Saturday Morning Male Beauty

 

More Friday Male Beauty

 

The GOP Is Panicking Over the Virginia Governor’s Race

Here in Virginia we have important elections every year.  It gets exhausting as one needs to gear up almost immediately for the next round of elections as soon as the last one finishes. This year, the Virginia elections - especially the races for statewide office lead by the gubernatorial race - offer an opportunity to rebuke the Felon and the larger GOP by sending the GOP statewide slate to defeat and electing Abigail Spanberger and her running mates by a landslide.  One can only hope that Democrats and independents do not become complacent and assume the Democrat slate will win and fail to take the opportunity to humiliate the GOP candidates by handing them stunning losses.  The Youngkin/Sears regime has not been good for Virginia as Youngkin proved to be a MAGA supporter despite his disingenuous campaign where he pretended to be a moderate and Virginia has seen its ranking as a place to do business drop.  Add to that the immense harm the Felon and the national GOP have done to the state through firings of federal workers and funding cut backs that will deprive thousands of Virginians of their health care coverage even as the Felon's tariffs drive prices higher and interest rates remain high in part due to the huge increase to the federal deficit thanks to the GOP's reverse Robin Hood "big beautiful bill." None of this is lost on Virginia Republicans who allowed Winsome Sears - a nut case in my view - to be the gubernatorial candidate since most viewed it as a losing proposition in 2025.  Now, the GOP fears their statewide ticket is doomed.  Virginia voters need to send the GOP a brutal message and twist the knife by making sure the GOP losses will be some of the worse in Virginia history. A piece in Politico Magazine looks at the situation:

When the Republican Governor’s Association convened this week for its annual summer fundraiser in Aspen, Colorado, there was an elephant in the room at the St. Regis: How little can it get away with contributing to its all-but-hopeless candidate for Virginia governor?

Of course, the GOP governors and their top aides wouldn’t couch it in such raw terms, but that’s the upshot in one of only two gubernatorial campaigns in the country this year. The convergence of paltry fundraising, weak polling and a candidate seen as incapable of fixing either has some in the RGA’s orbit unenthused, I’m told, about giving much more than the $500,000 the group has already contributed to Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears, the Republican standard-bearer in Virginia.

[L]ast week’s fundraising disclosures revealing that Democratic former Rep. Abigail Spanberger has more than three times the cash on hand as Sears — $15.2 million to $4.5 million — have Virginia and national Republicans convinced they’ll lose the governorship absent a dramatic and unexpected change in the race.

The money disparity is especially disheartening for Republicans because fundraising in these off-off year elections tends to be self-reinforcing, with donors and party committees curtailing their giving when they see candidates lagging.

Making the problem worse, Sears is reluctant to make fundraising or even glaringly obvious political phone calls, according to multiple Republicans familiar with her campaign. She’s not reached out to some of the most reliable donors in Virginia or to top GOP figures such as the Virginia-based Chris LaCivita, Trump’s campaign co-manager. And while Sears and [the Felon] Trump met privately earlier this year in the White House, the president has yet to embrace her candidacy, a non-endorsement that stems from her criticism of him between his two terms.

This grim outlook has prompted irritation from some leading Republicans about the straits Youngkin may leave the party in on his way out of office. . . . . Just as significant, Youngkin, a multi-millionaire, has yet to infuse the Virginia ticket with significant personal money or contributions from his political action committee.

Youngkin already lost control of the Virginia House of Delegates and failed to flip the state senate two years ago. And he was unable to find a top-tier candidate to take on Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.) last year and will almost certainly not run himself next year against Virginia’s senior senator, Mark Warner (D).

That’s because the governor seems to be preparing for a future presidential bid. . . . . But he could leave behind a political mess for his own party in Virginia. Youngkin all but assured Sears’ nomination for governor, even though it was widely known she was a weak fundraiser and mercurial figure, and then attempted to torpedo the candidacy of her successor as lieutenant governor, John Reid, after it was alleged earlier this year that he had posted sexually explicit images online.

