These are political. Good Candidates. Take a look/listen!
Tag: US Politics
Union Activism
Open Windows,Clay Jones
White House Dementia
Did you hear about the nut job at the White House who believed he was Jesus Christ?
Last Saturday, Nasire Best, a 21-year-old man from Maryland, approached a White House checkpoint near 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW shortly after 6 p.m. ET, pulled a gun from a bag, and opened fire on Secret Service officers. Officers returned fire, striking Best, who was taken to a hospital and later died.
According to a July 2025 D.C. Superior Court filing, Best was previously “known to the United States Secret Service” around the White House complex. According to the court filing, Best walked into a restricted area at a White House pedestrian access control post, ignored commands to stop, and “claimed he was Jesus Christ and that he wanted to get arrested.” He was arrested on an unlawful entry charge in that incident.
The filing said Best interacted with the Secret Service, walking around the White House complex and asking how to gain access at various entry posts. It also said he had been involuntarily committed in June 2025 after obstructing vehicle entry to the White House complex. (snip-MORE)
Trump and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool
Trump brags about all the pools he’s built
During this morning’s Cabinet meeting, Trump drones on and on about how he’s done such a spectacular job fixing the Reflecting Pool.
Data Centers
Doesn’t everyone love a data center?
There are over 5,381 data centers in the United States, which is more than the rest of the planet. And the state with the most data centers is Virginia. Oddly enough, my voice dictation wrote “data sinners” instead of “data centers.” That’s not far off.
Data centers pollute and are bad for the environment. They drain water resources. They raise energy costs for the average consumer. They bring noise pollution. They occupy vast amounts of land. A single hyperscale data center can consume as much electricity as 100,000 homes. And city governments love them because they bring in revenue. What they don’t bring are a large number of jobs.
In Virginia, the General Assembly is threatened with a government shutdown over tax breaks for data centers. The state offers over $2 billion in tax breaks to these technological warehouses, and some senators believe that they don’t need them. They don’t. Even though most positive spin and gaslighting for data centers comes from right-wing think tanks like the Goldwater Institute (which is like arguing why you want a nuclear power plant in your backyard), the argument in the Virginia General Assembly isn’t partisan. Democrats are in control, and they’re arguing about this with themselves. (snip-MORE)
Eat Mor Cornyn
From one indicted, impeached, adultering, corrupt individual to another
I have been drawing cartoons about Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton since at least 2020, as you can see here, when he filed a lawsuit challenging Pennsylvania’s electoral vote for Joe Biden. Did I mention that he’s the Attorney General for Texas, not Pennsylvania?
I did a cartoon about him in 2022 when he hid behind his wife from process servers. The reason he’s being served so much is that he is a criminal. Of course, this was before he was caught cheating on his wife.
One of my favorite cartoons about Paxton was drawn during his impeachment trial in 2023. Yes, he was impeached because of his corruption, but the Texas Senate saved his tiny corrupt balls. The party that impeached him was his own, Republicans. (snip-MORE)
That Public Notice About NDA’s for Government Workers:
We have 29 more days to make our views known in regard to the executive wishing all federal workers to sign a very broad NDA. This will crush transparency and notice of abuse, and there will likely be no more whistleblowing.
Anyway, here it is, along with the link so we can make our comments (of course it is not hyperlinked on the page, we need to copy it and paste it into our browser. WP has made it a live link in this post, but it doesn’t work.) It’s our duty and a right we still have; if we do not use it, we will most certainly use it. I found out about this yesterday on MPS’s post; it just took me a bit to get to this.
You can find this here. (This hyperlink is good; I made it myself and it works.) It is a .pdf. The NDA notice begins in the lower right-hand column.
From within the public notice, here is the info for submitting our comments:
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments
using the Federal eRulemaking Portal at
https://www.regulations.gov. Follow the
instructions for sending comments.
The general policy for comments and
other submissions from members of the
public is to make these submissions
available for public viewing at https://
http://www.regulations.gov without change,
and including any personal identifiers
or contact information. Before finalizing
the NDA, OPM will consider all
comments received on or before the
closing date for comments. OPM may
make changes to the NDA after
considering the comments received.
