Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Maher begins by analogizing the midterms to the World Series victory of the Milwaukee Brewers, a team with one of the smallest budgets in Major League Baseball. They won, say sMaher, because they “know how to deal,” trading away good players for even better players. Maher says that the key to both Republican and Democratic success will be to make deals (Maher’s example is that he’d accept a border wall in trade for giving a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally but have contributed to America)/.
He adds “The way America has been governed in recent decades is exactly that [“the shove it up your ass” philosophy]; one party wins, the other gets drunk with power kowtows to their fringe, and shoves their ideological agenda up our asses when all we want is to be governed effectively.”
The solution: for both parties to “make deals”—to compromise. He names several deals that could be made to deal with immigration, guns, calls to pack the Supreme Court, environmental issues, trans rights, Ten Commandments in schools (a jocular deal, “I’ll give you five”), marijuana (“we get to smoke it; you get to tax it”), homelessness, and sending people to Mars (Maher doesn’t like it, but will agree if “Elon has to go first”). Well, it sounds good, but given the present political climate it doesn’t seem practical. Yet given Trump’s veto power, making bipartisan deals will be the only way for the people’s representatives to make laws.
The two guests you’ll see are journalist and author Ali Vitali, and along with author and podcaster Coleman Hughes, who’s clearly hit the big time.
Vitali is clearly proud to be on the show. A post from her Instagram page:
A bonus: first we can listen again to Carol Piller’s song “Hili and Cyrus”, which I first posted in 2014. Carol explained the song, which she wrote (he’s a musician). Hili and Cyrus and now gone—Hili just this week—but this song may bring back the pleasure they took (and gave):
A few years ago, I started writing my own piano music to play in ballet classes. It’s a lot of fun, but I’m always looking for ideas to inspire a new piece of music. Cats, my own and those of friends, have been one of my favourite sources. The story of Hili and her introduction to Cyrus was irresistible. I started this piece when Jerry was in Poland, but didn’t quite get it finished until last week.
Since it was to be in honour of Hili, I started thinking about Polish music; mazurkas and polonaises and such but my first musings just didn’t feel right. That is, until it turned into a polka! Then it took off. Shortly thereafter, I realized that the polka had taken on a decidedly Klezmer feel. Once it went Klezmer, then I had to add a slow hora on the beginning. This section has Cyrus barking in the background, (a la Vivaldi) and a plaintive melody on top (should be played on violin or clarinet) then it launches into the quick hora/polka representing the delicate interplay between Jerry and the cat and the d*g. You can make up the rest of the story.
I was in an Isreali folk group for many years and we played many styles of music, but the Klezmer music was the most fun for the orchestra. Accordion, violin and clarinet are common and are often attempting to imitate the voice and use many special effects to imitate weeping, laughing and various inflections of the Yiddish language. The Klezmorim were virtuosic performers and the music is full of joy, sorrow, vitality, humour and theatre. I am not Jewish, but am lucky that the ensemble I belonged to was very welcoming and more interested in love of music than the culture you were born into.
The pictures were taken, as the credits show, by Andrzej and me.
Here’s a story that begins horribly but has a happy ending: the only kind of rescue story I’ll put up. The headline from the WaPo tells it all; click to read the story (article is archived here):
A quote:
A duffel bag was tossed out of a pickup truck on a busy Missouri road over the summer. A woman passing by stopped and found two kittens inside the bag, covered in a slimy chemical that appeared to be bleach. She rushed the kittens to an animal shelter.
“Going through in my head [were] all the things that bleach can do to a body,” said Julie Brinker, a veterinarian at the Humane Society of Missouri who treated the kittens.
The list is long, Brinker said, including damage to the skin, eyes, mouth and digestive tract.
After the kittens were washed with soap and water, they appeared to have avoided major injuries — probably because they had not been exposed to bleach for long, Brinker said. Still, the kittens, who Brinker said are probably sisters, were severely underweight, each weighing under 3½ pounds.
The Humane Society of Missouri shared details of the kittens’ situation on social media in late August, a few days after they came in. Dozens of commentators were appalled.
“That’s just heartbreaking,” one person wrote on Facebook. “So thankful that this Good Samaritan was in the right place at the right time.
“Hard to believe some people could be so cold hearted,” another user wrote.
In the following weeks, shelter staff bulked up the kittens with chicken-flavored food, and their personalities emerged.
. . .The kittens, whom shelter staff named Dolly and Monroe, were inseparable. They walked beside each other, groomed each other and napped together.
“After lots of medical care, love and TLC, these two are healing and showing us just how resilient they are,” the shelter wrote on social media Sept. 11.
. . .The shelter shared on social media this week that the cats, who are 7 months old, had been adopted together.
At [new parent Haley]Joiner’s home in Festus, Missouri, the kittens — whom Joiner renamed Edith and Estelle — are still inseparable. They walk side-by-side, sleep together in bed or in their cat tower and enjoy the same salmon-flavored treats.
They’re still looking for the kitten abusers, who should be locked up.
A photo of the kittens from the Humane Society of Missouri with the caption: “Dolly, left, and Monroe are thought to probably be sisters.”
Here’s a news video showing the kittens:
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And another nice cat rescue video, this time the video (8.5 minutes) is about how Charles, a bedraggled outdoor cat, was lured inside to a better life.
