Romance Books On Sale

M/M Romances and Historicals

Humor From Josh Johnson

I think we’ve posted him here before; he also anchors the Daily Show some. He’s great! This one is hilarious.

Talking Points Memo Reports:

A good place to pick up important info quickly; all linked/cited for sourcing.

Ed Martin Confirms Ed Martin’s Witch Hunt Against Elected Democrats by TPM

INSIDE: Pam Bondi … Adam Schiff … Letitia James Read on Substack

A Classic Example of Political Corruption

Ed Martin had no prior experience as a prosecutor when he became acting D.C. U.S. attorney earlier this year. And it shows.

Since his nomination to the permanent position was aborted because of lack of Senate GOP support, Martin has been triple-hatting at Main Justice as (i) U.S. pardon attorney; (ii) the chief of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s “Weaponization Working Group” — the unintentionally revealing name of the outfit that’s charged with politicizing the Justice Department; and (iii) most recently as Bondi’s “special attorney” overseeing the politically motivated mortgage fraud investigations of Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

It was in that third role that Martin was apparently serving when he went on Fox News and admitted that he’s using the pretext of the clearly bogus mortgage fraud probes to conduct an open-ended witch hunt into Schiff and James. “We’re also gonna look at everything else they’ve been doing,” Martin said on air:

https://embed.bsky.app/embed/did:plc:4llrhdclvdlmmynkwsmg5tdc/app.bsky.feed.post/3lwm6otyddp2f?id=6254561201210245

Most legal experts think the mortgage fraud claims don’t amount to anything on the facts or on the law. But don’t underestimate the potency of ongoing criminal investigations hanging over anyone, especially elected officials, particularly when the investigations are used as justification for a wide-ranging probe of unspecified other wrongdoing.

Even if charges never come, this is a classic example of political corruption — and of authoritarian capture of the independence of federal prosecutors. Martin has embarked on a fishing expedition and he’ll keep it going for as long as it’s useful to the White House.

Speaking of Letitia James …

New York Attorney General Letitia James’ $500 million civil fraud judgment against Donald Trump has been held up on appeal for nearly a year, apparently because of deep divisions and three dueling written opinions on the five-justice appeals court panel, the WSJ reports.

Thread of the Day

With a new series of edicts, FBI Director Kash Patel is further degrading the bureau and converting into something akin to a national police department (which is NOT what the FBI has historically been):

WASHINGTON, DISTICT OF COLUMBIA, UNITED STATES – 2025/08/17: Activist Nadine Seiler holds a sign that reads “What Trump order won’t you obey” stands in front of a National Guard vehicle as protesters gather at Columbus Circle following President Donald Trump’s announcement to place the D.C. Metropolitan Police under federal control. (Photo by Probal Rashid/LightRocket via Getty Images)

A Recipe for Disaster

Red states are jumping on the bandwagon to send their national guards to the nation’s capital and show plurality Black D.C. who’s boss. West Virginia, Ohio, and South Carolina (still smarting from the last time it tried to overthrow D.C.) are first in line to engage in performative strong-arming of Democratic cities.

But the most alarming news to come out over a generally alarming weekend is that the national guardsmen may be armed, a reversal of an earlier decision that deployed the D.C. National Guard on the streets without weaponry on their persons or in the vehicles.

The ingredients could be in place for a cocktail of violence: federal agents and national guardsmen with little to no training in street policing being sent with guns into a peaceful urban area (that many of them are not even from) and expected to stir up trouble. It puts everyone — D.C. residents, local police, guardsmen, and federal agents — in an impossible situation.

One glimmer of good news was that the Trump administration was hauled into court Friday over its attempt to take over the D.C. police department and, under pressure from a federal judge, backed off its maximalist position.

ICYMI

Religion Dispatches: Latest ICE Recruitment Materials Include Overt Neo-Nazi Reference and Nazi-Nazi Script

Sign of the Times: The New Fascism Comes With Merch

The Florida GOP scrubbed its online store of a new line of merchandise touting the state’s new “Deportation Depot” after Home Depot complained it was an unapproved use of its branding.

