https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/04/us/politics/gop-town-hall.html
Somehow, I missed this.
Republican House Members Told to Stop Holding In-Person Town Halls – The New York Times
Leave a reply
Author Archives: John Lusk
Braver Angels Skills for Bridging the Divide Workshop for Blues – Braver Angels Skills for Bridging the Divide eLearning Course
Skipped church to take this free online training.
At first, I thought, “I should read more of *The Sum of Us*” since action can be worship. (Right?)
Then, I sort of realized that (1) one really can’t max out the reading/self-education because nobody cares about all your evidence and good arguments, and (2) it’s all feelings. It’s not evidence-based; it’s feelings.
So, I decided (or God spoke to me without me knowing it) that my best action-as-worship course is this: talking to “the other side”. Step one: learning some shit. (Actually, I sort of know already, but it’s a matter of putting knowledge into action, or being reminded to.)
So, here, y’all. For my white siblings, this is one step on the path of “doing the work”. And it’s actually hard, dropping the comfortable “we hate the other side because they’re stupid or evil” thinking.
But… I think it’s where we need to go.
Man arrested in theft of DHS chief Kristi Noem’s purse is in the U.S. illegally, official says
I’m sorry, but, given the context of the current administration: *PROVE IT*.
Non-voters
So… I keep seeing posts like “how could these Trump voters be so awful?” and “I bet those Trump voters are sorry now that the leopards are eating their faces” and “how can we engage Trump voters in productive dialog?”
But I also see graphs of turnout like this:
And I read stories like this: https://herereadthis.blog/2025/04/02/does-higher-turnout-now-help-republicans-a-data-driven-analysis-of-partisan-turnout-dynamics-part-1/
And I see orgs like this: https://braverangels.org/
And I think, “any conversation should include non-voters.”
Democracy is one of the things that make us great, isn’t it? We’ve long heard it said that choosing not to participate is, in fact, participating, so those folks should be at the table, right?
Opinion | Trump Is Breaking the Rule That Every Barroom Brawler Knows – The New York Times
At what point do we start charging people (including Trump) with treason?
«A showdown with China was one of the most consistent promises Mr. Trump made to the American people. His voters knew this was the war he wanted. But how many of them could have guessed that he’d wage it in China’s favor?»
Chinese Economic Coercion during the THAAD Dispute – The Asan Forum
Remember that whole TPP thing? Cancelling that must have made China very happy.
«the widely reported campaign against South Korean economic interests following Seoul’s decision to participate in the United States-led Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense program, announced in July 2016, offers a valuable case study. The THAAD dispute represents a broad-based coercive episode directed at an ostensibly vulnerable target: China is South Korea’s largest trading partner—the destination of approximately one quarter of its total merchandise and service exports at the time of the dispute—and therefore essential to national GDP, 40 percent of which comes from exports. By contrast, South Korea was the source of just 10 percent of Chinese merchandise imports and did not feature among the mainland’s top service suppliers.»
https://theasanforum.org/chinese-economic-coercion-during-the-thaad-dispute/
MAGA maximalism: Trump’s base loves Wisconsin judge arrest
https://www.axios.com/2025/04/26/maga-maximalism-trump-base-wisconsin-judge-arrest
There will *always* be such people, along with their enablers and demagogues. Ideally, they’ll be driven underground again, with the same social opprobrium that the KKK experiences.
Really, though, I think it’ll be more like Nazis in Germany after WWII. Everybody will know, but life will return to “normal.”
Which means: I think post-war and post-post-war Germany has lessons for us.
If we’re willing to listen. 🙄
Trump Directs Justice Dept. to Investigate ActBlue, Democrats’ Cash Engine – The New York Times
«Elon Musk, the president’s billionaire adviser who poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the 2024 election, has criticized ActBlue for weeks, claiming without evidence that the organization was funded by Democratic megadonors including Herb Sandler, who died in 2019. On Thursday, Mr. Musk wrote on his social media platform, “ActBlue is guilty of widespread criminal identity theft.”»
Here we go, I guess.
I would imagine the P25 people will want lists of donors’ names and addresses so they can “verify their citizenship” or something. Don’t worry, though; the DOGE boys will treat that data with the utmost care to maintain confidentiality, and will definitely not sell it to Meta or Palantir or China.
I wonder how much this will push political donations to crypto-currencies. That’ll be greeeeaat.
«The National Republican Congressional Committee, the first major national party committee to accept cryptocurrency donations, uses both WinRed and BitPay — the latter is a service that converts crypto contributions into dollars before they land in a political committee’s campaign account.»
(Article from 2021.) Of course they do.
No investigations, though. Huh.
Team Trump is making a list of Jews—what could go wrong? – Daily Kos
U.S. races to head off economic shock from China rare earths limits – The Washington Post
Mr. Thucydides! Imagine meeting you here!
«“China knows this is a very strong bargaining chip, and it is why they are playing it,” said Ashley Zumwalt-Forbes, who was a deputy director for batteries and critical materials at the Energy Department during the Biden administration. “This is fast emerging as our Achilles’ heel. What makes these bans particularly dangerous is oftentimes one of these materials is a single point of failure for entire supply chains, and its production rests solely in China.”»
https://wapo.st/4cI7j9o (gift)
«China on Monday accused Washington of abusing tariffs and warned countries against striking a broader economic deal with the United States at its expense, ratcheting up its rhetoric in a spiralling trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.»
Here, Read This 