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Japan has long had famous “railway station cats” who are admired by the riders, and some train lines have even been saved by making a cat a station manager. Now the same thing is happening in Britain, according to the article below from the Torygraph. Click headline to read, or find the article archived here.
An excerpt:
It’s a sodden morning at Sutton Coldfield railway station, a few miles outside Birmingham, but at the café on platform two, spirits are being buoyed by a small black cat.
Betty (last name Macchiato) was found, her owner and the café’s proprietor Alex Light reports, in a bin near the station in April last year. Only recently out of kittenhood, she wasn’t in good shape: “She was mangy, full of worms, full of fleas, and she had three kittens with her. She was a proper teenage mum.” Light took her in with a view to feeding her up and getting her well enough to be rehomed. Betty, however, had other ideas, and established herself as the station cat.
She now rejoices in the title of “Chief mouse catcher of Sutton Coldfield railway station”, and – like any self-respecting modern station cat – has her own Instagram page. Photos on it chart the vagaries of her enviable life: prowling modishly up and down the platform, relaxing in a cardboard box, playing manically with a toy butterfly attached to some string.
Betty isn’t Britain’s only semi-famous station cat. There is also George at nearby Stourbridge Junction [JAC: he’s shown in the photo above], Tiggy in Chester and Barras at Kirkby Stephen East station in Cumbria. A quick glance on social media and it’s easy to see dozens more across the country, many with hundreds, if not thousands of followers. Stourbridge’s George, for instance, has more than a quarter of a million on various platforms, eager to keep abreast of his latest activities.
“It is a bit bonkers, how much people are excited to see Betty sometimes,” Light admits. “You get people walking into the cafe, asking if she’s there – and walking right out again if she isn’t.”
Look what Betty does!
Quite often, Betty’s behaviour is sufficiently alarming, endearing or bizarre that commuters find themselves breaking that great British taboo of speaking to one another. One of Betty’s favoured tricks, for instance, is to leap down onto the tracks and lick herself. This, Light says, can draw a crowd of concerned onlookers – but those who know Betty’s ways are usually on hand to explain that she will jump back onto the platform when she feels the tracks vibrating. “I think she enjoys the panic people get into,” Light says.
Though clearly a people cat, Betty is less kind to the rodents she kills – she has had to be trained not to bring her victims into the café itself, Light says. She is, however, civil with dogs and is “best friends” with a golden retriever who visits the station every morning. “She gets really happy whenever the golden retriever’s here,” Light reports. “They sit together. It’s so nice.”
You can also read about George of Stourbridge Junction, Tiggy at Chester, the late Felix and Bolt of Huddersfield station, and the late Nala of Stevenage:
In Stevenage, a crowdfunded, 1.7m-tall bronze statue is being prepared to honour the late, beloved Nala, a frosties-and-milk beauty who became such a popular station stalwart that in 2023, her owner released a charity Christmas single on her behalf (Meow). On Nala’s Facebook page (still very much active, though the cat died nearly a year ago), a clay mock-up of the statue – which is expected to cost some £8,000 – was unveiled last month, showing Nala sitting pertly on a ticket barrier.
People do love their station cats. If you’re a Brit, go see George, Tiggy, or Betty. It’s worth the train stop.
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Lagniappe: Cats get knitted hats that help scientists study their brain activity when they’re awake:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the November 7 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*At Quillette, writer Michael J. Totten tells us that “Trumpism is finished“, but the interesting bit is the thesis in the subtitle: “Schoolchildren will learn about Donald Trump more than a hundred years from now, but his successor will likely be a footnote and historical nobody.”
Donald Trump was indestructible until he wasn’t. The midterm election wasn’t a blue wave or even a blue tsunami but the Chicxulub Tsunami, a mile-high wave of death that overwhelmed Republican seawalls in coastal states like North and South Carolina and flooded as far inland as Kansas, bang in the centre of the contiguous 48 states, where voters are sending their first Democratic senator to Washington in almost a hundred years. Trump’s presidency, at least as we’ve known it, is finished. Which means Trumpism is finished aside from its brief upcoming zombie stage.
Trumpism was never an ideology, coherent or otherwise. It has always been a cult of personality around a would-be strongman who vowed to smash the established order and remake America and the world. Aside from a handful of Trump detractors from the ancien régime like Representative Liz Cheney and Senator Jeff Flake, the entire Republican Party discarded its long-held belief in free markets, free trade, the rule of law, the economic benefits of legal immigration, and global democracy-promotion. It no longer agreed that Europe and Canada are allies and that Russia is hostile, or that tariffs and trade wars are mutually destructive. The Republican Party pitched all of its postwar ideas into the sea—not because it suddenly changed its collective mind about everything but because its voters were besotted with a man who promised that only he could fix everything. And that man was governed by his own impulses, ideas, and grievances, most of which were formed decades ago and miles from any Republican milieu.
The results of Trump 2.0 have been predictably and inevitably catastrophic to the American economy, to the global order, and to the Republican Party’s own voters, who believed him when he promised a reduced cost of living and got record-high grocery, diesel, housing, and healthcare prices instead.
