In a sit-down interview, Trump is invited to opine on a topic near to his heart, which has become the theme song of Republicans: horror over the idea that a nation of immigrants should  accept more immigrants. Meidas Touch News has the video.

“Nobody has any idea where these people are coming from, and we know they come from prisons. We know they come from mental institutions and insane asylums. We know they’re terrorists. Nobody has ever seen anything like we’re witnessing right now. It is a very sad thing for our country. It’s poisoning the blood of our country.” — Read on www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/5/2196058/-Donald-Trump-uses-Nazi-propaganda-to-support-abhorrent-views-on-immigrants

There are tons of noteworthy Adolf Hitler quotes to choose from—including “Whatchu talkin’ ‘bout, Wilhelm?” and “Say, Eva, is this your cyanide tea or mine?”—but the best advice for properly using and citing Hitler quotes is, “Jesus Christ, don’t! What the hell, man? That’s Hitler! His Q score is lower than Matt Lauer’s!”

That’s good advice for anyone, but it’s especially pertinent if you’re a moms’ group proofreading your shit at Kinko’s and a juicy Hitler quote smacks you square in the face. And if you’re a moms’ group that’s already been flagged by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an extremist organization, as Moms for Liberty has, you may want to goose-step especially lightly.  — Read on www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/22/2176913/-Moms-for-Liberty-chapter-uses-Hitler-quote-about-owning-youth-in-member-newsletter

Multiple mass shootings across the U.S. leave at least 6 dead on holiday weekend | MPR News:

A spate of weekend mass shootings and violence across the U.S. killed at least six people, including a Pennsylvania state trooper, and left dozens injured.

The shootings follow a surge in homicides and other violence over the past several years that experts say accelerated during the coronavirus pandemic. They happened in suburban Chicago, Washington state, central Pennsylvania, St. Louis, Southern California and Baltimore.

"There's no question there's been a spike in violence," said Daniel Nagin, a professor of public policy and statistics at Carnegie Mellon University. "Some of these cases seem to be just disputes, often among adolescents, and those disputes are played out with firearms, not with fists."

Researchers disagree over the cause of the increase. Theories include the possibility that violence is driven by the prevalence of guns in America, or by less aggressive police tactics or a decline in prosecutions for misdemeanor weapon offenses, Nagin said.

This problem is uniquely USA, let’s question the last statement…

• "prevalence of guns in America" - The growth in mass shootings tracks with the growth of gun sales, and in this we're alone in the civilized world.
• "less aggressive police tactics" - This seems to be limited to white males, but even with changes our law enforcement is the most aggressive and combative among civilized nations.
• "decline in prosecutions for misdemeanor weapon offenses" - This seems to also be limited to white males, and is accompanied by Stand Your Ground and Concealed Carry laws where Some People can literally get away with murder. This is another place we're alone in the world, because in most countries gun ownership is severely regulated and offenses around ownership tend to be vigorously prosecuted.

So what’s different here? Too many guns.

After George Floyd’s killing, DOJ probe finds Minneapolis police show pattern of violating rights:

The Justice Department has found that Minneapolis police engaged in a pattern of violating constitutional rights and discriminating against Black and Native American people following an investigation prompted by the killing of George Floyd.

Daily Kos reads as the most detailed reporting on this, but we made the world stage too…

Daring Fireball: First Impressions of Vision Pro and VisionOS:

I got to spend about 30 minutes Monday afternoon using a Vision Pro and VisionOS at Apple Park, in a temporary “field house” building Apple constructed specifically for this experience. This was a one-on-one guided tour with someone from the Vision product marketing team, with the ground rules that I’m allowed to talk about everything I experienced, but photos and videos were not permitted.

It was a very fast 30 minutes, and the experience was, in a word, immersive. I’d pay good money just to run through the exact same 30 minutes again.

This is exactly the demo experience I was waiting to hear, someone who’s slightly skeptical but also knows Apple’s ability to create magic.

Calls for woman’s arrest grow after the fatal shooting of her neighbor in Florida:

The children of the victim, identified as Ajike “AJ” Owens, were playing in a field near an apartment complex in Ocala when, attorney Ben Crump said, an unidentified white woman, 58, “began yelling at them to get off her land and calling them racial slurs.”

According to Crump’s statement, after the woman yelled slurs at Owens’ children, they accidentally left an iPad behind, which the woman took.

When one of Owens’ children went to retrieve it, she threw it, hitting the boy and cracking the screen. Owens walked across the street to speak to her neighbor after she learned what happened, Crump said.

“She knocked on the door, and at that point, the woman allegedly shot through the door, hitting AJ, who later died from her injuries,” Crump said.

This is not a “polite society” - This is license to kill.

– via boing boing

ongoing by Tim Bray · Antifascist Ethics:

This essay was provoked by CNN’s recent Big Pander to Trump (no I didn’t watch it. He never says anything new or worth hearing), followed by observing the fact that roughly 40% of Americans have a positive opinion of that man, followed by reading DeSantis’ 2024 pitch: Make America Florida and then Texas pushes church into state with bills on school chaplains, Ten Commandments. You don’t need to read those, the MAGA chud performative cruelty is implicit in the headlines.