And a little more:
Request for Comment
OPM welcomes public comments on
all aspects of the draft NDA, including
whether the Privacy Act statement’s
description of the authority, principal
purposes, routine uses, and effects
provide sufficient notice to employees.
The draft NDA is available in the docket
for this notice on regulations.gov. See
https://www.regulations.gov/document/
OPM-2026-0100-0003. OPM specifically
requests comment on the following
issues.
- What scope of information should
be covered by the NDA? Should it cover
only unclassified information? How do
you understand the terms confidential
and confidentiality in the context of this
NDA? What customization of the NDA,
if any, may be necessary for agencies to
ensure it covers the appropriate
information? - Does the NDA clearly communicate
the types of information that would be
subject to non-disclosure requirements?
If not, how could OPM better describe
what information can or cannot be
disclosed to ensure employees have
appropriate notice of their
responsibilities? - Are there other statutes to which
OPM should cite in Appendix A of the
NDA when describing the nondisclosure
requirements applicable to individuals
working for or on behalf of the Federal
government? - Do you have suggestions regarding
the layout or formatting of the NDA? - Does the Privacy Act statement in
the NDA provide sufficient notice to
employees of the authorities, principal purposes, routine uses, and effects of - the form?
- Does the OPM/GOVT–1 system of
records notice provide sufficient notice
that the government-wide system of
records would maintain records related
to the signing of, or failure to sign, the
NDA? - What are the appropriate actions, if
any, for agencies to consider taking if
existing employees choose not to sign
the NDA? - What are the appropriate actions, if
any, for agencies to consider taking if
new employees choose not to sign the
NDA? - Does the NDA clearly communicate
the potential consequences of refusal to
sign the form for both existing and new
employees, along with whether signing
the form is voluntary or mandatory? - What else should OPM consider
with regard to the NDA??
OPM will consider comments
received before finalizing the NDA.
There are several other things there, if you have some time and want to see what the exec is doing besides trying to hide all they do and finally/fully cut off our representation, even as we are taxed for government work. I don’t believe we can let this slide, but maybe that’s only me. Anyway, if you also don’t like this, please go, read the bit, and write what your conscience tells you. I’m certain you will not be alone in doing so. The thing is, our government, for which we all pay, is not a business. The only parts that should not be public are those that actually shield the actual security of the country, things such as when we go after Osama Bin Laden, and locations of items that other countries might like to drone. There should be no covering of regular day-to-day government business-that is our business and we have the right to know.
Remember A Couple Of Weeks Ago,
the story about brands trying to disalign themselves from the results of the politics they support a little heartier than they do the other side? Well, here are legislators working on the same thing, again, and if the companies do it, it could work. We’ve been saying we need this for a couple of years, at least. It would be a good time for we the people to increase our pressure on companies, as well.
Congressional Black Caucus presses companies in the US to oppose Republican redistricting push
By MATT BROWNUpdated 11:27 AM CDT, May 26, 2026
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Congressional Black Caucus on Tuesday called on major corporations across the U.S., including those that previously expressed support for voting rights and racial justice, to oppose redistricting efforts by Republican-led states that seek to eliminate majority-Black U.S. House districts.
In a letter sent to more than 250 companies, members of the Black Caucus urge them to condemn the redistricting efforts, which the lawmakers describe as “coordinated efforts to silence Black voices at the ballot box.” Some of the companies had co-signed their own message to Congress five years ago urging lawmakers to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, a Democratic proposal to restore and update the Voting Rights Act.
That 2021 coalition, Business for Voting Rights, was backed by many of the country’s most valuable and influential companies, including Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Tesla, Salesforce, Target, PayPal, Intel and Starbucks.
Tuesday’s letter is the latest effort by the Congressional Black Caucus and its allies to gather support for preventing more Republican-led states from redrawing their legislative maps in ways that would dilute Black political representation. Several states have moved to eliminate congressional districts represented by Black Democratic lawmakers after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month that severely weakened a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.
“Corporations that have profited from Black consumers, relied on Black workers, and amassed wealth in part from Black communities cannot look away while Black political power is dismantled in plain sight,” Rep. Yvette Clarke, chair of the Black Caucus, said in an interview.
