Ooooh somebody ask Hegseth if George Washington's troop vaccinations made Washington an 'un-american' leader.

FBI chief Patel says 2020 election fraud arrests 'coming soon' President Donald Trump for years has repeated debunked claims that the 2020 election he lost was 'rigged.' Patel says FBI has 'information' backing Trump.

Desperate attempt to win approval/keep job. "Embattled FBI Director Kash Patel says the bureau has gathered 'information' supporting President Donald Trump’s longstanding and debunked claim that the 2020 election was 'rigged' against him—and that arrests are coming soon."

"Tail Gunner Joe" vs Eisenhower. Newton Pratt's view of the growing problem of McCathyism for the GOP, March 1954.

Newton Pratt on the trouble McCarthy was creating for Ike and the GOP, March 1954.

"One of the benefits of age is being able to pledge young men to war." Pat Oliphant on Reagan's June 1976 campaign remarks. Reagan had speculated about the possibility of the US deploying troops to Rhodesia, Panama, Ireland, and more.

Steel manufacturer Ernest T. Weir on McCarthy in 1953: “If someone wanted to devise a deliberate policy that would torpedo the world prestige of the US and completely destroy Western unity, I can think of no better one than the attempted use of economic coercion advocated by Senator McCarthy.”

How Saudi Arabia's entertainment investments are playing out at home and abroad NPR's Scott Detrow talks with Scott Roxborough of The Hollywood Reporter about the meaning of Saudi Arabia's investment in the potential Paramount Skydance/Warner Brothers Discovery merger.

“Persian Gulf wealth funds have pledged a total of $24 bill for Paramount's attempted takeover, including Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund….a broader push by the country to curry favor with Trump by influencing Washington & also keep young Saudi eyes & minds on screens, not on…human rights.”

"...And don't call me a 'brute' or a 'Hitler'!" Ed Valtman's comment on backlash and the violent resistance to the civil rights movement, 1965.

Ellen Schrecker: “The academy...contributed to [McCarthyism]. The dismissals, the blacklists, & above all the almost universal acceptance of the legitimacy of what the congressional committees...were doing conferred respectability upon the most repressive elements of the anti-Communist crusade."

"We have documentary evidence that this man is planning a trip to Moscow.” Herblock on McCarthy’s idiotic and dangerous crusade, March 1953.

More than a quarter of private colleges are at risk of closing, a new projection shows As one Vermont college finishes its last semester, an estimated 442 others may be in trouble.

“There are fewer kids graduating high school, and of those who do, fewer are going to college….Since 2012, when there were more than 4,000 colleges in the U.S., about 1,000 have gone out of business. And a new estimate…predicts that 442 private colleges are at risk of closure or merging.”

RON SINGS "ALONE AGAIN NATURALLY" BY GILBERT O'SULLIVAN YouTube video by Rawnboy

Some music for your day RS
youtu.be/MRN9kSupICQ?...

Love that song. Would like to hear “Get Down.”

Arms race

Is Schoolwork Optional Now? Education is on the verge of becoming fully automated.

“Instructors have taken to analyzing students’ Google Docs history to make sure [their students] are typing responses live instead of pasting in text from a bot. But of course….A new suite of human-typing simulators promises to generate text to make it look as if a student is writing in real time…”

That’s a good catch. Maybe that is Ziegler. Here’s Ziegler and Colson from the era.

When are Speaker Mike Johnson and FIFA scheduled to give Trump an award for being the One and Only True Pope of the Galaxy?

The FBI Director Is MIA Kash Patel has alarmed colleagues with episodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences.

Absolutely tracks that this is what Trump would care about: “Trump has complained that the FBI director has seemed unprepared for TV appearances and that some high-profile investigations that he directed Patel to pursue have not moved quickly enough.”

Them: Sir, may I see your ticket?

Me: Ummm, I was told I only needed these...

Facts, according to Pete 😳😳😳😡

J. D. Vance’s Bumpy Ride It wasn’t the first time that Trump had debased someone who serves him. It wasn’t even the first time that Vance had had to downplay a blasphemy-themed A.I. image.

Vance “is the same opportunistically malleable demagogic provocateur who, during the campaign, got Trump worked up about migrants allegedly eating cats and dogs. He hasn’t shed his affinity for the Viktor Orbáns of the world.” www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

$96 for a dinner in a can

Need more canned mackerel spread

Respect

B-b-b-but Trump said everything is fine now!

The it* that has cost being the Iran war.

White House seeks record defense budget, but Congress has questions about spending The White House is seeking $1.5 trillion from Congress for the Pentagon and is expected to send a separate ask for the Iran war. Lawmakers want more transparency around how the money will be spent.

“Trump administration officials have been on Capitol Hill this week pitching the largest defense budget request in U.S. history, $1.5 trillion….the Center for Strategic and International Studies has said it has cost more than $29 billion so far.”

There was a time when every other headline did not read like a Mad Lib from a hellscape.

Joe McCarthy: “The indispensable man.” Dan Dowling, May 1954.

Journalist George Reedy commenting on how it felt to see Senator McCarthy conducting his anti-communist crusade: like watching a five-year-old with a loaded machine gun.