A painting of a bird beside the text "not this shit again"

Hoping that congressional Democrats realize they need to campaign on these crimes so they can be ready to hit the ground running with hearings, investigations and impeachment proceedings.

The window between the new Congress beginning and the 2028 election season starting will be painfully short.

I first came across the word "megalomania" as a kid when I read William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. It's essentially a synonym for narcissistic sociopathy or malignant narcissism. All three terms accurately describe Trump.

And for the last several years, because I thought it so evocative of Trump and his circle, I have been urging people to watch "Downfall," the 2004 German-language film that depicts Hitler's last ten days or so in the Führerbunker. ...

Watch Downfall | Netflix This portrayal of Adolf Hitler's final days is based on the memoirs of Traudl Junge, the young secretary who was with him until his death.

The movie brilliantly depicts the dictator's megalomania—as well as the malignant normality lived by his final followers as they cultishly adhered to him until the end.
www.netflix.com/us/title/700...

The good news is, as @ruthbenghiat.bsky.social points out, megalomaniacal leaders ultimately blow themselves up politically or militarily. The bad news is that the longer they survive, the bigger the figurative blast radius.

Quiet. We’re busy rebuilding Venezuelan infrastructure. And the Kennedy Center. 🤡

Folds on the Kennedy Center 3 weeks ago: I was sick to my stomach when I quit because I knew they were going to run it into the ground. No one that they were appointing had any experience in arts administration, but that was never the point. The point was to take that, run over it, and move on.

"SPIRIT HALLOWEEN COMING SOON" banner on Trump-Kennedy Center

stealing from Reddit

Defang ICE → Save the Midterms The fight over ICE isn’t just about civil rights. It’s about free and fair elections, too.

“ICE and the Border Patrol pose a threat not just to our civil liberties but to our political liberties. Dealing with the threat to our political liberty, in particular to free and fair elections, is the fight—for the rest of 2026, and then for 2027 and 2028.”

www.thebulwark.com/p/defang-ice...

Name a single day in the past 376 that we haven’t heard about you. Seriously, name just one.

A reminder that the Kennedy Center is the literal and legal and congressional designated presidential memorial to JFK. This would be like Trump tearing down the Lincoln Memorial to build something “better.”

🥰

The famous box (found in a downstairs closet by our landlord) at the porch roof cafe that allows customers to wait at the window made its debut 4 years ago this week. Teddy helped christen it then and she still hops up for vittles every morning (as does her daughter Millie and the rest of the gang).

You can’t cancel on ME — I’m going to close the whole theater instead!

This is a declaration of incompetence by Trump but also a clear sign that he does not understand or appreciate the role of arts and culture in the United States. Truly, the barbarians are inside the gates.

The grand convergence.

Naw, back it up to Bush v Gore 2001. Then to Brown v Board of Education, then collapse of Reconstruction, then .....

Three people came to my birthday party due to renovations.

Ager: I had a neighbor who didn’t go to the doctor because he had a stomach ache and thought he’d be all right. Four months later he died. People are more afraid of the costs than getting the care they need. This is happening all across the country, and we can do better.

This one’s easy.

Any contractor that even *thinks* of tearing it down should be shunned for the rest of their lives. Not just from government or commercial contracts - from going to the store or gym or church. Just savagely publicly abandoned.

DOWD: “.. Melania, the movie star, lives up to the message on the infamous jacket she wore to a migrant child detention center: ‘I really don’t care. Do U?’

“.. It turns out she does care — for herself.”

@nytopinion.nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/o...

#TX18

@punchbowlnews.bsky.social

Big scoop by the always excellent @propublica.org on the identity of the two CBP agents who shot and killed Alex Pretti. The government still hasn’t revealed this information to the public, Congress or even Minnesota officials.

A woodcut of a bird beside the text "begone, asshat"