And the most interesting part:
The Republican Party may well choose another Trumpy or Trump-adjacent standard-bearer in the next primary election before the 2028 general presidential election. But while schoolchildren will learn about Donald Trump more than a hundred years from now, his successor will likely be a footnote, a historical nobody, as forgotten to time as Joe Biden undoubtedly will become. A cult of personality can’t be transferred from one individual to another. The record is replete with world-historical figures followed by nonentities. Without checking the internet, see if you can name who immediately came after the following leaders, all with personality cults the size of Trump’s, in their respective countries:
Juan Perón
Mao Zedong
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Ho Chi Minh
Benito Mussolini
Josef Stalin
Fidel Castro
The answers to the above are as follows, in order: Eduardo Lonardi, Hua Guofeng, İsmet İnönü, Lê Duẩn, Pietro Badoglio, Georgy Malenkov, and Raúl Castro. How many of those people have you even heard of? One or two maybe? Unlike the names on the first list, those on the second list are obscure. [JAC: I couldn’t answer any of these except for the last one.]
. . . Henry Kissinger made a memorable observation back in 2018: “Trump may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretences. It doesn’t necessarily mean that he knows this or that he is considering any great alternative.” That seemed right at the time and seems even more right today. We’re ten years into the Trump era with a maximum of two left to go. His role in the project of remaking America and the world is now written: he will never found a new order. He’s just the wrecking ball for the old one.
Yep, twe won’t see the likes of Trump again, thank Ceiling Cat.
*In yesterday’s NYT morning newsletter, Jia Lynn Yang argues that the Democrats have largely dispensed with identity politics:
The number of “firsts” achieved in Tuesday’s election was extraordinary. And yet during the campaign, the candidates themselves hardly uttered a word about breaking barriers. There were no exhortations to vote for a particular person because “representation matters.”
Instead, most of them spoke relentlessly about household finances that had become impossible to manage, an unpopular war and corruption. They did not — and could not — hide their identities. But these facts were not central to their pitches to voters.
This is a major shift in the politics of identity. Not long ago, Democrats ran on diversity with slogans like “I’m with her.” Now they appear to have recognized that voters are just not that interested in the symbolism for its own sake. It’s why millions of Black, Hispanic and Asian voters have whipsawed between the two parties in search of leaders — anyone — who will improve their material conditions.
For a long time, Democrats thought the changing electorate would give them an enduring and broad coalition. As the country diversified, the belief went, it would inevitably become more liberal.
This did not occur. After the 2008 election of Barack Obama, the ultimate pathbreaking moment in modern American politics, some Americans became disappointed that their financial outlook did not improve enough. For decades now, unemployment among Black Americans has almost always remained twice as high as it is for white Americans.
This record, over time, has made it difficult for candidates to appeal to the power of representation. Hispanic people, for instance, are now perpetual swing voters. Even with Kamala Harris on the ballot in 2024, Trump won the support of many Black, Hispanic and Asian voters.
The midterm confirmed that many voters were not operating out of loyalty to an identity group. They are fed up with health care bills, low-paying jobs and the difficulty of buying a home. They will follow leaders who project a similar dissatisfaction.
In speeches on Tuesday night, the candidates who achieved “firsts” tended to deal lightly with the history they had just made. Gina Hinojosa, the new governor-elect of Texas, finally alluded to it 20 minutes into a populist oration. “As excited as I am by the history we’ve made tonight, I pray it does not compare to the future we build together,” she said.
That analysis is bogus, for everybody knew from the press (and from the candidates themselves) what their ethnic, racial, or “electable identity” was. Take Abdul El-Sayed, who let the mask slip in his very acceptance speech (see the video below). As Melanie Phillips wrote:
At his victory celebration, he ripped off the disguise. The first thing he did was introduce himself by his full name: Abdulrahman Mohammed El-Sayed. Previously, anyone who referred to him in this way was called Islamophobic. Now he was brandishing it — in a pronounced Arabic accent — to show his true identity was Muslim.
Next, he said the aside he had previously used, “inshallah” or “God willing,” had now turned into “alhamdulillah,” meaning “praise be to God.” The ecstatic crowd went wild.
What had been considered politics was now revealed as Muslim missionary work, a key element of the Muslim Brotherhood strategy to turn American public space Islamic.
No, identity politics is far from dead. Even Yang’s first paragraph above brings it to the for, and the media keeps banging the drum about it.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that he’ll change more than 500 death sentences in the state to life in prison without the possibility of parole, though the state Supreme Court will have the final say in hundreds of those cases.
“I take this action because I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system, and diminishes each of us,” Newsom said in a public letter.
Newsom’s decision comes as he prepares to leave office after eight years and considers a run for president. The Democrat, who’s long been opposed to the death penalty, placed a moratorium on executions in California in 2019.
His latest move came after he realized “the limits of what government can justly accomplish,” he said.
Newsom moved to grant clemency to 548 people currently sentenced to death in California, of whom 529 are men and 19 are women, according to numbers provided by his office.
The state constitution requires the California Supreme Court’s approval to grant clemency to anyone convicted of a felony more than once, which means the court would have to approve 382 of those commutations, or roughly 70%, according to Newsom’s office.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Newsom’s action represents the largest mass clemency in American history. If they are all approved, it would reduce the U.S. death row population by nearly 30%, the center said.
