Still free to subscribe to this nearly daily newsletter! Greg Mitchell is author of fourteen books and director of five films for PBS since 2022. His latest film “Woody Guthrie and The Ghost of Tom Joad Today” is now streaming via PBS.
Let’s welcome in the new month with long-rumored and finally released Springsteen “September Kisses,” in his Orbison mode.
And this:
ABC NEWS: “ICE set to deploy a $2 million fleet of robot dogs to track and apprehend undocumented migrants…”
Getting as much attention: NBC News reports “Lucky Charms and Trix are now free from artificial colors in the U.S., General Mills says, as the company removes the dyes from all its cereals.”
Wendell Berry, Writer Who Extolled America’s Agrarian Past, Dies at 92
A Kentucky farmer, he railed against agribusiness and championed small family farms and the environment, winning widespread acclaim.
Heather Cox Richardson:
Hegseth is doing more than just trying to stop negative press. Last week, Will Sommer of The Bulwark reported that the Pentagon has hired right-wing social media influencers as special government employees, using taxpayer money to amplify Hegseth’s viewpoints and attack anyone who tries to hold the Trump administration to account. Sommer also noted that an active-duty U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, Adam D’Ortona, posts pro-Hegseth and anti-Democratic material during working hours in violation of the military’s traditional nonpartisanship.
Tonight Michael R. Gordon and Marcus Weisgerber of the Wall Street Journal reported that Army Secretary Dan Driscoll has submitted his resignation after struggling with Hegseth for months over Hegseth’s firing of senior Army officers and over the direction of the military.
Driscoll’s departure, the journalists note, leaves the Army without any Senate-confirmed civilian or military leaders.
Paul Krugman on aftermath of the U.S. kidnapping of Maduro:
So the Venezuela venture had nothing to do with democracy or freedom. It seems safe to say that it had nothing to do with crime or terrorism, which were the other excuses the administration offered. What happened in Venezuela was simply an old-fashioned, 19th-century-style resource grab, a sort of Caribbean version of the Belgian Congo.
In one stroke, Trump has just validated everything the Latin American left has ever said about U.S. imperialism. And we’ll be paying for that, diplomatically and strategically, for decades to come.
Now, it’s highly unlikely that this deal will hold. By all accounts, just about every faction in Venezuelan politics except the current ruling clique hates the deal. Since it will take years, maybe even decades, to realize the putative benefits of oil-company investments in Venezuela, how likely is it that whoever is running that country in the future will want to honor Trump’s terms? What are the odds that Venezuela will eventually expropriate U.S. oil-company investments? Or do we imagine a future in which the U.S. military maintains a permanent occupation of Venezuela, using force to prop up a puppet government the nation’s citizens hate?
Music Picks
Video has gone semi-viral showing Tom Jones on the UK “The Voice” singing the great Leonard Cohen tune “Tower of Song” and making judges weep.
But he leaves out two key verses (anticipating Flock cameras in “the bedrooms of the poor”?) and you may enjoy this more intimate version, at our local NPR music station WFUV, a few years back:
And then there’s Leo himself, joined by U2 in the popular Cohen doc that re-launched his career:
From Tunes to Toons
KAL:
Anderson:
On pathetic Google quickly changing name on maps to Lake America:
Bennett:
Anderson:
Photo Finish
The hummers are about to leave us for the South so a fond farewell until next spring…
It’s so sad that Google Maps bows down to kiss tRUMP’S ass because he had a tantrum. I deleted the app from my phone!
@nickanderson May I add "whiter shade of pale"