Clarke described the letter as “putting corporate America on notice,” but she said the caucus was not seeking an adversarial relationship with corporations. Among those receiving Tuesday’s letter were companies based overseas that have a significant presence in the U.S.
The caucus last week called for Black athletes to boycott public universities in states that are gerrymandering their congressional maps to eliminate districts held by Black lawmakers. The 59-member Congressional Black Caucus consists entirely of Democrats, including more than a third from Southern states.
Some lawmakers have said mass protests and federal legislation might be necessary to undo the efforts underway in Republican-led states. Any new federal voting rights law would almost certainly require Democrats to secure majorities in both chambers of Congress and win the presidency.
It is unclear how companies will respond to the demands. The Associated Press reached out for comment to dozens of companies that were sent a letter by the caucus, but has not recieved a response.
“Many companies that previously issued statements after the murder of George Floyd, pledged billions toward racial equity initiatives, and spoke forcefully in defense of democracy following January 6 now face a defining test of whether those commitments were rooted in principle or convenience,” the caucus’ letter states.
It also represents the latest instance of the caucus expressing frustrations with corporate America. A 2024 Black Caucus report noted that lawmakers were “troubled that some corporations that made pledges in 2020 have taken several steps in the opposite direction,” such as rolling back or failing to follow through on pledges to diversify their workforces.
“We understand who the occupant in the White House is and the reality of Republicans being in charge,” Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford of Nevada said of the caucus’ message. “But what corporate America also understands is that there will be a shift at some point.”
The letter calls on companies to publicly condemn the redistricting plans, meet with Black Caucus members to discuss corporate America’s role in protecting voting rights and disclose their political donations to Republican politicians in states that are redistricting their congressional maps.
President Donald Trump last year kicked off the unusual mid-decade round of congressional redistricting when he pushed Texas lawmakers to redraw their maps in a way that would add Republican seats. Democratic-led California responded, but it has been mostly Republican states redrawing their lines since as the party tries to maintain its majority in the U.S. House during this year’s midterm elections.
The effort was supercharged by the Supreme Court decision, which allowed even more Republican states to redraw congressional maps that previously had protected minority communities.
Horsford, who chaired the Black Caucus during President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration, said the caucus is demanding that companies “stand on the side of democracy, fairness and equal representation.”
“This is about power, who holds it and what it’s used for,” he said. “And when you’re diluting Black economic and political power, we need to know where these companies stand in this moment, and what side of history they’re on.”
Been Wondering About Kat Abughazaleh? Here Is News:
Kat Abughazaleh shows us how to fight fascists
Q+A with one of the Broadview Six, who had all charges dropped against them after grand jury misconduct.
Marisa Kabas
For the last seven months, Kat Abughazaleh wasn’t allowed to go to Alaska. It’s not that she had any particular reason to, but being under felony indictment meant that she was only allowed to travel throughout the lower 48 United States. And forget leaving the country. But on Thursday, those restrictions were suddenly lifted when all charges against her were dropped.
Abughazaleh, 27, woke up Friday a free woman. The former Illinois congressional candidate was charged in October along with five others for conspiring to impede an officer near the Broadview ICE facility just outside of Chicago. In reality, Abughazaleh and her co-defendants were there to protest the federal government’s increasingly public cruelty and the human rights abuses happening inside Broadview specifically, and broadly by ICE. The Trump administration, not surprisingly, did not appreciate their very public pushback and responded with brutality and violence. But with all charges against them now dropped, the only thing they’re an example of is why fighting fascists is good.
With the trial scheduled to begin just after Memorial Day, US district judge April Perry called an emergency hearing Thursday to discuss missing pieces of the trasncript from the grand jury proceedings where DOJ lawyers convinced jurors to indict Abughazaleh, her campaign field director Andre Martin, Michael Rabbitt, Brian Straw and two others who had the charges against them dropped earlier.
The case was already on the decline, with prosecutors dropping the felony charges against the remaining four in April as questions about the grand jury transcripts popped up. They still faced a full trial on misdemeanor charges and up to one year in jail. But Judge Perry ruled the DOJ’s handling of the grand jury and subsequent redactions constituted grave misconduct, making it impossible to move forward.
