and as Proverbs 20:11 says “known by his actions—whether his conduct is pure and upright”
76 thoughts on “A Department by Any Other Name”
Senate GOP bill gets icy review from Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial board sharply rebuked a Republican bill advancing through the Senate on Sunday as “political rent-seeking under the guise of national security.”
Senate Republicans have advanced a bill that would expand Commerce Department restrictions on Chinese “connected” software in cars. A new editorial argued that the move seems reasonable on the surface because of myriad internet-connected systems in new vehicles, but the bill has been hijacked by “self-serving union and corporate interests.”
“While political favoritism could bias national-security reviews, the Senate bill is more problematic,” the editorial reads.
One group the editorial singled out is the United Auto Workers union, which “almost exclusively backs Democrats.” That led the editors to question why Republicans would bother to carry water for the union, as proponents of the bill have proven themselves willing to do.
The editorial also highlighted how the bill could create political risks for Republicans ahead of the midterms. One auto manufacturer that stands to be impacted by the bill is Mercedes, which employs over 7,500 people in two Republican states, Alabama and South Carolina, the editorial noted.
Republicans have also shown a willingness to fight Mercedes over the company’s opposition to the bill. For instance, the editorial flagged a letter written by the House Select Committee on China that chided Mercedes for trying to tell U.S. lawmakers “how to set the rules for our own country.”
“This being an election year, there’s a risk that Republicans who want to flaunt their anti-China bona fides insist on attaching the bill to a must-pass vehicle like the National Defense Authorization Act,” the editorial added. “If American workers later lose their jobs, they’ll blame someone else.”
I’ve noticed this recruiting ad quite a bit lately, ends with “WAR.GOV”
As bad as the job market is today, I don’t think very many young people are stupid enough to join the military when we are so obviously losing a highly publicized war with Iran. High school students today are much better informed about current events than previous generations were, because of their extensive use of social media where they share news and information with their friends. They have all heard the sad stories of older brothers and sisters who were wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan, and cannot get medical care because of severe cutbacks at the VA.
Young people also know that being a veteran doesn’t help you get a “good job” anymore. Veterans have no advantage in a job market where all one can expect is a minimum wage job with no benefits and a future where your lousy job is eliminated by AI.
High school graduates used to join the military to get job training but all that veterans can expect today is people wearing MAGA hats saying, “Thank you for your service.” After they have heard that a few dozen times they realize that it means nothing except “I voted for Trump and better you than me.”
jamie, thanks for acknowledging Will the other day. His famous quote is still alive and well in re today’s dembat kerfuffles
In his explosive interview with The Economist, the SpaceX billionaire inadvertently revealed something darker about his true vision for the future—and about his affinities with global fascism.
That remarkable claim is from Elon Musk’s interview last week with The Economist, in which he reiterated one of his favorite new claims: His Department of Government Efficiency’s huge cuts to international humanitarian aid did not result in the death of any children abroad. This isn’t meant as a vague or hyperbolic exaggeration. Musk’s assertion is quite emphatically that not a single child—or even a fraction of a child, as his strange “zero point zero” formulation suggests—died due to these DOGE cuts.
Musk’s Economist interview is getting attention for outsized predictions and meltdown moments: He insisted AI will surpass human intelligence in only five years and seethed to his interviewer, Economist editor Zanny Minton Beddoes, that “people loathe you.” But we think Musk’s claims about DOGE and children capture something darker that’s been overlooked: The global far right is operating within a mode of language and communication that many liberals simply don’t understand. We’ve got to get better at grasping it—and countering it.
Listen to full interview at link
MICHIGAN SENATE: Haley Stevens tries to pivot a viral internet moment mocking her into a positive, campaign ad, says her raw tone matches Michiganders getting squeezed on groceries and utilities.
Craig,
Did you and David get around to seeing The Odyssey?
This is the job market that young people today face…
The minimum hourly wage is Maine is $15.10.
From the Economic Policy Institute (epi.org)
Cost of living does vary between states and regions across the country, but the minimum wage is still too low across the South and the Midwest.
According to EPI’s Family Budget Calculator, even under conservative assumptions of what constitutes a living wage, there is almost no county in the U.S. where a single adult worker can achieve a modest but adequate standard of living earning less than $15 an hour. In fact, many metro areas in the South and Midwest are much more expensive to live in.
The living wage in Austin, Atlanta, and Charlotte exceeds $20 an hour. Affordability is still a pressing issue across these regions, even if on average the cost of living is lower. Notably, voters in Florida, Missouri, and Nebraska passed ballot referenda to raise their state minimum wages to $15.
Low wage floors in Southern and Midwestern states hurt workers by suppressing their pay. Most of the states that use the $7.25 federal minimum wage are in the South and Midwest, meaning the effective wage floor in these states is a poverty-level wage.
Compounding the problem, many states in these regions preempt localities from passing their own minimum wage policies, preventing policymakers in these jurisdictions from setting wage floors that meet the needs of workers.
The use of preemption to dismantle higher labor standards like the minimum wage in the South and Midwest has a long history of being used to reinforce anti-Black racism and white supremacy.
We have not, Jamie. David doesn’t like period dramas much, and i get restless in theaters. Plus, apparently we have no IMAX theaters in DC area?
If you get restless, it is definitely not a movie for you. The whole first hour just drags. I found it so so at best so it must be the IMAX lovers pushing it through the roof on the reviews given my C+ rating. Wait for streaming and fast forward through the first 45 minutes.
My little Haley booster video off to a strong start in its first 30 minutes. I’ve posted so much good stuff about Abdul, decided we need to be ready to support her if she wins the nomination. CANNOT afford to lose Michigan!!!
