I have been called an alarmist and worse by well meaning people who want to think it will just all be ok. The truth is it doesn't always end up ok and we can't pretend it will. Donald Trump is targeting Black voters and women to rig this election. We need to stand up, call it out and take action.

This week: TS Bertha, Smithsonian Blues, The Rosenberg Boys, and the usual nonsense. Music by Sarah Vaughan, Oscar Peterson, Elmo Hope, Captain Beefheart, Billie Holiday, Peggy Lee, Count Basie, The Bee Gees, Steely Dan, Grateful Dead, and Los Lobos.

Saturday Odds & Sods: Summertime

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends.

first-draft.com

The racist backlash to Chris Nolan’s Odyssey is a kind of stolen valor, an attempt by the right to claim credit for achievements they had nothing to do with in order to justify racial hierarchy in the present. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

The Fear of Black Greeks

White people don’t own the accomplishments of ancient Greece.

theatlantic.com

Bertha don’t you come round here anymore!!

Yup. They didn’t have evidence when they sued 63 times. They didn’t have evidence in defense against the Jack Smith indictment, and they don’t have evidence now.

Acyn@acyn.bsky.social · 3w ago

Jonathan Swan says that when President Trump returned to office, he pressured the intelligence community to produce some kind of evidence proving that the 2020 election was stolen, and that Trump’s Thursday night address was the best they could do.

I live in a red state, Louisiana. I’m contacting my Senators and congressman, all R’s, to schedule in-office appointments so that I may receive proof of election fraud in writing. I encourage all red state residents to do the same.

Campaign ad idea: A group of people watches a tennis match, and their heads whip back and forth to Trump‘s real voiceovers about the Iran war: It is won; we are back at war; it is over; we are back at war; there is a cease-fire; we are back at war; etc., etc., ad infinitum.

"I need you to *find* 11,780 votes." —Something said by someone who tries to interfere with elections, not something said by someone who is concerned with election interference.

"documents do not back up his claims" is just a wildly inadequate way to describe a guy who lies all the damn time about everything and who has been lying all the damn time about this particular topic for a decade and who has a obvious self-interest in lying about it and who is definitely lying

Trump is not even on the ballot this year and he has no legislative goals. Trump is trying to rig the 2026 election simply because he doesn't want Democrats to win control of Congress and then investigate his corruption.

I highly recommend this analysis from last night. Blanche getting disbarred like Rudy is in the realm of the possible.

The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell@lastwordmsnow.bsky.social · 3w ago

WATCH: @lawrenceodonnell.bsky.social details how a federal judge said “no" to Donald Trump, finding that his lawsuit against the IRS “did not actually involve two sides, but was really Donald Trump suing himself." #LastWord

For the fourth time, the Trump administration is paying off a company to abandon a clean energy project. Combined, they could've powered more than 7 million homes with clean, affordable energy, but instead, the administration used $2.7 billion in taxpayer dollars to stop them.

Trump Administration Pays Duke Energy $129 Million to Halt Offshore Wind Farm

nytimes.com

@joshturek4iowa.bsky.social: ‘Iowans are ready for change and the winds of change are here’ youtu.be/ynBitQevshc?...

Buh-bye Arthur! It was real!

Most politicians spend an election year doing popular things. Trump is doing the opposite because he’s not trying to win voters back. His goal is to weaken institutions and our resolve so he can sabotage the midterms.

It’s basically Kid Rock writ large: a rich northern kid trying to pull off an Everyman persona by leaning into poor southern stereotypes

Parker Molloy@parkermolloy.com · 2mo ago

The year is 2026. The White House is hosting a UFC fight on the lawn. Sponsored by Monster Energy Drink. It just doesn't get any tackier than that.

If you credulously do a segment about the vote in California in which you don’t say the president is lying, you’re spreading disinformation to your listeners.

California just held an election w/paper ballots, signature verification, audits, bipartisan oversight & public vote counting procedures. You don’t get to yell “fraud” every time voters make a choice you don’t like. Take the whiny little b*tch act somewhere else. We’re not buying it in this state!

Be a child o’ th’ time.

A democracy weakens when the media suppress expression to stay in regulators’ good graces. Stephen Colbert’s decision to hold his ground is a reminder of how essential individual courage can be.

I will always treasure that I saw his show live just before Covid hit. To see the Ed Sullivan theater, and the entire operation, was monumental for me. And of course he is one of our best and brightest and a decent man to boot. I will always be a fan and following his next moves wherever they lead.

Thank you, Stephen, and all! ♥️😍🤩

Writers Guild of America East@wgaeast.bsky.social · 3mo ago

33 years. Countless laughs. One hell of a writing staff. Tonight, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert signs off. The writers who made it an institution — our members — go out the way they came in: with integrity, solidarity, and the best jokes in the room.

Keeping this false narrative alive is a corruption of public office. Audits and lawsuits have already answered this question.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3mo ago

BARTIROMO: So you believe there will be a definitive answer as to whether the 2020 election was stolen? TODD BLANCHE: We're looking at it and we hope to get one

Louisiana canceled its U.S. House primaries & just eliminated a NoLa office to erase a result. Still, elections tomorrow: ➡️ Trump wants revenge on Senator Cassidy ➡️ Measure to raise judges' retirement age ➡️ Measure that'd ease firings of public employees Details: boltsmag.org/whats-on-the...

Bronze screen & gate. c.1978 Jacqueline Stieger - artist & sculptor Robinson College Chapel, Cambridge A trellis frame covered in garden & countryside flowers & leaves. 4.87 metres (16 foot) high, forming the division between the main & ante chapel. #AdoorableThursday #IronworkThursday

At this point, solving climate change is cheaper than not solving it -- not only on some grand 50 year time horizon, but tomorrow, today, immediately. Soving climate change *is* affordability. Maybe Dems should tell voters about that.

GOP's message for 2026 midterm: If you love inflation, the Iran war and Trump's new taxpayer funded billionaire dollar ballroom then vote for us and we will deliver even more of that!

“Pray not for your mom and pop. They’ve gone to heaven. Pray you can make it through this hell.” — Rev. George Lee Shot to death #tdih 1955 because he used pulpit & printing press to urge African Americans to vote in Belzoni, Miss. Led local NAACP. ⬇️ 🧵 www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/re...

May 7, 1955: Murder of Rev. George W. Lee

Rev. George W. Lee, one of the first African Americans registered to vote in Humphreys County since Reconstruction and head of the Belzoni, Mississippi NAACP, was murdered.

zinnedproject.org