Selling oneself

Donald Trump Jr, the idiot son of the idiot president, has joined the ranks of people whom you can pay to make a recorded message for you.

The former president’s eldest son, listed on the site under the category of “activist”, is charging fans $500 a video with an undisclosed amount of the proceeds being donated to his chosen charity.

He follows a number of other “Maga celebrities” to join the platform, including his partner Kimberly Guilfoyle ($200 a video), convicted felon and former campaign adviser Roger Stone ($100 a video) and far-right political commentator and former presidential adviser Sebastian Gorka ($99 a video).

Let me guess. The ‘undisclosed amount’ that goes to charity would be $0, because that is how the Trumps roll, sticking like glue to any cash that comes anywhere close to their grubby fingers. It beats me why anyone would pay for such a thing but clearly there are people for whom being even marginally connected to a celebrity, even a C-list one like Don Jr., by having them say your name even if one has to pay for it, is worth it

So what can one get for one’s money?
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And now, “The lies made me do it”

A second person has pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the January 6th insurrection.

A man who wore goggles and carried a Trump flag into the Senate chamber on January 6 as the US Capitol was overrun with rioters became the second riot defendant to plead guilty on Wednesday, setting the tone for what may come as more of the hundreds of cases head toward being resolved in court.
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The obstruction charge he has pleaded guilty to carries a maximum 20 years in prison, though judges almost never sentence defendants to the maximum amount.

Still, the resolution of Hodgkins’ case sends a signal for other riot defendants that prosecutors may not be willing to significantly reduce charges for those who entered the Capitol building.

Many of the Capitol riot defendants are already engaged in plea talks, and, as is typical in the criminal justice system, a large proportion are expected to plead guilty.

Previously, the Justice Department cut a deal for an Oath Keeper founder to cooperate, the first plea deal in the insurrection investigation.

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The US will share unused vaccines

While the US has a glut of vaccines and many people have to be coaxed in to getting it with various offers of gifts and lotteries, many other countries are desperately short of vaccines even as their covid-19 cases surge. So I was glad to see Joe Biden announce that the US will share some of the unused vaccines. The move is long overdue.

President Joe Biden announced Thursday the U.S. will donate 75% of its unused COVID-19 vaccines to the U.N.-backed COVAX global vaccine sharing program, acting as more Americans have been vaccinated and global inequities have become more glaring.

Of the first tranche of 25 million doses, the White House said about 19 million will go to COVAX, with approximately 6 million for South and Central America, 7 million for Asia and 5 million for Africa. The doses mark a substantial — and immediate — boost to the lagging COVAX effort, which to date has shared just 76 million doses with needy countries.

Overall, the White House aims to share 80 million doses globally by the end of June, most through COVAX. But 25% of the nation’s excess will be kept in reserve for emergencies and for the U.S. to share directly with allies and partners.

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Encouraging result for progressive Democrats in New Mexico


One of the differences between Democrats and Republicans, especially in the party leadership and the media pundits who support them, is how they differ in the way they react to political developments. Democrats tend to view pretty much anything as a sign that things are getting worse for them and that they will be in trouble in the next elections, while Republicans view any and all developments as helping their chances.

Even though Trump lost the 2020 election by a large margin and Democrats unexpectedly gained enough seats in the US senate to give them the majority, they lost seats in the House of Representatives, though still retaining the majority there. But they tended to view the activism that drove their successes, such as the progressive policies that were advocated and Black Lives Matter protests, as somehow things that will bring them down in the next election and that they need to distance themselves from.
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Kate Winslet is comfortable with who she is

The actor has rejected offers by the people behind the scenes in the TV series Mare of Easttown to adjust how she is seen in order to make her look more conventionally attractive.

Kate Winslet has said she refused a director’s offer to edit a sex scene in which she showed a “bulgy bit of belly” for her latest television series.

The actor claimed Craig Zobel, the director of her new HBO series Mare of Easttown, had offered to show her body in a more flattering light.

Winslet, who plays detective and a grandmother Mare Sheehan in a Pennsylvania town in the programme, the finale of which was broadcast in the UK on Monday, said she had refused and told Zobel: “Don’t you dare.”
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Even blogging is too much work for Trump

After he was shut out of his favorite platforms of Twitter and Facebook for his serial lying and inflaming his supporters to stage an insurrection, Trump promised to start his own system to reach his fans. It turned out to be underwhelming, consisting of basically a blog that did not have the kinds of features that the major social media platforms provide that enable wider participation and it was the target of much derision by late night TV comedians. Today it was announced that he was shutting it down for good after less than a month, which will no doubt prompt more jokes.
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A difficult question on safety

In a post a few months ago, I linked to a Samantha Bee clip on sexual assault where she asked why the onus of safety was placed on women, with them being advised to take precautions, such as avoiding being alone in isolated places at night, when it is the behavior of men that is the problem and should change. Women should have the right to be anywhere at any time without fear of being attacked.

This question has come up with how the media should report violent attacks on women. Chris Quinn is the editor of Cleveland.com, the online affiliate of the Plain Dealer newspaper. He sends out a newsletter and recently he described the challenge that this places on news reporting because they cannot duck this issue and have to decide what facts are pertinent when reporting a story. I reproduce most of it here because he describes the problem well and he links to a discussion he had with two female colleagues about this issue who had different views from him.
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TV review: Columbo

Long time readers of this blog know that I am a big fan of murder mysteries. Starting in the early 1970s, there was a TV crime procedural set in Los Angeles featuring Peter Falk as a homicide detective named Columbo. Wearing a crumpled beige raincoat, tie askew, a cigar, and a perpetual puzzled expression on his face, he became a cultural icon. I wrote a brief appreciation of the show and Falk when he died in 2011

What made this show distinctive from other crime shows is that there was no mystery at all. The opening sequence showed the murderer committing the crime and covering it up. The rest of the show was about how Columbo identified the murderer and pinned it on them. The stories always seemed to take place with the wealthiest of people in high society living in opulent houses and driving expensive cars, a stark contrast in class to the clearly blue collar Columbo who drove a beaten up and unwashed Peugeot convertible. We never saw his own home and although he frequently talked about his wife and other family members, they were never shown. I liked the fact that his personal life was not a part of the show. In some modern shows, the drama in the detectives’ personal lives sometimes overshadows the crime story. I also liked the fact that any violence was always off-screen and there was no blood and gore, no chases, or any of the other tropes of police shows.
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Women’s athletics and the Simone Biles controversy

I do not watch sports much at all and almost never events like gymnastics or figure skating. But I do know that in those events, winners are decided by judges who weigh various subjective factors like the level of difficulty involved in what was attempted and the grace and style with which it was achieved. And this had led to a controversy in women’s gymnastics involving Simone Biles. She seems to have superior athletic abilities and has done things that no woman before has done in competition. So you would think that she would score highly. But in fact the judges seem to actually penalize her for her ambition. The latest example occurred last week when she did what had been thought to be impossible, something that is called the ‘Yurchenko double pike’. You can see her do it here during Olympic training.
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Why are professional athletes forced to speak after matches?

It is common after sporting events to have the press interview various players after each match. I had assumed that participating was voluntary but that professional athletes would welcome the chance to increase their profile by doing so. But apparently, at least in professional tennis, they are forced to subject themselves to post-game interviews and this odd aspect has come into sharp focus in the case of tennis player Naomi Osaka.
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