Nash, WV is among the states that still use Federal Minimum Wage as its baseline. I suppose Congress thinks that $15030.70 is enough to get by – they haven’t changed FMW since 2009. Call me silly. but I don’t think even $31098 is sufficient to get by on ($15/hr.). And keep in mind that is gross wages.
And congrats to Tadej Pogacar on his 5th TDF yellow jersey, joining Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, and Miguel Induráin as a five-time winner. Only Lance Armstrong has won more at 7, but the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) stripped Armstrong of his GC titles between 1999 and 2005 after learning he used performance enhancing drugs.
DNC just announced the rest of the early 2028 primaries. Let’s handicap them in chatroom today.
In February of 2026, Netanyahu met with Trump and told him it was possible to quickly win a war with Iran.
This is what Air Force General Dan Caine, the President’s top military advisor, said to Trump…
From Maggie Haberman’s book, Regime Change: the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump.”
(Page 397-398)
Caine shared with Trump and members of the cabinet the military assessment that a major campaign against Iran would dramatically deplete stockpiles of American weaponry, with no clear path to quickly replenish. He was deeply worried about both the potential for significant American casualties and further depletion of munitions and missile interceptors strained after years of support for Ukraine and Israel. He also flagged the enormous difficulty of securing the Strait of Hormuz and the risks of Iran shutting the strait – a scenario Trump dismissed on the assumption that the regime would capitulate before it came to that.
But the munitions question extended well beyond Iran. Without sufficient stockpiles, America’s capacity in any future conflict could be seriously compromised. The administration had already pushed major defense contractors to dramatically increase production, but the industrial base simply could not scale up to the speed or volume demanded for such precise, intricate, and complex weaponry.
Trump resisted any public discussion of the munitions shortfall; he viewed the acknowledgement of this problem as revealing an American weakness, though that posture was largely beside the point. America’s enemies already had a very detailed picture of what the U.S. had in its stockpile and how quickly it could rebuild.
POG, come on the chatroom and explain the French Open. Keep thinking one of our European chatters would get us into it. I am clueless. Where do you watch it?
I’m not referring to the French Open. (I assume you’re referring to the tennis championship). What I watched is the Tour de France, to the extent I could. NBC carried it on Sundays and Saturdays and the Tour itself has a website that provides coverage of each stage daily with a real time tracker during the stage and a livestream chat with tour experts (former cyclists and other folks with some type of connection to the tour. Folks post commentary and videos on it in real time. It’s pretty slick. I’ll try to hop on at 11, but that depends on what happens with the phone and who needs what done on a short leash.
A thought on the discussions I read about the cost of an Iranian drone is the belief Western observers/thinktanks that the Iranians aren’t capable of sophisticated manufacturing. Like the electronic brains for the drones. I get the feeling that there is a bit of unconscious bigotry going on, as if a bunch of “ragheads” aren’t as capable.
My thought is, they are human and they have brains. If one human can do it then they can just as quickly learn the trick too.
Yes, the first 45 minutes is a bit boring, but I do understand why they did it. They needed to back fill what happened previously with the Iliad and the reason why Odysseus was in Troy, why he is a war hero, develop the relationship that he and Penelope had, etc. My mom and I agreed that could have been a bit shorter, but at the same time they cut several pieces and switched how he got home as well as the ending. So yeah.
today’s meme…
My Mythology shelf.
meme #2…
Yesterday my sister set a box with cucumbers on her neighbor’s front porch. This morning she got the box back full of tomatoes. Neighbors being neighbors, it is a universal language, True, if you were born in the Missouri Ozarks or as her neighbors were, in Ukraine. How do we counter Trumps bigotry against immigrants, sometimes it is one neighbor at a time.
Jack
Today in the Diner… Lindsey Graham, Sherrod Brown & Epstein
Lindsey Graham pushed Trump to bomb Iran, Sherrod Brown fights Todd Blanche over Epstein files, and Troy Jackson challenges Susan Collins in Maine.
It turns out Lindsey Graham was the cheerleader behind the scenes begging Donald Trump to start a war in Iran. Leaked documentary footage shows Graham congratulating himself for convincing Trump to embrace his inner warmonger, even as Benjamin Netanyahu tried to hit the brakes. We dig into the frightening reality of our depleted missile stockpiles and what happens if a real conflict kicks off with China or North Korea while billionaires build their doomsday bunkers.
Meanwhile, Sherrod Brown is not pulling any punches in Ohio, directly tying the confirmation of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to a coverup of the Epstein files. Over in Maine, fifth generation logger Troy Jackson is hammering Susan Collins over her corporate tax breaks and that infamous Brett Kavanaugh vote. It is a stark reminder that the fight for DEMOCRACY requires holding these comfortable incumbents to the fire before they drag us back to the dark ages.
Finally, we serve up a healthy dose of reality regarding the sudden comeback of measles and polio. Thanks to a wave of anti science MAGA parents refusing to vaccinate their kids, we are losing our elimination status for diseases we beat decades ago. Grab a seat at the diner and let’s process this madness. ☕
00:00 Intro
05:05 Tadej Pogacar at Tour de France
20:10 West Virginia Democratic decline
24:05 Sherrod Brown vs Todd Blanche
28:30 Troy Jackson challenges Susan Collins
34:00 Katie Fang and the Epstein files
38:20 Lindsey Graham on Iran war
43:00 China, North Korea and US missiles
52:30 MAGA parents bring back Polio
59:00 Maya Angelou closing thoughts
Renee,
When we had an outbreak of food poisoning several years ago, linked to spinach, my sister the nurse started washing her bagged spinach in a mild bleach solution then rinsing that off and putting it in the fridge. What she found was that her spinach lasted a lot longer. It seems that it wasn’t very clean.
