Good news for Texans who like butts! And fart jokes!

After a case spurred by complaints on books containing the words “butt” and “fart” as well as touching on the topics of racism and LGBTQ+ identity, an appellate court has ruled that Texas cannot ban books from libraries simply because officials “dislike the idea contained in those books”.

The fifth US circuit court of appeals issued its decision on Thursday in a 76-page majority opinion, which was written by Judge Jacques Wiener Jr and opened with a quote from American poet Walt Whitman: “The dirtiest book in all the world is the expurgated book.”

In its decision, the appellate court declared that “government actors may not remove books from a public library with the intent to deprive patrons of access to ideas with which they disagree”.

Maybe Texas will catch up to Minnesota. We have a new law, passed at the end of the legislative session, that prohibits all that book banning that Republicans love.

There were some major bills that did not pass in the chaotic last days of the Minnesota legislative session. One bill that did pass prohibits public and school libraries from banning a book “based solely on its viewpoint or the messages, ideas or opinions it conveys.” It also protects library employees from discipline against them for complying with the new rules.

It’s not all good news. Among the important bill blocked by the chaos of obstructionist Republicans were the bonds to improve university facilities.

On May 20, 2024, the Minnesota Legislature adjourned sine die without garnering the 60% of votes required to pass a capital investment bill funded by general obligation bonds. Despite both parties citing bonding as a top priority in the beginning of the session, politics between the two parties, fueled in part by the upcoming House elections, prevented them from striking a deal. The Minnesota Legislature ran out of time to pass a smaller, cash-only bonding bill before the constitutionally mandated time of adjournment.

I guess we’ll struggle along, as always. At least we can assign textbooks that feature butts!

This guy wants to be our president again, so he was demonstrating his perspicacity with a riveting speech at a rally.

My story begins in nineteen-dickety-two. We had to say dickety because the Kaiser had stolen our word twenty. I chased that rascal to get it back, but gave up after dickety-six miles. Then after World War Two, it got kinda quiet, ’til Superman challenged FDR to a race around the world. FDR beat him by a furlong, or so the comic books would have you believe. The truth lies somewhere in between. Three wars back we called Sauerkraut “liberty cabbage” and we called liberty cabbage “super slaw” and back then a suitcase was known as a “Swedish lunchbox.” We can’t bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell ’em stories that don’t go anywhere – like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on ’em. Give me five bees for a quarter, you’d say. Ah, there’s an interesting story behind that nickel. In 1957, I remember it was, I got up in the morning and made myself a piece of toast. I set the toaster to three: medium brown.Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn’t have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones…

Whoops, wait, sorry. That’s Grandpa Simpson’s speech from the TV show. It’s pretty much the same thing, but in the interests of accuracy, here’s what the brain-damaged fascist actually said.

It must be because of MIT, my relationship with MIT, very smart, I say, what would happen if the boat sank from its weight, & you’re in the boat, & you have this tremendously powerful battery, and the battery’s now under water, & there’s a shark that’s approximately 10 yards over there—by the way, a lot of shark attacks lately, do you notice that?—I watched some guys justifying it today, ‘Well they weren’t really that angry, they bit off the young lady’s leg because of the fact that they weren’t hungry but they misunderstood who she was.’

Note: he had an uncle who taught at MIT. That’s the extent of the “relationship,” he did not graduate from MIT, he did not attend MIT, he did not have lunch from a food truck in the Kendall/MIT Open Space. He just launched into this rambling nonsense because he doesn’t like vehicles that don’t burn guzzoline.

This was at a rally in Nevada, which is land-locked, and where they don’t have many shark attacks. None, actually.

…These people are quick. He said, ‘there’s no problem with sharks, they just didn’t really understand a young woman swimming,” no really got decimated and other people too, a lot of shark attacks. So I said, ‘there’s a shark 10 yards away from the boat, 10 yards, or here. Do I get electrocuted if the boat is sinking, water goes over the battery, the boat is sinking? Do I stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted or do I jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted?

His mind wanders. This was a part of the speech that was supposed to be about electric vehicles, he’s somehow leapt the track and is babbling about sharks, and now he has invented a new moral dilemma about sharks and electrocution.

…Because I will tell you, he didn’t know the answer. He said, ‘You know, nobody’s ever asked me that question.’ I said, ‘I think it’s a good question. I think there’s a lot of electric current coming through that water.’ But you know what I’d do if there was a shark or you get electrocuted? I’ll take electrocution every single time. I’m not getting near the shark. So we’re going to end that, we’re going to end it for boats, we’re going to end it for trucks.

Please do take electrocution. Any time.

If you want an actual scientific opinion on the subject, Andrew Thaler has one.

I would just point out that in the cinema classic Jaws 2, the danger was resolved by having the big bad shark bite an underwater power cable, ending the shark menace until Jaws 3-D.

