Hmmm. The Kehlsteinhaus was built as an opulent gathering place for Nazi officers, and until Friday morning it was a popular tourist attraction. Gotta wonder, who was booking stays there? Did guests come for the views, and were those views visual or political?

Excerpt: Months later, the D.O.J. explained for the first time precisely why it was seeking the voter rolls. On December 2nd, a new D.O.J. lawyer, Eric Neff, sent [Utah Attorney General Deidre] Henderson a proposed “memorandum of understanding,” which disclosed that the D.O.J. intended to do a complete analysis of the rolls. Neff, a longtime legal warrior on behalf of election conspiracy theories, explained that the department would notify the state of any “insufficiencies, inadequacies, deficiencies, anomalies, or concerns” that it found. Utah would have forty-five days to “clean” its voter rolls and send back an updated list proving that “proper list maintenance has occurred.”

The existence of this agreement between the state and the federal government, according to the memorandum, could not be publicly disclosed. The Justice Department sent a similar memorandum of understanding to many of Henderson’s counterparts in other states. Henderson decided to disregard the request for secrecy. She made all the correspondence public and announced that Utah would not comply with the D.O.J.’s demands.

Excerpt: The ruling dealt with a relatively rare circumstance in New Hampshire — how election officials exercise their discretion when a voter has difficulty verifying their identity. It is not clear how many voters will be affected by the court’s action.

Me again: But it is clear that most college students vote to the left.

Observe the New York Times’ headline, “Judge restricts DHS field operations aimed at unearthing voter fraud,” falling easily in lockstep with the Trump regime’s false narrative.

Typical Times coverage: Eight paragraphs written basically from the administration’s perspective, before any questions about the bullshit are allowed.

Excerpt: In rural Inyo County, along the Nevada border, the registrar of voters said the list she was sent included just two people, and neither of them had been issued ballots. Danielle Sexton, the registrar, said her records showed they had never voted anywhere in California.

And in Mendocino County, a rugged stretch on the north coast, the registrar said the list she received was completely wrong. “It’s not our voters that were listed,” said Katrina Bartolomie, the Mendocino clerk-recorder. “It’s from another county.”

Two thoughts: ① two candidates with the same or very similar names is not historically uncommon, either as coincidence or a dirty trick. The courts in Alaska have already decided this one’s legit, and the ballot could not be more clear in explaining who’s who. ② The lawsuit’s ‘solution’ to this non-problem amounts to, Republicans win no matter what.

Let’s look forward to Donald Trump’s response when Melania wins the Nobel Peace Prize.

Excerpt: “Today, the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the full weight of the federal government have been wielded against an 82-year-old great-grandmother,” Lucas wrote. “I grew up under Jim Crow. I’ve seen what happens when people in power try to silence those who stand up to them. I spent my life fighting back and I’m not stopping now.”

Me again: If you’re briefly wondering, is there something to this, or is it just another politically-Trumped-up bullshit prosecution? Well, here’s your answer: “Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel traveled to in Norfolk for a press conference announcing the charges.”

Has it always been standard practice to announce investigations? Maybe I’m mistaken, but my recollection from the Before Times is that investigations were generally kept quiet, with no big announcements until someone was indicted or arrested…

Excerpt: It is not just a few outlying individuals. Navy and Marine Corps boards have voted to retain trans members in nine of 12 cases.

Me again: If this gawdawful time comes to something other than a gawdawful end, I’d be OK with purging and prosecuting all the officers who didn’t disobey orders like this.

Excerpt: A 2007 study found that men who join fraternities are three times as likely to commit sexual violence during their freshman year, even though they were no more likely to have committed assault beforehand.

Me again: Whether promised explicitly or merely implied, “free pussy” is something boymen are hoping to find through fraternities. All-male frats on all campuses should be either banned or required to go co-ed.

Well, that’s nice, and I’m glad President Obama has recovered from years of laryngitis just in time for the last few days of the election.

As a popular ex-President, Barack Obama has a big bully pulpit. He could call up any channel on the tube, any website focused on news, and they’d gladly report or air anything he said. B.O. could make headlines just carrying a picket at a rally, or posting a video to YouTube. But he’s offered only silence since Donald Trump won the 2024 election.

If I was an Iowa voter, I’d sit this one out. We have “voted blue no matter who” for far too long, and elected a Congress full of quisling Democrats who don’t really oppose fascists. Turek is one more, and fuck him.

This is the New York Times, lying. The video does not raise questions. The video shows an ICE agent swerving the vehicle to hit a US citizen, knocking him off his bike and breaking his arm. Saying that the video “raises questions” is not impartial journalism, it’s a gutless, quisling refusal to tell the truth.