I rarely buy spinach or salad greens, too expensive, but if I do the first thing I do is wash it like she did, then put it away.
Jack
Buy organic, triple-washed, wash it when you get it home, put it on a paper towel, bad it & put it in the freezer. I add it to past sauce, etc., so not looking for fresh leaves. By the way, freezing does not kill cyclospora.
One other thing I don’t buy bagged salad mix. I have a good knife and cutting board and make my own. Right now I have cukes, peppers and tomatoes ready in the fridge waiting for a bit of cheese and mayo for lunch.
Jack
LINDSEY BEGS FOR WAR:
Leaked video exposes Lindsey Graham taking credit for Trump bombing Iran. He “loves blowing stuff up”.
Pentagon reports more than 600 Iran war casualties in quiet database update
Combined with the updated Operation Epic Fury totals, the new Pentagon figures show that 18 US troops have been killed and 624 wounded since the US launched its war against Iran on 28 February.
*And hundreds if not thousands of Iranian civilians.
Benjamin Netanyahu and Volodymyr Zelenskyy are set to arrive in Washington simultaneously with the goal of winning the ear of Donald Trump at pivotal moments in wars affecting their respective countries.
Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, and Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, will attend Tuesday’s funeral of Lindsey Graham, the former Republican senator for South Carolina, who died suddenly on 11 July and was a close ally of both leaders.
Both men are scheduled to meet the president at a time when US policy towards the wars in Iran and Ukraine is in a state of flux.
*If we can arrest Maduro, we can arrest Netanyahu.
i lol’d at you calling “the Odyssey” a ‘period drama’
it’s not Jane Austen
The hype for the movie was a good lesson in manipulation by media
we’re almost through it, it was an odyssey navigating hype for “the Odyssey”
Europe also frying to a crisp and burning to the ground in the summer heat, I wonder what the cause must be
Let’s pretend we don’t know
even Trump was saying “ I don’t remember wildfires like this in the past”
yeah no shit
BiD, We made it to the socialist spice store. Here’s what we got with your gift card.
Trump’s Folly
Covering the Coverage: The Iran Jig Is Up
The media’s split screen has finally arrived. While wire services and political desks continue to transcribe the administration’s “diplomatic pause” as a calculated chess move, national security reporters are breaking rank, leaking the reality: the bombing campaign simply ran out of viable targets, and the military is quietly trying to hide depleting munition supplies, plus the mounting human toll. Here is how the press is fracturing over the latest Iran whiplash.
• [National Security/Independent]: Just Security highlights the crucial Axios leak revealing that CENTCOM advised pausing the strikes not to give peace a chance, but because the bombing campaign had exhausted its viable targets and reached the limit of its effectiveness. – Just Security
• [International Wire]: The Hindu presents a chaotic live timeline directly contrasting Trump’s claims of “very deep talks” against Iran’s outright denial, exposing the sheer absurdity of the White House spin on the global stage. – The Hindu
• [Mainstream]: Al-Monitor straight-faces the whiplash diplomacy, uncritically reporting the administration’s “optimism” for a deal while simultaneously transcribing the threat to resume military strikes if they don’t get their way. – Al-Monitor
• [Mainstream]: PBS treats the suspended U.S. bombing campaign as a calculated policy pause, noting that mediators are making “progress,” entirely missing the logistical reality behind the ceasefire. – PBS
• [Conservative]: Fox News dutifully amplifies the tough-guy posturing, framing Trump’s “not much time” deadline as calculated strength rather than a desperate attempt to manufacture leverage after hitting a strategic dead end. – Fox News
• [Defense/Independent]: Task & Purpose catches the Pentagon playing an absurd bureaucratic shell game, quietly splitting the casualty database into two arbitrary categories to obscure the sudden admission that over 600 U.S. troops have now been wounded. Given the military’s documented history of silently scrubbing and altering this very database, this delayed data dump practically guarantees the true human cost of the conflict is still being hidden. – Task & Purpose
— Human-directed. AI-generated. Powered by Gemini (Pro).
Glad you made it! Who knew spices could be so much fun? Or socialist? When I find stores like Penzey’s, it’s like I’ve found the “mother ship.”
If you’re ever in NYC, check out Fish’s Eddy. I’ve only been to the store near the Flat Iron Building, but they just opened a location in Brooklyn.
Is cinnamon the most socialist spice? Hmm.
Maine Democratic Party candidate for the U.S. Senate, Troy Jackson has an entry on Wikipedia.
It gives the details of his political career in Maine.
It is interesting how his political values have changed over time.
He was once a Republican but later became a Democrat and now he is a progressive Democrat.
Measles also wipes out your immune system, including your adaptive natural immunity from other diseases, essentially unvaccinating you against pathogens you’ve already encountered, Khan adds.
It opens you up to other diseases, including the flu; respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV; and severe pneumonia, any of which can be fatal. It also makes you vulnerable to dangerous bacterial infections, such as bacterial meningitis, the form most likely to cause hearing loss.
…measles is a leading cause of childhood blindness in less developed countries without good vaccine access.
Cardiac issues can happen if the inflammation from an infection is severe enough to damage the heart muscle.
Long-term side effects aren’t widely reported or discussed, but they’re real and range from mild to debilitating.
[Encephalitis, leading to coma, brain damage.]