Texas Dems Expected Back This Week

With California Democrats proceeding with their own mid-decade redistricting, Texas Democrats are expected to return to the state today, giving Republicans a quorum in the legislature to push through their redistricting plan. Texas Democrats succeeded in blocking the redistricting push in the first special session of the legislature. But when it ended, Friday Gov. Greg Abbott (R) immediately called a second special session, setting the stage for passing a new, more GOP friendly congressional district map to help national Republicans hold their House majority in next year’s midterms.

Quote of the Day

“Trump has completely ceded narrative control to Putin. What Ukraine is just basically getting as a concession is for the Russians to stop fighting. And this is Putin’s way all the way through the 25 years of his presidency, which is: ‘I’m going to beat you up and my concession is that I stopped beating you up.’”–former Trump I National Security Council official Fiona Hill

D’oh!

Guests at a hotel in Anchorage found sensitive documents from the Trump-Putin summit on a public printer, NPR reports.

Trump’s D.C. Circuit Appointees Strike Again: CFPB Edition

D.C. Circuit Judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao, Trump appointees who have had out-sized influence in the first months of the Trump II presidency, cleared the way Friday for the Trump administration to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Judge Cornelia Pillard, an Obama appointee dissented.

“The notion that courts are powerless to prevent the President from abolishing the agencies of the federal government that he was elected to lead cannot be reconciled with either the constitutional separation of powers or our nation’s commitment to a government of laws,” Pillard wrote.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

TPM’s Layla A. Jones: The Trump Administration Is Laying the Groundwork for a Full Takeover of Federal Data

Judge Blocks FTC Probe of Media Matters

U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan of D.C. sided with Media Matters in blocking a politically motived Federal Trade Commission investigation of the liberal watchdog group.

“This case presents a straightforward First Amendment violation,” Sooknanan ruled.

Media Matters has been struggling financially under the weight of bogus right-wing investigations into whether its reporting on antisemitic content on X/Twitter amounted to anticompetitive conduct. It also faces related serial lawsuits by Elon Musk.

“It should alarm all Americans when the government retaliates against individuals or organizations for engaging in constitutionally protected public debate,” Sooknanan wrote. “And that alarm should ring even louder when the Government retaliates against those engaged in newsgathering and reporting.”

A Rare Example of Organized Left-Wing Violence?

The purported attack at an ICE detention center in Texas last month caught my eye as an possible example of organized left-wing violence, a relative rarity since the 1970s. When I say “organized,” I don’t necessarily mean well-organized. The ragtag group’s alleged attack seemed especially hapless, even according to the official law enforcement account of the incident. Adding to the weirdness, the alleged perpetrators — among them two transgender women activists — appeared to be from in and around Dallas, which wouldn’t be my first choice for hotbeds of anti-fascism.

The WaPo’s Robert Klemko has dug a bit more into the “secretive network of Dallas anti-fascists” who “initially united around trans and queer identity issues.” He did a jailhouse interview with the group’s alleged ringleader, a former Marine Corps reservist of mixed Japanese and Korean descent who trained “very young, naive leftists,” as one witness put it, in close-quarters combat and large-scale gunfights at his mother’s taekwondo studio in suburban Dallas.

Seen The Epstein Files?

Yeah, me, neither. Also! I am not, and never was, a KISS fan. I always thought they were bubble gum. Needless to say, I enjoy Clay Jones’s commentary re KISS!

MAGA KISS by Clay Jones

MAGA can kiss my arse Read on Substack

I’m a KISS fan, to an extent. When I was in the 4th or 5th grade, a friend introduced me to KISS, and I was hooked. I had posters and albums. I wanted to be Ace Frehley and started playing guitar. I was obsessed with KISS. Other than my guitar obsession (I’m still obsessed), all that was over by the time I hit the 8th grade. With a bit more maturity, I had become more interested in not just the current music of the time, like Van Halen, but another friend had introduced me to The Beatles, and I think I discovered the Rolling Stones on my own. I started paying attention to my mom’s music and got into CCR.

A few years later, I was walking through the music department of K-Mart, and saw the album cover for KISS’s latest album, Lick It Up, and learned that they had a couple of replacement members and had taken the makeup off. This was huge news in KISS world, but I was out of the KISS ARMY (that was the fan club) by that point.

And that’s the thing about KISS. Their audience was mostly little boys, such as myself. While KISS looked like a dangerous rock and roll band, at least at the beginning, they had become more of a marketing product than a rock and roll band. In addition to the posters I had, KISS were marketing lunch boxes, action figures, trading cards, bed sheets, pillows, comic books, and even had made a TV movie, KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park, which might be the worst TV movie ever.