Now, Virginia Republicans — who were already swimming against the tide in a blue-tinted state Trump has never won that tends to punish the party in power in Washington — are alarmed their entire statewide ticket may lose and could deepen the party’s minority in the House of Delegates.

This sense of dread is prompting an earlier-than-usual political triage, in which the party races to determine who can be saved.  For the moment that appears to be the incumbent attorney general, who’s running for re-election, and as many House seats as possible.

Attorney General Jason Miyares, who declined to run for governor after seeing Trump prevail last year — and grasping the challenge the former president being back in office would carry this year in Virginia — has significantly more money in the bank than Sears and Reid, his two ticket-mates, combined. It is, to say the least, quite rare for an attorney general candidate to be better financially equipped than the gubernatorial nominee.

[N]one of this changes the fact that Trump only won 46 percent of the Virginia vote last year, when he carried every swing state, and that Democrats have an advantage in lower turnout elections when their high-engagement, high-education base always shows at the polls.

Which means groups like the RGA will want to preserve as much of their money as they can for 2026, when there are 36 gubernatorial races and some of the most expensive will be in open seats.

They can’t totally abandon Virginia — not with one of their own in office and making the case for his would-be successor in Aspen. To cut off Sears entirely would likely doom the party in Virginia. But this is one of those rare quadrennial elections in which New Jersey looks more appealing for Republicans than Virginia.

Friday Morning Male Beauty

 

More Thursday Male Beauty

 

America is Sliding Towards Autocracy

During Hitler's rise and more recently during Hungary's slide away from democracy many elite institutions and corporate concerns foolishly believed that if they paid to play or went along with the dictatorial regimes they would weather the storm and be left alone and would be allowed to prosper.  In neither situation did this belief prove accurate and democracy and freedom were allowed to wither and it was the autocrats and their families and cronies who prospered, at least in the short term in Hitler's Germany and in today's Hungary. Yes, speaking out and/or opposing those who seek unlimited power and who seek to curtail the rights of citizens holds dangers, but so too does remaining silent or cowering into submission.  A long column in the New York Times looks at the parallels between what happened in Hungary and what is happening here in America and also the desperate need for courage and leadership from those with power that can resist the Felon's regime of corruption, lawlessness and brutality.  The question is whether resistance will grow and whether we see leadership from those with power or cowardice and submission in the mistaken belief that silence and looking away from wrongs will protect you.  The reality is that currently, no one is truly safe. Here are column excerpts:

As the most recent U.S. ambassador to Viktor Orban’s Hungary, I’m often asked if the Trump administration’s tactics and policies feel familiar. The short answer is yes. But the more important — and unsettling — question is this: Does the way Americans are responding feel familiar, too?

After years watching Hungary suffocate under the weight of its democratic collapse, I came to understand that the real danger of a strongman isn’t his tactics; it’s how others, especially those with power, justify their acquiescence.

Take the judiciary. I met leaders of Hungary’s sole independent judicial body in October 2022 to discuss their work. For months afterward, their faces (and mine) were plastered in the papers, branded as traitors and foreign agents, just because they had raised concerns about the rule of law in Hungary. The response from other powerful judges? Silence.

Or take the private sector. Since Mr. Orban became prime minister in 2010, the state has awarded billions in public contracts to his son-in-law and childhood friend, a former plumber named Lorinc Meszaros. What have Hungarian business leaders said? Nothing.

Last year, when Mr. Orban’s close associates reportedly told a multinational retailer to give the prime minister’s family a cut of its business, did other multinational companies speak up? They did not.

Here, too, powerful people are responding to authoritarian advances just as their Hungarian counterparts have — not with defiance, but with capitulation, convinced that they can maintain their independence and stay above the fray.

Major corporations whose logos were once plastered on Pride floats parading down Fifth Avenue now choose to remain on the sidelines. Institutions and professions that have long acted as bastions of critical inquiry, civilized contestation and government accountability have fallen silent.