It’s rare for measles to affect the brain, but that complication is not as rare as one might think. “Encephalitis usually occurs in about 0.1% to 1% of measles cases,” or 1 to 10 in 1,000 cases, Kahn says. That’s roughly the same odds as having identical twins (about 4 in 1,000 births) or getting your car stolen in the U.S. (about 3 in 1,000).
One serious form of encephalitis, called subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, happens when a natural measles infection reactivates in the brain, typically several years later. It affects between 1 and 28 people per 100,000 measles cases. But in unvaccinated infants younger than 15 months, that ratio is much higher: as many as 1 in 600, according to a study by the American Academy of Pediatrics. It is almost always fatal. The risk of SSPE after vaccination with the weakened measles virus is almost nonexistent.
When the measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, it sent measles infections crashing down to about 22,000 cases in 1968. As more people got vaccinated, that number kept shrinking. “We hit a low in this country in 2004” of 37 cases, Kahn says. “Give me an example of a greater accomplishment in medicine than that.” The vaccine was so effective that many doctors today don’t even recognize the disease when they see it, Kahn says.
Out of hundreds of millions of vaccinations worldwide, there have been no known deaths in healthy people caused by the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, commonly called the MMR vaccine. There have been exceedingly rare serious allergic reactions reported, about 1 in 1 million doses. The vaccine can make you sick if you’re severely immunocompromised. But overall, decades of experience with the vaccine have proven it to be quite safe.
Dan Patrick directs Texas Senate to study ways to further ingrain religion into public life
One of Patrick’s first charges, released earlier this year, called for “preventing Sharia law in Texas,” while party members at the Texas GOP convention last month tried to expel Muslims who arrived to participate in the event.
The lieutenant governor released seven new charges for state senators to study before the Legislature reconvenes, including ways to “inform and remind Texans of their religious liberty rights.”
*Liberty. Ha! The irony is lost on Lt. Turd, Dan Patrick. Or, he’s just lying. As long as it’s his version of Christianity, I guess.
Ha! So many videos of Ken Paxton & Hayley Stevens running away from constituents and journalists. They should have foot race!
Whitmer backs Stevens. Abdul calls it “The Money vs The Many.” Will Michigan choose donor dollars or DEMOCRACY? Pick your path.
Any of you dirt-diggers plant garlic plants?
I figgered I’d ax yall before engaging the google machine
Sometime the googler can be a bit obtuse.
When Haley doesn’t run away, she does well. Owned this TMZ encounter…
OMG! Punched, the monkey, has garnered more evening news airtime; two days in a row.
Maybe spend one day on the fact that ICE has murdered more folks on US soil than Iranians.
Maybe look into the sexual assaults in ICE custody and in concentration camps.
Maybe start tracking folks that have gone missing since DHS/ICE/US government interacted with them.
you plant it on columbus day and harvest it on the 4th of july
all you gotta know
besides that you fork it up don’t pull it up so you don’t damage basal plates for storage
Punched, the monkey, has garnered more evening news airtime; two days in a row.
lol how could anyone not realize they are being deliberately dumbed-down
Lots of garlic, Stur! It surrounds the garden and is also a companion to the tomatoes in cages. Let it over-winter & you can have scapes in the spring. Just bought a giant bulb at some store in the city last year, pulled off cloves & put them in a shallow dish of water…and there were roots in a day. Crazy how fast it grows.
Not sure about drying and storing.
exposure to freezing temperatures is what causes it to develop individual cloves is why you plant it in october
It’s still growing from last year, and I planted new in the spring. Wasn’t sure about drying & storing it. Didn’t want the garage & camper to smell like garlic. Didn’t realize that’s how it gets cloves.
A hearty thank yous for the nice concise garlic information which as it happens is exactly what I wanted to know.
I’ll put that together with what I remember of my dad’s garlic patch and I might look to have fresh garlic out back next summer. A magical thought.
A nagging thought I have is I seem to remember that patch having plants year round.
So I guess I gotta track that down a bit.
many many plants need a period of freezing temperatures for their biological processes
Another reason to be terrified of global warming
also why I have onion seeds in the fridge right now, I actually sowed some yesterday
wow a dragonfly landed on my phone while i was typing (they avoid people!)
Looks like Trump can’t keep Blanche if he wants to bury more Epstein files and keep his cop beaters slush fund.
Tomorrow on the menu 11-Noon ET…
was actually planning on a sturge sr. peanut crop next year
on a smaller scale 😀
This seems headed for same result as sub sandwich thrower: acquitall on all charges…
NBC — A key grand jury witness in a case against a former Olympic canoeist accused of tampering with the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool testified that the area was already damaged and would have required repairs regardless, lawyers said in a court filing Monday.
When I told about the peanuts, did I also mention the pine trees?
lol
my brain logged “2 acres” and “peanuts” and “sadness”
no pine trees (knocks on skull)
UNREDACT EPSTEIN FILES:
A judge finally demands the unredacted Epstein files. Katie Phang pushes the DOJ to expose the rot.
Senate GOP bill gets icy review from Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial board sharply rebuked a Republican bill advancing through the Senate on Sunday as “political rent-seeking under the guise of national security.”
Senate Republicans have advanced a bill that would expand Commerce Department restrictions on Chinese “connected” software in cars. A new editorial argued that the move seems reasonable on the surface because of myriad internet-connected systems in new vehicles, but the bill has been hijacked by “self-serving union and corporate interests.”
“While political favoritism could bias national-security reviews, the Senate bill is more problematic,” the editorial reads.
One group the editorial singled out is the United Auto Workers union, which “almost exclusively backs Democrats.” That led the editors to question why Republicans would bother to carry water for the union, as proponents of the bill have proven themselves willing to do.