I spoke with Abughazaleh by phone Friday morning about right wing fuckery, ridiculous rumors, and how she plans to reclaim her life after the federal government tried to destroy it. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
MARISA KABAS, THE HANDBASKET: How did it feel waking up this morning?
KAT ABUGHAZALEH: I had to get up at like 5am to go on Morning Joe, but I woke up and I was like, oh yeah, I don’t have to go to trial this week—which is not a statement I thought I’d have to say ever in my life.
KABAS: Walk us through what you thought the next week or so was supposed to be like before yesterday’s hearing.
ABUGHAZALEH: I was supposed to have not just trial prep with my lawyers, but having to get my clothes dry cleaned. Going to get a manicure because my nails always always look awful. I spent way too long at a Nordstrom Rack picking out shoes that I thought looked fashionable but also modest and wouldn’t make jurors think I was a bitch. On Tuesday we were supposed to have jury selection. On Wednesday we were supposed to have opening arguments, which is a shame that we don’t get to hear our lawyers spit absolute fire. But yeah, it’s nice not to do it in the first place.
KABAS: Absolutely. So what do you think you’re gonna do instead?
ABUGHAZALEH: I have a 12-hour live stream tomorrow to raise money for our legal funds because, despite not having to go to trial, we’re still picking up the pieces of our lives both emotionally and financially. Every single one of us as co-defendants, we have very real fears of bankruptcy and being in debt for the rest of our lives because of this. And then, I don’t know, sleep a bunch. Get my passport renewed, something that I couldn’t do for the last seven months. I couldn’t even go to Alaska.
KABAS: Are you serious? Could you go to Hawaii?
ABUGHAZALEH: No, just the lower 48. Couldn’t even go to Puerto Rico.
KABAS: So this has really restricted your movement as a human being for the last seven months.
ABUGHAZALEH: Yeah, and it’s something that’s really scary, especially as the government gets more and more aggressive, just being like, oh, you’re stuck here no matter what happens.
KABAS: So when did you get a sense that things might be changing this week?
ABUGHAZALEH: So we’ve been requesting to see the grand jury transcripts or just have the judge look at them for months. And ahead of trial Chris Parente—Brian Straw’s lawyer—just asked the judge, “Can you just look at the unredacted version?” And her understanding was that the redactions were referring to some IT issues, and the prosecution had never corrected her. So she looked at the unredacted transcript and then called a hearing the next morning. And it was sealed. Now the transcript is public.
She was saying “I’m not sure that the charge will get dismissed without prejudice because there’s not a lot of precedent for that, especially for a misdemeanor.” And then we broke for an hour for the government to talk it over, and then they came in. I remember one of my lawyers looking at me as one of the government’s lawyers [Andrew Boutros] started talking, and she just turns to me and says, “Congratulations.” And I went, “What?” And then Boutros said, “dismissed with prejudice.” [Meaning the case was permanently closed.] And it was just surreal. Absolutely surreal.
KABAS: Did you have a sense of where things were heading or were you totally shocked by the outcome?
ABUGHAZALEH: I truly did not think it would get dismissed yesterday. I did not want to get my hopes up. I thought that we were going to trial for sure, just because it’s very unusual to try a federal misdemeanor. I knew we would win in that case, but I was completely shocked.
KABAS: How do you think this will change or impact anti-ICE protests and prosecutions in the future?
ABUGHAZALEH: I hope that it does have impact. It was meant to intimidate us into silence, and none of us took a deal. None of us sold each other out (not that there was anything to sell each other out on.) But, you know, we were charged with conspiracy. We were facing like 10 years in prison.
(snip-there is MORE, but this is already a long post, and I’m a free subscriber to Handbasket, and don’t want to just lift their work. Click on through!)
Looking At The Week Ahead With Joyce Vance
The Week Ahead
May 24, 2026
It’s 1984 again.
We have read George Orwell since the beginning of Trump’s first administration. Studied him through the eyes of experts like Ruth Ben-Ghiat, whose scholarship is in the field of authoritarianism. But nothing makes his relevance as plain as living through history in 2026.