Many law firms have opted to become instruments of a strongman rather than custodians of the rule of law. Former self-identified defenders of our democracy (back when it cost nothing to support democratic principles), including some who served in Democratic administrations, remain partners at captured institutions, earning millions while skirting their moral and civic responsibility to take a stand.

They cling to the illusion that they can preserve their independence and integrity while making deals with a strongman, just as Hungary’s elite believed they, too, could emerge unscathed. . . . Believing you can outfox a fox is how you become its prey. And American elites, confident in their cleverness, have welcomed a fox into the henhouse.

Investors and executives bought into this narrative, even as their businesses and entire sectors fell prey to economic policies intended to enrich Mr. Orban’s family and friends.

Hungarian judges bought into it, even as Mr. Orban’s machine slowly swallowed their profession. Some saw capitulation in simple terms: as the only way to preserve their access to resources and keep the people who worked for them employed. “We’ll eventually get through this,” they surely told themselves, “but first, we must go along.”

So they all made deals that Mr. Orban engineered: peace with the strongman, in exchange for subjugation and humiliation. Going along is what did them in.

Those best positioned to uphold democratic norms chose the comfort of an illusion over the courage of action. They were and are invisible by choice — and that choice disfigured them and ultimately their country.

The lesson of Hungary is this: We cannot claim to care about democracy only when it costs nothing. President Trump, like Mr. Orban, no doubt believes that everyone can be bought. America’s elites are proving him right. There is a Hungarian phrase I heard often: “Van az a penz” — “There’s always a price.”

If we’re serious about defending democracy, it’s not enough to hold our government accountable in court. . . . Last month, young Hungarians marched in Budapest’s Pride — despite the fact that Mr. Orban had banned it. As usual, Hungarians with power and privilege mostly stayed away. . . . a march of brave, young, gay Hungarians with their lives, futures and country on the line. Hungary’s elites, like so many corporate logos that once decorated floats on Fifth Avenue, were nowhere to be found.

To the stewards of our nation’s great cultural and commercial institutions: Don’t dupe yourselves. The illusion that you are smarter than the strongman, that you’ll outmaneuver him with silent cleverness, is just that — an illusion. Now, more than ever, your principled leadership matters.

Look at those kids in the streets of Budapest last month — and learn from them.

 

Thursday Morning Male Beauty

 

More Wednesday Male Beauty

 

Fear Now Stalks America

 

Dictators and tyrants have long used fear and brutality to both rise to and hold onto power.   So too did white supremacists of the Old South use fear and brutality to keep black citizens subordinate and deprive them of their civil rights.  Now, in 2025 America we see a would be dictator implementing a white supremacist agenda - namely, Project 2025 - using fear to subdue would be critics and encourage responsible citizens to keep quiet or to look away as horrors are visited on others, especially non-whites.  In my life time, I do no ever recall the fear and ugliness that is palpable in so many, be they a member of a racial minority, LGBT or simply someone who believes in equality and due process.  Under the Felon's regime, no one is truly safe from retaliation and retribution for merely voicing justified criticism of the regimes corruption and/or unlawful acts. Sadly, most Republicans seem totally fine with the destruction of civil rights and an agenda to take America back to a mix of the Gilded Age and the 1950's.  A column in the New York Times looks at where we now find ourselves as many wonder if they are next on the target list even as they try to go about their everyday lives.  Here are column highlights:

Like the fog in Carl Sandburg’s poem, fear has come on little cat feet, seeping silently into various parts of American society. It sits, looking over not just harbor and city, but all of America. I have seen and been affected by this fear over the past several months. It has seeped into our military, our civil service, universities, law firms, C-suites and the leadership of nonprofit organizations.

It wasn’t always this way. During George W. Bush’s presidency, I worked with a number of organizations that opposed his administration’s torture program — euphemistically called “enhanced interrogation” — that was employed by the C.I.A. against suspected terrorists after 9/11. After President Barack Obama signed an executive order ending the program, my colleagues and I held a small party to celebrate. At that party, I remarked that we should be grateful for the fact that we lived in a nation where we could publicly oppose the policies of our government without fear of what that government might do to us. We didn’t worry about being arbitrarily arrested or investigated, having any government funding for our organizations cut off, or being personally and viciously attacked on social media and in the press.