A brief anti-Fascism guide. Do read.

My Recent Media Diet, Summer 2023 Edition:

Oh no. It's June? Where what how?!? I did not mean to let this much time elapse since the last installment of my media diet, all the way back on Dec 2 in a completely different calendar year. But there's nothing to be done about it, we're all here now, so tuck your arms inside the carriage and let's do this thing. Here's what I've been watching, reading, listening to, and experiencing over the last six months. Enjoy.

Kottke’s media diet is always an interesting survey of the landscape and what’s worth checking out.

How Should We Feel about Barnes and Noble Now? | Book Riot:

I’m back to feeling like supporting Barnes & Noble is no different from supporting those silly Amazon Books brick and mortars. It’s a pretty store to browse, if you aren’t actually looking for something new to read. It’s a local bookstore set with no substance — the dedication to the community isn’t there, the depth of book selection isn’t there, the discovery is just based in the bestseller lists. Some people don’t have a choice about where to browse, and growing up, I was one of them. I’m glad that I grew up in the age of a different kind of Barnes & Noble, and am disappointed in what they’re becoming.

Lessons from Washington State’s New Capital Gains Tax - The Urbanist:

One of the first lessons is that our state’s richest residents are much, much richer than we understood — and they are continuing to get richer at a faster rate than previously assumed.

According to the Department of Revenue, just 1,200 tax returns and 2,500 extensions represent the households paying the new 7% capital gains tax on profits over $250,000 gained from selling stocks and bonds. And despite high interest rates and a stock market that contracted by 25% in 2022, these capital gains tax payers would have had to rake in billions more in passive profits from their stockpile of wealth last year.

Daring Fireball: Survey Results on Why Android Users Switch to iPhone daringfireball.net/linked/20…

By John Gruber • Archive •
• The Talk Show • Dithering • Projects • Contact • Colophon • RSS Feed • Twitter • Sponsorship Sky Guide brings the beauty of the stars down to Earth. Survey Results on Why Android Users Switch to iPhone Michael Potuck, reporting for 9to5Mac on a survey of Android switchers conducted by CIRP: The top reason was actually an issue with the Android experience. Over 53% of respondents said they moved to iPhone because of problems with their Android smartphone. Specifics cited were “their old phone did not serve them, because it was aging, needed repair, or had some deficiency that affected their user experience.” The second most common reason to switch was for new features on iPhone like “a better camera, enhanced accessory options, or a more intuitive user interface.” […] Finally, just 6% of those who switched from Android to iPhone said they made the move because of iMessage and FaceTime. It’s easier, and more comfortable, for Google to argue that it’s all about the green bubbles. The hard truth is that iPhones and iOS are simply better overall. ★ Thursday, 1 June 2023

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Runestone - Text Editor for iOS/iPadOS runestone.app Runestone is a plain text editor built with performance in mind. It has the core features for writing code including syntax highlighting, line numbers, page guide, theming, customizable line height and kerning, and more. It’s like TextEdit for iPhone and iPad but colorful and highly customizable.

Beginning in 1943, the War Department published a series of pamphlets for U.S. Army personnel in the European theater of World War II. Titled Army Talks, the series was designed “to help [the personnel] become better-informed men and women and therefore better soldiers.” — Read on heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-29-2023

Fascism, the U.S. government document explained, “is government by the few and for the few. The objective is seizure and control of the economic, political, social, and cultural life of the state.” “The people run democratic governments, but fascist governments run the people.” 

“The basic principles of democracy stand in the way of their desires; hence—democracy must go! Anyone who is not a member of their inner gang has to do what he’s told. They permit no civil liberties, no equality before the law.” “Fascism treats women as mere breeders. ‘Children, kitchen, and the church,’ was the Nazi slogan for women,” the pamphlet said. 

Fascists “make their own rules and change them when they choose…. They maintain themselves in power by use of force combined with propaganda based on primitive ideas of ‘blood’ and ‘race,’ by skillful manipulation of fear and hate, and by false promise of security. The propaganda glorifies war and insists it is smart and ‘realistic’ to be pitiless and violent.” 

Tom the Dancing Bug: Center-Normalized News, two truths for the price of one news channel | Boing Boing:

Poll: Most Americans say curbing gun violence is more important than gun rights | MPR News:

There’s a whole generation moving towards voting age that have 0 tolerance for ownership or open carry. If current owners don’t curb the expansionist tendencies of their representatives before that generation reaches demographic majority, expect to see a full ban of firearms coming.

Target pulls some LGBTQ+ merchandise from stores ahead of June Pride month after threats to workers | MPR News:

“Since introducing this year’s collection, we’ve experienced threats impacting our team members’ sense of safety and well-being while at work," Target said in a statement Tuesday. ”Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior."

Let me translate that - “We’re giving in to conservative terrorists instead of holding to support for the most vulnerale of our communities.”

