Grits for Breakfast

Dr. Seuss cartoon showing German Nazis and America Firsters as two men joined by one beard, shown on stage under the banner "The Great US Side Show." A carnival barker points to them with a cane and says, "And on this platform, folks, those most amazing people ... the lads with the Siamese Beard! Unrelated by blood, they are joined in a manner that mystifies the mightiest minds in the land.

I think of the America Firsters more as agents of a foreign agenda (admittedly a bit like Trump inexplicably pimping for Putin/Russia), but the Second Klan was a populist and authentic, if terrible and grotesque, expression of a political element that's being re-empowered in the current moment.

The best historical analogy for the MAGA movement arguably is the Second Klan era, ca 1920s, more than the overtly fascist America Firsters pre-WW2. All the elements are there. AF was an elite-led movement. The erratic, populist fascism of the 2nd-Klan to a closer analogy to now. 1/2

Every DoJ attorney promoting and defending at this stuff should never again eat food that is less than 10% spit

The Garage Is the New Porch

In Houston, "the garage is the new porch." www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/r...

Adding insult to injury, the FL kid who pulled down the touchdown throw to make the score 17-7 was named "Dallas."

Electing one's friends then failing to hold them accountable is IMO the source of the overwhelming majority of failures in the political system I've personally witnessed in my adult lifetime -- +/- the last 40 years.

This is one of my core beliefs: When your friend runs for office, they are no longer your friend until they retire, as a matter of reality, practicality, and principle. Because this approach is uncommon, and to many, counterintuitive, as a reminder, I had the sentiment enshrined on a throw pillow.

Even on the touchdown to make it 10-7, the throw was late but it was such a great play call, it didn't matter. I'm calling it now: Arch Manning is not only not a Heisman candidate, I suspect boosters will be pushing for Matthew Caldwell by year's end. It wouldn't be a downgrade.

It's so on brand for UT to hire the best offensive playcaller in college football, spend the GDP of a small country on NIL money, then hang all their hopes on a Big Name White Guy Quarterback who's paid millions but is a bust out of the gate. In athletics as in academics, UT mistakes $$ for quality.

Post on X by NBC’s Ken Dilanian: “The challenge coins being handed out by @FBIDirectorKash. Seems someone put a lot of thought into this.” [pic of a medallion in the shape of a stylized Punisher skull with two teeth made of revolver barrels on the obverse and the text “PRESENTED BY THE DIRECTOR OF THE FBI KASH PATEL,” the FBI seal, a tommy gun, a signature, and a blue number 9 on the reverse]

Marvel just not bothering to take people to court over ripping off the Punisher logo the same way they would for literally any other piece of IP has consequences and here they are now www.theguardian.com/books/2020/j...

What a great Stevie Ray pic

The Laredo Smallpox Epidemic of 1898-1899: A Historical Overview Explore the events surrounding the smallpox epidemic in Laredo from October 1898 to March 1899, including the violent confrontations between Mexican Americans and Texas Rangers.

Remember when smallpox broke out in Laredo and the Texas Rangers were sent in to overcome armed resistance by antivaxxers, killing one person, wounding 13, and arresting 21 others? Happened in 1898. Weird to think that, if RFK were telling this story, the Rangers wd be the bad guys.

Former Texas megachurch pastor pleads guilty in child sex abuse scandal Former North Texas-based pastor of Gateway Church, Robert Morris, pleaded guilty to five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a minor, according to the Oklahoma Attorney General's office.

In a just world, Gateway Baptist Church would no longer exist. Why would anyone keep attending there after the founder and demagogue leader turned out to be a pedophile? There are plenty of other churches. www.statesman.com/news/article...

Every time we lose a Half Price Books we stray further from God’s light

An interesting point raised elsewhere: these boats that the United States is striking don't appear to have the fuel capacity/storage capacity to even reach American shores.

ICEBlock Owner After Apple Removes App: ‘We Are Determined to Fight This’ Apple removed ICEBlock reportedly after direct pressure from Department of Justice officials. “I am incredibly disappointed by Apple's actions today. Capitulating to an authoritarian regime is never t...

so the US government just forced a tech company to delete an app it doesn’t like, which is totally normal stuff

www.404media.co/iceblock-own...

You can tell the shutdown isn't a real emergency because Ted Cruz is still in the country.

I've been there for >30 years. I first attended 2nd Baptist after an abortion doc got shot ~1990 and I got hired by TX Planned Parenthood to research the crazies. A handful of the huge churches -- in H-Town, esp 2nd Baptist -- were at the epicenter of it all. 100% politicized, even back then.

Union workers at Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center to take strike vote | Houston Public Media Convention center workers are considering labor action as hundreds of employees at the nearby Hilton Americas-Houston are in their third week of a strike. Both facilities are owned by a local governme...

Workers at Houston's convention center are considering striking in solidarity with downtown hotel workers. A strike that's gone on for a month and is poised to grow, in the fourth largest city in America should be bigger news imo!

www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/new...

“Only 29 percent of respondents said their household income would ‘probably’ or ‘definitely’ keep pace with inflation over the course of the year. Among the households that wouldn't, 76 percent reported that they'd consider or be open to relocating from Houston.”

Inflation is gutting Houston families, UH study warns As living costs surge, 76 percent of locals are eyeing the exits.

UH study: Inflation forcing Houstonians to cut back or move www.chron.com/news/article...

I hope all these right wing megachurches implode. Second Baptist was part of the backbone of the religious right takeover of the GOP in TX and is run by charlatans. In other news, it's an abomination Gateway Baptist still exists and its congregants should all be mocked, belittled, and ridiculed.

McCarthyism in the 1950s took the form of the Red Scare AND the Lavender Scare. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavende...

Five Takeaways About the Culture of Lawlessness in the U.S. Special Forces

Five Takeaways About the Culture of Lawlessness in the U.S. Special Forces: Until now, many of the troubling events that took place during the war in Afghanistan have been shrouded in secrecy. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/m...

Trump obtains another settlement as YouTube agrees to pay $24.5 million Alphabet settles with Trump instead of fighting lawsuit over January 6 suspension.

would love to hear more congressional democrats say "should we win power next year we are going to treat every one of these as bribes and act accordingly" arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

Very similar situation to the troll at A&M who got a prof fired over gender views. These are like stories from the 1930s w/ the Nazi German Students League launching harassment campaigns against professors w/ the wrong ethnicity (like the fired Aggie journalism chair) or disapproved opinions.

Back to back “free speech” headlines this afternoon.

This theory, while presently unprovable, has a lot of explanatory value

Video: Opinion | Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Meta’s A.I. Chatbot Is Dangerous for Kids Mark Zuckerberg has a vision for how A.I. could be used in Meta’s universe. But the actor and filmmaker Joseph Gordon-Levitt is here to point out a flaw in the technology: an apparent lack of guardrai...

This is better journalism than most of what their print side produces these days.
www.nytimes.com/video/opinio...

Good for Tom Watson, I completely agree w/ him: "as an American, I am ashamed of what happened." Nativism is a sickness. www.espn.com/golf/story/_...