Another wonderful post,Mary.On a lighter note,I wish that warning mug had been available when my daughter practiced for her role as French horn player in the school band !Luckily she chose the violin as her instrument and is now a professional musician.No further injuries have been recorded.
As a former band director, literally the availability of musical instruments is a crisis right now due to this. Very few instruments are made in the US anymore, especially beginner level instruments. It's a tough situation. So you bringing up the horn thing just confirmed what I've been reading from acquaintances still in the band room.
One of the features of Trump's press spokespeople - including Leavitt and the execrable Stephen Cheung - is their nastiness, and in Cheung's case, foul-mouthed nastiness, about the people Trump does not like. I can't remember any other press relations people for any other president being as nasty and insulting to the opposition. There is always spin in favor of the administration's policies and away from criticism, but name-calling and swearing is a novelty under Trump.
And the boldness of the lies is new, too. It used to be that when one was caught in a lie, one changed one's story, even if to a not-much-better alternative. Now - just repeat repeat repeat (the Roy Cohn method,)
I don't recall if Kelly Anne Conway was as bad - she certainly lied as much as the current bunch but not sure about the level of personal insults.
I am not expecting Leavitt's replacement to be an improvement on any of these fronts, alas.
How can this latest horror be stopped re the electric gloves? The milgram experiment has already shown us that people who believe that they are being obedient to authority will go too far- and we already know that there’s been no accountability for ice agent’s violence including against people lawfully here as well as people who’ve been upstanding if undocumented, while trampling on their rights to due process. Is this something that can be stopped legally?
We’re now a land governed by lies and deception about everything; gross incompetence; sadism toward the vulnerable - including our own military; baseless prosecutions and harassment designed to crush opposition; ICE agents who murder and terrorize with impunity; an economy that serves Trump, the wealthy and the corrupt; and a coup in process to ensure no transfer of power.
Our nation’s founders feared these attributes of concentrated power and sought to mitigate them with checks and balances and the blessings of individual liberty enshrined in the Constitution.
Trump and his backers have no use for any system or rules that constrain their greed and power.
Our biggest task in the next 11 weeks is to enlist past non-voters to vote for pro-Constitution candidates who understand the ideal of public service and care about ordinary people.
“Extremely difficult for witnesses and cameras to detect.” The levels DHS will go to so ICE can torture. Who else is tired of the excuses of vehicle weaponization?
Another wonderful post,Mary.On a lighter note,I wish that warning mug had been available when my daughter practiced for her role as French horn player in the school band !Luckily she chose the violin as her instrument and is now a professional musician.No further injuries have been recorded.
As a former band director, literally the availability of musical instruments is a crisis right now due to this. Very few instruments are made in the US anymore, especially beginner level instruments. It's a tough situation. So you bringing up the horn thing just confirmed what I've been reading from acquaintances still in the band room.
"A French horn might conceivably be dangerous in the hands of a six-year-old…" My ears are hurting just thinking about it.
One of the features of Trump's press spokespeople - including Leavitt and the execrable Stephen Cheung - is their nastiness, and in Cheung's case, foul-mouthed nastiness, about the people Trump does not like. I can't remember any other press relations people for any other president being as nasty and insulting to the opposition. There is always spin in favor of the administration's policies and away from criticism, but name-calling and swearing is a novelty under Trump.
And the boldness of the lies is new, too. It used to be that when one was caught in a lie, one changed one's story, even if to a not-much-better alternative. Now - just repeat repeat repeat (the Roy Cohn method,)
I don't recall if Kelly Anne Conway was as bad - she certainly lied as much as the current bunch but not sure about the level of personal insults.
I am not expecting Leavitt's replacement to be an improvement on any of these fronts, alas.
How can this latest horror be stopped re the electric gloves? The milgram experiment has already shown us that people who believe that they are being obedient to authority will go too far- and we already know that there’s been no accountability for ice agent’s violence including against people lawfully here as well as people who’ve been upstanding if undocumented, while trampling on their rights to due process. Is this something that can be stopped legally?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/09/ordinary-seafarers-trapped-strait-of-hormuz-iran-strikes-killed?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
We’re now a land governed by lies and deception about everything; gross incompetence; sadism toward the vulnerable - including our own military; baseless prosecutions and harassment designed to crush opposition; ICE agents who murder and terrorize with impunity; an economy that serves Trump, the wealthy and the corrupt; and a coup in process to ensure no transfer of power.
Our nation’s founders feared these attributes of concentrated power and sought to mitigate them with checks and balances and the blessings of individual liberty enshrined in the Constitution.
Trump and his backers have no use for any system or rules that constrain their greed and power.
Our biggest task in the next 11 weeks is to enlist past non-voters to vote for pro-Constitution candidates who understand the ideal of public service and care about ordinary people.
“Extremely difficult for witnesses and cameras to detect.” The levels DHS will go to so ICE can torture. Who else is tired of the excuses of vehicle weaponization?
Wonder if the Leavitt kids are getting vaccinations?