I approve of this, of course, as I am against government executions for a number of reasons I’ve stated previously. I’m not sure whther Newsom did this out of principle, because it will make him more electable as President, or both. The electability issue is not that important, and, as the Death Penalty Information Service notes,
This year’s Gallup poll found that support for the death penalty is at a 50-year low of 52%. Gallup also found that 44% of Americans now oppose the death penalty — the highest level of opposition recorded since May 1966.
The California Supreme Court will now have to carefully review all 382 cases required. It would be easy for me: just give them all life in prison without parole.
Welcome back, one and all. This week, a new world was born. Pronouns are going back into bios, and everyone who has an odd-numbered birthday needs to report for their gender reassignment on Monday. Evens are the week after. Asymmetrical haircuts are back, and so are MFAs in creative nonfiction. Pick up your kale or risk immediate hanging. Jews are, I’m so sorry to report, out. But at least it’s a return to form.
→ Now, in the bright blue light of November 5, all the legal Dems are saying “Lawyer up,” because it’s lawfare time. Not that Trump didn’t pressure law enforcement to go after his enemies (he did and does! And it’s wrong!). But, like: The political enemies of this movement should be scared a little because the nominally pro-democracy party wants to. . . sue all their political rivals into financial ruin and jail the rest. And that’s the best-case scenario.
Hopefully, she keeps her shirt on.
→ What comes next for Israel now that funding’s been cut?: In an Election Day Hail Mary, Trump announced that the U.S. will stop sending $4 billion in annual aid to Israel after this year. That will surely placate the anti-Israel movement, right? No, you fools. Here’s Darializa Avila Chevalier, the hot, newly elected progressive congresswoman from Upper Manhattan: “Ending military aid is not enough. We need to end U.S. taxpayer funding for Israel’s war crimes, a full arms embargo, and the Palestinian right of return.” The goalposts keep moving because the movement’s actual goal isn’t keeping tax dollars at home—it’s the destruction of Israel and subjugation of the Jews, but they can’t quite say that. Not yet, anyhow.
Congresswoman-elect Darializa is also a prison abolitionist in the perfect old way. She’s a purist. Here’s part of her answer to what she would do with someone who shoots another person. “We’re talking about an incident that already happened, where a man was shot, right? The world that we’re trying to build is one where that isn’t something that can come to pass.” That’s so beautiful. Snap snap in agreement from me. I’m shaking my tambourine in agreement, Congresswoman. I also await the world without crime, without sin, without killing. And until then, I want big, beautiful prisons to keep people who try to like, murder children away from mine, for example. A rapist-free world cannot “come to pass” while rapists are still coming and passing and raping. I am with you in your dreams of a peaceful unity garden but until then, let’s build those barbed wire fences nice and high. Let’s get those Flocks fired up, ’kay? My ruthless El Salvador–style prison vision is just temporary until that world comes,
→ No Halloween Harry Potter: The town of Gibsons in British Columbia got in trouble for putting up Harry Potter–themed Halloween decorations. Gibsons felt they had to issue a public apology: “We understand that the Harry Potter series has become a difficult subject for many.” Similar uproars played out in London. I feel like if I can still like Kanye songs, the far left can handle Harry Potter. Some things get a carveout. It’s gonna be okay, guys. J.K. Rowling’s big, bad belief is that biological females shouldn’t be, like, in prison with biological males. You’re gonna make it through. Voldemort (he/she/they who must not be named) isn’t coming to misgender you. Gender dysphoria isn’t one of the spells. Just walk past the decorations. I know you can do it.
*Well this NYT piece is clickbait for me, though I was dubious that Talarico wears the boots except to get votes: “The many meanings of James Talarico’s cowboy boots“. It turns out that he likes them:
Increasingly, though, the lawmakers whose campaigns broke through seemed to have appropriated the tools of self-branding for their own ends.
Consider, for example, Abdul El-Sayed, whose signature black T-shirt, jeans and slogan — “Minimal look, maximal politics” — helped propel him to national prominence and then to the election as a progressive senator-elect from Michigan.
And then cast an eye toward James Talarico, the first Democrat to win a Senate race in Texas in 33 years. As much as anyone, he understood the role of clothing in political messaging and how that could be used as a form of voter outreach. Of course, the race turned on more than image — it had to do with the economy, the war in Iran, unhappiness with President Trump and the baggage of Talarico’s opponent, Ken Paxton — but, nevertheless, image played an important part. Indeed, his upset campaign was practically a case study for the power of the personal prop.
Or, rather, his cowboy boots were.
He wore them pretty much everywhere: in the State Capitol during his years in the Texas House of Representatives, on the campaign trail in both city and outback, to debates, when being interviewed. He wore them so much that in nearly every article written about him, the boots were part of the story.
. . . “Not only does the state lawmaker drive a Chevy Colorado truck and own Lucchese cowboy boots engraved with the Texas state seal,” wrote The Economist, “but he invokes so many Bible teachings in conversation that you may get Sunday-school flashbacks.”
Now Lucchese boots aren’t really custom boots, but I suppose someone with Talarica’s clout could get custom boots made, and by that I mean boots not just engraved (the proper word is “tooled”) with a seal, but made to fit his feet after extensive measurements, and then laboriously made from scratch. The article doesn’t give me a clue. But when dissecting the meaning of the boots, the article goes off into la-la land:
“He barnstormed the state for months in his signature Lucchese cowboy boots,” wrote The Guardian.