I cannot make that statement today. [The Felon] President Trump does not accept dissent and is using fear to try to suppress it.

Let’s start with our military and civil service, communities with which I have had a lifetime of experience and maintain close contact. The fear in the Pentagon today is palpable. The firings of general officers without cause have sent a chilling message to everyone in uniform. I served through several changes in political leadership as an Army officer and later as a Defense Department civilian. Both the targeted removals of senior military leaders and the mass firings of members of our federal civil service that are taking place are unprecedented and clearly designed to eliminate dissent, replace professionals with political loyalists and create a climate of fear.

Next, the lawyers, another community that I am part of. The Trump administration is attempting to coerce major law firms into refusing to represent clients whom it disfavors and to represent clients it favors. Among the many lawyers I know, this is widely seen as a direct assault on the foundation of our legal system. But for many of those lawyers, fear of losing work that requires access to government buildings, including courts, is a strong motivator.

Recently, I spoke to a group of graduate students and professors at Harvard. All were concerned about the effect of the administration’s unmistakable attacks on academic freedom and freedom of speech on campus.

The administration has threatened prosecutions against former government officials and private citizens. It has threatened companies with the loss of government contracts and threatened nonprofit organizations across the country with cuts to funding. This climate of menace and apprehension extends to companies’ willingness to employ or associate with those who criticize Mr. Trump or his administration. I am one of those people.

Since I left the government in January, I have been told by several organizations that they either couldn’t openly employ me, hold my security clearances or otherwise be associated with someone visibly criticizing the administration. . . . . One corporate chief executive told me I had become toxic for writing and speaking about the administration’s abuses of power. I expected some of these responses, but it’s disappointing to experience, nonetheless.

Mr. Trump’s use of fear as a weapon has been most pronounced with undocumented immigrants and communities of immigrants more broadly. Certainly, Americans strongly support deporting undocumented immigrants who are violent criminals. But the Trump administration has terrorized immigrants from all walks of life, including those in the United States legally. A few years ago, I represented a woman seeking asylum because she had been persecuted by members of her government. When an immigration judge granted her the right to remain in the United States indefinitely, the assumption was that she was finally safe. Now she must live in fear once again.

All these institutions and communities are a source of American strength. Indeed, they make America great. But now they are all, to varying degrees, under attack and experiencing a new sense of trepidation. Fear is the universal tool of authoritarians, and it is a clear sign that our democracy is in danger that so many Americans now have reason to fear their government. Fear has come to our country, and unlike Sandburg’s fog, it isn’t moving on any time soon.

Wednesday Morning Male Beauty

 

More Tuesday Male Beauty

 

"Big, Beautiful Bill" is Robbing Working-Class Americans

The reverse Robin Hood agenda of the Felon and today's morally bankrupt Republican Party is on open display in the "big beautiful bill" passed by Republicans in Congress at the Felon's bidding.  Ironically, far too many working class Americans stupidly voted for the Felon and Republicans believing the lie that they'd do a better job on the economy.  Instead of benefitting under this regime, they are enduring (i) higher prices thanks in no small part due to the Felon's tariffs, (ii) continued high interest rates urged on by the huge projected increase to the national debt, and (iii) the slashing and plundering of many government social programs upon which many in the working class rely on given their often barely living wages.  "Owning the libs" and supposedly bashing the "elites" is coming at a very, very high cost. And the worse impacts disingenuously - and by calculated design - will not occur until after the 2026 mid-term elections with the hope that these same voters can once again be duped into voting against their own interest. One has to wonder what it will take to get these voters to open their eyes to how they have been betrayed.  An editorial in the Virginian-Pilot looks at how the working class and middle class have been robbed to benefit the rich:

The “One Big, Beautiful Bill” that passed through Congress is a raw deal for working-class Americans. It should be called the “Billionaire Bailout Bill.” At the center of the bill is a cruel tradeoff: deep Medicaid cuts that rip healthcare away from millions in exchange for tax breaks and corporate handouts to the top 1%. It spurs a massive transfer of wealth from those who can least afford it to those who need it the least.

