Stare at the headline. “Amber Glenn becomes first LGBTQ+ woman to win U.S. Women’s Figure Skating Championship”. I have one question. Transgender? Because if the answer is no, there is no story, headline, controversy — even “bogus” “cultural war” — in this. And it would make that interesting twist as against the overall twists in general — I would assume it would be transitioned to men that would start dominating that field. (An obnoxiously subjective one of measuring “grace” points when skating). And there I scroll down the page. I catch a photograph of some pretty looking man. For a second I think — maybe that’s the same person as the woman earlier shown at the podium. And no. It is not. That is some cis-guy in the men’s competition. So this story is boring. Biological woman wins skating contest, and we can knock off the letters at “l” if interested in her personal life — and maybe you are — because everything else confused the actual story. Wake me up when she transitions to manhood and wins a contest — then we have something to debate.

Maybe not literal. But something pops out in watching news coverage on a California Senatorial debate. When discussing the war in Gaza —

Lee urged for a permanent cease-fire in the conflict.

“The only way Israel is going to be secure is through a permanent cease-fire,” Lee said. “The only way that is going to happen is with a political and diplomatic solution.“

Porter said cease-fire is not a “magic word – you can’t say it and make it so.”

“But we have to push, as the United States, as a world leader for us to get to a cease-fire and to avoid another forever war,” Porter said.

And Schiff defends Israel’s right to self defence and probably in tacking on that dream of forcing a two state solution amongst two parties that have ceased showing they care for it. Okay. Steve Garvey? Maybe he has a baseball analogy, or hopes to get in the Trump sweet spot of being simultaneously hawkish with respect to Israel and pooh-poohing “forever war”.

Forever War. Another one, key word “another”. Like, one that just spring up as a war just now, never a war before Biden (or Bush’s Forever Wars), not like essentially a continuous war since the 1940s.

Maybe not forever, but with our short attention spans and short historical memories, essentially one.

There is this amusement to be had in contextualizing one way and another that big Donald Trump Iowa caucus triumph. Not a big vote, they say. It never is, the weather was rotten, and the contest was half a contest. The biggest margin of victory of any contested Iowa caucus, bigger than the Dole smash of Robertson in 1988. Yep. Served Dole well. But wait! The guy is basically an incumbent and 50 percent as an incumbent sure is not good. Sure. Now we have to go by these new standards, and I have to look up how Buchanan did against Bush in 1992. The Iowa republican caucuses were cancelled, it tells me — I want to know why — setting up Pat Buchanans showing in New Hampshire, which depending on whether we set this as an incumbent or contested election — means Haley either has to clear Buchanan’s percentage with New Hampshire or win something. To be sure, the Buchanan analogy comes to play with some Republican Trump surrogates acting as pundits on … CNN or one of the networks … making the case that after all these years of “us” stomaching and being urged to pull the vote for the Romneys and the Bushes and the Doles and the McCains, it is up to the Romneys and the Bushes and the Doles and the McCains to do the deed for their guy in Trump. That would make for a static electorate if no one she’d away from different nominees of the parties and no breaking point existed with selling from the other guy. But. Haley is not even bothering to do against Trump what Buchanan was doing with Bush, and won’t even get the same consideration of a primest time convention speech for her efforts.

The exciting Iowa caucuses. An over / under on whether the DeSantis or Haley campaigns will beat out the Bill Weld 2020 total of one delegate. And I guess they will. Weld got a bigger bang for his vote total, though, and the … 33 percent? of non-Trump votes coming in tonight will land on … less than ten delegates. I assume. I suppose we could figure we have a guaranteed delegate — unless that off locale has it that the one Trumpeter is the only person strangling in out of the horrid weather.

Facing an election where at least a chunk of the Democratic electorate are going to dribble off due to the Israeli – Palestine conflict. A curious matter in listening to some progressives with a prior of assumption that Israel is in the wrong, more or less en toto. A supposed history lesson on the history of Zionism gives the statement that in its long inception of a fight and through its history it was oft to right wing politics. And the thing leaves off the reality that at the time of its actual proclamation as a nation, it was associated with liberalism — and a dream of a sorta quasi socialism under Prime Minister Einstein sat there. Tangling in there in terms of American politics, I see a story from, oh, Mother Jones claiming far right wing (antisemite) jackass figures are claiming the mantle of Palestine in trying to get in with the Left (jackasses). Sure. As they always have. And more to the point, let us take a look at The Nation magazine circa 1948 into the 1950s versus The American Mercury magazine.

Lastly a casual diss of Biden. “Can’t really stomach that genocide thing”. Yeah. I do not know if you are talking about the Israelian government (and our noxious Netanyahu backed settlement governance) or Hamas. Or I do, but only because of the context of your priors.

I see this msnbc clip on youtube. It winds its way through the manner that Epstein is getting covered by the right, a tricky wicket of insinuations where every person of big import has imposed with the man. And then the host mentions Trump’s dealing, rolls out the old quote from him –something about how he knows Epstein, he likes the ladies, and he likes them a little on the young side. The host brings in Robert Kennedy Jr explaining that, yes, he was on the plane with Epstein a couple times, and there the host has to reiterate “no evidence of anything more.”

And then the take away. ” There is only presidential candidate running with no ties to Jeffrey Epstein. And that man is named Joseph Biden. “

Laying aside he perhaps rightly tossed aside some of the Republican aspirants — question Nikki Haley now I guess — what is interesting here is… He just categorized Robert F Kennedy Jr as a “major presidential candidate”. A list of three.