LIFE AND NEWS NOTES FROM AN OVER-EDUCATED, ELDERLY, RED-HEADED CHILDLESS CAT LADY (PER J. F. F…ING VANCE) BEAVERING AWAY IN ONE OF THE COLD SUB-BASEMENTS OF THE MINISTRY OF SNARK.
TRUMP: THE MOST CORRUPT ADMINISTRATION EVER
Article: Roebuck, Jeremy (7/29/260 “Blanche’s attorney general nomination paused as 2 Republicans hold out. Washington Post.
· The delay in the vote for Blanche’s nomination for Attorney General was announced just hours before it was to take place. Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) insisted that the administration provide in writing guarantees regarding the Trump IRS settlement. The first guarantee involved a $1.8 billion taxpayer pool of money to compensate people who claim to have been victims of political prosecutions. Even though Blanche pledged publicly that the administration would not go ahead with the fund after bipartisan objections, he refused to put this in writing.
· The second guarantee involved the time period coered by the ‘get out of jail free’ tax coverage. Blanche has continued to maintain that the Justice Department “will honor…” a provision of the bill that “purported to shield Trump, his family, and their business from past tax claims…” but is refusing to stipulate what is covered exactly in the future.
· NOTE: Both proposals are outrageous and in any other administration would never be considered in any form. To be arguing about the particulars says so much about how far down the political structure has fallen.
· No doubt, Blanche didn’t sell his soul to become acting Attorney General, but he could remain in this position until the end of Trump’s term.
ISRAEL: ANTISEMITISM
Article: Andrews, Frank (7/29/26) “2025 was the deadliest year for antisemitic attacks outside Israel in 3 decades…” CBS News.
· According to a study from the J7 Communities’ Task Force Against Antisemitism, more than 90% of the Jewish diaspora lives in the countries of Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and U.K. and the U.S.
· In these seven countries, the J7 group documented over 23,000 antisemitic incidents.
· A group with purported links to Iran, Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia (The Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Righteous) promised to “keep threatening U.S. and Israeli interests…until they had “…avenged every child in Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, and the resistance nations.”
· The J7 report called the surge in violence in the seven countries “the new normal.”
Article: Braunstein, Mellissa Langsam (7/16/26) “Fighting the new antisemitism.” National Review.
· In a recent poll published by the Manhattan Institute, 26% of Republican voters younger than 50 “believe that Jews receive too much favorable treatment.”
· According to the report of the poll, “…54 percent of Republican men and 39 percent of Republican women under 50 said that “the Holocaust was greatly exaggerated or did not happen as historians describe.”
· “Among Democrats, 24% of 18–29-year-olds agree that “the Holocaust…was greatly exaggerated or did not happen as historians describe.””
LIFE NOTES
It’s cooler than usual this morning which is a blessed relief. I came down at around 3 AM and worked for a few hours with Popsicle Pete flopped down next to me. There is something so comforting about having a cat beside you when you work. While you are paused, thinking, you can run your hand down his so soft orange and white fur while he pats his tail on the daybed.
BOOKS: POLITICS
Unger, Craig (2024) “Den of spies: Reagan, Carter, and the secret history of the treason that stole the white house.”
As Unger notes in the Prologue of his book, “Den of Spies: “I’d been unable to get out of my head about a covert operation in which the Reagan-Bush campaign made a secret deal with Iran that sabotaged the 1980 presidential election.” It was “a hall of mirrors designed to obscure the truth, it was a case study in his to hijack American foreign policy, steal the presidency, and get away with it.”
Law, Power, and Justice 
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