KISS may have been serious about their music, but they weren’t taken seriously, which is difficult to obtain when each member is face-painted like a clown. The Insane Clown Posse is probably more respected. And while there are some gems in their catalog, most of their songs actually sucked. KISS chased trends. They started as a rock band striving to be on Led Zeppelin’s level, but they didn’t have the songwriting chops or musicianship, despite Ace Frehley being a badass (when he was sober enough to play on the albums, and didn’t force the band to use a hidden replacement for his lead guitar playing). KISS went from trying to be the next Beatles to producing a disco track, to chasing hair metal in the 80s, to writing songs with Michael Bolton and Bryan Adams, to making a grunge album. Critics didn’t like them, and they never made the cover of Rolling Stone during their prime (but did make it decades later for an article that was mostly retrospective).

They were more noted for their theatrics, fire-breathing, blood-spitting, and smoke pouring out of Frehley’s guitar than for their music.

Most musicians in respected rock bands are invited to play on other artists’ albums, such as Bob Seger, members of Fleetwood Mac, Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and every member of The Eagles. Even members of Cheap Trick got invites, and even lured Beatles producer George Martin to produce their albums. But I can’t think of a member of KISS who has ever played on another artist’s album. After leaving KISS, Ace Frehley called John Waite (the Missing You guy) to see if he’d like to start a band with him, and never got a return call. And Ace was the most successful solo artist to come out of the band (though his last album was embarrassing). Peter Criss’ albums are unlistenable.

Gene Simmons was not a good songwriter (sample lyric: “Let me put my log into your fire”), and his bass playing is still mocked today (they often used a hidden replacement, or Paul and Ace would play bass on the songs they wrote). Paul Stanley had an operatic voice (that didn’t have a natural sound), but he tried too hard to show it off, and his guitar playing and songwriting were cheesy. Peter Criss was more of a jazz drummer than a heavy rock guy like John Bonham of Zeppelin, and he had timing issues, but his voice had an amazing sound, especially considering that he was tone deaf. Ace Frehley, who is unfortunately a racist who used to get drunk and bang on his Jewish bandmates’ hotel room doors dressed as a Nazi (really. They used to call him RACE Frehley), inspired millions with his guitar playing, but his skills decreased due to his laziness and addictions. By hiring studio musicians to pretend to be Criss, Frehley, and Simmons on their albums and hiding it from the fans, KISS didn’t even take themselves seriously.

KISS was never a great band. So why are they the first to be honored by Donald Trump since he made himself the head of the Kennedy Center? Because Trump has no culture (ketchup on burnt steaks), and he has the maturity of a 12-year-old boy.

Trump will be hosting the ceremony for these “honors,” which will be interesting. People will probably tune in because folks love a good train wreck.

Each member of KISS expressed how honored and humbled they are for receiving these “honors,” but boys…being “honored” by Donald Trump isn’t really an honor.

That’s another difference between KISS and bands taken seriously. Musicians sue Trump to stop playing their music at his rallies.

And, yes. KISS has a song glorifying pedophilia. Gene Simmons wrote it. I had to adjust the lyrics for space, but those cited in the cartoon say,

“I don’t usually say things like this to girls your age,
But when I saw you coming out of the school that day,
That day I knew, I knew,
I’ve got to have you, I’ve got to have you.”

Even as a kid, I thought it was weird that Gene only saw Christine because he was hanging outside her school. (snip-MORE)

Women Have Had The Right To Vote For 105 Out Of 249 Years & More, in Peace & Justice History for 8/18

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryaugust.htm#august18

Resistance Strategy

Lots of little things people can do to build community, and stay safe. Here’s an idea, but it could easily be a house, or a she-shed, or a man-cave, etc., etc.

How a Black-Owned Members-Only Club in Washington D.C. is Responding to Trump’s Police Force Takeover

As the National Guard has been deployed to the streets of D.C., one private Black-owned networking club is offering a safe space to work and connect with others.