The bill’s supporters call it a “fiscally responsible” package, but it adds $3 trillion to the deficit. The truth is, this bill demands sacrifice only from one side of America: working families, rural communities, seniors and people with disabilities who rely on Medicaid to survive.

By capping Medicaid spending and shifting costs to states, the bill sets the stage for devastating coverage losses, longer wait times and fewer services. It is death by a thousand bureaucratic cuts — and it is intentional.

These cuts are about making room for massive tax breaks at the top. While families struggling to pay for insulin or mental health care are told to tighten their belts, the wealthiest Americans and the corporations they own are handed billions in tax giveaways. The same people telling us the country “can’t afford” to care for our most vulnerable somehow find endless room in the budget for private jets and stock buybacks.

Let’s be clear: Medicaid is not a handout. It is a lifeline. Nearly 80 million Americans rely on it — including children, pregnant women, people with disabilities, the elderly and workers in low-wage jobs that don’t provide health insurance. Slashing this program doesn’t just harm those directly affected. It weakens hospitals, especially in rural areas, where Medicaid dollars keep the lights on. It forces families to choose between medicine and groceries. It erodes the very foundation of public health.

And what are we getting in return? The Billionaire Bailout Bill is filled with loopholes and giveaways to industries that already rake in record profits. Hedge funds, private equity firms and pharmaceutical giants get sweetheart deals while community clinics prepare for layoffs and service cuts. Private-equity moguls still get to pay lower tax rates than truck drivers and nurses. This isn’t bad policy — it’s theft. It’s taking from those with nothing to spare and giving it to those who already have everything.

According to Americans for Tax Fairness, “The tax provisions of this legislation cannot be viewed in isolation from the rest of the legislative package. In its entirety, this reconciliation package proposes the most radical transfer of wealth from low- and middle-income families to wealthy households in American history.”

And with this bill adding trillions of dollars to our national debt, it is now the burden of younger Americans to pay for it.

We should be furious, not just at what’s in this bill but at the process itself and our representatives who act remorseless in the face of the American hardship they just voted for.

I agree with the Catholic bishops who condemned the bill stating, “The Catholic Church’s teaching to uphold human dignity and the common good compels us to redouble our efforts and offer concrete help to those who will be in greater need.”

The One Big, Beautiful Bill may be beautiful to multinational corporations and CEOs, but it’s a disaster for the rest of us. We need to stop pretending that austerity for the poor and abundance for the rich is “reform.”

It’s not reform — it’s theft.

Tuesday Morning Male Beauty

 

Monday Morning Male Beauty

 

More Sunday Male Beauty

 

GOP Food Assistance Cuts Will Harm Rural Grocery Stores

Even if one ignores the immorality of leaving many elderly and children to go hungry due to federal food assistance cuts - i.e., the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program ("SNAP") - so that the very wealthy can enjoy even more tax cuts, as a piece in Politico lays out, there will be adverse economic impacts on many small, rural grocery stores that rely on SNAP payments to survive. Republican claims that more intense work requirements will drive people to get jobs and boost the local economies, the reality is that the elderly, disabled and children are either unable to find employment or are physically unable to work. Often this is particularly true in rural, Republican voting areas that lack the population and/or income levels to attract large food retailers.  If small independent grocers go out of business, these areas could lose the only food store in the community.  In addition, the closure of such stores will have an adverse economic ripple effect on these already hard pressed communities.  It's yet another example of rural Republican voters supporting politicians who enact legislation harmful to their constituents best interests.  When will these people ever learn that appeals to "god, guns, and gays" and rages against the federal government "interference" are only aimed at duping them into slitting their own economic throats?  Sadly, the Felon and his Republican political whores care nothing about the harm they are doing.  Tax cuts for the wealthy are all that matters. Here are article excerpts:

The deep cuts Republicans made to federal nutrition programs this summer are poised to devastate independent grocery stores that are central to many low-income communities, including those that voted for President Donald Trump.