The editorial also highlighted how the bill could create political risks for Republicans ahead of the midterms. One auto manufacturer that stands to be impacted by the bill is Mercedes, which employs over 7,500 people in two Republican states, Alabama and South Carolina, the editorial noted.
Republicans have also shown a willingness to fight Mercedes over the company’s opposition to the bill. For instance, the editorial flagged a letter written by the House Select Committee on China that chided Mercedes for trying to tell U.S. lawmakers “how to set the rules for our own country.”
“This being an election year, there’s a risk that Republicans who want to flaunt their anti-China bona fides insist on attaching the bill to a must-pass vehicle like the National Defense Authorization Act,” the editorial added. “If American workers later lose their jobs, they’ll blame someone else.”
I’ve noticed this recruiting ad quite a bit lately, ends with “WAR.GOV”
As bad as the job market is today, I don’t think very many young people are stupid enough to join the military when we are so obviously losing a highly publicized war with Iran. High school students today are much better informed about current events than previous generations were, because of their extensive use of social media where they share news and information with their friends. They have all heard the sad stories of older brothers and sisters who were wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan, and cannot get medical care because of severe cutbacks at the VA.
Young people also know that being a veteran doesn’t help you get a “good job” anymore. Veterans have no advantage in a job market where all one can expect is a minimum wage job with no benefits and a future where your lousy job is eliminated by AI.
High school graduates used to join the military to get job training but all that veterans can expect today is people wearing MAGA hats saying, “Thank you for your service.” After they have heard that a few dozen times they realize that it means nothing except “I voted for Trump and better you than me.”
jamie, thanks for acknowledging Will the other day. His famous quote is still alive and well in re today’s dembat kerfuffles
The Real Reason Elon Musk Keeps Insisting DOGE Cuts Killed “Zero” Kids
Listen to full interview at link
MICHIGAN SENATE: Haley Stevens tries to pivot a viral internet moment mocking her into a positive, campaign ad, says her raw tone matches Michiganders getting squeezed on groceries and utilities.
Craig,
Did you and David get around to seeing The Odyssey?
This is the job market that young people today face…
The minimum hourly wage is Maine is $15.10.
From the Economic Policy Institute (epi.org)
Cost of living does vary between states and regions across the country, but the minimum wage is still too low across the South and the Midwest.
According to EPI’s Family Budget Calculator, even under conservative assumptions of what constitutes a living wage, there is almost no county in the U.S. where a single adult worker can achieve a modest but adequate standard of living earning less than $15 an hour. In fact, many metro areas in the South and Midwest are much more expensive to live in.
The living wage in Austin, Atlanta, and Charlotte exceeds $20 an hour. Affordability is still a pressing issue across these regions, even if on average the cost of living is lower. Notably, voters in Florida, Missouri, and Nebraska passed ballot referenda to raise their state minimum wages to $15.
Low wage floors in Southern and Midwestern states hurt workers by suppressing their pay. Most of the states that use the $7.25 federal minimum wage are in the South and Midwest, meaning the effective wage floor in these states is a poverty-level wage.
Compounding the problem, many states in these regions preempt localities from passing their own minimum wage policies, preventing policymakers in these jurisdictions from setting wage floors that meet the needs of workers.
The use of preemption to dismantle higher labor standards like the minimum wage in the South and Midwest has a long history of being used to reinforce anti-Black racism and white supremacy.
We have not, Jamie. David doesn’t like period dramas much, and i get restless in theaters. Plus, apparently we have no IMAX theaters in DC area?
If you get restless, it is definitely not a movie for you. The whole first hour just drags. I found it so so at best so it must be the IMAX lovers pushing it through the roof on the reviews given my C+ rating. Wait for streaming and fast forward through the first 45 minutes.
My little Haley booster video off to a strong start in its first 30 minutes. I’ve posted so much good stuff about Abdul, decided we need to be ready to support her if she wins the nomination. CANNOT afford to lose Michigan!!!
Nash, WV is among the states that still use Federal Minimum Wage as its baseline. I suppose Congress thinks that $15030.70 is enough to get by – they haven’t changed FMW since 2009. Call me silly. but I don’t think even $31098 is sufficient to get by on ($15/hr.). And keep in mind that is gross wages.
And congrats to Tadej Pogacar on his 5th TDF yellow jersey, joining Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, and Miguel Induráin as a five-time winner. Only Lance Armstrong has won more at 7, but the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) stripped Armstrong of his GC titles between 1999 and 2005 after learning he used performance enhancing drugs.
DNC just announced the rest of the early 2028 primaries. Let’s handicap them in chatroom today.
In February of 2026, Netanyahu met with Trump and told him it was possible to quickly win a war with Iran.
This is what Air Force General Dan Caine, the President’s top military advisor, said to Trump…
From Maggie Haberman’s book, Regime Change: the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump.”
(Page 397-398)
Caine shared with Trump and members of the cabinet the military assessment that a major campaign against Iran would dramatically deplete stockpiles of American weaponry, with no clear path to quickly replenish. He was deeply worried about both the potential for significant American casualties and further depletion of munitions and missile interceptors strained after years of support for Ukraine and Israel. He also flagged the enormous difficulty of securing the Strait of Hormuz and the risks of Iran shutting the strait – a scenario Trump dismissed on the assumption that the regime would capitulate before it came to that.
But the munitions question extended well beyond Iran. Without sufficient stockpiles, America’s capacity in any future conflict could be seriously compromised. The administration had already pushed major defense contractors to dramatically increase production, but the industrial base simply could not scale up to the speed or volume demanded for such precise, intricate, and complex weaponry.