By Angela Johnson Published August 17, 2025

Last week, President Donald Trump declared a public safety emergency in Washington, D.C., a move that, according to the D.C. Home Rule Act of 1973, allows the federal government to take over the city’s police department for 30 days without congressional approval. Anxiety level is high as many are worried that taking over the Chocolate City — where Black people make up nearly 43 percent of the population, according to Data USA — is just the first part of Trump’s plan to implement a police state in America.

But one local membership club just made a move to make sure the city’s residents have a safe place to go during these uncertain times. The Gathering Spot is a Black-owned private membership club with locations in Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Los Angeles, created to provide a space for executives, artists and entrepreneurs to connect and build community.

Although you normally have to pay to play, the club just launched a safe house initiative, which will provide complimentary access to its D.C. location (with a few less perks than full membership would get them).

Residents can complete an online form to request access. Once they are approved, they can use the space to “work, rest and connect” with others. The Gathering Spot’s CEO, Ryan Wilson, announced the plan in an August 12 Instagram post.

“This is an opportunity for people who are not members of the club to take advantage of the club. It is more important that we are in community during moments like this than ever,” he said.

Although we don’t know how long the safe house initiative will last, many TGS members said on social media that they are happy that the place they call home is opening its doors to others when they need it most.

“This is the 💪🏽💪🏽and vision needed. Proud to be a part of the TGS community,” wrote someone on Instagram.

From Joyce Vance

Moving The Window by Joyce Vance
Read on Substack

The Overton Window is a model that describes the range of policies considered acceptable at a given time by the public and policymakers. It’s the spectrum of ideas that are legitimate, feasible choices, and anything that falls outside of the window is considered too extreme for serious consideration. For instance, the idea of deploying the National Guard, or even the military, on American streets to control the local population is something we would have considered far outside of the Window for decades.

Think of what Donald Trump is doing in the District of Columbia in these terms. He’s made up a crisis—a wave of crime that doesn’t exist. The law in the District is different from how it is elsewhere because of limited home rule and a law that was drafted, at least arguably, to give the president alone the ability to declare an emergency that would permit control of local law enforcement. Trump tried it in Los Angeles, but ran into issues, like the Governor’s objection and the Posse Comitatus Act, which prevents direct law enforcement by the Guard and the military. But in the District of Columbia, Trump has asserted the ability to seize control of the Metropolitan Police for at least thirty days and longstanding DOJ interpretation of the law says Posse Comitatus doesn’t apply in D.C.

Trump is using the quasi-federal status of the District to socialize the idea that he can:

make up an emergency and no one can challenge his thinking
seize control of local law enforcement
use the National Guard for direct law enforcement purpose

For the casual observer of American politics, he’s creating a new normal and shifting the Overton Window to include a presidential takeover of American cities.

Next stop, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Oakland, New York and Chicago, all cities Trump said were “bad, very bad,” without explanation. All cities where the law is less friendly to a Trump takeover than it is in the nation’s capital. But Trump has been more than willing to brazen it out in court and live to fight in the Supreme Court, where he hopes for, and has frequently been rewarded with, a decision that hands over more power to the unitary executive. To be able to last out the appeal, Trump needs to make sure that the public isn’t so outraged that he has to pull back. Hence, the need to move the Overton Window.

A potential pitfall for Trump is that outside D.C., he’ll need to convince courts, where his moves will certainly be challenged, that his determination of an emergency or other condition necessary to allow him to interfere with state and local control is not reviewable. Since his first day in office, when he declared an emergency at the border, Trump has been relying on that notion, that contrary to the checks and balances the Founding Fathers set up, any decision he makes that there is a national emergency can’t be challenged in the courts. Then, he declared an emergency that permitted him to make the (false) claim that the Venezuelan drug cartel Tren de Aragua was invading the United States, which set up his inhumane deportations of people to CECOT prison in El Salvador without due process. Most recently, it has been tariffs, predicated on the claim that “foreign trade and economic practices” have led to a “national emergency.” In each instance, Trump has faked an emergency, while pushing the courts to say that they cannot review his decisions. So far, the lower federal courts seem to be skeptical. At some point, that issue will make its way to the Supreme Court. If SCOTUS lets him get away with that, our position becomes that much more precarious.

Understood this way, what’s happening this weekend in the District of Columbia is a matter that should concern all of us. We cannot afford to let the Overton Window move. Our conversations with the people around us matter and it’s a moment where we need to make real the spectre of armed and masked troops marching through our streets—not just those in other people’s neighborhoods.