Lucchese cowboy boots haven’t played such a prominent supporting role in a Texas campaign since Senator Ted Cruz made them part of his story in 2013. Even though Paxton was also known to wear cowboy boots — a custom-made kangaroo-top pair from Olsen Stelzer and his own Luccheses — his footwear never became as ubiquitous a part of his personal semiology. Which raises the question: Why did Talarico’s boots matter so much?
In part, because of what they represent: a certain mythology of manliness having to do with the frontier and wide-open spaces, where wind-toughened men carve a life for themselves out of the land, which was one of the subtexts of the election in general. Talarico may look like a choirboy and talk like the seminarian he is, but his boots added a layer of machismo to his image that spoke to an entirely different audience.
Jebus! I don’t wear boots to be “manly” and evoke the frontier, but because they’re really the only kind of footwear that is attractive on men. Women have tons of shoes to choose from ranging from gorgeous to dumpy, but men’s shoes are all pedestrian—except for cowboy boots. My advice for Talarico would be to get his tuches to Austin and have Lee Miller, the best bootmaker in America, to make him a pair of true custom boots. True, there’s a three-year waiting list just to get measured, but then you get something like this (my custom boots, with my name in mirror writing and the yellow rose of Texas):
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is resting beneath the pear tree.
Dictators want three of us dead for the crime of fighting for freedom! We are getting ready for this year, #BerlinFreedomWeek,
One year ago, my friends and my brothers in arms Garry Kasparov, Leopoldo López and I stood together to build Berlin Freedom Week. One year later: @khamenei_ir is dead. Maduro is in jail. Putin is counting his days.
We are not done. We fight until every tyrant faces the fate they deserve, and until the people of Iran, Venezuela, Russia and every oppressed nation are free.
Ending military aid is not enough. We need to end U.S. taxpayer funding for Israel’s war crimes, a full arms embargo, and the Palestinian right of return.
And one from Doctor Cobb, who comments, “I have been in this part of Scotland a few times. It is amazing. Not climbed this mountain, but have gone up one if the nearby peaks you can see here”:
One stunning day wrapped up into two and a half minutes. I think I might have exclaimed a 'f**k!' under my breath when I reached the top of Creag nan Calman and saw *that*. Makes a refreshing change for a peak to end abruptly with a precipice below. No false summits, no teasing. OH YEAH! 😎
Music: I first heard “I can’t get started” on an LP owned by my parents, and I still love it, especially the old references and the trumpet solos, done by singer Bunny Berigan. The tune is by Vernon Duke with lyrics by Ira Gershwin.
Bunny Berigan, a trumpeter with Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey, started a band in 1937 and chose “I Can’t Get Started” as his theme song. He had been performing the song during the previous year at a club in New York City. He made a recording for Vocalion on April 13, 1936, but gradually he made subtle changes in the arrangement. After forming his band, he recorded “I Can’t Get Started” again, this time for Victor.
Jazz trumpeter Dick Sudhalter noted the changes that had been made since the Vocalion recording. “An introduction—an extended cadenza over four different sustained chords in the key of C—had been added by this time, but otherwise Berigan’s routine had not changed since the Vocalion recording. But whereas the Vocalion comes across as a virtuoso performance of a great song, the Victor version presents itself as a kind of concerto, a tour de force for a trumpeter of imagination and daring to have an impeccable command of his instrument.”
Berigan, like many jazz greats, drank himself to death. He died at only 33, so we missed out on many years of great music.
This Jesus and Mo strip is a Friday flashback called “plays”, first published 7 years ago today. As usual, Jesus is fighting the War on Christmas, defending the faith he started against the secular forces that erode it:
Nachos originated in the city of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, across the Mexco-U.S. border from Eagle Pass, Texas. In 1943, Ignacio Anaya was a maître d’ at a restaurant called the Victory Club, when a group of women whose husbands were officers stationed at the nearby U.S. Army base Fort Duncan, traveled across the border to eat there. Seeking to serve food to them quickly, but unable to find the cook, he cut fried tortillas into triangles, added shredded Colby cheese and sliced pickled jalapeño peppers and heated them. When asked what the dish was called, Anaya responded, “Well, I guess we can just call them Nacho’s Special”; Nacho is a common nickname for Ignacio.
Here is Ignacio Anaya, the man who will forever fuel televised football games:
And an elaborate version, labeled on Wikipedia as “Nachos with chicken, with salsa and jalapenos on the side”. I’d deep-six the cilantro and replace the chicken with ground beef. (or no meat at all):
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the November 6 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Although Trump (and Vance) blame the Republican’s huge midterm losses on the war with Iran, the AP reports that, as James Carville wrote on the wall at Clinton campaign headquarters in 1992, “It’s the economy, stupid.” And so it appears to be. (Of course many voters see the Iran war, or the war between Israel and Hamas, as responsible for higher prices.)
President Donald Trump was publicly humbled by inflation in the midterm elections, as rising prices provoked a blistering set of losses for Republicans in House, Senate and gubernatorial races.
