Indecent Exposure

Decency's Descent, Putin's G7 Man

During the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954, Joseph Welch, the special counsel for the US Army asked a now famous question of Senator McCarthy: "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" Seven decades later, in the era of MAGA politics led by a social media flame-throwing vulgarian, the answer to that question that once helped shock a nation into its senses is so obvious as to render its asking almost comical. But there's nothing funny about the descent of decency in American politics, and there's no better example of the bottomless pit of depravity than Mike Lee's demented reaction to the political violence that took lives in Minnesota. In social media posts, the Senator from Utah blamed the tragic murder of Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman on the radical left: "This is what happens. When Marxists don’t get their way." He also shared a photo of the murderer with the line, "Nightmare on Waltz Street." (Spelling error his.) With these posts, Lee achieved the holy trinity of Trumpism: Cruelty, Lies, Stupidity. After the posts, Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith confronted Mike Lee in person about the terrible posts. "I think he listened to what I said. He indicated that he of course meant no harm. But of course these things do cause harm." Unfortunately, in one political party, causing harm is a currency more valuable than crypto.

+ Smith’s Deputy Chief of Staff Ed Shelleby sent an email to Lee's office about the killing of Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband in which he echoed Joseph Welch: "Why would you use the awesome power of a United States Senate Office to compound people’s grief? Is this how your team measures success? Using the office of US Senator to post not just one but a series of jokes about an assassination — is that a successful day of work on Team Lee? Did you come into the office Monday and feel proud of the work you did over the weekend? ... the decision of the office of Senator Mike Lee was not to publicly condemn the violence or to express condolences to her shattered children — it was to intimate that Melissa and Mark somehow deserved this? By making jokes? Did you have any consideration for the survivors in her family? For the Hoffmans in the hospital? For their families? You exploited the murder of a lifetime public servant and her husband to post some sick burns about Democrats. Did you see this as an excellent opportunity to get likes and retweet[s]? Have you absolutely no conscience? No decency?"

+ Sadly, that question has been answered a thousand times by the Sadist in Chief, the world's richest man, and their band of pathetic online mimics. Trump and other Republicans mock Democrats after Minnesota lawmaker killings. After having a couple days to think about it, Trump maintained his public indecency when asked if he planned to call Minnesota Gov Tim Walz: "I don’t really call him...I think the governor of Minnesota is so whacked out, I’m not calling him. Why would I call him? ... I could call him, say, ‘Hi, how are you doing? The guy doesn’t have a clue, he’s a mess. So I could be nice and call him, but why waste time." In 2025, I doubt Joseph Welch would waste time asking his famous question.

2

Wow, I Coulda Had a G-8

Russia was kicked out of what now is the G7, but Putin still had a representative at the meetings: Donald Trump. I'm not sure the real reason behind Trump's early departure from the G7 Summit in Canada, but I'm glad he departed before he could further embarrass America. Consider this statement he made while standing next to host Mark Carney: "The G7 used to be the G8. Barack Obama and a person named Trudeau didn't want to have Russia in, and I would say that was a mistake, because I think you wouldn't have a war right now if you had Russia in." For what it's worth, Trudeau wasn't prime minister at the time of Russia's expulsion. Oh, and the expulsion was in response to Russia's earlier attack on Ukraine and annexing of Crimea. NYT(Gift Article): Trump Renews Embrace of Putin Amid Rift With Allies.

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Aspiring Aspirin

"Remember ivermectin? The animal-deworming medication was used so avidly as an off-label COVID treatment during the pandemic that some feed stores ended up going out of stock ... If you haven’t heard about it since, then you’ve existed blissfully outside the gyre of misinformation and conspiracies that have come to define the MAGA world’s outlook on medicine. In the past few years, ivermectin’s popularity has only grown, and the drug has become a go-to treatment for almost any ailment whatsoever." Benjamin Mazer in The Atlantic (Gift Article): How Ivermectin Became Right-Wing Aspirin. "Nicholas Hornstein, a medical oncologist in New York City, told me that he’s had the same experience: About one in 20 of his patients ask about the drug, he said. He remembers one woman who came into his office with a tumor that was visibly protruding from her abdomen, having swapped her chemotherapy for some ivermectin that she’d picked up at a veterinary-supply store. 'It’s going to work any day now,' he says she told him when he tried to intervene."