Last week, we discussed how small of a force the D.C. National Guard is. There are reports that early this week, National Guard troops from other states, Trump-friendly red states like West Virginia, Ohio, and South Carolina, will arrive to assist in whatever it is that Trump thinks he’s doing—surely not fighting crime, since these troops aren’t trained to do that. If Trump wanted to help reduce crime, he’d be funding data-driven best practices that are shown to work and that have, in fact, been bringing down crime in the District, as then-interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin announced Trump had done during his first 100 days in office. Make sure you point out the incredible hypocrisy by Trump when he justifies his actions by claiming crime is out of control.

The most important news is that Americans are not giving way to Trump. As the pictures sent to me by protestors show, people were out in the District of Columbia today, refusing to be intimidated by a president who wants to convince us that sending out masked law enforcement agents and armed troops on the streets of the nation’s capital, and any other city for that matter, is within his power. It is not. We will not tolerate his creeping totalitarianism. We are not obligated to accept his power play or make any of this easy for him, as he takes a well-worn page from every authoritarian’s playbook. We are not that country and he is not a king—nor a dictator.

On Friday, Judge Ana Cecilia Reyes, born in Uruguay and appointed to the district court in D.C. by Joe Biden in 2023, wasted no time in scheduling a hearing after the District filed a lawsuit challenging Trump’s attempt to exceed the power granted by the home rule law in his attempt to take over the Metropolitan Police. The previous night, Attorney General Pam Bondi tried to replace the D.C. Chief with the head of the DEA.

You have to like a judge who has this picture of herself with her pup on Wikipedia and reportedly brings her dog to work. Such a breath of fresh air during an administration where the president has no pets and the Secretary of DHS admitted that she shot hers.

Judge Reyes began the hearing by clarifying that she was not holding an evidentiary hearing and would not get into issues that would require development of the facts, like whether there was actually an emergency or a legitimate federal purpose behind Trump’s takeover. For purposes of the hearing, she assumed that Trump was correct on those points, saying she would go into them this coming week if necessary, before delving into the legal issues surrounding Trump’s order.

In the end, Attorney General Pam Bondi backed down, agreeing to let Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith continue to run the Department’s day-to-day operations under Mayor Muriel Bowser’s orders. She wrenched a concession from the district, directing Bowser to order the police department to assist in federal immigration enforcement. There is likely another legal confrontation coming where that process may conflict with laws passed by the District, which is a sanctuary city.

And as for Trump’s claim that he was worried about crime? Chief Smith wrote in an affidavit accompanying the District’s lawsuit that, “If effectuated, the Bondi Order would upend the command structure of MPD, endangering the safety of the public and law enforcement officers alike.” Imagine your local police department being run by the attorney general or his designee instead of the people who know your city and its needs the best. We’ve come full circle to where we started: Trump is making up the need for any of this. It’s about moving the Overton Window to give him the opportunity to seize more power, in more places, in a distinctly un-American fashion.

We shouldn’t forget about what was on the front pages before Trump started all of this and his embarrassing knee-bending exercise with Putin in Alaska on Friday. Trump has something to hide. And, apparently, he’s willing to take some hits to try and knock it off the public’s radar screen. Let’s not let anyone forget about it: Trump could release the Epstein files tomorrow.

(snip)

We’re in this together,

Joyce

Reblog From Annieasksyou

Please Watch This Urgent Conversation Between the Historian and the Governor!

Snippet:

“You can make the argument that you are supporting these institutions, not undercutting them...

Newsom observed that “Donald Trump will represent this nation on our 250th anniversary, and he’s up to this?”

Richardson’s response was “We’re going to represent the nation. The most important office is that of citizen. ‘We the people’ is foundational.”

Newsom quickly seized that assessment. “You’re reminding Americans they do have agency,” he said. “It’s not what happens to us; it’s how we respond to what happens to us. He [Trump] can’t take it away from us if we don’t allow it.”

Right Now; Right Now!

– Ellen Mitchell
Read on Substack

True Words, About Literal Integration

Snippet: “We are not asking for inclusion as charity. We are demanding participation as justice. And we are not waiting for the tide to turn—we are drafting new maps, with new compasses, and inviting others to co-author the journey.”