The battle lines are rather sharply drawn. We’ve got two political parties, and one of them is falling into a dark pit of insanity, a distinction that is being constantly highlighted. The latest episode: the Republicans killed a bill that would protect our right to contraception. Are they planning something for the future?

The Senate on Wednesday afternoon voted not to advance a bill that would create a federal right to access contraception. The procedural measure, which required 60 votes, failed as all but two Republicans present voted against it.

The legislation would have prevented states from passing laws that limit access to contraception, including hormonal birth control, intrauterine devices and other methods that prevent pregnancy. Democrats introduced the bill, in part, to put Republicans on the record on reproductive rights ahead of November’s elections.

Obviously, it was set up as part of a political ploy by the Democrats…but it worked. The Republicans willingly hitched their wagon to the star of weird pronatalists and freaky tradwives and fundamentalist Catholics and evangelicals. That’s who you’re voting for when you vote for Republicans.

They’ve elected women to run their countries. This is not a guarantee of an improvement (just remember Margaret Thatcher), but it does improve the odds.

Iceland has elected Halla Tomasdottir to the presidency. She’s billed as an “entrepreneur” and “businessperson,” which are not reassuring criteria, but she did say this:

A climate and nature emergency demands urgent, inclusive action, conformity simply won’t unlock the leadership we need. It’s time to transform how we lead, and in a world of low trust we need to get better at co-creating solutions with those impacted. A livable world can best be secured if women, in solidarity with male allies, unite to redefine leadership norms; dismantle barriers; and move toward sustainable, people-first approaches. This demands courageous collaboration. The most important question we must now ask is, how will we choose to lead at a time like no other for humanity?

Promising.

Mexico has elected its first woman president, Claudia Sheinbaum. She has a Ph.D. in energy engineering, and previously served as an environmental secretary. She promoted education (Yay!) and policing (boo.) Leftist activist and climate scientist, what’s not to like?

I’m feeling even more discouraged by our choices in the US presidential election. Why can’t we have any educated, progressive women on the ballot?

This is one of those comic illustrations that are burned into the brain of every person above a certain age. “Guilty, guilty, guilty” is the phrase that immediately came to my mind yesterday.

We felt a kind of glee at this rare occasion when a rich and powerful person gets the same justice we peons routinely experience, as they should. But take a moment and exercise your empathy: how would another rich and powerful person react to the demonstration that they could be held to account for their crimes? I know, I know! Let’s ask Elon Musk!

After Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in relation to a scheme to silence a porn star and unlawfully influence the 2016 election, Musk moaned that the history-making outcome of the trial is bad news for all Americans. “Indeed, great damage was done today to the public’s faith in the American legal system,” he wrote in a post on X.

Personally, my faith in the American legal system is far more shaken by Alito and Thomas and Roberts and the decisions of the Supreme Court that have privileged corporations, and the stock trading of our senators, and the thuggery of police officers. There have been many things in the past several decades that have eroded my confidence, and seeing a con man getting convicted in a jury trial of something he actually did isn’t one of them.

Musk’s comment came in response to another user who bemoaned that the first conviction of a former president had occurred not because of the “Iraq or Afghanistan wars, illegal CIA coups, drone striking weddings, or spying on Americans” but rather because “Trump misclassified a $130,000 payment for a porn star’s NDA.”

Musk apparently also saw Trump’s crimes as insignificant and questioned the legitimacy of the prosecution. “If a former President can be criminally convicted over such a trivial matter—motivated by politics, rather than justice—then anyone is at risk of a similar fate,” he wrote.

I agree in part that I would like to have seen more high officials convicted of their great crimes, and it’s terrible that they have such impunity. It’s pathetic that I have to accept justice for the little stuff — it’s like Al Capone getting convicted for tax evasion rather than racketeering and murder.

But wait — “little stuff”? What am I thinking? Paying $130,000 for the silence of a porn star is not a little thing to most people. That’s about two years salary, before taxes, for me! This is not a small crime to the majority of people in this country. That’s robbing your local bank money — not a gas station or 7-11 holdup, but hitting a up small business on payday. And the rich people think the sum is “trivial” or “insignificant.” Musk probably breaks into a cold sweat at the thought that he could be punished for a crime that represents the price of one cybertruck, rather than the millions and billions he has in his coffers.

My dream is to see every billionaire get their butts kick and their profits taxed heavily. A guilty verdict for Trump is just the first small step.

“Justices” Thomas and Alito have refused to recuse themselves from January 6th cases, despite being blatantly partisan. The bias and corruption in the Supreme Court have become rather blatant, because right now the courts think they are not bound by ethics or law. Jamie Raskin has an idea.

Everyone assumes that nothing can be done about the recusal situation because the highest court in the land has the lowest ethical standards — no binding ethics code or process outside of personal reflection. Each justice decides for him- or herself whether he or she can be impartial.