Trump resisted any public discussion of the munitions shortfall; he viewed the acknowledgement of this problem as revealing an American weakness, though that posture was largely beside the point. America’s enemies already had a very detailed picture of what the U.S. had in its stockpile and how quickly it could rebuild.
POG, come on the chatroom and explain the French Open. Keep thinking one of our European chatters would get us into it. I am clueless. Where do you watch it?
Yesterday I threw out an extremely low cost of $7000 for an Iranian drone. Here is where the number came from.
Here is a short biography of the article’s author, Esfandyar Batmanghelidj.
As with all things from the internet read with caution
Jack
I’m not referring to the French Open. (I assume you’re referring to the tennis championship). What I watched is the Tour de France, to the extent I could. NBC carried it on Sundays and Saturdays and the Tour itself has a website that provides coverage of each stage daily with a real time tracker during the stage and a livestream chat with tour experts (former cyclists and other folks with some type of connection to the tour. Folks post commentary and videos on it in real time. It’s pretty slick. I’ll try to hop on at 11, but that depends on what happens with the phone and who needs what done on a short leash.
A thought on the discussions I read about the cost of an Iranian drone is the belief Western observers/thinktanks that the Iranians aren’t capable of sophisticated manufacturing. Like the electronic brains for the drones. I get the feeling that there is a bit of unconscious bigotry going on, as if a bunch of “ragheads” aren’t as capable.
My thought is, they are human and they have brains. If one human can do it then they can just as quickly learn the trick too.
Jack
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WATCH here 👇
Yes, the first 45 minutes is a bit boring, but I do understand why they did it. They needed to back fill what happened previously with the Iliad and the reason why Odysseus was in Troy, why he is a war hero, develop the relationship that he and Penelope had, etc. My mom and I agreed that could have been a bit shorter, but at the same time they cut several pieces and switched how he got home as well as the ending. So yeah.
today’s meme…
My Mythology shelf.
meme #2…
Yesterday my sister set a box with cucumbers on her neighbor’s front porch. This morning she got the box back full of tomatoes. Neighbors being neighbors, it is a universal language, True, if you were born in the Missouri Ozarks or as her neighbors were, in Ukraine. How do we counter Trumps bigotry against immigrants, sometimes it is one neighbor at a time.
Jack
Today in the Diner…
Lindsey Graham, Sherrod Brown & Epstein
Lindsey Graham pushed Trump to bomb Iran, Sherrod Brown fights Todd Blanche over Epstein files, and Troy Jackson challenges Susan Collins in Maine.
It turns out Lindsey Graham was the cheerleader behind the scenes begging Donald Trump to start a war in Iran. Leaked documentary footage shows Graham congratulating himself for convincing Trump to embrace his inner warmonger, even as Benjamin Netanyahu tried to hit the brakes. We dig into the frightening reality of our depleted missile stockpiles and what happens if a real conflict kicks off with China or North Korea while billionaires build their doomsday bunkers.
Meanwhile, Sherrod Brown is not pulling any punches in Ohio, directly tying the confirmation of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to a coverup of the Epstein files. Over in Maine, fifth generation logger Troy Jackson is hammering Susan Collins over her corporate tax breaks and that infamous Brett Kavanaugh vote. It is a stark reminder that the fight for DEMOCRACY requires holding these comfortable incumbents to the fire before they drag us back to the dark ages.
Finally, we serve up a healthy dose of reality regarding the sudden comeback of measles and polio. Thanks to a wave of anti science MAGA parents refusing to vaccinate their kids, we are losing our elimination status for diseases we beat decades ago. Grab a seat at the diner and let’s process this madness. ☕
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00:00 Intro
05:05 Tadej Pogacar at Tour de France
20:10 West Virginia Democratic decline
24:05 Sherrod Brown vs Todd Blanche
28:30 Troy Jackson challenges Susan Collins
34:00 Katie Fang and the Epstein files
38:20 Lindsey Graham on Iran war
43:00 China, North Korea and US missiles
52:30 MAGA parents bring back Polio
59:00 Maya Angelou closing thoughts
Renee,
When we had an outbreak of food poisoning several years ago, linked to spinach, my sister the nurse started washing her bagged spinach in a mild bleach solution then rinsing that off and putting it in the fridge. What she found was that her spinach lasted a lot longer. It seems that it wasn’t very clean.
I rarely buy spinach or salad greens, too expensive, but if I do the first thing I do is wash it like she did, then put it away.
Jack
Buy organic, triple-washed, wash it when you get it home, put it on a paper towel, bad it & put it in the freezer. I add it to past sauce, etc., so not looking for fresh leaves. By the way, freezing does not kill cyclospora.
One other thing I don’t buy bagged salad mix. I have a good knife and cutting board and make my own. Right now I have cukes, peppers and tomatoes ready in the fridge waiting for a bit of cheese and mayo for lunch.
Jack
LINDSEY BEGS FOR WAR:
Leaked video exposes Lindsey Graham taking credit for Trump bombing Iran. He “loves blowing stuff up”.
🍽️ From today’s Digital Diner menu
Throw the dead man under the bus. lol
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/26/pentagon-iran-war-troop-deaths-casualty-report
Pentagon reports more than 600 Iran war casualties in quiet database update
Combined with the updated Operation Epic Fury totals, the new Pentagon figures show that 18 US troops have been killed and 624 wounded since the US launched its war against Iran on 28 February.