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
― George Orwell, 1984
On Friday, NBC’s Ryan J. Reilly and Kyla Guilfoil reported that “The Justice Department has removed press releases detailing the charges against hundreds of individuals who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot from its website.”
DOJ was not ashamed of the reporting on this development; instead, they responded to a tweet claiming they were “quietly” deleting the information by bragging:
Nothing “quiet” about it.
We are proud to reverse the DOJ’s weaponization under the Biden administration. We will do everything in our power to make whole those who were persecuted for political purposes. This includes stripping DOJ’s website of partisan propaganda.
As acting Attorney General Todd Blanche continues his long, slow audition to get the nomination for the permanent job, there is apparently no service the Justice Department he leads will refuse Donald Trump. That includes the effort Trump launched on day one of his second term in office to erase the insurrection. It began with the pardons of Rudy Giuliani and the fake slates of electors. As Ed Martin put it, “No MAGA left behind.” It went on to include virtually everyone who was present at or involved with the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, including those charged with insurrection, some of whom received clemency because even Trump, apparently, didn’t believe he could get away with outright pardons.
Blanche was in place at DOJ as Pam Bondi’s number two, overseeing the firing of prosecutors and agents assigned to work cases and leads in the January 6 investigation. Then, as we discussed last week, he signed off on Trump’s $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization fund,” the repurposing of taxpayer dollars Congress allocated to DOJ’s judgment fund as reward payments to Trump friends and allies who “suffered weaponization and lawfare.”
Blanche declined to exclude even defendants convicted of violent offenses in connection with January 6 from eligibility for payment out of Trump’s slush fund. The crescendo of outrage that began with Democrats swelled to include a handful of Republicans. But not all of them. In a mark up meeting before they left town for Memorial Day, every Republican member voted against a measure proposed by California Democrat Mike Levin that would have excluded members of Congress from filing to receive a payout from the fund.
Lawsuits have been filed, and we will be watching to see how quickly the federal judiciary might move to block the payouts from going into effect. Among the lawsuits so far:
- A lawsuit filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (“CREW”), which alleges that “The Slush Fund is a jaw-dropping act of presidential corruption. And it is brazenly illegal. Unlike prior victim compensation funds, it was not authorized by Congress. Nor was the Fund the product of a judicially approved, arm’s length legal settlement.” The complaint is here.
- A lawsuit alleging that the “anti-weaponization” fund discriminates against a group of plaintiffs who were mistreated by Republican officials, because it only permits redress of conduct by the Biden administration. You can read the complaint here.
- A lawsuit filed by current and former Washington, D.C., police officers who defended the Capitol on January 6, arguing the plan should be enjoined because the payouts are illegal and could potentially finance violent insurrectionists and paramilitary groups. You can read the complaint here.
The success of Trump’s effort to rewrite history is not a foregone conclusion. But pushback will require our focus. In January of 2025, the Brennan Center’s Michael Waldman, author of The Briefing with Michael Waldman wrote, “It was an insurrection. Pardoning the perpetrators won’t change that.”
On Friday, former Attorney General Pam Bondi will testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Although the topic at hand is her mishandling of the release of the Epstein Files, Bondi could easily face questioning about the origins of the slush fund plan and will undoubtedly be asked about Trump’s single-minded effort to rewrite history to repaint his own efforts to take down democracy.
It’s up to us to make sure Trump doesn’t get away with rewriting our true history. This is an important awareness to carry with us into the weeks and months ahead, especially as we approach the 250th Anniversary of the day the Declaration of Independence was signed, this July 4. In the words of Orwell, “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
As I wrote to you last week on the day we first learned about Trump’s creation of a slush fund he could use to divert taxpayer funds into rewards for his friends, we are at a crisis point. It’s a crisis for many reasons, among them the president’s comfort with outright abuse of public funds and his party’s unwillingness to step in and outlaw their use in the absence of a congressional designation of them for this purpose. Trump, the would-be autocrat, is again trying to enlarge the circle of presidential power he can exercise and it will be up to the judicial branch to tell him no, for now, and the voters to do it resoundingly in November. It’s time to pay close attention to developments this week.