Daring Fireball: Today Is the Launch of Max, and It Sucks Even More Than I Thought It Would:

This much moronity I expected. But it gets worse. As Judge documents, with the new app they’ve once again dropped tvOS’s excellent native video player for a custom video player that utterly sucks: “up next” support in the TV app is now broken or missing, HDR and frame-rate match are gone, the new video player doesn’t support the Siri remote’s jog support, no picture-in-picture, and no support for the wonderful “What did they just say?” feature (speak that to your Siri remote and the video jumps back 10 seconds or so and temporarily enables subtitles).

HBO Max was a really good tvOS app. Max is a poor one.

The built-in tvOS player is really good, and apps that use it get a great experience to wrap their own content discovery experience around. Dumping that, probably to exploit telemetry data, makes this a non-starter for me… Though I was already tapped out on “max” due to the direction they’re dumping CNN and platforming partnerships with a noted transphobic author.

Survey: Surprising to some, veterans are less likely to support extremism | MPR News:

The Pentagon continues to investigate the case of Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, accused of leaking sensitive intelligence. The military apparently missed signs that Teixeira was possibly stockpiling guns and preparing for a race war.

Last week Pentagon officials admitted that they only implemented one of six major recommendations to counter extremism in the ranks. And the recent guilty plea of an active duty Marine who broke into the capital on Jan. 6, 2021, gives the impression that veterans and some military fill the ranks of extremist groups in America.

But those individual cases give the wrong overall impression, according to a new nationwide survey of veterans by the RAND Corporation, a nonpartisan think tank.

"We found that support for extremist groups and also extremist ideologies were lower than what we see in representative surveys of the general public," said Todd Helmus, a senior behavioral scientist at RAND.

Doesn’t actually surprise me - It’s not like they’re cops.

DeSantis got his governorship with help from a cast of shady characters:

DeSantis didn’t just go to Parnas for money; he also used him as a go-between for invitations to other potential wealthy donors and for advice on his campaign. The $50,000 contribution was just a small part of the total funds the foreign agent sent DeSantis’ way. Parnas and Furman were known to have given at least $400,000 to Republican candidates in Florida, most of it going through a Trump-aligned Super PAC. In addition, one of the fundraisers that Parnas arranged for DeSantis donated $115,000 to DeSantis’ 2018 campaign

Jerusalem: Journalists attacked as Israeli nationalists march in Old City - BBC News:

Thousands of Israeli nationalists have been marching into the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem's Old City, with violence directed at media covering the event. The flag parade is part of Israel's Jerusalem Day, marking its capture of the east of the city in the 1967 war. A group of marchers threw stones, sticks and bottles at Palestinian and foreign journalists at the Damascus Gate entrance. They also cheered and chanted racist slogans, including "Death to Arabs". Far-right Israeli cabinet ministers have joined the procession. One of them, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, declared: "Jerusalem is ours for ever."

Tiny Electronic Desktop Sculptures:

Daring Fireball: Proposed Name for GM’s Upcoming In-House Software Platform (You Know, the One That Isn’t Going to Support CarPlay): Edsel:

I don’t think the name fits… The Edsel was chock-full of cool moon-shot features that were not quite fully baked, and didn’t have engineering support to keep at it until they were good.

jwz: “Please Stand By - Jacking In…":

Last night at the spooky goth club, someone handed me a floppy disk with a zine on it! I'm living the dream, you guys.

NYC mayor wants to cut childhood programs by more than $500 million:

Current Mayor Eric Adams has announced he wants to cut the budgets that fund the pre-K program, public education, and the public library, among others. His administration’s 2024 budget proposal would cut $567 million from the universal pre-K program’s expansion plans. This would, in effect, stop the program from being truly universal. And since July 2022, his administration has failed to pay many of the small providers and nonprofits doing the work of caring for New York City’s 3- and 4-year-olds.

The attack on the city’s families is multipronged. There is the overarching threat to the budget and a lack of administrative follow-through on accounting. Lastly, Adams has replaced most of the people with institutional knowledge of the program with the kinds of people that hang on and suck up to Eric Adams.

These cronies have been disastrous at handling the very large system and half-assed at the important task of reaching out to the communities that need pre-K the most. On top of this, they have been slow to sign kids up and 30,000 spots remain empty. Bloomberg reports that millions of dollars have yet to be paid out from last year, and some providers have had to go out of business while awaiting payment from the city.

Oh, yeah, and because Adams wants to make all generations feel his fiscal wrath, he is trying to slash millions of dollars in funding from the program that delivers meals to seniors at their homes.

How does the GOP keep finding and electing the worst people…

Rep. Paul Gosar has a neo-Nazi on staff:

Talking Points Memo appears to have quite the scoop, reporting that they've identified a "relatively prominent" pseudonymous booster of the neo-Nazi "Groyper" movement as a staffer for scandal-plagued House Republican Rep. Paul Gosar.

An "extensive digital trail of interconnected Groyper social media pages" has been "linked to" Wade Searle, Gosar's digital director. The news won't come as a terrible surprise to anyone familiar with the House Republicans’ many, many past dalliances with white supremacy and neo-Nazi support, but the revelation that one of his top staffers has a double life as an enthusiastic supporter of the neo-Nazi movement does a lot to explain the constant nods to neo-Nazism in Gosar's campaigns and public statements.