*And hundreds if not thousands of Iranian civilians.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/27/netanyahu-zelenskyy-trump-lindsey-graham-funeral
Benjamin Netanyahu and Volodymyr Zelenskyy are set to arrive in Washington simultaneously with the goal of winning the ear of Donald Trump at pivotal moments in wars affecting their respective countries.
Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, and Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, will attend Tuesday’s funeral of Lindsey Graham, the former Republican senator for South Carolina, who died suddenly on 11 July and was a close ally of both leaders.
Both men are scheduled to meet the president at a time when US policy towards the wars in Iran and Ukraine is in a state of flux.
*If we can arrest Maduro, we can arrest Netanyahu.
i lol’d at you calling “the Odyssey” a ‘period drama’
it’s not Jane Austen
The hype for the movie was a good lesson in manipulation by media
we’re almost through it, it was an odyssey navigating hype for “the Odyssey”
Europe also frying to a crisp and burning to the ground in the summer heat, I wonder what the cause must be
Let’s pretend we don’t know
even Trump was saying “ I don’t remember wildfires like this in the past”
yeah no shit
BiD, We made it to the socialist spice store. Here’s what we got with your gift card.
Trump’s Folly
Covering the Coverage: The Iran Jig Is Up
The media’s split screen has finally arrived. While wire services and political desks continue to transcribe the administration’s “diplomatic pause” as a calculated chess move, national security reporters are breaking rank, leaking the reality: the bombing campaign simply ran out of viable targets, and the military is quietly trying to hide depleting munition supplies, plus the mounting human toll. Here is how the press is fracturing over the latest Iran whiplash.
• [National Security/Independent]: Just Security highlights the crucial Axios leak revealing that CENTCOM advised pausing the strikes not to give peace a chance, but because the bombing campaign had exhausted its viable targets and reached the limit of its effectiveness. – Just Security
• [International Wire]: The Hindu presents a chaotic live timeline directly contrasting Trump’s claims of “very deep talks” against Iran’s outright denial, exposing the sheer absurdity of the White House spin on the global stage. – The Hindu
• [Mainstream]: Al-Monitor straight-faces the whiplash diplomacy, uncritically reporting the administration’s “optimism” for a deal while simultaneously transcribing the threat to resume military strikes if they don’t get their way. – Al-Monitor
• [Mainstream]: PBS treats the suspended U.S. bombing campaign as a calculated policy pause, noting that mediators are making “progress,” entirely missing the logistical reality behind the ceasefire. – PBS
• [Conservative]: Fox News dutifully amplifies the tough-guy posturing, framing Trump’s “not much time” deadline as calculated strength rather than a desperate attempt to manufacture leverage after hitting a strategic dead end. – Fox News
• [Defense/Independent]: Task & Purpose catches the Pentagon playing an absurd bureaucratic shell game, quietly splitting the casualty database into two arbitrary categories to obscure the sudden admission that over 600 U.S. troops have now been wounded. Given the military’s documented history of silently scrubbing and altering this very database, this delayed data dump practically guarantees the true human cost of the conflict is still being hidden. – Task & Purpose
— Human-directed. AI-generated. Powered by Gemini (Pro).
Glad you made it! Who knew spices could be so much fun? Or socialist? When I find stores like Penzey’s, it’s like I’ve found the “mother ship.”
If you’re ever in NYC, check out Fish’s Eddy. I’ve only been to the store near the Flat Iron Building, but they just opened a location in Brooklyn.
Is cinnamon the most socialist spice? Hmm.
Maine Democratic Party candidate for the U.S. Senate, Troy Jackson has an entry on Wikipedia.
It gives the details of his political career in Maine.
It is interesting how his political values have changed over time.
He was once a Republican but later became a Democrat and now he is a progressive Democrat.
Troy Jackson’s campaign website is..
jacksonformaine.com
https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/features/lifelong-side-effects-measles
Measles also wipes out your immune system, including your adaptive natural immunity from other diseases, essentially unvaccinating you against pathogens you’ve already encountered, Khan adds.
It opens you up to other diseases, including the flu; respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV; and severe pneumonia, any of which can be fatal. It also makes you vulnerable to dangerous bacterial infections, such as bacterial meningitis, the form most likely to cause hearing loss.
…measles is a leading cause of childhood blindness in less developed countries without good vaccine access.
Cardiac issues can happen if the inflammation from an infection is severe enough to damage the heart muscle.
Long-term side effects aren’t widely reported or discussed, but they’re real and range from mild to debilitating.
[Encephalitis, leading to coma, brain damage.]
It’s rare for measles to affect the brain, but that complication is not as rare as one might think. “Encephalitis usually occurs in about 0.1% to 1% of measles cases,” or 1 to 10 in 1,000 cases, Kahn says. That’s roughly the same odds as having identical twins (about 4 in 1,000 births) or getting your car stolen in the U.S. (about 3 in 1,000).
One serious form of encephalitis, called subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, happens when a natural measles infection reactivates in the brain, typically several years later. It affects between 1 and 28 people per 100,000 measles cases. But in unvaccinated infants younger than 15 months, that ratio is much higher: as many as 1 in 600, according to a study by the American Academy of Pediatrics. It is almost always fatal. The risk of SSPE after vaccination with the weakened measles virus is almost nonexistent.
When the measles vaccine was introduced in 1963, it sent measles infections crashing down to about 22,000 cases in 1968. As more people got vaccinated, that number kept shrinking. “We hit a low in this country in 2004” of 37 cases, Kahn says. “Give me an example of a greater accomplishment in medicine than that.” The vaccine was so effective that many doctors today don’t even recognize the disease when they see it, Kahn says.