Most voters said that Trump’s own policies had smothered growth and driven costs even higher, according to The AP Voter Poll, a survey of roughly 100,000 midterm voters. The president’s message that the fault lay with his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, didn’t land. Americans saw prices start to climb with Trump’s chaotic rash of tariffs last year, and energy costs spiked after he launched a war with Iran in February.
About two-thirds of voters said Trump’s own policies had fueled inflation. By contrast, only about half of 2022 midterm voters said this about Biden’s policies, according to AP VoteCast.
Voters in states from California to Mississippi were broadly in agreement that Trump’s taxes on foreign imports have done more harm than good.
“I’ve done a great job,” Trump said at one of his final midterm rallies in Iowa. “Prices are coming way down.”
LOL. He knows that ain’t gonna happen. More:
Democratic victories in Tuesday’s midterms signaled that most voters don’t believe the economy or Trump is working for them.
Consumer prices are up 3.7% over the past 12 months, compared to an inflation rate of 3% when Trump began his second term. The president told reporters on Wednesday that the Iran war “drove the gasoline up a little bit short-term,” but he felt the choice to fight Iran was worth it because of its push for nuclear weapons. “If I had to do it again, I’d have to do it again,” he said.
There is no guarantee that a House and Senate with a Democratic majority can fix an economy pestered by uncomfortably high inflation. Trump and Congress would likely need to work on a bipartisan basis, or simply keep the economy stable enough to allow the Federal Reserve to ratchet down inflation through its setting of interest rates.
Reread that last paragraph. Democrats have limited power so long as Trump is President, and we’re not sure who will be elected President in 2028. Here’s the breakdown from the AP by party affiliation.
*I am not politically savvy enough to know how Trump’s actions can be limited after January, when the new Democratic-majority Congress is seated. He has the veto, and can issue executive orders, but the specter of impeachment (see below) looms over his administration. The WSJ discusses these issues in a piece about “Trump’s tough new reality.”
If Trump wants to accomplish anything durable going forward, he will have to accept limits to his authority and compromise—things he’s shown little interest in doing during his political career.
Republicans who have long aligned themselves with him—including those in his administration with future political aspirations—will face enormous pressure to create more distance from him following a historic bipartisan rebuke from voters. Trump’s longtime advisers expect the backbiting and interpersonal squabbles that defined much of his first term in office could come roaring back.
Meanwhile, Trump faces two years of investigations from the newly ascendant Democrats. And while he’s said he is prepared to work with the opposing party, reaching compromise in an increasingly toxic political environment will be challenging.
. . .He will soon be reckoning with fallout from the election. The newly empowered Democratic caucus on Capitol Hill has promised investigations into the president, his family and his allies that could poison any hopes for cross-party collaboration.
“The next two years for him I think are going to be two of the most difficult years of his life,” said former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican who ran against Trump in the 2016 and 2024 presidential contests and briefly worked for him in the run-up to his first term.
But Trump and his advisers say the president still has the power of the federal government at his disposal—and won’t be afraid to use it. On Wednesday morning, the official White House X account posted an image of Trump looking defiant in the Oval Office with the caption: “PSA: TRUMP IS STILL YOUR PRESIDENT.”
Advisers are already drawing up plans to aggressively flex his executive authority, according to administration officials, and Trump has said he’s ready to veto legislation he opposes.
“Whatever the midterm results, President Trump remains the most powerful force in American politics,” said Danielle Alvarez, a White House spokeswoman.
He is also trying to leave a mark on Washington, increasingly conscious of how he’ll be remembered after he’s gone.
It’s that last line that worries me, for I don’t think Trump has any inkling of what people will remember. The article mentions, as do others, that personnel changes may be in order, including “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride!
With committee gavels in hand, Democrats will be empowered to investigate Trump — and many have already made clear they plan to probe all manner of alleged corruption by the president, his administration, his family and his corporate allies.
But Democrats also argue they cannot — and will not — only be the anti-Trump party when they take control of both chambers in January with majorities larger and more ideologically diverse than anticipated. They have repeatedly stated they must materially improve the lives of voters or risk quickly losing Congress again.
“The American people have chosen House Democrats because they want to see a dramatic change in direction,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), who is likely to become the nation’sfirst Black speaker, said Wednesday at a news conference with his leadership team. “That’s exactly what House Democrats will deliver.”
The party’spolicy agenda remains vague. Though Democrats pledged on the campaign trail to tackle affordability, they have been light on legislative specifics, floating broad plans to reverse Trump’s cuts to health care funding, roll back his sweeping tariff regime and block his ability to wage war in Iran.
As long as Trump is still in the White House, almost anything Democrats might hope to accomplish is dead on arrival without the president’s buy-in, setting the stage for an awkward dance in which Democratic leaders are stuck negotiating with the same man for whom they are publicly demanding accountability.
. . . Finding a balance could be challenging as Democrats face pressure from a liberal base thirsty for revenge. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-California), the California Democrat who is expected to lead the House Oversight Committee that will be central to investigating Trump, captured the spirit of gleeful retribution in a short, all-caps statement after his party secured the House: “LAWYER UP.”
Remember that Trump still has a veto, and it’ll take 67 votes in the Senate to overturn legislation, with the Dems having only 54 seats (two more are unresolved). To override a veto, then, we’ll need bipartisan support. Also, a wave of impeachments (see articles below) may be in store, and that’ll take time and energy away from any Democratic agenda. Much as I despise Trump and think there are likely grounds for impeachment proceedings, I would prefer to see progress rather than a circus until 2028 when Trump, if he’s still alive, can just quietly fade away.
