Lia Matera

Nice to be a Warriors fan right now.

I'd love to vote for Eric Swalwell! He's been impressively articulate & outspoken in championing a return to lawful, sane, caring governance. And Trump targeting him for a phony mortgage fraud investigation is a real badge of honor -- he only sics his DOJ on clever, effective, unbowed Dem "enemies."

I know nothing about horses but his books really brought racing (and every other profession he wrote about) to life for me. I esp. loved this one and its sequel Bolt. The races in those books made me aware of the ways jockeys tune in to & use horse’s different temperaments & moods.

Cover of Break in by Dick Francis

I find Hassett's constant I'm-adorable-when-I-lie smile repulsive. And I doubt even he believes that smug expression & patronizing tone hide his deception. He comes across as wanting us, mere plebeian listeners, to know he's mocking us, enjoying a cat-and-mouse game of jerking us around for Trump.

Wow, the search for silver linings is going into overdrive. How can anyone pretend anything justified a vote that (let’s face it, until at least 2028) prices millions out of healthcare coverage?

An empty promise. Nor would it make up for added cost of tariffed goods or how fast Trump policies weaken the $.
E.g in 2024 1€ = $.97, now $.86. 2024 $1 = 162 ¥, now 154¥. $ is even weaker against £, peso, francs & it’s sinking fast. Trump maroons us in this nightmare by putting travel out of reach

The comments are disturbing. Every prisoner in every facility should be safe & comfortable. In civilized nations with less recidivism, prison is deemed punishment enough. Wanting filth, danger, spoiled food, crowding too is considered inhumane. What a prison inflicts on 1 prisoner it inflicts on all

I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time. Every day my phone buzzes. It is a neighborhood group: four people were kidnapped at the corner drugstore. A friend a mile away sends a Slack message: she was at the scene when masked men assaulted and abducted two people on the street. A plumber working on my pipes is distraught, and I find out that two of his employees were kidnapped that morning. A week later it happens again. An email arrives. Agents with guns have chased a teacher into the school where she works. They did not have a warrant. They dragged her away, ignoring her and her colleagues’ pleas to show proof of her documentation. That evening I stand a few feet from the parents of Rayito de Sol and listen to them describe, with anguish, how good Ms. Diana was to their children. What it is like to have strangers with guns traumatize your kids. For a teacher to hide a three-year-old child for fear they might be killed. How their relatives will no longer leave the house. I hear the pain and fury in their voices, and I wonder who will be next. Understand what it is to pray in Chicago.

“I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time.”

aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...

No wonder GOP behaves as if it won’t be remembered for or held accountable for this suffering, cruelty, illegality. It watched USA memory-hole that George W’s GOP glamorized Guantanamo horrors, reframed torture & wars of choice as macho, ruined Iraq (esp its women) and treated our soldiers as slaves

T-shirt shows an armored SecUnit from The Murderbot Diaries staring at a huge moon. The writing says "The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon," which is Murderbot's favorite show.

New t-shirt.

This is what happens when you reply to spam email Suspicious emails: unclaimed insurance bonds, diamond-encrusted safe deposit boxes, close friends marooned in a foreign country. They pop up in our inboxes, and standard procedure is to delete on sigh...

If you need a laugh… www.ted.com/talks/james_...

Every pol, lawyer, judge in America should be screaming "DUE PROCESS!" It's a disgrace that Trump gets away with rounding up, imprisoning, shipping off 10s of 1000s. Even heinous mass arrests & deportations under 1919's Alien & Sedition Acts led to swift intervention by Congress to require hearings

The DOJ has been firing judges with immigrant defense backgrounds NPR's data analysis shows that the DOJ has tended to fire judges with immigrant defense backgrounds in its recent rounds

The Trump regime has fired an estimated 70 immigration judges since February. Nearly half previously defended immigrants in court.

Remember: it was never about legal immigration. It was always about cruelty.
https://www.npr.org/2025/11/06/g-s1-96437/trump-immigration-judges-fired

Travelers from U.S. can see we often stand out among fitter thinner locals. If nations reciprocate, many tubby high-BP Americans will be stuck at home."'You must consider...cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases, cancers, diabetes, metabolic diseases'...obesity...asthma...high blood pressure"

DARVO

Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. When confronted, the manipulator denies wrongdoing, attacks the person calling it out, and claims they are the true victim.

Has anyone calculated what Walmart's 2024 Thanksgiving bundle would cost today? I know a half dozen items were removed this year and that cheaper brands were substituted for some others, but I haven't seen what the 2024 bundle would cost today.

In 3-4 years when NYC is no more Muslim than it is now, Tuberville will still be just as stupid as he is now.

This goes so far beyond petty defamation, reaches a level of lying so unpatriotic, so disdainful of the office Trump now defiles, that I wish he could be impeached for it (among many other things).

I know someone who sold her house to pay son’s tuition to Cornell because in CA an Ivy seems more impressive & cool than Berkeley, whose tuition is a fraction of Cornell’s. Seeing Cornell cave to bully’s blackmail now that nation is finally finding ways to stand up to Trump, is a bitter pill for her

Smirnov lied to FBI to help Trump, said Bidens took bribes & evaded taxes. He was sentenced to 6 yrs a day before Trump took office but has been "mysteriously missing from prison for at least the last four months." Now he's been officially released & a pardon is likely.
It's felons all the way down.

In August, looking & sounding like Cruella de Ville, Pirro mocked the sandwich flinger. “He thought it was funny. Well he doesn’t think it was funny today because we charged him with a felony…So there. Stick your Subway sandwich somewhere else.”
Today a jury chose the “somewhere else” to stick it.

Trump stands by looking bored and unconcerned as Rome burns.

cartoon: A long sandwich coils around and up like a rattlesnake Caption: Don't bread on me

Editorial cartoon: Don't bread on me. Enjoy :)

I’m with Calvin Trillin: “As far as I'm concerned, 'whom' is a word that was invented to make everyone sound like a butler.”

100% predictable FAFO. Any contractor signing up to build his ballroom should take note. Or call St Cloud & Grand Rapids, just 2 of the cities Trump stiffed (for $250K) after his campaign ordered extra police, road changes etc for his rallies. Or call 5 others he stiffed for $750K the previous 8 yrs

King on balcony looks down at angry mob carrying torches and pitchforks and says "O.K.--but some of you are cheering, right?"

November 5, 2019 New Yorker cartoon by Jason Adam Katzenstein. It seems appropriate today.

YouTube video by Mr. Cardamom Mr. Cardamom - Nani (starring Madhur Jaffrey)

How did I not know Zohran Mamdami made this rap video (as Mr. Cardamom) in 2019? I love it! Old lady power! youtu.be/iQVsVNPkPmE?...

Deliver us from Dems who hesitate to take big gambles and put all their personal & political cred into selling selling selling them. Nothing less will save democracy.

So grateful to Gavin Newsom. He saw what democracy needed, urgently & existentially, and sold it with vigor, humor, strategy. He and a few other Dems--hat tip to Gov Pritzker--have been antidotes (& I hope wake-up calls) for congressional leadership stuck in consultant/pundit approved mealy-mouthing