Substack is Nazi turf. I don’t and won’t read it, and think less of writers who publish there. Which means, now I think less of The Ringer, which I’ve occasionally listened to but probably won’t any more.

Your typical feel-good human interest story about an ordinary schmoe who did the right thing and became a hero. It just seems … odd … that ABC News couldn’t mention that this ordinary schmoe — in Minnesota, who maybe saved 20 kids lives — is a Somali immigrant to America.

Should freedom of religion outrank public health? It’s an honest question, and I’m unsure what’s the right answer. I cherish my own right to be stupid, so I want to respect that right for others, but… I’m also fond of being alive.

Excerpt, suitable for framing or dissection at journalism school: Mr. Trump has taken an expansive view of executive power in his second term.

That’s about ⅛ of Meta’s annual profits, so — surprisingly — not a mere slap on the wrist. Watch it get knocked down on appeal, though.

Excerpt: To wit, here is Zuckerberg himself on their future vision for advertising on Meta:

“But basically, we believe at this point that we are just better at finding the people who are going to resonate with your product than you are… you come to us, you tell us what your objective is, you connect to your bank account, you don’t need any creative, you don’t need any targeting demographic, you don’t need any measurement, except to be able to read the results that we spit out.”

This is fairy tale journalism, a whole lot of nothing with mustard. Scroll way, way down, to the third paragraph from the end:

“It is unclear if the court decisions will have a lasting effect. The companies have vowed to appeal. The decisions come years after the allegations of harm. And the financial penalties are fractions of the companies’ valuations — still some of the most valuable in the world.”

Musk says Ukraine violated Starlink’s rules by using it “for offensive drone strikes to kill people”

In a war, Ukraine used Musk’s military software to kill people? OMG!

And so it came to pass that billionaires decide which nations win wars.

Excerpt: Five current or former NBA players have been indicted for their alleged roles in gambling schemes in the NBA over the last two years.

Me again: Repeated news of players and the entire league’s involvement with gamblers would tend to dampen my enthusiasm, if I had any, or a willingness to spend hundreds of dollars to watch sweaty millionaires dribble.

I would not call this “giving.” More like buying.

Musk and his Bordeaux buddy Ellison own Skydance, and Skydance owns HBO, among many, many other outlets, so I’m wondering … will that new documentary on Musk air on HBO?

When a political candidate uses tech to create ads with images and sounds that never happened, they’re literally misleading people. Misleaders make shitty leaders. Vote for the other candidate.

An American election drives war strategy.

Excerpt: “Young people have reclaimed this phrase to point out that attempts to monitor and infiltrate their movements do not go unnoticed, and to assert their ability to organize in spite of them.”

Me again: Anyone active in activism has seen cops’ clumsy attempts to infiltrate and influence peaceful protests. I don’t speak French, but the dullwittedness of police seems to be universal, and transcends language.

Excerpt: Target gave data to investigators showing, for example, the crooks used 3,850 giftcards, worth around $141,000, at 85 different Target stores in 18 states across two days. That encompassed 300 individual transactions, according to the document. Sephora told investigators the gang redeemed around 330 giftcards, worth $58,600, online across 1,500 transactions. Lowe’s, meanwhile, had 450 giftcards, totalling $226,000, redeemed in person and online at more than 22 Lowe’s locations.

“Lost faith,” eh? Sorry, it’s all piffle until judges start finding the liars in contempt and jailing them.

It was obvious it was illegal as the invasion happened, a year and a half ago. Almost everything Trump & the Republicans do is obviously illegal, and might even be found illegal if or when it lands in front of a judge, eventually, one fine day — but meanwhile the damage is done, and anyway, nobody is punished when it’s declared to have been in violation of the law.

Excerpt: The reported access generally starts with customers sharing their banking usernames and passwords with an AI assistant. Customers may approve that access, but the bank may not. Axios reported that such arrangements conflict with rules at most banks requiring customers to log in themselves.

That distinction matters. Unauthorized AI access does not automatically mean hackers stole passwords or broke through a bank’s security systems. In these cases, customers may have opened the door themselves, creating a gap between what they allow and what their bank permits.

Me again: The intelligence might be artificial, but the stupidity is genuine.

Excerpt: The pace and volume of the AI-powered attacks are starting to overwhelm the incident-response firms that respond to cyber breaches. Pundits are referring to the month as “Black October,” and many in the field are predicting more to come.

In my entire working life, five decades at many (too many) jobs, I never knew of or heard of any employee not on vacation who was paid to stay home, watch TV, play poker, whatever.

Your tithes and offerings pay for kiddie-diddling, over and over and over again.