Thursday 3 September 2026

LIFE NOTES

It is horribly muggy outside, muggy and hot. There’s a mist over the marsh but you can still see the travelers (that’s what I’ve taken to calling them) across the marsh, headlights passing by.

Errol Flynn is hunkered down on top of the piano looking out over the back yard, the birds, the live oaks and the squirrels. Cool Mustard, our largest orangey, is hunkered down on the daybed with me in the library. That’s the morning array. Other cats are here and there, snoozing after breakfast, waiting for Mike to come downstairs so they can go outside for their morning walk.

We don’t like to let them out before Mike comes downstair. That way, they don’t pace and pace and work themselves into a frenzy of anticipation. We hope that’s going to keep them from frothing at the mouth waiting to go outside when John is here keeping them while we go to Spain and Portugal.

Besides, they don’t much like being outside when Mike’s not there. Sometimes, when he comes back inside for some coffee, they will follow him in and wait. They know they are safer when the big dog is outside watching over them.

SHORT NEWS NOTES

The dreadful Ken Paxton has been traveling with his girlfriend rather than campaigning in Texas, so the Republicans (some of them) have been essentially telling Trump that he broke this race (by refusing to back Coryn) and so now needs to use his massive war chest to fix it. It is doubtful, however, that Trump will do so. He hates to part with money, especially to benefit somebody else. He’s trying to get the Republicans to pay for it by charging them $25,000 a head to attend this ridiculous mid-term Republican convention which is essentially a little love-in for Trump.

The B…..d Bassent is on television blaming the Ukrainians for high gas prices. This is likely the new strategy of the Trump administration to try to deflect the blame from themselves for this idiotic war against Iran.

Hegseth is expanding deployment for servicemen which means that the war will be going on for a while longer, and they will need a way of explaining high gas prices. They have no morals or ethics and will lie in a second. As an example, Trump is claiming that the U.S. is “controlling” the Strait of Hormuz. There has evidently been discussion that Trump could declare “control,” and declare victory and end the war. This may give him some kind of short term gain, but little else.

The guests on Morning Joe do their normal baffled discussion of why Trump is always backing Putin, such as blaming high gasoline prices on Ukraine. There is no mystery here. Trump is a Russian asset. He has been a Russian asset since the mid-eighties, it’s just that nobody wants to admit it. They somehow feel that it is better to allow Trump, Putin and Russia to destroy the U.S. than to admit that they were so incompetent that they allowed a Russian asset to become president.

ICE has been operating in Connecticut, back to their old tricks, arresting parents waiting at school bus stops waiting for their children. And, Republicans use the fact that the DSA wants to defund ICE as some crazy plan.

Gloria Steinham has died. I did not know this, but her first big article was an undercover piece where she pretended to be a Playboy Bunny. She wrote about the long hours and little pay, essentially how these women were being exploited to make money for Hugh Hefner. Barbara Walters wrote a feature on Playboy Bunnies at the same time. She presented the entire affair as charming and funny. Jesus.

The White House is evidently already preparing for an onslaught of instigations should he Democrats take over the House and Senate. I am not at all sure that this will come about. I cannot see that the Democrats will be any different than they were when Obama was in office (moving forward) and when Biden was in office (not moving at all). The Democrats want to get back to “normal.” They do not want to impeach, investigate, charge. They are afraid, too afraid to uphold justice. This is why the DSA is being so successful.

Books:

Stealing Elections, American Style by David Walbert. Never has the federal government been so involved in controlling elections with measures such as gerrymandering, eliminating mail in voting, checking voters’ lists for non-citizens (or people whose names sound like they may not be citizens).

What is Life Worth? By Kenneth Feinberg. The fund to compensate 9/11 victims.

LIFE AND NEWS NOTES