We’re in this together,
Joyce
Clay Jones, Open Windows
Memorial Day 2026
They didn’t give their lives for an autocracy
Here’s Byron
(Note Please that this is not a dig on Byron Allen per se. It’s about the vast difference in material. I’ve watched “Comics Unleashed”, and “Funny You Should Ask,” both are fine, but are not what people are used to at night; I’ve watched them while doing my 10AM jog on the trampoline, instead of a game show that may be on. Of course, well, viewership’s been dropping in that nighttime time slot, so. Clay explains how Byron Allen makes it work.)
Replacing Stephen Colbert with Byron Allen would be like replacing Pat Oliphant with Garfield
Daryl Cagle distributes more political cartoons than any other syndicate in the business, and each week he publishes the top ten cartoons from his service that are being published by his newspaper clients. I normally don’t look at it because it makes me sick.
This is not meant as a criticism of Cagle, even though I believe he’s doing everything in his power to destroy our industry just to make a nickel, nor is it a criticism of the cartoons that make his top ten list. A lot of cartoonists who draw hard-hitting cartoons often draw something nice, or even bland, on occasion. It doesn’t mean that they’re not good cartoonists. Although there are cartoonists who do nothing but draw boring, bland, generic, copy-and-paste cartoons, like Dave Granlund. (snip-MORE, and he gets to the point)
Stupid on Stilts
Corruption on stilts
The only weaponization of the Justice Department that comes to mind is that which has been committed by Donald Trump and his goons. Going after goons who attacked the capital is not weaponization. Going after Donald Trump for sending those goons or for stealing classified documents is not weaponization. Going after people who try to overturn the election is not weaponization.
The $1.8 billion slush fund that Donald Trump is going to give to the so-called victims of the so-called weaponization of the Justice Department under Joe Biden is bogus. It’s not for victims as much as for political allies who would do Donald Trump’s bidding. Trump isn’t trying to reward people who work for him; he’s recruiting them. When he pardoned the J6 terrorist, it was to recruit them.
Polls on the slush fund have not come out yet, but I expect them to next week. And I also expect that they are going to be very negative about the Donald Trump slush fund. I expect public opinion to be very much against the slush fund. The slush fund is so unpopular that even some Republicans are speaking out against it, and not anonymously either. (snip-MORE)
Pedo Protectors
Why is protecting the pedophiles in the Epstein files so important to Donald Trump supporters
And this is why I do not want to live in a red state or a red congressional district. I don’t want to live in a place where the majority of people are so loyal to Trump that they will punish a man for not protecting pedophiles. It’s bad enough that the blue city I live in now borders what we affectionately call Spotsyltucky.
Even while he has the lowest approval ratings of any president in the history of approval ratings, Trump’s MAGA base will go to any lengths to serve him, even if it means ousting a guy because he would not protect pedophiles.
Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky had been a thorn in Trump’s side for a while, even though he was a staunch conservative. It’s not like Massie wanted equal rights for black Americans, for women to be free to make health decisions regarding their own bodies, or that he wanted free lunches for children in poverty.
Massie voted against Trump’s signature tax-and-spending package and moved to rein in his war powers over Iran, but the final straw was his leadership of the bipartisan effort to release the Epstein files, in which Trump is mentioned thousands of times. Republicans spent $33 million to defeat Massie in a primary. This was $33 million to defeat one of their own. This was $33 million spent on a safe red seat. And they invested all of it in a failed state Senate candidate, whom many believe is dumber than a doorbell. (snip-MORE)
From Keith, Who’s Not Really An Old Fart:
We’re Wrong About the Rates of Trans People
I love Ethel and her way of presenting facts and reality. She points out that studies in high schools indicate that the rates of trans children are 3.+ and those questioning are 2.+. Plus she points out the reason more trans people are out is the same reason more gay kids came out in the 2000s, it was the left handed issue again. When being left handed became OK to admit more people admitted and openly lived as left handed. Despite everything, trans kids feel safer coming out in the US than ever before. Hugs.
Scottie's Playtime 