Note empty stadium.

Hitler sold far more tickets.

… at Georgetown Library.

More info.

… Staunton Va with buddies for a Shakespeare play, dinner, and long walks. Ne quittez pas.

Yes. La lutte continue.

Even Jim Jordan considers Jim Jordan too disgusting to be speaker.

Benjamin Baker, a former police officer who is now policy adviser on public safety to the governor, says the crisis is exemplified by a scene he witnessed in an Albuquerque park in July.

“I had my kid here for football practice — he’s 12,” Baker says. “And people decided to come have a rolling gun-and-stabbing battle within feet of where he was practicing. And it caused a person to be shot. And the ages of those folks were 13, 14 and 15.”

Baker says guns have long been part of everyday life in this Western city, but the nature of the local gun culture is different. He says people now see guns not so much as a tool, but as something “sexy.” And they seem more likely to fire them in anger.

“That should have been a fist fight! At worst!” Baker says of the teenagers in the park. “I cannot recall a time where things were as violent and as bad, and particularly how young the age of the perpetrators has become.”

[One policeman] guesses half the cars in Albuquerque traffic now contain guns, some of which wind up in the hands of felons or children.

 A big [Republican] majority has embraced a figure whose life’s mission is to disable government, including its system of justice…

Jordan has not passed a single piece of legislation in his 16 years in Congress. John Boehner, a former Republican Speaker whose career Jordan helped to end, called him a “legislative terrorist”… A Jordan speakership would be the most troubling sign of US democracy’s declining health since the January 6 2021 storming of Capitol Hill. Jordan spoke extensively to Trump in the lead up to that failed putsch and ignored a subpoena to testify to the committee that investigated the assault…

Jordan has tried to overturn a US presidential election. Some might consider it reckless to give control of the people’s house to a counter-revolutionary. 

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“The Kamikazes on America’s Capitol Hill”

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“A vote today to make the architect of a nationwide abortion ban, a vocal election denier, and insurrection insider the speaker of this House would be a terrible message to the country and our allies,” [Pete] Aguilar said…

[Jim McGovern said:] “[Jordan] is like—rock bottom of who they could have picked to be their nominee.”

… problem.

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[R]arely are [politicians] as instantly and unambiguously repellent as the odious Jordan. He’s so unlikable that even ideologically radical Republicans like Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) who have no meaningful policy beefs with him are lining up to torpedo his bid. [SOS SOS: Beef and torpedo? Really?] He would be, in every possible way, a gift for Democrats to run against next year, not just because of his sordid antics but also because of the insanely unpopular policies he backs, like a national abortion ban.

A Texas school district is considering the use of eminent domain to seize a man’s longtime home and make way for parking at a new $50 million [high school] football stadium… The land has been in [79 year old retired carpenter Travis] Upchurch’s family since 1916, when his relatives emigrated from Sweden and settled in Aldine as dairy farmers…

Upchurch’s family has said it is willing to sell the property to the district after Upchurch dies or at least work out an arrangement that would allow him to continue living there. His daughter, Tara Upchurch, told Houston-area outlet KHOU-TV that her father’s health has deteriorated as a result of stress… “I ask that you spare my father from this unnecessary upheaval.”

Aldine ISD has made multiple offers to purchase the land in recent months, both before and after trustees authorized the use of eminent domain … Under eminent domain, the government can acquire land for public use as long as it pays the owner a fair price.

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For what profiteth a fifth-generation elderly Texan who wants to die at home compared to the compelling public value of a high school football parking lot?

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UPDATE: Ah fuck it.

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UD thanks a reader for the link.

… grass.

The tallest panicles are eight feet — measured against six-foot Mr UD.

Quote of the day. Giuliani.

It crosses the river Jordan.

He wages partisan wars against Democrats. That’s it. He does not try to meaningfully improve the lives of the members of his district. He does not sponsor legislation that would affect people’s day-to-day lives, even from a conservative point of view. He serves on committees, harangues the witnesses before them, and goes on Fox News afterward to tout his own actions… He beat the drum for Trump’s lies about a stolen election after Biden was declared the winner in November 2020 and sought to weaponize the House to spread those claims ahead of the electoral vote count on January 6, 2021. After a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, Jordan voted to carry through their ultimate goal and overturn an election for Trump’s benefit… If Jordan prevails on Tuesday, it will feel like the natural progression of the House GOP’s approach to Congress over the past 30 years. Starting with Newt Gingrich in 1994 and continuing to the present day, Republicans have done everything they can to transform the House of Representatives from a functioning legislative chamber into a vehicle for performative lawmaking and partisan stunts. Jim Jordan’s career, as it were, is a testament to how thoroughly that impulse has overwhelmed everything else. To elect him as speaker is to simply give up on basic governance.

… because of that school’s perceived inadequate response to the Hamas atrocities, you know how this blog — which for years has condemned anyone giving anything to an institution currently hoarding close to fifty four billion dollars — feels. Same goes for other obscenely overendowed Ivies. If this event helps narcissistic hedgies discover legitimate uses for their charity, tant mieux.

… the opposition wins the Polish election! Mr UD, who voted yesterday at the Polish embassy (where he reported rather long lines), is absolutely thrilled.

Post mass-shooting, people always say stuff like that. They always say mass shootings are a grotesque departure from local social life and make the whole place look bad.

But they need to begin to understand – certainly in our bloodiest states, like Texas – that spilled blood everywhere – football games, parks, churches, highways, schools, state fairs – IS the state of Texas. Blood and guts all over the place is our clearest reflection of places like Dallas. Blood and guts and shrieking families running all over the state fairground IS the news out of Dallas, just as much as massive suicide by gun is the news out of Wyoming.

Like… it’s time to rewrite the state song:

It’s the crimson rose of Texas…

But Texas isn’t ready for this transition, even if this is indeed the stark reality, so until it arrives at an acceptance of its killing fields identity, we are going to have to watch as its citizens draw themselves up in shock again and again and again and again as mass killers shut down public life.

More interestingly: What happens when Texas does eventually realize the elementary truth that when everyone in the state owns shitloads of unlocked guns, someone in the state, purdy much every day, is going to go shooting one of them off in a public place? Eventually, in states like Texas, events like state fairs, without clear defensive barriers/National Guard protection, will be seen as the provenance of shabby stupid pathetic people who don’t know any better than to come in from the blood. No one will be seen outside, except at hyper-surveilled gated community socials. Hell, in time even the gated landscape will become too dangerous. Everyone will move inside.

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Correction: It’s not the state song. UD thanks a reader.