A $1.4 billion cryptocurrency windfall. Well-timed stock trades. A wedding after-party bankrolled by a Kremlin-connected businessman.
For nearly two years, congressional Democrats were powerless to probe these potential scandals and conflicts looming over President Trump and his family businesses. But after pulling off a landslide midterm election victory that amounted to a sweeping rebuke of the president, they will soon seize control of Congress — and with it, the power to open investigations, hold hearings and issue subpoenas.
Representative Robert Garcia, the California Democrat poised to chair the House Oversight Committee, summed up the threat succinctly in a statement late Tuesday: “Lawyer up.”
In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. Garcia said that his warning was meant chiefly for people at the White House who “engaged in corruption” and enriched themselves. “The Trump crime family is the top of our investigative priorities,” he said.
Subpoenas, though, do not guarantee a fruitful investigation.
Some of the president’s business associates and allies are expected to fight some of the subpoenas in court, which could become a lengthy process. And even if the Democrats shed new light on moneymaking ventures, there is no indication that the Trump family violated the law — potentially complicating any effort to pursue impeachment proceedings against the president.
Still, Mr. Garcia and other congressional leaders believe they will find a target-rich environment.
After winning back the White House two years ago, Mr. Trump abandoned his first-term pledge to rein in his family’s deal making, enabling new ventures that enriched the president, his sons and some of his advisers. He shrugged off concerns about conflicts of interest, contending that he “found out that nobody cared.”
He turned out to be wrong. An AP exit poll found that government corruption was a crucial issue for many voters, and that roughly seven in 10 voters said Congress was doing “not enough” to provide checks and balances on the presidency.
But what if Trump issues advance pardons for anybody who might be accused of a federal crime? (Remember, the Prez can’t pardon people accused of state crimes.) That hasn’t yet been adjudicated by the Supreme Court.
But Democrats sounded cool toward [a plan to impeach Trump] in the midterm campaign of 2018, too. (“For those who want impeachment . . . that’s not what our caucus is about,” said California Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi.) They got over it. A little more than a year after those elections, a Democratic-controlled House voted to impeach Trump a first time. They may get over it again, as both the facts and political convenience lead them to impeach first the president’s subordinates, such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and then the boss himself.
The Constitution gives Congress wide latitude over the matter. It has the power to impeach officials, including the president, when it judges them guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” What those are is a matter of debate. The Founders rejected the idea that running the executive branch badly was enough reason to remove a president. But James Madison suggested that abuses of power could be impeachable even when they don’t violate any federal statute. Such transgressions featured in each of the four presidential impeachments that have passed the House in U.S. history.
Because Congress has a broad power to exercise its judgment, and because Trump habitually disregards legal and moral constraints on his conduct, Democrats will have plenty of possible bases from which to launch an inquiry. Corruption, systematic misuse of the pardon power and launching a war without congressional authorization are all good candidates. Most voters aren’t eager for impeachment, according to a Wall Street Journal poll, but another survey from Politico found that 80 percent of Democratic voters would support it. A majority of all voters think Trump has committed impeachable offenses.
Democratic voters, happy to have won the midterms, will give their new representatives some leeway. But fast-forward a few months. If Trump decides to maintain his tariffs, continue the war in Iran or return to confrontational immigration enforcement, there’s no guarantee the Democratic Congress will be able to stop him. Given that so many pols spent their campaigns promising to “fight Trump,” how would they explain inaction on impeachment to voters? Such a posture would doubtless create an opportunity for Democratic presidential candidates to rebuke the Democratic Congress for cowardice.
I am not gung-ho about impeachment, but I am not dead set against it either. Remember, impeachment is just the charges themselves, brought by a majority vote of the House of Representatives, which the Democrats have. The trial itself takes place in the Senate, which needs a 2/3 vote to effect a conviction. Three Presidents have been impeached (Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Trump [twice]) but none successfully. Nixon undoubtedly would have been convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors, but he resigned before a trial could take place.
From The Babylon Bee courtesy of reader Anna: Republican strategies to win the midterms (too late!):
From Masih, who got another well-deserved award. She’s dedicating it to Iranian women’s rights activist Mojgan Keshavarz, still in prison for her “crimes” though she was granted a five-day bailout in October.
Honored to receive the 2026 Wiesenthal Award of Valor in Toronto.
I dedicate it to my hero, @mozhgankshavarz, who was arrested, beaten, sexually assaulted, and subjected to mock execution for sending me videos of herself protesting against compulsory hijab.
This photo is a middle finger to the torturers of the Islamic Republic.
Last night, I stood beside her in front of more than 1,700 people. She received flowers instead of blows. Applause instead of threats.
To her torturers: Look at her now.
You wanted to make her an example of what happens to women who resist. Instead, she became a symbol of courage, and you became symbols of cruelty and cowardice.
I will proudly share every international stage I have with women like Mozhgan.
Dictators fear women standing together. That’s why we must never let go of each other’s hands.
From Richard Dawkins via Luana. I didn’t know of this law, but you can find the Torygraph article archived here.