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Different Strokes

"The remote and rugged Klamath River in Oregon and California, one of the mightiest in the American West and an ancient lifeline to Indigenous tribes, is running free again, mostly, for the first time in 100 years after the recent removal of four major dams. At the burbling aquifer near Chiloquin, Ore., that is considered the headwaters, a sacred spot for native people, a group of kayakers, mostly Indigenous youth from the river’s vast basin began to paddle on Thursday. Ages 13 to 20, they had learned to kayak for this moment. Stroke by stroke, mile by mile, day by day, they plan to reach the salty water of the rugged Northern California coast, more than 300 miles away, in mid-July." The always excellent John Branch in the NYT (Gift Article): First Time in 100 Years: Young Kayakers on a Ride for the Ages.

5

Extra, Extra

Betting the Farm: "The Department of Homeland Security on Monday told staff that it was reversing guidance issued last week that agents were not to conduct immigration raids at farms, hotels and restaurants — a decision that stood at odds with President Donald Trump’s calls for mass deportations of anyone without legal status." WaPo (Gift Article): Trump officials reverse guidance exempting farms, hotels from immigration raids.

+ Israel and Iran: While the fighting between Israel and Iran continued to escalate, there are signs that Iran's position is rapidly weakening. Fewer of their missiles have landed in Israel, they've lost control of the skies over Tehran, Israel said it had killed Ali Shadmani, Iran's new wartime chief of staff after killing his predecessor in its initial attack, and El Al is set to begin flights into Israel. Meanwhile, Trump says he wants an end to the conflict, but no one's entirely sure what that means. (He either means a negotiated deal or a bunker buster.) German Chancellor Friedrich Merz: "This is the dirty work Israel is doing for all of us. We are also victims of this regime. This mullah regime has brought death and destruction to the world." Here's the latest from NBC and Times of Israel. With Hamas reeling and its backers facing attacks, why are things like this still happening in Gaza? Israeli forces kill dozens of Palestinians seeking aid.

+ Grant Rant: "I've sat on this bench now for 40 years. I've never seen government racial discrimination like this." Terminated NIH grants must be restored, judge orders.

+ Miss Information? "For the first time, social media has displaced television as the top way Americans get news. 'The proportion accessing news via social media and video networks in the United States (54%) is sharply up,' the report’s authors write, 'overtaking both TV news (50%) and news websites/apps (48%) for the first time.'" For the first time, social media overtakes TV as Americans’ top news source. (With the endless panels, TV news barely even exists anymore.)

+ Export Hole: "As President Trump’s tariffs start to shut China out of the United States, its biggest market, Chinese factories are sending their toys, cars and shoes to other countries at a pace that is reshaping economies and geopolitics. This year so far, China’s trade surplus with the world is nearly $500 billion — a more than 40 percent increase from the same period last year." NYT: China Is Unleashing a New Export Shock on the World. (Why am I not shocked.)

+ We're History: "As A.I. becomes more capable of parsing large data sets, it seems inevitable that historians and other nonfiction writers will turn to it for assistance; in fact, as I discovered in surveying a wide variety of historians over the last few months, experiments with it are already far more common than I expected. But it also seems inevitable that this power to help search and synthesize historical texts will change the kinds of history books that are written. If history, per the adage, is written by the winners, then it’s not premature to wonder how the winners of the A.I. race might soon shape the stories that historians tell about the past." Bill Wasik with an interesting look at how historians are using AI and how that might impact what they write. NYT Magazine (Gift Article): A.I. Is Poised to Rewrite History. Literally.

6

Bottom of the News

First the no kings protests. Now this. America is on the comeback, folks. Joey Chestnut returning to Nathan's hot dog eating contest.