Of course, Justices Alito and Thomas could choose to recuse themselves — wouldn’t that be nice? But begging them to do the right thing misses a far more effective course of action.

Correct. It would be hopelessly naive to think the Supreme Court would do anything in the name of principle. So what is his recommended course of action?

The U.S. Department of Justice — including the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, an appointed U.S. special counsel and the solicitor general, all of whom were involved in different ways in the criminal prosecutions underlying these cases and are opposing Mr. Trump’s constitutional and statutory claims — can petition the other seven justices to require Justices Alito and Thomas to recuse themselves not as a matter of grace but as a matter of law.

The Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland can…

Stop right there. The solution hinges on ineffectual, waffly Merrick Garland, the dilatory attorney general, taking decisive action? Wouldn’t that be nice? Unfortunately, it’s only slightly less naive than expecting Thomas or Alito to do the responsible thing. Furthermore, “petitioning” doesn’t sound very effective — do we think the justices won’t find an excuse to weasel out of any “petition”? This is John Roberts’ court, after all.

“I think John Roberts is gonna go down in history as one of the worst chief justices of the United States,” Graves said. “He’s done everything he can to try to manipulate the process to avoid and block efforts by the Senate to hold the court accountable, to insist that it abide by just commonsense ethical rules that every other court in the country has to follow.”

Nothing will be done. These crooks aren’t worried.

All right, all right, we know. The American election process sucks, and somehow a floofy-haired orange con artist got elected to the presidency, and despite being hit with trial after trial for his criminal corruption, is trying to get elected again to the highest office in the land. And a significant number of people enthusiastically favor him!

I don’t get it. Minnesota had a kook claiming to be a vampire, Jonathon “The Impaler” Sharkey, running for governor, and when his crimes were exposed, we had him arrested and extradited to Indiana. That’s the sane response to running a crook and a fraud out of town.

Then the UK fucked up thoroughly by passing Brexit — again, with a significant fraction of the population cheering it on — and as the relevance of the nation collapses in response, elects a series of Tory bastards to various high positions. Nigel Farage? How was he taken seriously? Boris Johnson? Rishi Sunak, who is simply an exploiter and parasite? It’s absurd. How can the US and UK keep digging deeper holes for themselves?

And now the Netherlands. The Netherlands always seemed like an eminently sensible, practical nation with high educational standards, but now they’ve gone and put Geert Wilders in charge of the country.

The far right’s stunning victory in the Netherlands’s parliamentary elections last fall will upset far more than the country’s immigration policies. An agreement by the four parties aiming to form a new government, presented on 16 May and debated in the House of Representatives on 22 May, also calls for cuts in science and innovation funding, rollbacks of environment and climate policies, and restrictions on the influx of foreign students.

HOW? How does an electorate decide to immolate their economy, their reputation, and their future? Wilders is a catastrophic choice, just as bad as electing Trump here. He’s also simply dead wrong on every decision that impacts science.

Wilders, who ardently denies climate science, called in his election platform for putting all climate policies and agreements “through the shredder,” but he conceded in Parliament that won’t happen. The governing agreement leaves most climate “nonsense” in place, he said. A proposed carbon dioxide tax for industry and a plan to speed up the introduction of heat pumps in homes have both been abandoned, however.

He also looks like a clown. I guess it’s good that politicians shouldn’t be elected on the basis of appearance, but you’re supposed to avoid superficialities to examine their policies critically. Wilders fails on all counts.

Does this remind anyone else of a certain University of Chicago professor who was both outraged that anyone would refuse to pay racists and gender criticals to speak on campus, while also freaking out that students had strong opinions he disagreed with? It’s uncanny.

Although…the worst ones tend not to call themselves “conservative.” They’re “liberal” or “centrist” or “open-minded” while magically and unthinkingly aligning themselves with conservatives all the way down the line.

Massachusetts leads the way! They placed a wealth tax on rich people and gleaned over a billion dollars, which sounds like a good deal to me.

Massachusetts’ so-called “millionaires tax” appears primed to actually deliver billions.

State officials said Monday that the voter-approved surtax on high earners has generated more than $1.8 billion in revenue this fiscal year — with still three months left to go — meaning state officials could have hundreds of millions of surplus dollars to spend on transportation and education initiatives.

Education? That’s a great priority. Also transportation is a good idea, if it’s being invested in mass transit.

They had some reservations, though, that it might scare the rich people away.

The Department of Revenue won’t certify the official amount raised until later this year. But the estimates immediately buoyed supporters’ claims that the surtax would deliver much-needed revenue for the state despite fears it could drive out some of the state’s wealthiest residents.

I would like to help Massachusetts. If every state imposed a wealth tax, the looters would have nowhere to run to!