A new law that risks criminalising parents who question whether their children are trans must be scrapped, MPs, peers and experts have demanded.
‘Gender’, as opposed to sex, is an anti-scientific myth. If a child with a penis announces that he is really a girl, parents and teachers have a positive duty to educate him in the scientific truth that he is a boy.
Of course no parent should use physical or psychological abuse for any reason. But if anyone should be prosecuted it is those who abuse their duty of care by encouraging children in the anti-scientific delusion that they can choose their own sex. https://t.co/ZVpDwMsmcH
And two from Herr Doktor Professor Cobb. First, a cat:
There's a YouTube channel called 'Ferrovia de Jardim' ("backyard railroad") owned by two model train enthusiasts, Daniel & Chico, in Barbacena, Brazil.They also have a cat named Titinho ("little uncle"?) who shares the space with occasionally hilarious results.😺🚂(www.youtube.com/@ferroviadej…)
I’m putting some of these emails up so authors won’t be duped by this new rash of literary scams. The email came from “Shadrack Ben” with the address “contact.shadrack.prosehouse@gmail. com”
Dear Jerry Coyne,
My name is Shedrack, and I represent Prose House as Head of Literary Partnerships. We connect authors and readers through thoughtful literary features that highlight books and the ideas that make them meaningful.
Your book, Faith Versus Fact, stood out for its direct examination of the relationship between scientific inquiry and religious belief. By exploring the differences between evidence-based reasoning and faith, it raises important questions about how people understand the world, evaluate claims, and distinguish scientific explanations from religious perspectives. Its arguments invite readers to engage critically with one of the most enduring debates about knowledge and belief.
Through Prose House Magazine, we offer selected digital magazine features designed to highlight their central themes and introduce their stories and ideas to readers in an engaging way.
I would love to share more about how we could present Faith Versus Fact in our magazine. Would you be open to hearing a little more about the feature?
Best regards,
Shedrack
Head of Literary Partnerships
Prose House
Clues that it’s fake:
a. gmail address, not a professional address. Note too the word “contact” as part of the gmail address.
b. email address has name “shadrack” while in the rest of the letter the crook uses “shedrack”
c. The Prose House Magazine exists but is only about six pages long
d. A Google search for “Ben Shadrack Prose House” returns nothing
e. Pangram says it’s 100% written by AI if you leave out the salutation and signature:
I’m tempted to play along with this detestable man and his scheme to see how long it would take until they asked me for money, but I don’t have the time to waste. I just gave the guy a new fundament via email.
Over the past five years or so, polls have repeatedly shown that most Americans oppose allowing trans-identified males (“trans women” or “trans girls”) to compete in women’s sports. I’ve written about this a lot, emphasizing that allowing such competition is unfair to women, for trans-identified males have a pronounced sex-based advantage in just about any sport you can name. And I’ve emphasized that I reject the claim that such a principle is “transphobic”, especially not for those of us who favor trans people having nearly every right as everyone else, with no discrimination in housing, employment, or other areas where discrimination doesn’t clash with anyone else’s rights.
The polls that were taken invariably showed that over 60% of Americans opposed team sports competition between people of different sexes, favoring team membership by natal sex only. (Those favoring this coed competition were usually between 20% and 35%.) You can find polls like that here, here, here, and here. For politicos, it usually differs by party, with Democrats more often favoring biological men competing on women’s teams.
On Tuesday there were four states with ballot initiatives asking voters to approve laws or constitutional amendments banning biological men from competing in women’s sports, with two of these allowing coed competition if there were teams that were explicitly coed (I don’t know is any of these in American middle schools or above, but certainly have no objection to the existence of such teams so long as they compete with other coed teams.)
In all four cases, the vote was to ban natal males from competing against biological women. Here are the states:
Requires all schools and athletic associations to designate athletic teams as male, female or co-ed based on the sex of the athletes as recorded at birth. Bars students, athletes, employees and others from joining sports teams or from using school and athletic association facilities, including restrooms, that are not designated for their sex assigned at birth.
The results from the NYT (note: the ballots do not have an “undecided” box to tick):
Requires student athletes to participate on teams that match their sex assigned at birth, and requires schools, colleges and athletic associations to designate sports teams as male, female or coeducational.
Amends the State Constitution to require schools to designate sports teams as male, female or coeducational, and prohibits male participation on female teams.
requiring school districts and nonprofit organizations that regulate interscholastic activities to “prohibit biologically male students from competing with and against female students” in sports with separate team or individual competitions for male and female students; and
requiring students seeking to participate in athletic activities designated for female students to submit documentation from their healthcare provider verifying the student’s sex, defined by certain biological factors.
A “no” vote opposed the initiative, thereby keeping the current state law requiring that recreational and athletic activities “be offered to all students without regard for sex” and prohibiting public schools from discriminating based on sexual orientation including gender expression or identity.
Arizona is regarded as a “purple” or “wing state” Washington and Colorado are blue states (Democratic), and Nebraska is a red state (Republican). As expected, red Nebraska had the highest votes for separating sports by birth sex, purple Arizona still a substantial margin (about 18%), and Colorado and Washington passed the initiatives by 5% and 13% respectively. The votes were generally in line with polls taken previously, though the polls I cite above weren’t broken down by state.