Food aid recipients often make up the majority of small grocers’ customer base in remote areas and food deserts — places that have limited options for fresh, healthy food.

But a central part of paying for the GOP policy megabill Trump signed on July 4 relied on slashing the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the nation’s largest anti-hunger initiative.

Even though some provisions in the new law won’t go into effect for another three years, others, like expanded work requirements for SNAP participants, could kick some families out of the program and hit the bottom lines of small grocery stores within months. It’s a chain reaction set off in Washington that’s likely to reshape how people access food in more isolated communities even if they don’t use federal assistance.

“I lean pretty heavily right most of the time, but one of the things that I do lean to the left on is we’re a pretty wealthy country, we can help people out,” said St. Johns, Arizona, Mayor Spence Udall, whose town overwhelmingly supported Trump in 2024.

“The businesses that will be affected most by this are the businesses that are most disadvantaged, that are struggling, and you’re going to find that in the rural markets,” he added.

Udall’s community, which sits halfway between — but still far from — Phoenix and Albuquerque, has one grocery store and one local food bank serving over 3,500 people. If the store shutters due to the food aid cuts, the next closest option for groceries is roughly 30 miles away.

Republicans’ overhaul of the anti-hunger program will lead to thousands of job losses and a drop in revenue across the agriculture, retail grocery and food processing industries, according to a study from the Commonwealth Fund.

Independent grocers said in interviews that they are considering cutting staff or pivoting to e-commerce and delivery services to stave off some of the anticipated profit loss.

“I’d just as soon cut a leg off than have my customers out in the poorest county of the United States go without food. That just isn’t an option in my mind,” said RF Buche, the owner of the only grocery store for the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. “It is as essential as anything that is in that area.”

Between 60 percent and 80 percent of Buche’s customers rely on SNAP, accounting for nearly half of his revenue. Buche said he’s weighing layoffs in order to keep his doors open.

Republican lawmakers, many of whom represent districts with substantial numbers of food aid recipients, defended their megabill, saying the cuts will ultimately help low-income families and their local communities. . . . . House Agriculture Chair G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.), a top negotiator in the plan to slash SNAP. “A significant number of people who currently are on SNAP through unemployment will now be climbing a ladder of opportunity, which [means] they’ll be able to have more resources to buy more food. So our grocers are going to do well with this.”

Democrats like Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) disagree and are exploring ways to mitigate the SNAP cuts through upcoming legislation and negotiations. . . . Several Republican and Democratic state officials have already warned that it will be difficult to backfill the loss of federal dollars. They will need to consider redirecting funds from existing programs, cutting benefits, raising taxes or finding some alternative method to protect their budgets.

Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.) said that his state is bracing for “tens of thousands of people” losing access to SNAP.

“The key here is that if we keep enough folks buying at local rural grocery stores, those local rural grocery stores have a higher chance to survive,” Vasquez said. “We have to make sure folks either have money in their pocket and that states can make up the shortfall in SNAP cuts to preserve that access, or for other folks, provide alternate means to be able to feed them.”

Tom Charley owns Charley Family Shop ‘N Save in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, a town about an hour outside of Thompson’s district. Like Buche, Charley is considering reducing his workforce as he braces for the megabill cuts to slice into his store’s already razor-thin profit margin.

If a community loses a grocery store, especially a rural community, the economic impact is often broader than the individual store’s revenue loss, said Stephanie Johnson, vice president of government relations for the National Grocers Association.

In many areas, small grocery stores double as community hubs, hardware stores and stock products from local producers. Each SNAP dollar spent in a rural area generates $1.50 in local economic activity during recessions, per USDA data.

“The grocery store employs 15 people, maybe more, and if we lose the grocery store, what do those people do?” said Udall, the St. Johns, Arizona, mayor. “It’s not just about people shopping at the grocery store. It has a ripple effect.”

Sunday Morning Male Beauty