-packaged something that looks a lot like a sandwich on even days. On those even days, I nuke the pre-packaged deal for precisely 2 minutes and 21 seconds.

I got that 2:21 by taking the original instructions from the box, one minute forty five seconds, multiplying it by 1200, dividing the result by 900, and rounding the fraction up to the next second.
That’s the sort of thing you do if you’re good at math and have a weird, oddly numbered, strength microwave that’s different than the picture on the package. I happen to be very good at math as long as I have a calculator handy.

I told you all that so I could tell you this:
Read Dave Barry’s account. He is habitually hilarious.

PZ Myers is impressed with new revelations about the level of security at the Louvre in Paris that enabled the multi-million dollar (or whatever currency) jewel heist.