Out of hundreds of millions of vaccinations worldwide, there have been no known deaths in healthy people caused by the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, commonly called the MMR vaccine. There have been exceedingly rare serious allergic reactions reported, about 1 in 1 million doses. The vaccine can make you sick if you’re severely immunocompromised. But overall, decades of experience with the vaccine have proven it to be quite safe.
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1F6rUhW5aX/
socialist spices would have to be regional so i’d say garlic for half of the northern hemisphere
possibly thyme
nothing that a fortune was ever made by trading it
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/07/27/texas-dan-patrick-religious-liberty-interim-charges-religion-public-life-legislature/
Dan Patrick directs Texas Senate to study ways to further ingrain religion into public life
One of Patrick’s first charges, released earlier this year, called for “preventing Sharia law in Texas,” while party members at the Texas GOP convention last month tried to expel Muslims who arrived to participate in the event.
The lieutenant governor released seven new charges for state senators to study before the Legislature reconvenes, including ways to “inform and remind Texans of their religious liberty rights.”
*Liberty. Ha! The irony is lost on Lt. Turd, Dan Patrick. Or, he’s just lying. As long as it’s his version of Christianity, I guess.
https://thehill.com/video-clips/5991684-watch-live-senate-democrats-hold-forum-on-trump-crypto-investments/
Watch live: Senate Democrats hold forum on Trump crypto investments
The event is scheduled to begin at 3:30 p.m. EDT.
https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/john-oliver-expose-trump-shady-crypto-dealings-world-liberty-financial-last-week-tonight-1236821605/
John Oliver returns to expose Trump family’s shady crypto dealings
Spices with anti-inflammatory properties. (Good for people with Arthritis.)
Garlic (fresh is best)
Turmeric
Black Pepper
Cayenne
Ginger
paparazzi used drones to spy on emma roberts’ wedding for tmz content, do not approve
“ (Good for people with Arthritis.)”
if only
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/justin-sun-world-liberty-lawsuit-trump-crypto-herro.html
The Billionaire Blowing the Whistle on Trump’s Crypto Shop World Liberty put $800 million in the president’s pocket. Justin Sun is alleging fraud.
*Wow! They all deserve each other. Crypto is crap.
Our trip to the Socialist Spice Store (Penzeys) yielded one more 70th Birthday Celebration — Brunch at Burger King!
MISSILES RUNNING EMPTY
🍽️ From today’s Digital Diner menu
things cult-leaders say:
“I’ve been better to you than your parents”
Ha! So many videos of Ken Paxton & Hayley Stevens running away from constituents and journalists. They should have foot race!
Whitmer backs Stevens. Abdul calls it “The Money vs The Many.” Will Michigan choose donor dollars or DEMOCRACY? Pick your path.
Any of you dirt-diggers plant garlic plants?
I figgered I’d ax yall before engaging the google machine
Sometime the googler can be a bit obtuse.
When Haley doesn’t run away, she does well. Owned this TMZ encounter…
OMG! Punched, the monkey, has garnered more evening news airtime; two days in a row.
Maybe spend one day on the fact that ICE has murdered more folks on US soil than Iranians.
Maybe look into the sexual assaults in ICE custody and in concentration camps.
Maybe start tracking folks that have gone missing since DHS/ICE/US government interacted with them.
you plant it on columbus day and harvest it on the 4th of july
all you gotta know
besides that you fork it up don’t pull it up so you don’t damage basal plates for storage
lol how could anyone not realize they are being deliberately dumbed-down
Lots of garlic, Stur! It surrounds the garden and is also a companion to the tomatoes in cages. Let it over-winter & you can have scapes in the spring. Just bought a giant bulb at some store in the city last year, pulled off cloves & put them in a shallow dish of water…and there were roots in a day. Crazy how fast it grows.
Not sure about drying and storing.
exposure to freezing temperatures is what causes it to develop individual cloves is why you plant it in october
It’s still growing from last year, and I planted new in the spring. Wasn’t sure about drying & storing it. Didn’t want the garage & camper to smell like garlic. Didn’t realize that’s how it gets cloves.
A hearty thank yous for the nice concise garlic information which as it happens is exactly what I wanted to know.
I’ll put that together with what I remember of my dad’s garlic patch and I might look to have fresh garlic out back next summer. A magical thought.
A nagging thought I have is I seem to remember that patch having plants year round.
So I guess I gotta track that down a bit.
many many plants need a period of freezing temperatures for their biological processes
Another reason to be terrified of global warming
also why I have onion seeds in the fridge right now, I actually sowed some yesterday
wow a dragonfly landed on my phone while i was typing (they avoid people!)
Looks like Trump can’t keep Blanche if he wants to bury more Epstein files and keep his cop beaters slush fund.
Tomorrow on the menu 11-Noon ET…
was actually planning on a sturge sr. peanut crop next year
on a smaller scale 😀
This seems headed for same result as sub sandwich thrower: acquitall on all charges…
NBC — A key grand jury witness in a case against a former Olympic canoeist accused of tampering with the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool testified that the area was already damaged and would have required repairs regardless, lawyers said in a court filing Monday.
When I told about the peanuts, did I also mention the pine trees?
lol
my brain logged “2 acres” and “peanuts” and “sadness”
no pine trees (knocks on skull)
UNREDACT EPSTEIN FILES:
🍽️ From today’s Digital Diner menu
🌔
Wow! Look at that!
Have you ever eaten onion sprouts in a sandwich or in a wrap? Phenomenal.
https://firemap.live/
A lot of the world is on fire.
Antarctica looks nice right now.
NEW THREAD